A Practical Look at the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:30-35
February 21, 2010
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE/FORMAT IS FROM ANDY STANLEY'S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Me: Being a pastor, I get calls for help quite a bit, usually from people who I’ve never met and who have no connection to the church here.
Sometimes they have legitimate needs, others don’t have, and they caused themselves to be in situations they’re not willing to work themselves out of.
Of course, there are other times when I come across someone who needs help, and it has nothing to do with me being a pastor. It just comes into my path.
And one of the things I struggle with is not whether I could help that person – because usually it’s something I can help with, even if it’s not helping much.
The thing I struggle with is whether I should help that person for one reason or another.
And you know what? Oftentimes the answer depends more on my convenience than on my ability to help. Is that selfish or what?
We: Most, if not all of us here today struggle with that attitude from time to time.
If we only had to help those who we liked or knew and who only needed our help when it was convenient, that’d be okay, right?
The guy speaking to Jesus when He gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan is the same way when he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
Basically he’s hoping that Jesus will tell him that it’s okay to be good to some and not to others.
I won’t go into all the reasons behind that, but suffice it to say that this guy was just like a lot of us.
We want to decide who deserves our help and who deserves our niceness and good attitudes, and whether or not it’s convenient for us. Don’t we?
God: Jesus pokes that balloon with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
We looked at this passage a couple weeks ago. But when we looked at it last time we looked at how Jesus used it to wipe away all the excuses people have for not helping someone in need.
Today I want us to look at some very practical stuff about how the Samaritan helped this wounded Jewish man.
The context of this passage is a discussion Jesus was having with some religious leaders and in that conversation Jesus asked a teacher of the law how he thought a person gained eternal life.
And the lawyer responded – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
But when Jesus affirmed his response, the guy tried to justify himself by saying, “Well, just who is my neighbor, anyway?”
He’s probably thinking, “Please don’t tell me it’s that guy on the corner who never shovels his sidewalk or mows his lawn. I mean the guy could feed a small African nation with the vegetation in his yard.”
Then Jesus launches into this parable of the to show him that the issue isn’t who his neighbor is, but rather that he should be the neighbor.
So let’s look at it today, and I want us to see some very specific and practical ways the Samaritan helped this guy.
Luke 10:30-35 (p. 735) –
30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
Once again, I want you to understand that I know this is a parable, not a true story.
However, Jesus has a purpose in telling it, and that purpose affected all His hearers and it should affect us as well.
Jesus spoke this parable for the purpose of moving us from selfishness to service to our fellow man.
In the parable, Jesus tells us that the Samaritan took care of some specific needs that the man had, and I want us to look at each of them because they’re the same needs you and I come across in our ministry to others as well.
He took care of the man’s…
1. Physical need.
Obviously the guy had some physical needs. He had just been robbed, beaten, and left for dead.
I just don’t see this guy saying, “Don’t worry – I’m good!”
He had medical needs, he needed to be fed, he needed to get some rest.
We all know people with physical needs, and oftentimes we can help out with those, and they come in a ton of different varieties, so I’m not going to bother trying to list them.
2. Clothing need.
Remember, they had stripped this guy naked. How embarrassing that must have been for him. You think?
“Hey buddy, what happened?”
“Oh, nothing much. Look – you got a robe I can borrow real quick?”
We’ve probably all known someone who could use help getting clothes for one reason or another.
But you know what I would challenge you to do? If you come across someone who needs clothes, how about instead of giving someone your cast-offs or taking them the Salvation Army to get them something, how about taking them to get something new?
I’m not saying it has to be expensive stuff, but how about taking them to Wal-Mart or K-mart and get something new?
It might have been years since they’ve had something brand new, and you might prove to be a real blessing by telling that person or family that they’re worth new clothes.
Maybe you’ve been that person or family and you’ve known what a blessing it is to have that kind of help.
And you’re the kind of person who’s most likely to go the extra mile like that.
3. Transportation need.
This guy wasn’t walking anywhere, being beaten this badly. So what did the Samaritan do?
“Jump up on my donkey here, fella. You’re in no shape to walk.”
One of the most frequent needs my wife and I find ourselves meeting is transportation.
Folks need a ride to the grocery store, doctor’s appointments, pharmacy, or even to work.
This isn’t the biggest town in the world, obviously, but it’s still a long walk from here to the hospital or different clinics for tests.
Walking to Kessler’s or Econofoods is no picnic, especially in the winter.
Sometimes people just need a ride.
4. Shelter need.
I don’t know much about the countryside between Jerusalem and Jericho, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a great place to sleep under the stars, especially for a guy who’s naked and bleeding and left for dead by the side of the road.
I don’t think there was a KOA campground or Super 8 in the near vicinity, and even if there was, this guy couldn’t get there and couldn’t afford to stay here if he could.
And can you imagine the reaction of the front-desk clerk if a beat-up naked guy showed up at the front counter?
“Yeah, sure you can have a room. Just wait right there for a moment. (Hello, police? You need to get here, like right now.)”
So the Samaritan decides that one of the greatest needs for this guy was to get him inside so he can rest and heal.
Some of you have opened your own homes to people who have needed shelter and who didn’t have the means to be in a hotel.
The Samaritan didn’t bring him into his own home, but he gave of his resources, as some of you have, to put him up in a local hotel.
But he got the guy out of the elements and into shelter.
And the last need the Samaritan met for the wounded man was his…
5. Financial need.
Here’s a guy who literally had nothing on him. He couldn’t buy food, clothing, shelter, transportation, or medical aid.
He was completely at the mercy of the kindness of the stranger.
Probably all of us have been approached for help with someone’s finances, and that is the biggest request we get here at the church.
And by the way, let me just tell you how we handle that here at the church.
When I first got here, we had a benevolence fund that we used to use to help people in need. However, we would just get burned because I’m not good at telling who is actually in need and who’s just playing the system, which a lot of people do.
The sob stories I got would break your heart, and some of them were just flat-out lies.
So we took the advice of another pastor in town and we give money every month to the Salvation Army. As the Lord prospers the church, I’d like to see us give more, but we currently give $300 a year to the Salvation Army.
They are much better at discerning who has a real need and who’s just playing.
We do have a benevolence fund for our church family, and we’ve used it at times to help some of our people.
It’s for our church family – members and regular attenders – not for those who show up once every blue moon or less.
If you’re part of our church family and you have a need, contact me or one of the board members and we’ll see what we can do to help.
But it’s not for help paying the cable bill or cell phone bill or stuff like that, okay?
We’re talking rent, utilities, groceries, that kind of thing. If you need money to pay the cable bill, then the answer you’re going to get from us is that you need to cancel your cable.
“But Pastor Brian, I just can’t live without the Hallmark Channel! It shows Chuck Norris on ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ every night. And besides, my wife lives for the Lifetime Channel and all the movies about women and the men who abuse them.”
I don’t know about you, but the year I had cable, that seems to be the only kind of movies they had on that channel.
So don’t ask us to pay your cable bill. It’s not going to happen.
There’s my gift of mercy, right?
So there are five ways the Samaritan helped the wounded Jewish man practically.
I think that Jesus describes this in this particular way to help us see how we can be specific about loving our neighbor as ourselves. And I think Jesus gets specific about this for a reason.
If He didn’t have a reason for it, He would have said, “There was this really nice Samaritan and he helped out this guy who got hurt. Go do that.”
But He didn’t, did He?
You: The application I want you to take home with you today is taken from the words of John Wesley that we looked at a couple weeks ago.
I’d like us to say this together one more time:
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
I don’t expect you to memorize this, so let me just summarize by saying this:
Do what you can when you can.
You can’t help in all of these ways all the time. So you do what can when you can.
Sometimes I can give someone a ride, sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I can help with some money, often I can’t.
I can only do so much, and so can you.
So you do what you can when you can, and you don’t need to feel guilty about not helping someone when you can’t.
And so you can’t let people guilt you into helping them when you can’t.
That happens a lot, especially among extended family members. But remember, you can only do what can, and you do have a responsibility to your immediate family.
Do what you can when you can. Do it joyfully, do it as often as you can, do it because they not only do it, but because it brings glory to Christ.
Do what you can when you can because, especially if you’re doing it to fellow believers in Jesus, you’re actually helping Jesus. That’s what the parable of the sheep and the goats is about.
Do what you can when you can.
One caution:
Be careful that you are not enabling someone’s unwillingness to help themselves when they should be.
1 Thessalonians 3:10 –
"If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
I’m going to park here for a moment because I want to address an attitude that is common among people who call the church for help, and which of course comes up in other situations as well.
And my spiritual gift of mercy is really going to shine through here…
Most of you know my story – that I’ve worked multiple jobs at a time in order to feed my family, including my time here in Aberdeen.
And as a result of my personal experiences, including times when I was absolutely broke and saw no way out it in spite of the fact that I had multiple jobs, I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who comes to me looking for financial help, but isn’t willing to make some tough choices to help themselves out.
I might help them out one time, but if they want more, they have to show me that they’re making progress in helping themselves.
I’ve put gas in people’s cars and bought them groceries at times because I’ve felt that the need was legitimate and because I could at the time.
Other times I’ve had to say no.
And other times I’ve had say, “Get a job.”
Now listen – this verse isn’t talking about those who can’t work because of things like physical disability, lack of available jobs, or lack of training, or even if they’re in a situation where they simply cannot get out – for instance, some single moms who would end up paying more for child care then they would make at many jobs.
I understand that there are exceptions.
This verse is talking about those who have both the ability and the opportunity. It doesn’t say, “If he can’t work, he shall not eat,” it says, if he won’t work, he shall not eat.
You can find jobs in this town if you’re willing to look, and if you’re willing to understand that if you can’t find the job you want you’ve got to take the job you can get.
Any job is a good job if it helps you put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. And if it means taking two or three of those jobs, then that’s what it takes.
There are some people in this town who are mad at me because I read them the riot act about expecting churches to step in fill the gaps when they’re not willing to do their part.
Or if they come to the church for help but you can smell the cigarettes and see beer cans in the car.
I’m not going to give them anything. They can find money for that stuff but they can’t find money for food? Sorry.
One time I got a call from a lady wanting money for gas to another town for a doctor’s appointment.
She was drunk as a skunk when she called, and when I asked her how she got the booze, she told me her friends gave it to her. So I asked if they were willing to help her get to this town, which of course, they weren’t.
So I said, “Your friends are willing to help you get drunk but they’re not willing to help you get to the doctor? You need different friends!”
She didn’t like that a whole lot, said some really ungodly things to me and hung up.
What about helping a homeless person asking for money? I get this question once in a while, even though there is not a huge homeless problem in Aberdeen.
Usually if I come across a homeless person who asks for money, I’ll offer to buy them a meal instead, or groceries. Then I know for sure that the money won’t be used to buy alcohol or tobacco.
Okay, so let’s move on from that to look at why loving your neighbor in tangible ways is so important.
Let me read two Scriptures to help you see that, and they underscore something I’ve said a couple times over the past weeks.
James 2:14-18 –
14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
1 John 3:16-18 –
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Why is it important to help those in need by doing what you can when you can?
Because it shows the world whether or not you’re really a Christian.
According to these two passages of Scripture, how you treat others is an indication of whether or not you really belong to Christ like you claim to.
If you claim to be a Christian, this is one of the ways you prove it.
You don’t gain heaven by doing good deeds, you prove you have heaven by doing good deeds.
James here says that if you claim to have a faith in Christ but you ignore the needs around you when you can do something about it, that faith is dead.
It’s not a saving faith – it’s a dead faith. It’s no good. And you’re hanging onto something that not only does no good for anybody here on earth, it does no good for your own eternity.
The Christian faith contains a clear call to not only love God with everything we are and everything we’ve got, but to love others as ourselves, and to show that love in tangible ways that touch people’s needs in some of the most basic ways.
If you’re not willing to do that when you can how you can, then you need to examine your heart to see if you’re really a believer in Jesus.
Folks, I don’t say that lightly. But I can’t ignore the Scriptures here, and neither can you.
Maybe what you need to do is to just take some time right now and as we pray here in a couple minutes to just ask God to show you the true nature of your relationship with Him.
Have you put your faith in Jesus to forgive your sins and give you a home in heaven?
Or have you been trusting in something else like your religious background or religious activity like the Pharisees?
Maybe you’re listening to this message and you’re just not sure where you stand with God.
Well then let’s just get that taken care of before you leave today, okay?
We: Folks, I think it’s time we looked at being much more intentional about loving our neighbors as ourselves, and I think it needs to start right here in the church.
I think that it would honor God and bring glory to Christ if the people of God would treat each other better than themselves and would be neighborly toward each other.
And I think that as we get better at that, than I think it’ll overflow to the communities and area around Aberdeen.
And I think that if that happens, people will see Jesus, because they’ll see that being a Christian isn’t just about going to church, it’s about loving Jesus, and therefore loving people like He does.
And they’ll want Jesus because they’ll see that not every Christian is a hypocrite, but that there are some who are actually serious about loving Jesus and obeying His commands to love God and love their neighbor.
Think of all the people we can influence for Jesus just by being a neighbor.
I hope that excites you – because it excites me.
Let’s pray.
