Luke 10 27-35

The word for neighbor here means some one that is near. We all are more accustomed to loving people with whom we have some sort of relationship with or some sort of connection with.

There is nothing wrong with that, we want to encourage that but like this story the Lord wants us to push past just exhibiting love in that fashion.

Jesus here is blowing up that idea for the Jews particularly that your neighbor is only your fellow kinsman. Your neighbor is any one that has a need.

Your neighbor is anyone that you can show compassion to.

We must demonstrate a love that is based on the bible.

Now I’m going to start off by giving the Lawyer his props.

His title was interchangeable with being a scribe and this would have made him responsible for preserving, interpreting, and settling disputes about the law of God to the people.

He knew very well what the law contained and how it read so he answered his own question according to knowledge that he had obtained over years of study and debate of the law.

So that’s good, here is a person that took his work as a lawyer seriously and at least intellectually knew what the key to eternal life was which is to Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.

He could have gave a whole lot of different answers like well if you a sacrifice a bull or dedicate your life to temple service that will get you life.

No, he stated what Jesus would affirm as the greatest commandments a little later in his ministry when asked by the scribes.

He uttered the Law of Love that was reflected in Jesus’ ministry and culminated in his sacrifice so that our sins could be forgiven.

I mean for a shady lawyer, he gave a pretty good answer to the question. Again he did not include anything about following the traditions or anything like that.

Quite possibly, and this may be a stretch, he had some real inclination about seeking to be right before God in his heart.

The thing that catches him up is he asked Jesus this question to test him, in the King James it says to tempt him.

So it was like a trick question. But Jesus being the person he was turned the question back on him and said you are supposed to be the expert you tell me what it says.

Kind of like when your wife sneaks a taste and asks you do you think you might have over seasoned this. And you like if you think it taste like a pepper sandwich just say so. They know you done over seasoned it.

But Jesus turned it back on him and when he gave the acceptable answer Jesus agreed with him and said the magic words…Do this and you will live.

While Jesus acknowledges this was the correct answer, there was much more to it.

But look at the grace of Jesus, he did not condemn the man for having or possessing the knowledge. That is a part of what we are to do as believers.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

In light of this many of us like this lawyer can quickly give the correct answer but for us that’s all it is, is the correct answer.

The lawyer’s were good at giving the correct answer, but what Jesus looks for is the correct heart and he’s going to address this indirectly in the parable that he gives.

But I don’t think that we can make no small matter of the fact that the lawyer at least knew what it took to inherit eternal life even though he could not do what it took to inherent eternal life. That is what the Gospel is for.

Often what gets us tripped up is when like this lawyer is when we posses some form of biblical knowledge we automatically equate that with some righteousness.

While I encourage everyone to do as the word says and renew your mind, study the word, learn the word, memorize the word, but without the spirit of Christ we will be like the Lawyers.

Able to quickly tell someone what the truth is but are deficient at practicing that truth.

See it takes beholding the savior to not only know the word but to live the word.

James 1:22-27 ESV But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

As Jesus is about to show the Lawyer who gave the right answer. His religion was void if it was not accompanied by an actionable compassion that, driven by love, seeks to meet the needs of others.

We must demonstrate a love that is not limited to those we are familiar with.

So what we are seeing is Jesus beautifully stretching this lawyer beyond the realm of how he knows to show Compassion and he does this with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

He does this because when Jesus says do this and you will live he again asks a question to justify himself.

He asks Jesus who is my neighbor?

This question has implications on who the Israelites thought the law compelled them to do good to vs who they did no really have to pay much attention too. Remember the word neighbor means those who are near.

Since the Israelites where the chosen people they held a very high view of themselves and for all intents and purposes thought they were superior to everyone else.

In his heart it’s safe to say the Lawyer esteemed his group of people above everyone else.

However, this was contrary to the Law as God intended. The law was always inclusive of the foreigners, sojourners, and converts who would believe in God because of the great witness of his Chosen people.

Exodus 12:48-49 ESV If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

The reason why they were chosen was not to make them better than other people but to be a light to show the true God to other people. They completely missed that.

God always intentioned for his covenant to be inviting of all types of people not just those of Jewish lineage.

So Jesus turns his idea of who his neighbor was on its head. Notice the setting of the parable. It was in Israel and all the characters in the parable are likely to be Israelites even the robbers y’all.

And Jesus used who could be one of the most despised races of people to prove his point.

The man did not like the Samaritans and perhaps he thought that as long as I am good to the Jews, my people, I will have life.

And that is the crazy thing about his. Jesus casts all the Israelites in bad way to show that even though you think you are good and your people are good, who you are does not determine goodness.

And I say that because like the Lawyer we tend to believe that just because people are like us that automatically makes them good or righteous.

You see in light of this we are often no better than the lawyer, and Jesus needs to give us a little prodding to see that.

Because I’m black I could tend to think black are more truthful than whites when it come to things like racism.

And because some of ya’ll are white you all could tend to believe that whites are more truthful when it comes to racism. We do this with our political allegiances, or any number of things that we have in common with other people. We love our tribe, we love our camp.

We often ask in our hearts who is my neighbor? and like the Lawyer, who do we often believe our neighbors are?, the ones that look like us when in reality the Lord is pushing us to see past that and understand we are all neighbors especially when there is a need to be met.

Philippians 2:3-4 ESV Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The Love of Christ compels us to look past our similarities in order to establish who our neighbor is.

In light of this when we are examining ourselves we should have the right thoughts on who our neighbors are.

Certainly they are our brothers and sisters in the Lord but they are also the people who have needs that we have nothing in common with.

It really takes the heart of the Lord to move us to care about people who are not like us, people who are not the same race as us, people who are not the same gender as us, people who are not the same religion as us, people who don’t like the same things that we like.

We must demonstrate a love that is limitless towards humanity.

If we notice in the parable the Israelites that should have known better than to leave this man who had been attacked on the side of the road.

But I think it shows that we would tend to gives ourselves and our people a little too much credit sometimes.

The Samaritan in this parable becomes theun likely hero. Now you know this is not the way this story would have been told from a view of ethnic/racial supremacy.

There is no way the lawyer, priest or Levite would tell this story leaving them looking like they are not the ones that followed God’s law.

This story could have very well infuriated some in the audience because it was a direct assault on the fact that even though they knew the truth they did not practice it.

And the reason why they did not practice it was not because of something in them it was because they did not really know God.

The Samaritan in this story, while he may have had many reasons to have animosity against an Israelite he choose to how mercy and compassion.

It was not just a, here take care of the problem real fast compassion either.

Look at what the word says he did starting at vs 33

He bound up his wounds, wrapping them up and gave him wine and oil for healing and soothing of his wounds.

He put him on his animal and took him to the inn and took care of him there

Then upon leaving he paid the inn keeper to also take care of him and said anything extra he would take care of him on his return.

You see how involved the Samaritan was with the helping of this man who had been beat on and ravaged for all his goods.

This is the manner of compassion that Jesus would have us to show towards all men. Not based on any test of Race, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Criminal history, Social Class, Education, Political Ideology, or Personality

There is an intimate involvement with what it means to love our neighbors. It is not just something we say. How we love our neighbors actually shows how we love God.

1 John 3:17-18 ESV But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Now we could look at this passage and say you know Demetrius that’s only talking about brother’s in Christ. You could day but look at the Spirit.

Would we use this passage to say I only have to do good and love people who I know are Christians and take the literal reading of this and limit who we are to do good?

That would make us like the lawyer. The love of God does good to all. The word says he makes it to rain on the just and the unjust.

Matthew 5:43-48 ESV Love Your Enemies “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The spirit of the Lord does not limit who we are to do good to. Galatians 6 tells us to good to all men especially those of the household of faith.

So not only should we love the brethren, but since God loved us when we were strangers to him, we should love others that way as well.

And this is a very involved show of Love and compassion not mere lip service. A love and compassion that sees past differences, that sees past wrongs done, and only sees someone in need.

In light of this the word encourages us to do the same. We have neighbors, family members, friends, and if I could we have a whole city. That has been battered by this water crisis.

Are we asking ourselves who is our neighbor, are we asking ourselves Lord how can we help or are we merely willing to give the correct answer.

At the end of the story Jesus asks the lawyer who proved to be a neighbor to the man?

The lawyer rightly answers again the one that showed him mercy. Jesus says go and do likewise.

What a powerful example of what it means to be a neighbor.

The Samaritans and Jews were enemies of each other. There was no love lost between them.

In America we can relate to this attitude because we have the same type of problems when it comes to race and the many other things that divide us as Christians.

But I believe the attitude of the lawyer begs a question that needs to be pointed out.

Why is it so easy to not love people that we don’t share anything in common with?

We have lost the ability to identify with each other according to the Image of God.

Instead we have replaced the Image of God with everything that we can see.

What Jesus demonstrated and what believing the Gospel gives us is the ability to regain this sight of men in the way the God intended for us to view each other.

We can be neighbors, we can be brothers regardless of our backgrounds, races religions, wrongs committed against, etc .

Because God still gracious accepted us with all the baggage that comes with that, and declared us clean.

He reached out his hand to touch us in the midst of our dirt, in the midst of our offensiveness, in the midst of our sinfulness.

He demonstrated that not only was he a neighbor he was a friend.

A friend that was willing to compassionately lay his life down for us.

Amen that is the Christ that we serve

Not only did he love us when we were enemies, but he reached out to us and intimately dealt with us in a manner to secure our healing and restoration to the father.

Related Media

Related Sermons