Three Appooaches To Life Series

This parable, like the Old Testament Law at the Sermon On The Mount, is designed to show us our NEED of salvation and drive us to Jesus pleading for mercy. I don’t know about you, but I identify with those who passed by. I look back at my life, filled with many acts of service and think of all the people in my family, in my church, in my circle of friends and in my world THAT I DIDN’T TAKE TIME FOR. I didn’t beat them up, but I sure passed them up. My confession is:

My neighbor’s throat I never cut

His purse I never stole

But for all the things I have not done

God have mercy on my soul

The WHY of salvation (Eph 4:32-5:2)

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God…and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us…as a sacrifice” (Eph 4:32-5:2).

Saved by Jesus, we are to reach out to help those who have fallen on the bloody highway of life. Why are we to love and help people? Because Jesus loved and helped us when we needed it the most and deserved it the least.

A hidden point in this parable is that a SAMARITAN helped a JEW. Jesus, by this, tells us that many times the people of the world, the people we in the church tend to look down on, show more love and compassion than we in the church do.

Let us in gratitude to Christ, live selflessly by the motto: WHAT’S MINE IS YOURS AND YOU CAN HAVE IT! Time? Yes! Energy? Yes! Money? Yes! Love? Yes! People are hungry - they need food. People are lonely - they need friends. People can’t read - they need teachers. The hurting person is anyone with a need. The hurting person is you and me - to whom Christ came with salvation through His cross. And the hurting person IS CHRIST, for in Matt. 25 He tells us when we feed and clothe and visit those who are sick and those who are in prison we do it for Him. But the opposite is true – failing to help others is failing to help Him.

The best help we can give anyone is to share Christ with them. I grew up in a mill village in Gadsden, Alabama, where the houses were about 10 feet apart. When I graduated from college in Forestry, I went to work in Piedmont, Alabama, which was 30 miles away. One day I learned that Clara Bell Doss, who had been my next door neighbor in Gadsden, was in the hospital, dying with cancer.

I had never seen a cancer patient before, but it was terrible. Her head looked about as big as my double fist. I looked into her hollow, sad eyes and told her who I was. She couldn’t speak above a whisper, but she said, “Hello, Bobby!” and smiled and went back to sleep. I leaned over, with tears in my eyes, kissed her on the forehead and said, “I’ll see you in heaven, Clara Bell!”

Why? When I was little, I didn’t go to church, but Clara Bell and her daughter did. One day she asked my mother if they could carry me to Sunday School and church with them. They did it for years, and the rest is history. I am a Christian today, I am your pastor today, because a little four foot ten inch lady named Clara Bell Doss saw a little boy who needed to be in church and didn’t pass by on the other side.