YOU JUST CAN’T DO ENOUGH
Pastor W. Max Alderman
Text: Luke 10: 25-37.
Introduction: I am sure that you have heard the expression, "You just can’t do enough". In regards to this study, we are shown that in regards to earning our own salvation, we just can not do enough.
This section of study having to do with the parable of the Good Samaritan could be one of the most misunderstood passages found in the Gospels. If one looks at this teaching and then walks away only desiring to be a good neighbor, in a purely social sense, he has truly missed the main teaching of our Lord and Savior.
The Lord is using two entities that are common to all, “love” and “law”. He uses these as requirements to expose the lawyer who is tempting Jesus with his questions.
Jesus is showing the impossibility of anyone, by his own efforts, of either loving as he should or of keeping the law as he should. This parable is given to smite the conscience of this very self-serving lawyer, while at the same time showing us that we “all come short”.
May we be convinced today that “You just can’t do enough”.
I. YOU CAN’T LOVE ENOUGH TO GET TO HEAVEN.
Loving God’s way is a by-product of His love. In the Greek language, from which the King James Bible is translated, are a number of words used to describe love. God’s love is agapa love, and can only come from God. It is this kind of love that marks the believer. It is a kind of love that can only be exercised by God and by the Spirit filled believer. A person cannot love enough in and of himself to obtain this degree of love. When Christ in his Word uses this kind of love and commands it, He is only doing so in respect to the Christian. For a non-believer striving to obtain this quality and kind of love by his philanthropic deeds will always come up short. For him to try and love God’s way, by his own merit, to obtain his own salvation, will always come up short.
A. The Quality of Your Love is Not Enough.
The Lord was exposing the lawyer’s inability to love, as the law requires. The law was given to show the standard that God absolutely requires. Men can only hope to keep portions of the law, and yet not keep it in its entirety. There is only one who lived up to the absolute standard of the law, and that Person was Christ Jesus.
Jesus used the rhetorical method in answering the question posed by the lawyer. The lawyer asked, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus said unto him, “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Vv. 26,27).
In verse 28, The Lord said, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and live.”
May we look at these requirements individually.
1. “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart”.
This is part of what Jesus referred to as the First Commandment in Mark 12: 28-30. True love begins in the heart. This is the seed plot of where your feelings spring forth. True love will be expressed with feeling. This part of the commandment says that in a legal sense, as demanded by the law, one must not leave room to have feelings of love for anyone but the Lord. Ones love should be so sterling that only God will constantly occupy your feelings. This means that you cannot write or call your wife telling her how much you miss and love her when you are away. All of your feelings involving love will have to be given with all your heart to the Lord.
2. “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy soul”.
The soul involves the will, intellect, and the emotions of the person. Thus, the Lord is saying you absolutely must give your very being to Him in regards to the way that you love Him. You cannot make one decision that does not directly concern and refer to the love that you have for the Lord. Everything that you learn must be learned about him. You cannot gain any knowledge that does not pertain to Him, and the love that you have for Him. You must do this with all of your heart. When someone asks you to do something with him or her, you cannot, for all of your time will be given to them. Your love has to always be focused on Him.
3. Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy strength.
As good husbands and as good fathers, if you love the Lord with all of your strength, then you cannot toil and labor to bring home groceries for your family, or provide a home for your wife and children. For you to love the Lord with all of your strength means that you do not use your strength for anyone else but the Lord.
4. Thou shalt love the Lord with your entire mind.
To love the Lord with all of your mind means that you never for even a moment thinks of anyone but the Lord. If you let your mind drift but for a moment, then you have not truly loved the Lord with your entire mind.
Are you beginning to see how demanding that the law is? The Lord is telling the lawyer; by the way that he asks the questions, that no one is capable of keeping every aspect of the law.
5. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
This is another demanding requirement that neither the lawyer nor anyone else is capable of keeping. Yet, the Lawgiver Himself is the only one that was capable of keeping the law. What Jesus is doing is demonstrating through the law that man is totally incapable of keeping it. Jesus told him, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” The only problem was that he could not do it.
B. The Quantity of Your Love Is Not Enough.
Some are deceived in thinking that if the quality of their love is deficient then perhaps the quantity of their love should make up for it. This kind of person will tell you how much that he does for others. He may be a wealthy person who donates to charities. He may be a Ted Turner who donates to the United Nations large sums of money thinking that this will someway grant him eternal life… But, sadly it will not. People like this are only deceived.
II. You Can’t Keep The Law Enough To Get To Heaven.
Jam 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all.
A. Because God’s Standard Is Greater Than Man’s.
Romans 3; 23 certainly reminds us of this. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:10-20
Rom 3:10
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Rom 3:13
Their throat [is] an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps [is] under their lips:
Rom 3:14
Whose mouth [is] full of cursing and bitterness:
Rom 3:15
Their feet [are] swift to shed blood:
Rom 3:16
Destruction and misery [are] in their ways:
Rom 3:17
And the way of peace have they not known:
Rom 3:18
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Rom 3:19
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and the entire world may become guilty before God.
Rom 3:20
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin.
From this text, and many more like it, you can tell that man is totally incapable of keeping the law. Man is deceived when thinking that he can obtain the favor of God, when he like Cain can only offer that which is totally displeasing to God.
1. There is failure when man trusts his works.
Just as Cain in the Book of Genesis could not offer a sacrifice that was pleasing to God which was a product of his own hands or efforts, neither can man today do any better. God simply will not have respect for such an offering. The only acceptable offering was His only begotten Son.
2. There is faith when man trusts the Word.
Read Romans 9:30-10:13.
This is still God’s way for one getting to heaven. When man trusts in the Word, and is made whole, he then has the spirit of the Good Samaritan. His love and his keeping of the law is the outworking of God’s Spirit. He does not do things good to get saved; he does well because he is saved. Both the Priest and the Levite failed to do good because the law bound them. They were in so much bondage that they could not even help someone who needed it. This shows just how worthless our keeping of the law is when it really cannot be kept. The Levite and the Priest also show that their misplaced love had no redeeming value.
CONCLUSION: When thinking of what you can do to get to heaven, just remind yourself that it has already been done in the Person of Jesus Christ who died on the cross, and was raised from the dead.
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