The Extent Of Love Series

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

This is the word of God.

The next few sections of the book of Luke will have quite a bit of overlap. It seems like Luke has assembled this encounter with Jesus’ encounter with Mary and Martha and his teaching on prayer together for a reason. Rather than lumping them all together, we are going to slow down a bit soak in all that we can on these topics.

Today’s passage really become the theme or introductory passage for the other two.

Theme: Loving God with all that we are and loving others as ourselves will be more costly than we expect, but it will be worth it.

So, as we consider this passage today, we are going to consider the extent of loving God and the extent of loving others. We’ll conclude by considering the vast extent of Jesus’ love for us.

We don’t know exactly where this took place or if it happened right after Jesus sent out the 72. Luke simply begins this section by stating “and behold.” So this lawyer or an expert in religious law approached Jesus with a question - in hopes of testing him.

These religious leaders were always out to get Jesus because the way that he worked often called into question their practices or their authority.

So he asks - “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

He had likely heard Jesus talk about eternal life. But it’s interesting that he phrases it this way as there is a false premise of the lawyer’s question - you can’t do things to receive an inheritance - inheritances are given - often by relation to the one who can give - in this case God.

Jesus responds with his own questions - what is written…, how do you read it? In other words, how do you interpret what is written.

So this man responds with two different parts of the OT law - love God (Dt. 6:5) - as we have read a couple of times in the service today, and love your neighbor as yourself (Lv. 19:18). Jesus essentially commends that man by saying that he is correct and that he will live if he does those things.

Jesus notes in other parts of the gospels that these two statements are at the core of what it means to follow God. All of the law and the prophets depend on loving God fully and loving others unconditionally.

Let’s begin by considering …

The extent of loving God (25-28)

The Shema actually says - love God with all your heart, soul and might - the lawyer here adds mind. The point is that our love for God should entail all that we are. Our love for God should not be limited to our time with him on Sundays or our devotional time. Our love for God should invade everything that we do. And yet, if we really think about it, this is difficult to do.

What does it mean to love God? Often we think of love as an affection.