How's Your Love Life

Introduction

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 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. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 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. 35 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.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

My wife and I have just entered a new, and we hope, blissful season of our lives. We are brand new empty nesters. We dropped our youngest of four children off to college just a couple of weeks ago. Now, for the first time in 31 years, it’s just the two of us in the house. In raising four children we’ve celebrated a lot of birthdays and thrown a lot of birthday parties. When child number 4 was younger we had a party for him at a place in our community called “Pump It Up.” The folks at Pump it Up are smart. The music they played was all from the 90’s, twenty years ago (even some from the 80’s). This is to help get the parents into the party mood. The kids don’t care about the music. They just want to get on the slides and obstacle courses and moon bounce.

We had a great time. But if you’re a parent, you know this about birthday parties. Even if you’re not a parent, you’ve probably experienced this yourself growing up. When it comes to birthday parties, you’ve got to be selective. You can’t invite everybody to the party. Our son couldn’t invite everybody from his class at school, everybody from church, everybody from his Krav Maga class, everybody from the swim team. There’s this thing called a budget. We’re spending ‘x’ amount of dollars for this party. That means, you get to invite ‘x’ amount of people. Now you’ve got to choose. What we’re really saying to him is, “son, you’ve got to discriminate.” You’ve got to select from all of your circles people who you want to extend an invitation to. Now he has to set a criteria in his mind. Him, and not him. Her, but not her.

Understand that we do this all the time. Every day in some way we are being selective and discriminating on who we spend our time with. In some cases it’s because of my job or my school. I’ve got to spend time with you because I’ve got to work with you. I’ve got to spend time with you because we’re in class together. But in other cases, we’re selective on who we spend time with based on our preferences. That’s actually the way we like it to be. That’s a natural thing. The fact that we’re discriminating with regard to our time and our associations isn’t a bad thing necessarily.

However, the truth of our natural discriminatory ways are what makes the parable that Jesus puts before us in our passage so challenging to us. This parable about the Good Samaritan is one might be intimately familiar with. The phrase “Good Samaritan” is one you may have heard or used even if you wouldn’t call yourself a Christian this morning. Here’s the deal. As long as we live, and as familiar as we become about this parable we’ll never become completely comfortable with its implications. It will always challenge us. That’s because it pushes back against our naturally, and sometimes good, discriminatory practices. It will always challenge us because Jesus is calling us to a life of love. But it’s a life of love based on the law of love. And this is love the way he defines love, not the comfortable way we want to define it. There are three things I wasn to share with you about the Life of Love from this passage. The Life of Love is Not Clean. The Life of Love is Costly. And The Life of Love is Committed.

The Life of Love is Not Clean

Luke tells us in v. 25 that a certain lawyer stood up in order to test Jesus. He asks Jesus a question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” When you see the word “lawyer,” don’t think, "Suits,” or “Law & Order,” and have an image of Michael Ross or Jack McCoy in your mind. This guy was an expert in the law, but his concern wouldn’t have been Roman law. He was an expert in Jewish law, the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. This man, and others like him, are normally referred to in the Gospels as “scribes.” Every detail of Jewish life was to be regulated by the law of Moses. So there were men who devoted themselves to the study of that law. Their job was to study, to interpret, to expound upon the law; to teach it in schools and synagogues; to decide upon questions about the law; to act as judges.

So we understand his question. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He’s not asking this question to learn from Jesus. He doesn’t want to sit at Jesus’ feet. He wants to confront Jesus. He wants to trip Jesus up and discredit him and his message. He’s not seeking information. He already believes that he knows the answer. I know that none of us in here ever do that. We never ask someone a question we already think that we know the answer to. We never seek to put anybody to the test to see if they’re legit. Of course we do. So, before we try to say that this lawyer is jacked up for trying to question Jesus, let’s just admit how much of that same spirit is in us. But Jesus says, “I’m not playing your game. I don’t play by your rules.” He asks the lawyer, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” Of course the lawyer knows the answer. He quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5, what’s known as the Shema, “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.” Then he quotes from Lev. 19:18, “and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then says to him, “You’re right. Now go do it and you’ll live. No problem.” Jesus says, that’s the sum total of everything. This law that you’re an expert in can be whittled down to one phrase, “the Law of Love.” It’s simple, just love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor like you love yourself and it’s all good.

I have yet to meet someone who would have a problem with me saying that the essence of God’s law is love. The problem comes when I find out that I don’t get to define what love is.

You see, I’m alright with the law of love if I can make love out to be what I want it to be. Do you see how that shows up the text? The lawyer asked the first question to Jesus because he wanted to put Jesus to the test. But he asks the second question to Jesus because he wanted to justify himself. I can keep this law of love, Jesus, if I get to do it on my own terms. As long as I get to pick who my neighbor is, as long as I have the final say on how, when and to whom I express love, I’m all good with the law of love. Jesus here doesn’t give us that wiggle room. He doesn’t give us the wiggle room to cram in whatever definition of love we want to.

Jesus wants this lawyer to realize that he can’t fulfill the law of love. Jesus wants us to realize that we can’t fulfill the law of love. That’s because the law of love is all consuming. You shall love the Lord your God with everything! All your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind, all of the time. You can’t simply slip loving God into the compartments of your life. One person has their, “I come to church on Sunday compartment.” One has their, “I do my devotions and quiet time every morning compartment.” One has their, “I provide for my family compartment.” Or, “I help people in need.” Or, “I give to charitable causes.” Whatever your compartment is, the common denominator in all of the compartments is that it’s all about the “I.” It’s all about justifying ourselves as if we could make ourselves look good to God. God isn’t interested in one compartment that you’re willing to give over to him. He wants the whole thing.

In his book The Wholeness Imperative, Scott Redd says, “God’s character is whole, pure, full, rich, and simple, and it demands a response of whole, pure, full, rich, and simple love…The love of the Lord…should consume the whole of the inner person, the outer person, and the effect of the person in the world.”

Jesus wants to transform your love life into this kind of life of love.

This lawyer is unknowingly trying to test the lawgiver about the law. He ends up being the one who learns a lesson. The first part of the lesson was this, the law of love is too hard. It’s impossible for anybody to love the Lord God with everything—heart, soul, strength, and mind—and to love your neighbor as yourself. The standard is too high. You can’t do it by yourself. You need help. In particular, Jesus is getting the point across, you need my help. You can’t actually have a soft heart towards God and simultaneously have a hard heart towards someone made in the image of God. You need me to change you. But like many of us, the lawyer doesn’t quite get it. He realizes that he’s been put on the defensive, and he asks a second question in v. 29, “Who is my neighbor?” The point of the first question was to test Jesus. The point of the second question was to make himself feel good about himself. It was to make himself look good in his own eyes. “Jesus, it’s got to be OK for me to discriminate who gets my neighborly love!”

Jesus basically says, “Let me tell you a story.”

“A man was traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And he fell among some thugs with bad intentions. They stripped him of his clothes. They beat him bloody. Then they left, leaving him practically dead.”

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was about a 17 mile journey. It was treacherous because there were plenty of caves for gangs of thugs to hide and then rob people who were daring enough to travel alone. On that 17 mile journey, you had to go through what was known as the Pass of Blood.

By chance, a priest was traveling down that road. We hear Jesus say that, and we expect to hear that the priest helped his Jewish brother. He’s in luck. His life is going to be saved! But the priest sees the man left for dead, and doesn’t even investigate the situation. He crosses to the other side of the road and leaves him. Then a Levite comes by. OK. Now he’s going to get some help. But the Levite does the man worse. The priest wouldn’t even come close. The Levite, though, comes to the place where the man was. He checks out the situation, then decides to cross over and keep on going.

Why are they so callous? Did they have places to go, people to see, and things to do? No time to worry about a dying man. He’s going to die anyway. Maybe, but I think there’s more to it. The priests and the levites we set apart. They had significant roles in the religious hierarchy. All priests had responsibility for the sacrificial offerings. The Levites had responsibility for the holy things in the temple. And to do their duty, they had to keep themselves clean.

The law said in Leviticus 21:1 that when it comes to the priests, no one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, except his close relatives. The restrictions on the Levites weren’t as tight, so he gets a little closer. But he’s still not willing to touch the man and become unclean.

Here’s the point. The life of love that Jesus is describing isn’t clean. It’s messy. Had the priest or the levite decided to touch the man and enter into his mess, they would’ve had to go through at least seven days of ritual purification before they could get back to their jobs. They would’ve gotten messy themselves. They would’ve been inconvenienced by the mess of mercy. You can’t do mercy without getting your hands dirty. We like things to be neat and clean. We like it to fit within our schedule. We like it to fit within our expectations. The life of love that Jesus instructs us on doesn’t do either of those things.

I don’t have insight to the thought process of the priest and the levite, but it appears to me that they were more interested in the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. They were more interested in saying, “I’ve got to keep myself clean. I serve the Lord God in the temple, and my ministry is too important for me to be distracted by this situation and then be unable to do my ministry job.” You can’t love like Jesus calls us to love without getting your hands dirty.

You know how we do this? You know how we, in a sense, pass by on the other side, refusing to get messy and be inconvenienced? We do drive by mercy. Drive by mercy is thinking, let me be charitable and give money. Let me be charitable and buy some canned goods or some clothes to give to the shelter for those in need. Those things are necessary, but it’s a problem if you’re never engaged in the middle of the mess. If we’re trying to do drive by mercy and are never disrupted by the messiness of love, it means that we’re viewing people simply as problems to be fixed. So we’ll give some money to fix the problem. People are not problems to be fixed. People are image bearers of God to be known and loved.

The Life of Love is Costly

And what that means is the life of love is not only unclean, the life of love is costly. A neighbor is found for this man, an image bearer of God, laying in his own blood, about to lose his life. This neighbor is the most unexpected neighbor you could imagine.

Jesus says in v. 33, “A Samaritan who was on a journey came to where he was. And when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. This is what was missing with the priest and levite. There was no internal movement, there was no gut reaction in the right direction. They were moved on the inside. They had an internal reaction. You don’t come across someone who’s almost dead and not have some internal reaction as you process what you’re going to do. But their reaction wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t what’s at the heart of the law, and that’s love. Being moved with compassion is a response of love.

That internal response worked itself out in the Samaritan towards a willingness to pay a deep cost. Everything that the priest and the levite weren’t the Samaritan was. He embraced the mess. He touched the man. He had to in order to bandage up his wounds. He had to get messy if he was going to treat the trauma. Picture him getting blood on his own clothes as he pours oil and wine on the man’s wounds. When he embraced the mess, he went all in. The man can’t walk. Jesus says that the Samaritan sat him on his own animal. I’m going to walk and you’re going to ride. He got to an inn, and he didn’t just drop him off and keep going on his journey. Jesus says in v. 34, he brought him to an inn and he took care of him. What did the Samaritan have planned? I don’t know, but this stranger was more important than his plan. He paid the cost of his time. Then the next morning, he went into his pocket and gave the innkeeper the equivalent of two days’ worth of his salary, instructing the innkeeper to care for the man. Then, he says, if his care requires more money, go ahead and spend it. I’ll pay you back when I return.

Here’s the thing. The Jewish people and the Samaritans were enemies. They didn’t have anything to do with each other. If anybody had an excuse not to show mercy, not to pay the cost of loving this man, it was the Samaritan. Who does that? Who loves like that? Who in their right mind enters into the messy, suffering condition of their enemy? Who is moved with the type of compassion for his enemy that would cause him to enter his enemy’s suffering, getting blood on his hands as he is willing to pay whatever cost is necessary to heal and restore someone who would’ve wanted nothing to do with him? You know the answer. The answer is Jesus. The answer is God himself.

We are the ones who ought to see ourselves in the position of this left for dead man. We are the ones who God looked at and saw us dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God, by nature children of wrath (and he didn’t pass by on the other side). Rather, the Bible says that God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:1-7).

This Samaritan is living the life of love, reflecting the same compassion that God has given us in Jesus Christ. He is a neighbor to his enemies. Do you know that you don’t get to choose who your neighbors are? I know you likely chose the neighborhood you live in for a variety of reasons. I know you probably went on a search for the right place to live. What’s this community like? What’s the school system like? What’s the crime rate? But from Jesus’ point of view, you don’t get to pick and choose who your neighbors are. Everyone in your life from your most beloved friend to your most despised enemy is your neighbor. The lawyer in his question wanted to emphasize minimum obedience. I want a narrow field of my own choosing. I want to pick and choose who I’m merciful to. I want to pick and choose who I love with the love of God. I want to decide on my own terms who is worthy of receiving my love and who isn’t. And Jesus blows the field wide open. And there are no excuses in the life of love, ethnicity is not an excuse, relationship problems are not an excuse, personal preferences and comforts are not excuses. There are no excuses. You cannot love without cost. You cannot love without mess. You didn’t receive God’s love without cost. You didn’t receive God’s love without mess. What makes us think that we can give it neatly? Love isn’t given on the basis of the person being worthy to receive it.

The Law of Love is Committed

That’s why the life of love isn’t only messy and costly. The life of love is committed. What I mean is that the life of love takes a Spirit of God empowered commitment. Jesus asks the lawyer a second question in v. 36, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer has no choice but to say, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus says, “You go, and do likewise.” You go and be indiscriminate when it comes to being a neighbor.

The challenge is, as one commentator puts it, “One cannot define one’s neighbor; one can only be a neighbor.” “You can’t define your neighbor in advance; you can only be a neighbor when the moment of mercy arrives.”

Remember the lawyer’s first question. He was testing Jesus, and was only asking the question because he thought he already knew the answer. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus put him on the defensive by demonstrating to him that he couldn’t keep the law of love. The demand was too high. So, the lawyer tried to put a limit on the law of love by limiting his neighbor to his ethnic group. Jesus tells him about the life of love. And he’s in a corner again. Go and do likewise. The conclusion is the same. I don’t have it in me to reach out in costly compassion to everyone all the time, even to my enemies. We need the power and presence of the Spirit of God, who is given to us by faith in Jesus Christ if we’re going to live the life of love that Jesus calls us to.

Do you know why we need the active, present powerful Holy Spirit to live like this? Because you will experience compassion fatigue living the life of love. You will grow tired of indiscriminate love if you’re drinking from the well of your own strength and desires. We must drink from the well of God’s Spirit that will never run dry if we are going to have our love lives transformed and live the life of love to the glory of God.