Neighbors
September 30, 2018 Morning Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: We must engage people that God has allowed us to encounter.
Focus Passage: Luke 10:25-37
Supplemental Passage: One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:35-40 NASB)
Introduction: Fred Rogers had a program “Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood” from 1968-2001. Mr Rogers wanted to use TV as a medium to spread good instead of bad. He always started by singing the theme song:
It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day in this beautywood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you
So let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together, we might as well say
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please
Won't you please
Please won't you be my neighbor? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood]
I. Example of the Religious People
a. The Priest
b. The Levite
c. Everyone listening to Jesus expected to hear that either the priest or the Levite was going to help
d. by the "priest" may be meant, the moral law, and by the Levite the ceremonial law; and so by both, the whole law of Moses; and intimates, that no mercy is to be expected from thence: the law makes no abatement in its demands, nor any allowance for the fall and weakness of man: [John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, 1748]
II. Example of the Foreigner
a. Samaritans were looked down on by Jews
b. Jews would go to the other side of the road to avoid contacting Samaritans. Samaritans represented everything wrong and unholy about gentiles.
c. No one listening to Jesus thought that the Samaritan was going to stop and everyone was surprised by what the Samaritan did.
III. Questions to US
a. Do we look down on people because of their:
i. race?
ii. religion? (or lack of)
iii. social status?
iv. addictions?
v. sins?
b. When did God appoint us judge over others? His expectation is for us to love others.
Application/Invitation: Who do you look down upon? Who do you need to be serving and loving?
