“The Good Samaritan”

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 10, Luke Chapter 10 Verses 25-37.  As you are doing so, this is the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  The Good Samaritan is no doubt one of the most familiar stories in all of the Bible.  It is recognized by both Christians and non Christians alike.  In fact, the word itself is often used as a compliment.  For example, "You were such a Good Samaritan when you changed that lady's tire."  This is a familiar story, so why preach on this passage if it is so familiar?  Why not tackle something more profound, something more challenging?  Two reasons why: 

The first reason:  I've been reading through the Book of Luke on my own, in my own personal devotions and so has my wife.  The reason being, in about a month from today, we are expecting our third child, our first boy, and his name will be Luke.  Luke Douglas Wolter.  And we are very excited as you can imagine, so are our little girls to have a little brother.  So Jaime and I decided we would read through this gospel together and let me tell you, Luke paints an incredible portrait of Jesus Christ in this gospel.  He paints a picture of a Jesus who was willing to enter into the lives of all kinds of people.  People who were on the fringes of society, people who were outcasts, lepers, demon-possessed, tax-collectors, sinners.  Jesus was not afraid to get into the messiness of people's lives and to love them.  He came to seek and to save that which was lost and that's my heart's cry for my own self and for my son, that he would be about loving people and longing to love them, no matter who it is.  That's reason No. 1.

Reason No. 2:  I don't know if you're like me, but I tend to live in the future.  I'm a dreamer and I'm a worrier.  I'm a visionary, sometimes minus the optimism.  [Laughter]  I wait for situations to change in my life so I can get on with my life.  But this story here, this story reminds me that I must live in the present because that's where life is.  That's where people are; real people with real needs.  Every day there are needs.  There are opportunities, there are decisions; decisions about whether to get involved in people's lives or to simply pass them by.

I long to be a man who loves people no matter who they are, and with that in mind, let's look together at the story of The Good Samaritan.  I'll begin with the context of this story because sometimes we forget that it matters where stories like this are placed.  Look at Verse 21 of Chapter 10:

Luk 10:21  In that same hour he [That's Jesus] rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

That means that God is both pleased to conceal and reveal.  It pleases Him to conceal His gospel from those who think themselves as wise in understanding in their own eyes, and it pleases the Father to reveal His gospel to those who would become like little children, humbly trusting in Him.

Now, in our story today, we see a man who is wise in understanding in his own eyes.  He's called a lawyer in our text, but this is not the kind of lawyer that you and I are familiar with like in a courtroom setting.  This lawyer was an expert of the Law, the Old Testament Law, and so his duty was to examine the various interpretations of the Law that were handed down to him from his forefathers and no doubt he had heard of Jesus Christ.  He had heard of Him coming on the scene, and so one day he comes up to Jesus with a question, actually two questions, and these two questions really frame the structure of this passage.  Verse 25-28 deal with the first question and Verses 29-37 deal with the second question, so let's begin here with the first question, take a look at it:

Luk 10:25  And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Seems like a fair question, a question that probably all of us have asked at one time or another or at least thought about.  Perhaps we would have said it more like, What do I need to do to be saved? But in this man's context, it would have probably meant more like this: "What are the righteous requirements of the Law that I must meet in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?  Now, before we hear Jesus' reply, there is something important we need to know about this question.  Notice that he asked this question not out of a sincere heart but as a way of testing Jesus.  In other words, he came to Jesus thinking that He had a superior understanding of the Law.   And so most likely he had heard of Jesus' radical different interpretation of the Law, and so he came to Him to test him to see what He would say.  Now, because Jesus was the master teacher He answered this man's question with another question. 

Just a little pause here for you who are teachers.  Sometimes in our efforts to teach we're so quick to respond to our students' questions with an answer.  I challenge you to sometimes offer up another question.  It gets them to really think, so that's what Jesus did here.  He asked the Law expert, "Well, what is written in the Law? How do you read it?"  In other words, Jesus is saying, "You know the Law of God, you're a law expert, what does it say about this?  And the lawyer rightly says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself."  Those are direct quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  He knew the right answer.  And Jesus affirms him, but it's here where Jesus moves this conversation from the head to the heart.  It's here where Jesus tells this man, "Do this and live."  Do this and live.  Wow!  Do you see what he's saying here?  Do you see what Jesus is saying here?  He's saying that knowing the right thing is not the same as doing the right thing.  Jesus says, "You must do what the law requires in order for you to inherit eternal life."  Now, some of you might be wondering at this point is Jesus saying that you must do something to have eternal life? Is this about works?  And we know the answer is "No." Because elsewhere we see that Jesus, his entire message, as well as the entire message of the entire Bible is about the glory of God's amazing grace in salvation, so why then, does Jesus say, "Do this and live?"  Well, Jesus said this in order to get this guy, this wise guy, if you will, to acknowledge that he has not done this.  He has not loved God with all his heart and his soul and his strength.  He has not loved his neighbor as himself.  He has failed!  And so have you and me.  We have failed to live up to God's perfect law.  None of us here have loved God with all our hearts and none of us have loved our neighbor as ourselves.  So you begin to see this lawyer squirming in his chair a little bit, and as you know, he was the one who was trying to pin Jesus down and now Jesus has turned the tables on him, and… just a side note here:  You can't pin Jesus down!  You can't ruffle his feathers.   He's God in a pair of sandals!  He will not get ruffled.  So, under the pressure, though, of realizing his inability to do what Jesus says, this lawyer seeks to justify himself.  He seeks to justify himself.  He knows that he cannot love God with all his heart.  He knows that, but instead of being humbled by what he can't do.  He seeks to justify himself by what he thinks he can do, and so he turns and focuses on the second half of the command, to love your neighbor.  Here, he might have thought he had lived up to what the Law demands, after all, maybe he's thinking to himself, "Surely, I have loved my neighbor, surely I have loved my Jewish neighbors." So in seeking to justify himself here he asked another question of Jesus, the second question.  He says, "Who's my neighbor?"  Or, Jesus, who does this term, neighbor, really apply to?

And this is where the second half of the story begins.  This is where The Parable of the Good Samaritan begins, so let's put ourselves here in the shoes of these characters and listen closely to Jesus as He tells us this familiar story.  Look at Verse 30:

Luk 10:30  Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Luk 10:31  Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.

Luk 10:32  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

Luk 10:33  But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Luk 10:34  He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Luk 10:35  And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'

Luk 10:36  Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?"

Luk 10:37  He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."

Now, let's just stop and make a couple of observations here.  Let's begin with the very first verse, Verse 30.  This was a real road.  This was a real road going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, in fact, Jerusalem was on a higher elevation.  It was about 3000 feet above sea level.  Jericho was even below sea level, so this was a steep decline.  And this path was leading down to Jericho, it was rather rough and rocky terrain.  Consequently, it was steep and it was dangerous.  It was filled probably full of crags and caves where robbers then would hide and jump out at their innocent victims and mug them, so to speak.  In fact, this road was called "The Bloody Way."  The Bloody Way.  Today, we could picture it like a long, dark alley in a big city with hardly any street lights within miles.  And so as this man is walking down this road, this bloody way, he gets mugged.  He gets beat up and left for dead. In today's terminology we could say that he was in critical condition and he was in need of help immediately.  Let's continue the story, Verse 31-32.

Luk 10:31  Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.

Luk 10:32  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

So, a priest and a Levite come and walk by this man without stopping whatsoever and simply pass right on by.  Now, this should make us a little bit uncomfortable.  This should bother us a little bit.  After all, priests and Levites were God's chosen people, God's chosen officers to serve and to help God's people, to intercede for them, to love them, to help even the needy.  We could compare them today to pastors and deacons in some ways.  So, what were they doing here?  I mean, what were they thinking?  Why didn't they stop and help?  You would, right? Wouldn't you?  Let's be careful here, let's be careful not to point the finger at the priests and the Levite too quickly because we'll discover that we're really pointing the finger at ourselves.  You see, we have trouble here seeing the relevancy of this parable because we have a hard time picturing it in our modern day context.  We can't see ourselves in this story, but think about, what would you do? Imagine yourself, you're driving in a car, maybe you're with a couple of your kids and you're in downtown Louisville and you stop to park and get out.  And in the corner of your eye you see a man who is coming down from an alley and he is battered and bruised and bloody, and he can barely get up, he's just laying there on the concrete.  What would you do?  Would you stop to get involved in this guy's life?  I doubt it.  Most of us would rationalize and think to ourselves, "Well maybe this guy got drunk last night and he deserves what he's getting. Maybe he would hurt me if I tried to help him.  Maybe his blood, if I really carried him and put him in my car, maybe his blood would get all over my new leather seats in my car and I don't want that."  And maybe we would think to ourselves, "Someone else will stop; someone else will help this guy out; after all, I've got a busy day, but kids, let's stop and say a prayer for that guy."  I doubt that very many of us would get involved, except maybe Rick Davidson.  [Laughter]  I say that because I admire you, Rick, wherever you are.  I admire you and your heart and love for people.  I look up to you in that, but I also know you might stop because you're 6 ft 4 in, you weigh 250 pounds, [Laughter]  and sometimes, and sometimes you carry a gun with you, right? [Laughter]

Seriously, not many of us would get involved.  Not many of us would get involved and the reason why I know this is that most of us, me included, pass by the needs of others all the time, all the time!  Even the needs of those closest to us like our family members and our brothers and sisters in Christ.  I mean, we're so wrapped up into us that we can't see the needs of those around us.  In our busy lives it's so easy to think of our precious schedules and our precious time and forget about how precious people are to God. We're so captivated with our own needs we fail to see the many needs of those around us.  And I'll be the first to admit I am convicted when I read this parable.  So often I am like the priest, I'm like the Levite, who barely notices the wounded people in my path.  Sure, they might not be physically wounded, but maybe emotionally and spiritually and I'm content just to pass right on by.  Am I aware of their needs?  Well, one man was in this story and it was a very unlikely man.  Look at Verse 33:

Luk 10:33  But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Luk 10:34  He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Luk 10:35  And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'

He had compassion on him.  He saw his need and was moved with pity to help him.  Now, this word, compassion, is hard for us to understand, but in the Greek, this word literally means to be moved deeply in the inward parts.  It's as if this Samaritan man felt sick to his stomach, he felt like his heart was filled with pain as he saw this man lying there on the road.  He was moved inside.  How long has it been since you and I have been moved with compassion for another person?  Not only did he have compassion he took action.  He took action to meet this man's needs.  He practically took care of this man's needs.  He bandaged up his wounds pouring on oil and wine.  He set him on his own animal, he gave him transportation, as you can see, and he gave money seemingly without limit.  It would be like us taking that wounded man off the street, putting him in our car and taking him off to the hospital and when we get to the hospital, helping him up there and taking him up to the desk and giving that person, whoever is at the desk, our Visa card and saying, "You know what, go ahead and put whatever you need on that card and I'll be back."  This was a costly love.  Mark that, it was a costly kind of love.  You see, he was willing to sacrifice all this without expecting anything in return.  He took a risk, he took a risk to love someone.  He took the time needed to love someone.  You know, when most of us would have turned to go back to work, turned to maybe go back to take our kids to their baseball game or maybe we would turn back towards church here for a bible study or maybe we turned to go back home so we could watch another movie on Netflicks, this man, this Samaritan man, was willing to stop and to show us what it means to love someone. 

So Jesus, he stops the story here as well and instead of answering this lawyer's original question, "Who is my neighbor?" he changes the question, look at it, he changes the question to, "Who was the neighbor in this story?"  Look at verse 36. 

Luk 10:36  Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?"

And the lawyer, who can't bring himself to say the word, Samaritan, that would have been like a curse word to him, finally replies:

Luk 10:37  He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."

I wonder how he felt.  I wonder how the lawyer felt and I wonder how you and I feel.  How do you feel when Jesus tells you to go and love people like that.  Do you feel guilty, like it's your duty to go and love people. 

I remember when I was working at Kohl's many years back, there was a lady there who was a coworker with me, and quite often she would pick up someone else's garbage off the floor and look at me as if to say, "There, I did my good deed for the day. Now, I'm on God's good side.  You know, I went out of my way to help someone, I'm a good Samaritan."  That's not what God is calling us to in this text.   Inevitably that kind of love is focused more on us than on others.  It seeks to gain God's approval through works and God is not impressed.  He always wants to be the giver and we are always the receiver. 

So, we must not feel guilty when we hear this parable and think it's merely our duty to go and love.  Instead of feeling guilty, I think God wants us to feel convicted by him and this is a good thing, this is different than guilt.  It's when God Himself prompts you to recognize through His Word that you cannot love this way on your own. And I think that's why Jesus wanted this law expert to come to that point.  He was seeking to confound this law expert with such a radical vision of love that he would feel totally unable to live up to it.  And I think Jesus today wants us to feel the same way.  He wants us to ask the question, "Who can love this way?"  I mean, who can love like this Samaritan? And, of course, the answer is "No one."  No one can do this except Jesus.   Jesus is the only one.  You see this story culminates on Jesus; Jesus and you.  That's what the story is ultimately driving out.  When the point that Jesus is making here, he is not just answering the question, "Who is my neighbor?"  I mean that's fairly obvious from this text that a neighbor is anyone who comes across your path who has a need that you can meet.  The point is not just who's my neighbor, the point is who was the neighbor to you?  The Jewish lawyer would have never thought a Samaritan, a despised and rejected Samaritan would have been his neighbor.  I mean, the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies.  They fought against each other for 500 years.  Jews thought of the Samaritans as a mixed inferior race.  In fact, put that picture up there, the diagram there.  This was the Jewish social structure back in this man's day.  So this law expert, when the priests came by first and then the Levite came by second, must have thought to himself, "Well, obviously the third guy that's coming is 'Joseph, the Jew,' and he's going to save the day by showing everyone what it means to love your neighbor."  But that's not what happened.  It was a Samaritan man, and this Jewish lawyer would have never thought a Samaritan, a despised and rejected Samaritan would have been his neighbor, no way!  He never would have conceived of a Samaritan saving this wounded victim on the bloody road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and likewise, you and I would have never conceived on our own understanding that Jesus of Nazareth would be willing to come and pick us up off the road, so to speak, of our sin and take us with him and save us and die the death we deserved on a cross in Jerusalem, but He did.

Isaiah 53: 3-6 says this:

Isa 53:3  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isa 53:4  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isa 53:5  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Isa 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Listen, until you see yourself as that half-dead desperate man lying on the road in need of help, you will not be able to understand love.  That's why the first two men in the story have such a hard time stopping to show mercy.  They were so self-reliant, they were so self-righteous, so wise in understanding in their own eyes and perhaps maybe rich as well, that they saw their need as little and therefore then they experienced the love of God little and they had no capacity whatsoever to love anyone else.  But when we see ourselves, you guys, when we see ourselves as the broken and battered and bloody man desperately lying there in need of a savior, we will have the resources, we will have the capacity to love others as God loves us.  This is the power of the Gospel.  If you know that you have received mercy as an undeserving enemy and sinner in the eyes of God, if you know that about you, if you realize that and come to terms with that, I don't deserve your love.  Why did you stop on the road?  Why did you pick me up and save me?  I did not deserve it!  When that gets in your heart, you guys,  when that becomes real in your heart, you will have capacity to love others.  One pastor said it this way, "When we experience the love of Christ, we will want to express the love of Christ to others."  When we experience the love of Christ we will want to express the love of Christ to others.  When you have tasted of the mercy of God in Christ, you will want others to taste of it too. 

1 John 4:19 says, "We love because God first loved us."  2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died, and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

You see when the gospel gets a hold of you and me, watch out!  Watch out because we will no longer want to live our lives for ourselves, we will be freed from anxiety and worry and freed up to have eyes that are on the lookout to love someone in need.  We will be free to live lives with reckless abandon for the name of Jesus Christ.  We will want to love others.  We will begin to see that life is not about us it's about advancing God's Kingdom, God's kingdom through the power of love.  Love done both in word and in deed. 

So where do we start in this?  Where do we start?  What can we do practically?  And, I thought about this, and how we can best apply this message to our lives, and I found a video, and normally I don't show a video at the end of my sermon;   I'd like to do that today because in this video it puts the Good Samaritan in a modern day context, so I hope this speaks to you as it did for me.

[VIDEO PRESENTATION:
Due to copyright restrictions, we can not show the presentation here.  Please see their trailer.  For more information, please see Modern Parables' website.]

You know, every day, every day there are needs, every day there are opportunities and every day there are decisions.  One simple question:  Will you love your neighbor?  Will you love your neighbor, and will you remember the one who was first a neighbor to you? Will you remember the one who saw you lying there on the road left for dead desperately in need of help and picked you up and was willing to give his life so that you could live? Will you remember Jesus Christ?  Because it's true, you guys, when you experience the love of Christ, you will want to express the love of Christ to others. 

I'm going to invite Stewart Fischer up here to pray and close our service, and as I do that, though, I want you, even now, to think about and perhaps write down one thing you can do to love someone, perhaps its in your family, think of your family first, maybe it's in this church, what can I do to grow in my love for someone here in our body?  And third, maybe a challenge for some of you today is, "Am I loving my neighbor right in the neighborhood God has placed me?  Do I know their needs and am I seeking to meet those needs, or am I just passing them by?  I pray that we would love our neighbor.  Stewart, close us in prayer and we'll be finished.