The Great Commandment – Sermon 3: Love Your Neighbor
Series: The Great Commandment
Chuck Sligh
August 5, 2018
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Matthew 22:34-40 – “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them,…a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
INTRODUCTION
This is the last of a three-part series on The Great Commandment. Over the last two weeks we saw that in verses 37-39 Jesus cut through all the commands of the Old Testament and got right to the heart of the matter of what God wants us to do. In essence, he said that all God’s laws can be summed up this way: To love God with all your being, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
To understand what Jesus is teaching, we have to first ask, “Who is my neighbor?” If you’re asking that question, you’re not the first one. In fact, it was this lawyer who asked this question, but not here in Matthew. We’ll have to go over to Luke 10 to find the answer to that question. In Luke’s version of the story, in Luke 10:29, look at the lawyer’s response: “But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?”
Jesus never answered his question; instead He told him the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most well-known stories from the Bible. In today’s biblically illiterate society it’s remarkable that one researcher found that 49 percent of the people they interviewed said they would be able to tell the story if they had to. But people can retell it or not, the idea of the “Good Samaritan” is familiar to most people. We name hospitals, churches, and institutions in his honor.
Most people know a “Good Samaritan” when they see one—police officers and firefighters who come to our aid, and more particularly, those anonymous people who stop to change people’s flat tire or help blind people cross the street.
To understand who our neighbor Jesus is referring to, I want you to see four characters in the parable of the Good Samaritan:
I. IN VERSE 30 WE SEE A WOUNDED WAYFARER. – “And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.”
Travel in some parts of Palestine in Jesus’ day was dangerous, and the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a notoriously dangerous way to travel. It was a steep, mountainous road down 3,500 feet with narrow, rocky defiles and blind turns, which made it a place to be fraught with danger of robbers. In the 5th century, Jerome was still referring to this as “the Bloody Way.” [http://www.onesteadfast.com/Blog/ScriptureStudy/The-Road-Is-Not-Safe.]
While on the road to Jericho, he fell among thieves who stripped and wounded him and left him for dead. You don’t have to be physically wounded to see yourself in this man’s sandals. In this life full of bad people, persistent problems, and serious struggles, there are wounded people all around us, and perhaps even some who are here this morning. Some are wounded in BODY as health has turned to illness; other’s SELF-RESPECT has been wound and they feel defeated or humiliated; some are wounded in their EMOTIONS, feeling loneliness or grief or alienation; others are SPIRITUALLY wounded, having lost the joy of their salvation or they have backslidden; and some are FINANCIALLY, their finances are in freefall. All around us are people who need someone to love and care about their need.
II. IN VERSES 31-32, JESUS TELLS US OF TWO PITILESS PASSERSBY.
The sad thing is that these two people were religious people. If there’s anyone who ought to care for another human being; if there’s anyone who should be compassionate and merciful; if there’s anyone you’d think would help, it would to be a person serving God, right?—and especially if they’re spiritual leaders.
Yes, you WOULD think that; but you would be wrong. Look at what poor examples these supposed spiritual leaders were: First was a priest in verse 31 – “And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.”
This was one of the most outrageous aspects of this parable when Jesus told it. The priest was considered the holiest person there was among the Jews. He was taught the Scriptures; entrusted with offering sacrifices for people’s sin; allowed to go further into the Temple than regular people. If anyone should have reflected God’s character, it would have been the priest.
The second person who passed by the poor man was a Levite as we see in verse 32 – “And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.”
Levites were people who helped with the more menial tasks around the temple. Whereas being a priest was a full-tome profession, Levites served only at appointed times of the year in rotation with other Levites and worked other occupations during the rest of the year. You would think that someone more down on the level of the everyday person would have more compassion—but again, you would be wrong.
Why didn’t these men help this poor wounded traveler? The priest may have refused for a couple of reasons:
First, a priest was not allowed to touch a corpse, or any dead thing. But the Old Testament Law had a rich tradition of active compassion. All Jews, priest or no, were expected to help someone in need. The least the priest could have done was to determine if the man were dead or alive, but he didn’t even do that.
What he was doing was using one law as a loophole from obeying a higher law. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for this very thing in His diatribe against the Pharisees’ propensity to soften the Law to make it more palatable on one hand or to focus on the minitua of the Law at the expense of more important truths in the Law on the other.
In Matthew 23:23-24 He said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”
This priest was using his religious duty as an excuse from doing his spiritual duty, or even his basic duty as a decent human being.
Have you ever known people like that?—Meticulous about certain rules of their denomination or faith group, dressing just according to standard, avoiding their list of condemned evil things, avoiding sinners—crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s—but having little compassion for others, and a willingness to sacrifice anything to help someone in need? This faith that is void of mercy and compassion is worthless to God.
Maybe this was the reasoning of the priest, or maybe he didn’t want to be bothered or had to get to synagogue in time to teach as lesson on mercy.
The Levite had no real religious excuse at all. He was a “commoner” with a fancy title. That’s not to diminish the important functions Levites had in the temple. But he should have felt more fealty towards his fellow man because he was more on the same level with him than the priest would have been.
Why did he not help? Was he just selfish? Was he too busy to help? Was he in a hurry to get home after his service in the temple in Jerusalem? Did he feel like he had done his religious duty for the day and therefore didn’t need to do anything more? Did he assume that maybe the man must have deserved what he got since God allowed him to be robbed and wounded, and so to help him would be to take away God’s just judgment upon him?
We don’t know. We just know that he went to the other side and refused to help him. In the end, both of these men did nothing.
Illus. – A speaker at a banquet was upset because he had forgotten his false teeth. The man next to him said: “I just happen to have an extra pair, try these.”
He tried them on, but they didn’t fit. “Well, try these,” he said as he took another pair out of his pocket. After trying several pairs, he finally found a pair that fit.
The speaker said: “See how the Lord worked it all out…He sat me next to a dentist.”
The man replied, “I’m not a dentist, I’m an undertaker!”
Well, at least the undertaker did SOMETHING rather than nothing, right? When we see someone who is wounded in life; in need of a helping hand; needing some attention or love or care, you should do SOMETHING rather than NOTHING.
III. JESUS TOLD ABOUT A REMARKABLE RESCUER IN VERSES 33-35 – “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.”
I chose the words “remarkable rescuer” not to alliterate, but for a specific reason.
Number 1, he was a RESCUER. Notice what this rescuer did:
First and most importantly, the good Samaritan had compassion on this man. This is the key to the whole passage and it was the immediate cause of everything else he did. I’ll say more about this in my conclusion, so let’s move on for now.
Second, he “went to” the wounded man. The others went to the other side of the road to avoid him. The Good Samaritan wasn’t ashamed or afraid or concerned about what others might think about going to help this man.
Third, he bound up his wounds with oil and wine. There are over 600 references to oils for medicinal purposes in the Bible. I found references to thirteen medicinal oils: olive oil, aloes, cassia, cedarwood, cypress, hyssop, onycha, Rose of Sharon, frankincense, myrrh, galbanum, lebenoth, and spikenard. [https://drericz.com/12-healing-oils-of-the-bible/]
Each had healing properties for various injuries or ailments. Jesus doesn’t say what kind of oil the Good Samaritan added to wine, but most travelers carried a little “first aid kit” in case of accident or illness along the journey. Wine, being 7-15 percent alcohol, was an effective antiseptic to kill germs and as an anesthetic to dull pain.
Fourth, the Good Samaritan set the man on his own beast, probably a donkey, which means he had to walk the rest of the journey.
Fifth, he brought him to an inn.
Sixth, he took care of him overnight.
Last, he gave money to the innkeeper to pay for room and board while he recuperated and promised to pay extra costs on a return visit.
Number 2, not only was the Good Samaritan a rescuer, he was a most REMARKABLE one.
The actions of the priest and the Levite were shocking to Jesus’s Jewish hearers, but the identity of this man was clearly outrageous, even scandalous.
The reason was his racial identity as a Samaritan. The prejudice and hatred of the Jews towards the Samaritans was fierce and longstanding, going back hundreds of years. Though they both were descendants of Jacob, there were a bunch of historical events that contributed to this animosity—too many to mention.
The short version is that the Jews thought of Samaritans as half-breeds who had intermarried with the Assyrians, and impure in their religion because they did not worship in Jerusalem as expected of true Jews, and only recognized the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. [https://www.housetohouse.com/jews-samaritans-hate-one-another-much/.]
It was not uncommon for Jews to refer to Samaritans as “dogs.” Such was the revulsion of the Jews towards Samaritans that many in the audience would no doubt have rather died than be helped by a Samaritan.
IV. THE LAST CHARACTER IN OUR STORY IS AN INSIGHTFUL INQUISITOR.
You’ve probably picked up by now that we’ve run out of characters in Jesus’ parable. But the story, you remember, is part of Luke’s larger story of Jesus—a parable in a story.
You’ll recall from two weeks ago that though the Pharisees put forward this lawyer to question Jesus hoping to discredit Him, the lawyer himself was very earnest and sincere. In Luke’s Gospel, the lawyer had asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him, “What is written in the Law” and the lawyer said to love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Then Jesus said something very strange to us on this side of the cross. He said, “You have answered correctly. Now do this and you will live.”
Wait a minute, you may be thinking, I thought we were saved by faith in Jesus Christ. Well, yes, and no.—Well, actually yes, but in a different way than you’re thinking. You see, there is only way you can have eternal life, and that is if you have perfect holiness unspotted by any sin. You must have obeyed God’s Law perfectly, for James said that if we transgress even ONE sin, we’re guilty of the whole Law, and the wages of sin, yes even one sin, is death and judgment. The purpose of the Law, according to Romans and Galatians was to show us what sin was, and how we could not attain it on our own, thus leading us to Jesus.
How is Jesus our Savior? Jesus never sinned even once. He was tempted just as we are, yet without sin, Hebrews 4:25 tells us. Furthermore, He not only negatively never sinned, but positively, he obeyed to perfection all of God’s commandments in God’s Law. Therefore, he could be our perfect substitute. On the cross, innocent, holy, pure, righteous Jesus died in our place for all our sin. Here’s how Peter described in in 1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.”
Hebrews teaches that even though the Jews were required to keep the Law, they could not do it perfectly, so they made sacrifices to God to atone for their sins. But the blood of animals, Hebrews tells us, could never in themselves atone for sin. Ultimately, the Old Testament sacrifices were a foreshadowing of Jesus’s death on the cross. Those who trusted in God by faith and obeyed God’s commands to perform the sacrifices for their sins were actually saved by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, just as we are.
We look BACK to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross; Old Testament believers were saved by the sacrifice of that Messiah who was yet to come. But here in Luke, remember that Jesus is still under the Old Testament system. We think of Jesus in New Testament terms, but Jesus was actually the last of the Old Testament prophets. So, he is dealing with this Jewish lawyer from an Old Testament perspective in the Old Testament scheme of things, in essence priming him for what was to come. He was showing this lawyer that no matter how hard he tried, he could not keep God’s Law as God required.
This is why the lawyer asked Jesus his question in the first place. He was a faithful keeper of the Law insofar as is possible for a sinful human to keep God’s Law, yet he knew he fell short. This is why he asked Jesus “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He was keeping God’s Law, but he had no assurance that he had eternal life. So, when Jesus told him he had answered correctly, he was looking for a loophole! He was wondering how far this “loving my neighbor stuff” went. That’s a really hard command because there are some pretty bad dudes in this world!
And Jesus’ answer leaves him the worst possible answer his question. Look at Jesus’s question of this lawyer verses 36-37, and the lawyer’s insightful answer: “Which now of these three, do you was a neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? 37 And he said, He who shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do likewise.”
Jesus tells him to do the seemingly impossible—to love the least lovely, most wretched, least deserving, and hardest kind of person imaginable, and to love him as himself. Jesus was basically saying, “You’re doomed dude, if you’re going to be saved by the Law.” It would be only a few days later that Jesus would give His life on the cross for this lawyer’s sins. I hope he found eternal life through the One who perfectly obeyed God’s Law in his place.
CONCLUSION
So, who is our neighbor, and how are we to love our neighbor? Our neighbor is that person who is in need, whether he is like us or not. The battered wife, the emotionally abused husband, the verbally abused child, the grieving parent, the heartbroken divorcee, the sick, the infirm, the aged, the homeless, the defeated, the humiliated, the alienated, the discouraged, the financially broken, the orphan, the foreigner—these are all our neighbor. God calls us to love all these.
But HOW are we to love them?—Examining the Good Samaritan’s response three words come to mind.
First, is the word COMPASSION. Compassion is not the same as pity. Pity is mere emotion; compassion does something about what you are feeling. Compassion compels action!
Second, is the word ENGAGEMENT. Luke tells us that the Samaritan moved TOWARD the wounded man, not AWAY from them like the religious leaders did. You must move toward people in order to love them. If you keep people away from you, love doesn’t happen. It involves engagement, sometimes with people really outside our comfort zone. The Samaritan was moving toward someone who would despise him, if he were conscious. But that didn’t stop him.
Third is the word CARE. He did whatever he could do to help this man. He couldn’t do everything; he wasn’t a doctor; he had no expertise in the healing arts. Even his time was limited. For some reason he couldn’t stay longer to help the man. He had other pressing needs. But he did what he could…and that was enough.
Last is the word COST. The Samaritan paid a cost of time and money to help this wounded victim. Loving never is without cost. There is a cost of time and there is often a cost of money. But there is no such thing as a costless love. By its nature it is sacrificial.
May God help us to live out the kingdom calling of the Great commandment. May we strive to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. And may we love our neighbor as ourselves. When the opportunity presents itself this week to love on someone, take it. Show true compassion, engage with the person in need rather than avoid him or her, care for their need insofar as you are able and be willing to pay some cost in time and/or money to help them.
