Luke 10:25-37 - Love Your Neighbor

Introduction

In the late 1700s, a Bapitst pastor in New England (Isaac Backus) argued that love of neighbor should stop Congregationalist ministers and magistrates from imprisoning Baptists and confiscating their property when they refused to pay religious taxes to support dead and false churches.

In the early-to-mid 1800s, another Baptist in Virginia (John Leland) argued that love of neighbor should motivate Christians to live moral lives and prevent the decay of civil society by living according to a biblically informed conscience.

In the mid-1900s, yet another Baptist in Washington, D.C. (Carl F. H. Henry) argued that love of neighbor should provoke Christians to get involved in the various institutions of society – political, educational, and economic – in order to promote the sort of values and ethics that would lead to human flourishing in America and beyond.

Today, Aaron Renn (not a Baptist, but an influential Evangelical with a good deal of overlap with Baptist circles these days)… Aaron Renn argues that Christians in America ought to think of themselves as a large minority group within a culture that is largely hostile to them. He says that love of neighbor should cause Christians to create alternative educational and economic institutions, to strengthen their churches, and to form healthy and compelling communities (something like harbors among the churning sea of the negative world… so that Christians can have stability and non-Christians can have an invitation into something better than what they are experiencing outside).

These are just some of the ways that Christians have applied the biblical command to “love neighbor.” I could cite more examples, but you get the idea.

All Christians have believed that love of neighbor is something Christ commands, but not everyone has applied this command in the same way. In fact, I want to argue today that the application of this command has a great deal to do with the way we understand biblical ethics (i.e., how we understand the Bible’s rules for morality or behavior). Our application of “love for neighbor” is also affected by our proximity to injustice or need (i.e., how close are we to it – in relationship or geography), and our ability(i.e., what ability or resources do we have) to engage with a given circumstance, person, or group (not to mention the political or social context of a given moment).

Today we are continuing our series on Baptist Distinctives, and we have covered a lot of ground already this year.

We’ve talked about the central role of the local church in Baptist life.

We’ve talked about how Baptists are a voluntary people. We don’t believe that faith or religion or conversion can be coerced, and we believe that every believing person must publicly profess Christ and be affirmed in that profession through believer’s baptism.

We’ve talked about the line that is drawn when we observe the Lord’s Supper. We believe only baptized members in good standing with a local church are welcome to participate at the Lord’s table. And we believe that it’s actually good for non-Christians to know that they are outside of the blessings of Christ. This way they might know how they can become partakers (i.e., get on the inside of God’s blessings) – by hearing the gospel, by turning from their sin, and by believing and following Christ.

We’ve talked about the importance of religious liberty and the role of government as God’s ordained means to order societies in this present world.

And now we are going to talk about the role that Christians (especially Baptists) have in engaging the world around… as scattered Christians who live ordinary but impactful lives… faithfully following Christ, bearing witness to the gospel, and making good use of our time, treasure, and talent while we remain in this world.

Let’s read and consider one of the passages where Christ commands and describes love of neighbor… and let’s think about the ways that we might apply this command in our everyday lives.

Would you stand with me as I read our primary passage for today?

Scripture Reading

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.”

Main Idea:

Christians ought to show love of neighbor by active engagement with the world around them, according to biblical ethics, proximity, and ability.

Sermon

1. The First Use of the Law

Our main passage today is an example of Jesus pointing to the transcendent law of God in conversation with a man who we’re told wanted to “test” Jesus (v25) and wanted to “justify” himself (v29). Our focus this morning is primarily on the meaning and application of the biblical command to “love… your neighbor as yourself” (v27), but in order to understand this well we need to do a little groundwork. We must begin by thinking about the way Jesus is using God’s law here, and also about how we ought to use God’s law in our daily lives.

On a brief side note, Christians do not all agree about just exactly what to do with the Ten Commandments or the rest of the laws God gave at Sinai. Some Christians are dispensationalists, and these tend to categorize all OT laws (including the Ten Commandments) under the heading of those laws that only pertain to OT Israel. Some Christians affirm what’s called New Covenant Theology, and these tend to look for NT reiterations of OT laws, claiming that Christians are bound to to obey only those laws that appear as binding in the NT.

The vast majority of Christians (past and present) adhere to some form of Covenantal Theology, which (to one degree or another) sees the Ten Commandments as morally binding on all people at all times (OT and NT).

Whichever brand seems to fit your perspective better, I think we can all agree that the summary of God’s law we read here in our passage this morning is binding on all people at all times – “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” (Lk. 10:27).

Jesus said that this (the combination of loving God and loving neighbor) is “the great commandment,” and Jesus also said that “all the Law and the Prophets” “depend” or “hang” on “these two commandments” (Matt. 22:37-40). Furthermore, we see both of these commands (love God and love neighbor) repeated many times in the NT (Mk. 12:33; Rom. 13:9-10; 1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 5:14; 1 Tim. 6:11; Heb. 6:10; Jam. 1:12, 2:8; 1 Jn. 4:8, 20).

If you want to talk more about this, then let’s get together after the service today. But for our purposes this morning, when I speak of the “law of God,” you can hear that in whatever way best fits your covenantal or dispensational perspective… I am referring to the divine laws that are binding on all people everywhere and from all time… And I think the tandem commands – “love God and love neighbor” – summarize the whole of it.

Back to our subject at hand… Jesus is using God’s law in our main passage by applying what Christians have historically called the firstuse of the law… and we are also going to need to consider the multiple uses of God’s law to apply it well in our lives as Christians.

Let me explain…

Since at least the time of the Protestant Reformation (during the 1500s), there has been a general understanding among Christians that God’s law has three distinct purposes or uses. These three uses of the law teach us how we are to respond to God’s law, how we are to understand it, and how we are to apply it.[i]

The first use of the law is on clear display in our passage today – it is the use of the law as a mirror or a standardby which to judge ourselves.

This is what Jesus was doing with the prideful man who questioned Him. The “lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test” (Lk. 10:25). This man was a student of the OT law, and his aim was to expose Jesus as a false teacher or a false prophet. His question was not sincere, but a sort of “gotcha” question.

He asked, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (v25).

Now, this is certainly a good question! All of us would do well to consider it. If we believe that there’s coming a day when we will die and stand before the throne of God’s judgment, then we ought to ask, “What must I do to escape eternal punishment and instead inherit or receive eternal life and blessing?”

And it is important that we understand the first use of the law when we’re trying to answer this question. Jesus asked the man to refer to God’s law as the standard by which to judge himself. And Jesus said that the law of God – “love God and love neighbor” – is exactly what one must do in order to earn eternal life.

And if the man questioning Jesus was sincere, what he should have asked next is something like, “But Jesus, I cannot love God and love neighbor, because it is not in me to do it. I am sinful, and my love for myself exceeds my love for God and others. How in the world can I fulfill these commands?”

Friends, if we are honest with ourselves for 3 seconds, then we will acknowledge that it is not our knower that is broken, it’s our want-to. We don’t disobey God on the daily because we don’t know what He wants from us; we disobey God (we fail to do what He commands, and we do and think and say what He forbids) because we want to sin… we do not wantto obey.

The first use of the law, then, is to hold up a mirror to our sinful hearts and minds, so that we will see our guilty and shameful and sinful selves as we truly are. We are guilty, and there is no getting around it. We are guilty because of what we have done, because of what we have not done, and because there is no reason to believe that we will do any better (by skill or discipline) in the future.

The first use of the law shows us our desperate need for a Savior! We need God to solve our sin problem. We need God to forgive our lawlessness. We need God to give us a righteousness that does not come from us… because we have none!

Friends, this is the beauty and wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ! God has done what the law could not do. God’s law is not bad or broken… we are! And God has shown His love for guilty sinners like us by sending His own Son to live righteously, to die in the place of the guilty, and to conquer death… so that those who turn from their sin and trust in Him can receive forgiveness of sins and inherit eternal life.

If you want to know more about what this means or how you can be a partaken of this good news, then let’s talk after the service today.

But the way Christians can show love of neighbor with this first use of the law is to tell others (friends and family and co-workers) that they are sinners in need of a Savior. It is not unloving to expose the wickedness in the hearts of others if our goal is to point them to the only solution. Indeed, it is an act of great love to step into a hard conversation, to say hard things, and to put ourselves right in the path of the potential rage that might come at us in response.

2. The Second Use of the Law

We’ve done a lot of work already in my first point, and these next two will build on the first… but we must also understand the secondand third uses of God’s law. The second use of God’s law (summarized by “love God and love neighbor”) is as a restraint on evil in the world.

We all know that the existence of a law does not change the hearts of the people under it, nor does it create obedience. Any mom or dad who has commanded a child “Don’t do that!” or “Make sure you don’t forget!” will know that the existence of the command does not create glad obedience.

However, the absence of any command or law is barbarism… it’s lawlessness… it’s a family, a society, a church, a nation… where everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes.

Laws are not effective in achieving the result of obedience without an enforcement mechanism (you get a ticket for speeding, you get a fine for not paying your taxes, our kids get a spanking or a privilege revoked for disobeying parents)… but the publication of laws (and the knowledge that some punishment will come from disobeying them) does put a restrainton lawlessness and evil.

Before Ronald Reagan (then Governor of California) signed the “No-Fault Divorce” bill into law in 1969, the rate of divorce in America was 10%. Nearly every state soon followed with similar legislation, and by 1980 the divorce rate was 22% (it more than doubled in about 10 years!).

By 2020 that number fell to about 15%, so one might argue that the laws against “No-Fault Divorce” weren’t actually restraining the evil of divorce much at all. However, it is striking to see the dramatic changes to the number of people getting married. In 1950, about 80% of American adults were married. But in 2021, that number was about 30%, and the marriage rate continues to free-fall in America.

Now, there are many factors that did and do contribute to this incredible decline, but it seems highly likely that the redefinitionof marriage is one of them.

The laws on the books (in the 1950s) did not allow marriages to dissolve without moral grounds for divorce (infidelity, physical abuse, or abandonment). These laws taught Americans that marriage is more than a relationship of convenience. But for the last 50 years, American laws on marriage and divorce have taught us that marriage is something you can pick up and put right back down for any reason or for no reason at all… and the restraint upon the evil of divorce has been lifted.

One need not look to President Obama’s opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013 or the Supreme Court decision in June of 2015 to see the demise of marriage in America. These political moves were only possible because Americans had already been redefining marriage for decades.

Friends, laws restrain us (Christians and non-Christians alike) from being as sinful as we might be otherwise. The Bible teaches us that the law of God is written on our hearts, such that we know (inherently) the basics of right and wrong… we feel guilty when we sin… we feel shamewhen we think and speak and act against conscience. But when God’s law (God’s standard of morality) is more widely publicized and more broadly respectedin a society, then that nation or state or town will be restrained (at least to a certain extent) in its wickedness.

This is the second use or purpose of God’s law, which Christians (including Baptists) have understood for centuries. This is the reason why the Ten Commandments have been fundamental to western law, and we would do well to remember the importance of this second use of God’s law.

The first use is dealing with the salvation of souls, and we must show love of neighbor by telling people about sin and the gospel. But this second one is dealing with the good of society at every level (family, town, state, and nation). And if we want to see less evil in our homes, less evil in our communities, and less evil in our nation, then we ought to love our neighbors by doing what we can to order ourselves according to God’s good commands… and we ought to love our neighbors by helping them to do that as well.

Baptists in America once knew and believed this, and they actively engaged the world around them (politically, socially, institutionally… in public and private efforts) to promote godly morals according to biblical ethics (at least as they understood them). They didn’t merely want to restrain evil out of a sense of self-preservation (though that was certainly one motivation), but they also had a deep desire to see everyone (both Christians and non-Christians) benefit from living more according to God’s design.

May God help us regain this perspective of God’s law (that it is good for this life and for the life to come). May God help us strive to live according to it. And may God help us to actively encourage others to do the same… motivated by love.

3. The Third Use of the Law

The third use of God’s law is particularly aimed at Christians. It understands that the law of God is a teacher or guidefor Christian living. God’s law teaches us what God is like, what He wants from us, and how we are to live as His people in the world. And our main passage this morning is a parable that demonstrates this precise reality.

Jesus told a parable about a man who “was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho” (Lk. 10:30). This would not have been a long journey; Jericho was about 10-20 miles northeast of Jerusalem. And no matter which direction people traveled from Jerusalem, they were always going “down,” because Jerusalem was higher in elevation (v30). But along the way, the man in Jesus’s parable “fell among robbers” (v30). These bad guys “stripped him,” they “beat him,” and they left him “half dead” on the road (v30).

Jesus then told of three different types of men who came upon this man in desperate need. The first was a “priest,” and the second a “Levite” (v31-32). Both of these guys were among the highly respected class of Jewish people. They would have been the heroes of any story told by the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’s day, but that’s not the direction that Jesus went with the story.

Jesus said that these two both “passed by on the other side” of the road, avoiding the man, minding their own business, and leaving the man to suffer whatever might become of him (v31-32). No doubt, Jesus’s hearers would have made up excuses for the priest and the Levite in Jesus’s story. “What could they do?” “The man was almost dead anyway.” “Maybe the priest and the Levite had important things on their own agenda that could not wait.”

But then Jesus introduced yet another character in the story, a “Samaritan” (v33). The Samaritans were the outcasts of first-century Jewish society. They were the impure and idolatrous people who did not deserve a seat at the table. But Jesus made the Samaritan man the heroof His story.

The Samaritan “saw” the desperate man, and “he had compassion” or “pity” for him (v33). He “bound up his wounds,” he “set him on his own animal,” and he “took care of him” (v34). Not only that, but the Samaritan even paid to have someone else take care of the injured man until he could return to ensure that the man would recover (v35).

Then came Jesus’s pointed question, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (v36).

And, of course, the answer is that it was the Samaritan – “the one who showed him mercy” – that demonstrated true love of neighbor (v37).

Now, here’s where we need to be very careful to apply this parable correctly. Remember that Jesus’s purpose in Luke’s account of this exchange is not primarily to teach godly people how to live. No, Jesus’s primary aim was to expose the sinfulness in the heart of the man asking the insincere question about love of neighbor. Thus, the moral of the story is not (first and foremost), “go, and do likewise” (v37)… but rather, admit your lack of love, confess your sinful heart and wicked ways, and trust in the only one who has demonstrated this kind of love.

The Samaritan in Jesus’s parable represents God, and His love for the unworthy in Christ. It was Jesus (who was the most holy and the most justified in leaving destitute sinners right where He found them)… it was Jesus (who left the glory of heaven and took on our infirmities, our weaknesses, and even our sin)… it was Jesuswho showed the kind of love and compassion we see on display in this parable.

The primary point of the parable… the main purpose of it… is like the first use of the law – see this good example of genuine love and compassion and confess your inability and unwillingness to live up to it! Look to Jesus, who has done all of this and more for guilty sinners like you.

You and I are far worse than the man who fell among robbers… we are where we are in life not because we were ambushed, but (by and large) because of our own bad choices… we rebelled against the holy God, and it is by our own sinful actions that we have suffered the consequences we’ve rightfully earned.

But God, who is “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” (Eph. 2:4-5). This is what it means to be “saved” by “grace” (Eph. 2:5)!

This is the first and primary purpose of the parable… You are a sinner! Look to Christ and be saved!

But a further application of it is for those who are recipients of God’s gracious grace. The third use of the law is that of a teacher… We who have been loved so much by God, who have received so much compassion and care from Him… We ought to know better than anyone else what it feels like to be loved by someone who gives without expecting anything in return… And we ought to now live in such a way so as to show this same kind of love to others.

We ought not pass by those in need, because we have already been helped by Christ when we were in our most desperate state. We ought not count our time, our treasure, and our talent as our own, becauseall the good we have is a gift from God. We ought not neglect to show love of neighbor, because the God who owes us nothingbut justice has already shown us the greatest love and compassion.

How, then, do we live as those who truly love our neighbor?

4. Ethics, Proximity, and Ability

I’m arguing, with this last point today, that Christians ought to show love of neighbor by active engagement with the world around them, according to biblical ethics, proximity, and ability. These are not only drawn from Luke 10, but rather are principles that we find presented throughout the Bible.

The specific applications are going to look different for each of us, because we don’t all have the same circumstances. And we are also going to see the particulars a bit differently as we encounter them. But the principles I’m offering here are a good starting point for all of us.

First, we ought to love our neighbor according to biblical ethics.

In our post-Christian culture today, love of neighbor has been redefined to mean that we should affirm just about anything a person thinks or says or does. Love means not asking questions, it means not weighing the morality of one’s own decisions, and it means never making any judgment-statements about what a person ought to do or not do.

If there is a person in need of something (even if that “need” is a claim of their own invention), then it is assumed that love means contributing to it.

If a person needs money, then love demands that we give it. Never mind that the person has been idle, wasting resources on frivolous things, and expecting handouts from others for years.

If a person needs affirmation, then love demands that we give it. Don’t wait for them to do or say something worth affirming, and don’t evaluate whether what they are doing or saying is the kind of thing one ought to affirm.

Now, we don’t want to become cynics (always assuming the worst of others), but we also should not be so gullible as to think that love means always saying “yes” to anyone’s requests or demands.

We must show love according to biblical ethics, and the Bible teaches us that bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. The book of Proverbs is full of this kind of wisdom. “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” (Prov. 6:6). “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man” (Prov. 6:10-11). “A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech… with perverted heart [he] devises evil… therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing” (Prov. 6:12-15).

Both the OT and the NT warn us of sinful and lazy living, and we show real love to those who are suffering the consequences of such things by calling them to repent and mend their ways. We do not help them by enabling them to continue on their path toward self-destruction.

Brothers and sisters, we ought to love our neighbor by speaking the truth to them, by showing them how to live according to godly principles, and by helping them to embrace biblical ethics… pointing them to the gospel of Christ (for sure) and calling them to believe and live according to Christ’s commands.

This often does include sharing our own resources with others in need, but we ought not limit ourselves to giving charity. Let us be the sort of people who come alongside those in need around us, who get involved in their lives, and who consider well what it might look like for us to be a genuine help to them (not just an open bank account or a cheerleader on the sidelines of their failing lives).

Second, (speaking of those around us) we ought to love our neighbor according to our proximity to them.

It is impossible for us to care about every need in the world, much less to do something about it. Furthermore, we often don’t have a complete understanding of what might be a real solution to a given problem.

Brothers and sisters, the Bible teaches us (and Christians throughout history have understood) that we ought to love others in terms of proximity… even to have different expressions of love that play out in concentric circles.

The most proximate people to us are our family members. The NT offers instructions for meeting the needs of impoverished widows, saying, “honor widows who are truly widows” (1 Tim. 5:3). In other words, take care of those who truly have no one else to do it and nowhere else to turn.

“But,” the passage goes on, “if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Tim. 5:4). The larger principle here is that close family members should feel a sense of responsibility to one another.

Long before there were social programs, people have been taking care of one another in times of need. This not only benefits the needy, but it also teaches everyone to be less selfish in our thinking about our resources and more charitable with our time, treasure, and talent.

The next level of concentric circles (the next most proximate to us) is that of the local church. The vast majority of the verses in the NT about charity (nearly all of them) are aimed at Christians in relationship with other Christians.

We are to “mind” or tend to our “own affairs,” to “work” with our own “hands,” and to aim to be “dependent on no one” (1 Thess. 4:11-12). And we are to help relieve fellow church members (Acts 2:44-45) and contribute to the ministry of the word and prayer (1 Tim. 5:17-18).

Outside of our own family and our own local church, we ought also to contribute to the advance of the gospel and the establishing and maintaining of healthy churches beyond our own. And if we have any further time or treasure, then we ought to invest it in the improvement of the communities in which we live.

Family – our local church – Christianity more broadly – our community – our state – our nation – the world more broadly… These are the concentric circles that we would do well to keep in mind when we are thinking about how we might best love our neighbor.

Remember, brothers and sisters, none of us can bear all the problems we might learn about in a given day… and most of us probably won’t be a tremendous help to many of the problems, evils, or injustices outside of our own immediate family and our fellow church members. It is for us to live faithfully with what we have, to consider how we might show love for others nearby, and to aim to express the same sort of compassion that God has already shown us in Christ.

Third, we ought to love our neighbor according to our ability to be a genuine help to them.

This last one might be the most important of all three (at least to our sanity). Like the other two principles we’ve already discussed, this last one is intended to temper our expectations a bit… But this one is also to ease our consciences if we sometimes feel overly guilty for not being able to help when others may need it.

Now, if any of us are overly stingy with our time, treasure, and talent… if we are prone to defend what’s ours and to demand our rights, then we ought to feel a bit guilty. After all, I’ve been saying today that Christians ought to be the mostself-sacrificing and the least self-protective people in the world, because we (of all people) know what it is like to receive gracious grace from the Lord Jesus Christ (we didn’t deserve it, He didn’t owe it, and we can never pay Him back for it).

But some of us may feel a sense of undue guilt or anxiety because of our inability to meet all the needs around us. Barry pointed out some time ago (rightfully so) that I am not the person you should ask to help you with certain kinds of problems (like a construction project or an auto repair or an estate planning strategy). These are not my strengths, and I am not ashamed of it.

All of us have different life circumstances, different skills, different interests, and different kinds of resources. There are certainly areas where we all could improve, but our aim must be to use what we do have in ways that demonstrate genuine love for others around us.

Conclusion

Friends, Christians ought to show love of neighbor because we are already recipients of God’s love. We ought to point sinners to Jesus, we ought to order our lives according to God’s design, and we ought to call others to do that too. As Christians, we ought to show love in practical ways as we are able to those who are nearby according to biblical standards of morality.

May God help us to live this way… may He be glorified by our efforts… and may our homes, our church, and our communities benefit greatly.

Endnotes

[i] See this brief and helpful description of the three uses of the law by Ligonier Ministries: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/threefold-use-law