Do you love your neighbor? Love - that's a big word. Love is the fulfillment of all of God's laws. It's greater than any spiritual gift you could have. It's the reason God put us here on earth. It's even what Jesus said would confirm that we are his disciples. LOVE. But let's be honest. It's not always easy to love those around us, is it? And yet a Christian is supposed to be different. So, for the next few weeks we're going to see what Jesus says about loving our neighbor—truly loving our neighbor.
Let's begin with asking the question who is your neighbor? There was a guy who was notorious for cleaning according to what his parents would inspect, but not necessarily what they would expect. In other words, he would do things like fold and put away the dirty laundry, put away the dirty dishes thinking they were clean, and loading the dishwasher with liquid dish soap. Things looked tidy on the outside, as long as all the closets and doors remained closed. What seemed neat and clean was often only surface level clean. Again, that’s the difference in doing things that you think people would INSPECT versus what they EXPECT.
Jesus got a response a lot like this when he told someone to love his neighbor as himself. When the man heard it, his first response was to ask Jesus about actions that God would inspect, instead of about the heart that God expects. You and I can fall into the same mindset, and if we do, we not only miss one of Jesus's most important teachings, but we will miss out on fulfilling our purpose. Today we will be using Luke chapter 10 for our text. Before we get into God's word let's pray. PRAYER
The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of Jesus's more familiar stories. Jesus told this parable in response to the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The man who asked Jesus this question was a pharisee, an expert in the law.
We usually think of the Pharisees and religious leaders in the gospels as the villains of the New Testament because they were so antagonistic toward Jesus, but we forget that these men had spent years studying the Torah which was the first five books of the Old testament—the Bible of that day if you will. They were consumed with following God's laws with precision, often adding more rules to ensure they would be perfect in their obedience. This man knew all about God's laws. He even memorized them. The problem was that he completely missed the point.
Luke 10:25-28 – “Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”26 “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?”27 He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” 28 “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.”
So, this expert in the law approaches Jesus to discuss what might appear to be a simple question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus began to draw out the truth by questioning him. And of course, being the expert in the law that he was, the man answered correctly. He knew what was written in the law, and he zeroed in on the two commands that Jesus had identified earlier as the two greatest commandments, when another expert in the law, asked a question to test Jesus.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.” So, the man knew the law by heart.
But now came the challenge: Jesus told him to obey the law. What Jesus is telling us in this is that knowing what God's word says doesn't matter much if we choose not to follow it. In fact, the more we know, the more responsible we are for obeying what we know. This religious leader knew very well what God's commandments required, and he was responsible for obeying them - or not.
The man who asked Jesus the question was more focused on outward actions, but the real purpose of the law was to show us that we can't do anything to be right with God. The law is meant to point us to a Savior beyond ourself: Jesus Christ.
It is kind of like memorizing the Ten Commandments. We can memorize the Ten Commandments word for word and know them forward and backward, but if we don't follow them, we are getting nowhere. It will never be possible for us to live up to God's perfect law, much less be worthy of eternal life with God. But I thank God for his mercy which is when God gives us what we don't deserve. Even though this Pharisee would never be able to live up to God's perfect law, he still wanted to give it a shot.
Luke 10:29 – “But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Out steps the outwardly righteous. Both the priest and the Levite were religious professionals. Priests offered sacrifices in the temple and Levites assisted the priests and had various duties in the temple. Yet their religious duty, and knowledge of the law lacked mercy, humanity, and compassion. They were experts in the rituals of God, but they failed to follow His ways. You wouldn't want them as your neighbor.
This particular religious leader in our story wanted to justify himself and be righteous on his own. His plan was to follow the law which is impossible. So, he wasn't looking for information when he asked the question, “who is my neighbor?” He was looking for exoneration - a release and an excuse for his behavior. The truth is his neighbor - and our neighbor – isn’t limited to those who live nearby. Our neighbor is every other human being. But this expert in the law wanted to know what Jesus would inspect to make sure he would obey properly, not what Jesus would expect of his followers.
The reason this religious leader missed the point of God's law is because the law is entirely fulfilled through love. And without love for God and others, our outward acts of obedience will be empty and as deceptive as a neat and tidy house with messy closets. God wants to completely transform our hearts to be His own.
Luke 10:30–32 – “Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.”
Here is our wake-up call. Jesus's response to the man's question gets right to the heart of God's law and shows the unbreakable connection between someone's true spiritual identity and how he or she treats others. And so, we hear the story of the Good Samaritan.
The story was set in a familiar place for Jews: the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is a 17 Mile journey and was filled with rocky terrain on a narrow pathway. Travelers were isolated and vulnerable to being assaulted and robbed. The traveler in Jesus's parable was brutally beaten and left to die on the side of the road. His only hope was for someone to find him in time to save his life.
And here comes our challenge. The one who knows God and loves Him also loves his neighbor. And the one who loves his neighbor refuses to ignore that neighbor's needs. The priest and Levite in Jesus's parable remind us that we, too, can become experts in God's word, teachers of the Scripture, yet fail to follow His ways. When we do that, we prove that we have never known in our hearts the Lord that we profess with our mouths.
Now let me go to meddling. Here are three questions that will make each of us think. - What excuses do you use to avoid helping someone?
What's the relationship between our love for God and our love for others?
- What would it look like for you to go above and beyond in being a neighbor to someone this week?
You see, this challenges us to not only know what God's word says, but put it in action. In other words, practice what we preach.
Luke 10:33-35 – “But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. 34 He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back, I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’”
Jesus uses one of the most unlikely heroes in Jewish culture: a Samaritan. To understand just how shocking this would have been to His hearers, we must go back several centuries before Jesus's birth. When the Jewish nation divided, the 10 Northern tribes took the name Israel or Samaria. Because of their disobedience, the Jews of Samaria were taken captive by the Assyrian empire.
Other people groups were brought in, and they intermarried with the Jews that were left in that region. God had forbidden the Jews to intermarry with foreign tribes. So, the offspring of the Samaritans were considered half-breeds, not pure Jews. Samaritans also rejected the Jewish Scriptures, except for the Pentateuch, and they built their own place of worship on Mount Gerizim, instead of worshiping in the temple in Jerusalem.
There was no love lost between the Jews and the Samaritans. The hatred between Samaritans and Jews was ethnic, religious, and cultural. A good Jew would have had nothing to do with a Samaritan. This explains why Jesus's disciples were so shocked when He spoke with a Samaritan woman at the well. So, imagine the response of a Jewish religious leader when Jesus used a despised Samaritan as the hero of his story. Then Jesus asked:
Luke 10:36-37 – “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”37 The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”
Back in verse 29, this expert in the law had asked Jesus to clarify who is a neighbor, but Jesus turned the man's question around. He asks him which of the three in this story has proven to be a neighbor to this man. Of course, the true neighbor was the one who loved a helpless stranger enough to see his need, not his ethnicity, race, or any other outward trait.
The Samaritan’s compassion came at his own expense and inconvenience. The olive oil and wine he used to treat the man's wounds were no doubt for his own needs. He even took responsibility for the man's well-being, sacrificing 2 denarii - that was two days-worth of income - so that the innkeeper could care for him until the Samaritan returned. The true neighbor in Jesus's parable was the man who fulfilled the heart of God's command and showed mercy.
I mentioned at the beginning of this message that I am thankful for God's mercy toward me. We demonstrate God's mercy when we love others. It was Jesus who said, ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” You see, Jesus was unimpressed by this man's religious knowledge. Instead, he was concerned about the condition of his heart. Jesus said that the world would know we are His followers by how we love one another.
After the religious leader acknowledged that the one who showed mercy was the true neighbor, Jesus told him, go and do the same. Jesus extends that same call to us today. Walk in love and value compassion just like God does.
I have said this over and over throughout the years of being here at Southeast Baptist Church. All we have to do is to show people that we care. If we truly care, it will show. And our world today needs to know that someone cares for them.
Unfortunately, many Christians are well rehearsed in God's word, but they don't follow His ways. They value knowledge but not compassion. They know the right answers to biblical questions and they even stand for the right things, but they have never received the mercy of God. They are preoccupied with doing what God inspects, (how they look on the outside), but they don’t have the heart He expects. But the one who is truly born of God lives in the love of God - and loves others.
So Jesus’s instructions for us today is to care for one another, love one another, and show mercy as God does for us. And your neighbor………. is everyone.
And I want you all to know that I care about each one of you. I care about the fact if you know Jesus as your Savior or not. If you have never asked Jesus to be your Savior, now is your opportunity to do just that. Won't you come, won't you accept Christ as your very own and be baptized in His Name? Then we can show you that we are the church that cares. You are my neighbor.
