What Do Disciples Do - 2 - See

Scripture: Luke 10:25-37

Luke 10:25–37 NIV

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “ ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

7/13/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Church Update (Finance/Education/Trustees)

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Church Update

Shannon sharing about Finances

Opening Prayer:

Almighty God,

you give the holy law to your people

so that it will always be near us and our children.

Through our Lord Jesus who has fulfilled the law in every way,

grant that we may love you with heart, soul, strength, and mind,

and our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.

See

Questions and Answers

Have you ever had a deep conversation with Jesus?

We often think of prayer as bringing our requests to Jesus, hoping for a clear “yes,” “no,” and sometimes hearing Him say, “not yet.” That can be helpful. But sometimes, I wonder if He is waiting for us to have a different kind of conversation. Not just to ask for things, but to really know Him. To ask the kind of questions that help us understand His heart.

I remember one of the last meaningful conversations I had with my dad. It was just before my brother’s wedding. Life was chaotic, and I was wrestling with big life decisions. My dad didn’t have fancy degrees, but he had a lot of wisdom earned the hard way—through life, people, and patience. There, sitting in the church where my brother was getting married, waiting for the wedding rehearsal to start, I asked him,

“What do you do when someone you care about makes decisions that don’t sit right with you, and you can’t quite explain why, and there is nothing you can do about it, anyway?”

He didn’t say a word. He just handed me a roll of Tums.

That was my dad’s way of saying, “You’re going to have to live with some hard questions.” That response said more than words could. It reminded me that some of the most honest conversations we have aren’t about getting specific answers—they’re about being seen, known, and understood, and being transformed because of them.

Jesus had conversations like that, too. People came to Him needing healing, freedom, and hope... but occasionally, someone would step forward not just with a need, but with a genuine question. In today’s passage, a man does just that. He thinks he understands how to live a well-lived life. But something about Jesus makes him wonder, Am I missing something?

In one short conversation, Jesus helps him see that life isn’t about being good enough—it’s about becoming the kind of person who loves deeply, across every boundary and obstacle and seeing everyone around us as neighbors.

Seeing Others

This passage is often referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but Luke wrote it in a way that suggests it could have happened in real life.

A law expert steps out of the crowd, and the spotlight shines on him. Is he here to endorse Jesus or to expose Him? Luke doesn’t tell us. His motives are murky, and no one knows what will happen next. Religious leaders often circled each other like wolves, sizing up territory. When one asks a “big” question, it’s often more of a verbal duel than dialogue. They used questions like weapons to publicly shame their opponents when they could not answer them correctly. The expert’s opener is just that: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

But Jesus refuses to join the dominance game. He sends the question back: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” To us, that might seem rude, not answering the question at all. But for a wolf-type teacher, it may have been taken as a compliment—handing the microphone to the scholar in front of his peers. No wolf could turn down an audience to show their stuff.

Without hesitating, the man recites the Scripture: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” Centuries of debate by the best and brightest teachers had reduced all of life to those two short commands, so that all people could learn to follow God. The teacher's students probably clapped—the crowd gives him an Amen. Even Jesus nods. “You’ve answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

But the contest isn’t over. If obedience is that simple, anyone could do it. What then is the point of spending your life learning the Law of God? Wanting to “justify himself,” the expert tosses back one more invitation to the verbal duel of dominance. “And who is my neighbor?”

Right there—between verses 28 and 29—Jesus shows us the true challenge of being a disciple. Our problem is rarely ignorance; most of us know enough Scripture to start living with and following Jesus. The question is whether we’ll act on what we know, especially when that call to love God and neighbor stretches beyond our comfort zone. The teacher’s follow-up question opens the door for Jesus to teach everyone how important it was to see others as they truly are, not as they appear to be.

Looking Closer

Jesus tells them a story.

A man—a Jewish man, and that’s important—is walking alone from Jerusalem to Jericho. That road was dangerous. Everyone knew that. We heard about such a man who met Jesus and wanted to follow Him a couple of weeks ago. Walking this road alone was asking for trouble. And sure enough, trouble came.

Robbers attacked him. Beat him. Stole everything he had... even his clothes. They left him for dead, bleeding and unconscious in the dirt. No name. No possessions. Just a broken body on the side of the road. Jesus doesn’t tell us how long he lay there. It could have been hours. Perhaps days. People probably walked by—merchants, soldiers, families. But Jesus draws our attention to three specific people who saw the man.

First: a priest. A man who was supposed to bring people to God. Priests were the people the Jews went to for forgiveness and healing. They set you right physically and spiritually. If anyone should have known what healing and wholeness looked like, it was him. But he saw the man... and looked away. He crossed to the other side of the road as he passed. Maybe to stay clean. Maybe to stay safe. Whatever the reason, he didn’t look closer; he moved away from the man in need.

Second, there was a Levite. He was a man from the tribe that cared for the temple, who lived every day in the presence of God. His entire family, for generations, worked and worshipped in the presence of God, so that they could bring everyone else to God's presence on the Sabbath days and during those week-long holy festivals they celebrated several times a year. He saw the man too. Did he pause? Did he think about helping? Maybe. Maybe not. In the end, he too moved away and was never close enough to see the man’s pain.

Finally: a Samaritan. The kind of person the crowd hated. Remember them? They were the ones the disciples wanted to rain fire and brimstone down upon for being unwelcoming to Jesus when they passed through their towns. They were the red-headed step-cousins of the Jews who tried to take God and start their own Temple and their own religion outside of Jerusalem. The whole crowd around Jesus probably spat in the dirt and cursed when he mentioned Samaritans. But this man, when he saw the broken figure in the road, looked closer.

And when he looked closer, he felt compassion. He didn’t have holy credentials or healing powers. But he had a few supplies and a little bit of money. He used all of it. He touched the man’s wounds, lifted his body, walked beside him, and gave money to provide for his care.

He could have probably helped more people if he had spent his money more wisely. Some might say he wasted it on someone he didn't know would live through the night. Others would point out that he was helping someone who was born, raised, and trained to hate him and all of his people. We don't even know if the injured man was ever conscious enough to know who it was who saved his life.

The Samaritan didn’t need to know the man’s story to see his suffering. He didn’t ask, “Is this worth it?” He saw someone who was broken, and he looked close enough to care. The priest and the Levite kept their distance. The Samaritan came near. He could have made many other choices, but his motive was clear. His motive was mercy.

Followthrough

Our hands and feet follow our eyes. Every athlete knows it—hit the ball, sink the putt, thread the pass, keep your eye on the road, look, then follow through. If you miss the target with your eyes, you will miss with everything else.

Discipleship works the same way.

When we see hurt, do we look away—or do we look closer?

At the end of this story, Jesus threw the question back to the teacher again. He said, Who was the neighbor to this man? The answer is clear. While there is a bit of exaggeration in this story, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus tells it as if it were a true-to-life event. The priest and the Levite might have walked on the other side of the road to keep themselves spiritually clean and avoid trouble. If there is any sense of exaggeration in the story, it is how far the third man goes to take care of a wounded stranger. They can't even say his name. They won't say the Samaritan is the hero of the story. The teacher merely says, the one who showed him mercy.

How can you tell who your neighbor is? It's the one who shows you mercy and the one that you show mercy. And if you think about that, that's a really frustrating answer. That's like Jesus handing you a roll of Tums. Because when the command is to love your neighbor as yourself, but the neighbor is defined as the one you love... Jesus shows that love precedes “neighborness.” It opens the door for anyone to be our neighbor. But that's his point. Love comes first, neighbor status comes second. Mercy makes strangers into neighbors.

So the question is not who is our neighbor. The question is, who will you allow to be your neighbor?

Most of us already know this. Knowledge isn’t our problem. Follow-through is. The priest and Levite had knowledge; the Samaritan had mercy in motion.

So, where do we start?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Today, I'm not telling you to go out and love everybody—that’s not what this passage is about. If you listen to Jesus, this story is about following His lead, often to one person, and loving that one person deeply and well with Jesus. Because if you can’t love one person well, you won’t love three, ten, or everyone else well either.

I’m not even telling you to go find that one person. I’m telling you who it is: Jesus. Love Him like you love yourself—and use that as your starting point. Remember, the first part of the command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That means loving Him first and loving Him well.

And if you're afraid that focusing too much on Jesus might throw you off balance, don’t be. The people in these passages were experts in the law. They were raised worshiping God and taught others to do the same. They claimed to love God. But when the Son of God stood right in front of them—speaking, healing, performing miracles—they didn’t even recognize Him.

So I have to ask: did they really love God? Or did they love their religion, their culture, their position, their ability to talk about faith and show it off? They knew about God, but I’m not sure they knew Him. And I don’t think they truly loved Him.

But if you pour yourself into your relationship with Jesus—heart, soul, mind, and strength—and He does not lead you to love others, to make neighbors and even brothers and sisters of those around you… Then you might need to ask whether you have the real Jesus. The real Jesus came down from heaven, lived and suffered on this earth, and gave His life, so that we could become more than just neighbors, so that we could be adopted into His family.

What are your eyes fixed on?

Where do you see Jesus today?

Who is He looking at right now?

This week, I challenge you to begin every day by fixing your eyes on Jesus in prayer: one minute: sixty unhurried seconds, saying, “Lord, show me more of who you are and what you see today.” Then watch as He directs your gaze throughout the day. Maybe it’s one coworker, one family member, one weary parent in the grocery line. Don’t worry about the crowd; love that one person well. Because if we can’t love one person, we’ll never love any more than that.

Disciples of Jesus keep their eyes on Jesus, and their hands and feet follow through. Let’s set our gaze, step in for a closer look, and let God's mercy move.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, fix our eyes on You today. Forgive us for the ways we attempt to do Your work without direction, led by the loudest voices and overlooking those who have no voice themselves. Forgive us for shutting our eyes when we don't want to see the hurt and feel powerless to do anything. Give us the courage to open our eyes to see and to focus on watching what You do. Then give us the faith to follow where You lead, trusting in You more than our understanding. Help us to stop following the crowds around us and to follow You to our neighbor in need. In Your Holy name. Amen.