Vision 5: Value #4—Practical Impact

It’s been a great morning of praise and worship, and it’s a joy to be able to share in this experience together. If you’re visiting with us this morning, thanks for being here today. We’d really like to be able to connect with you to thank you for joining us for worship. If you could take a second during my message and fill out a communication card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you, we would really appreciate it. You can return that to us one of two ways: First, you can bring it down to me at the end of the service, because I’d like to meet you and give you a small gift as a token of our gratitude for your visit today. If you don’t have time for that this morning, you can drop the Welcome card in the boxes by the doors as you leave after the service ends. If you’d rather fill out something online, you can head to ehbc.org or download our church app (EHBC Albuquerque) and fill out the contact form at the bottom of the “I’m New” link.

Does everyone in the room know that we have Bible studies on Sunday mornings beginning at 9am throughout the building? We do! And we would love for you to be a part of one of them, because they are a great way to study the Scriptures in a smaller group and start to develop deeper relationships with others in the church body. You can find out more about our Sunday morning Bible Studies on the website or out at the Welcome Center. We also have other Bible studies during the week on various days that you can find and be a part of. Our Bible Study Leaders are the people who shoulder the responsibility for those studies—if you’re a Bible Study Leader, thank you, thank you for all of the work that you put into preparing to lead your group through the Word.

Announcements

AAEO ($10,490). Goal: $23,500. In a time when there were very few leadership opportunities for women, Annie Armstrong (1850-1938) worked to make sure the Bay View Mission in Baltimore was able to serve the poor and addicted in that city. Annie later helped form, and was the first executive director of the Women’s Missionary Union, also called the WMU. This is the only surviving photo of her. She traveled the U.S. and worked hard to raise awareness and support of missions and a passion for the lost among Baptist churches. The annual Home Mission Offering was renamed for Annie in 1934. Southern Baptists have given over a BILLION dollars to this offering since 1934. Every cent of this offering goes to support missionaries and church planters in the U.S. and Canada. The national goal this year is $80 million. Part of those funds will support the church plant called Cross Community Church @ Ames in Louisiana. We saw part of Troy & Chanel Gause’s church planting story last week. Here’s part 2:

VIDEO—Troy & Chanel Gause Part 2

Opening

We are currently in the very middle of a sermon series where we are considering our mission as a church family, the core values that we both believe define us and that we desire to define us as this particular body of Christ, and the outcomes that we long to see God use the people and the ministry of Eastern Hills to work in people’s lives. To this end, our mission is (say it with me): People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Church, as are you giving thought to this throughout the week? How can we, just regular people, help other people first experience and then live the unexpected love of Jesus every day?

Our four core values as a family are:

AUTHENTIC FAMILY: We have fun and encourage each other in life’s ups and downs.

REAL TRUTH: We dig into Scripture for clarity in a confusing world.

TRANSFORMATIONAL GROWTH: We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together. We considered this last week, where we learned from 2 Peter 1 that transformational growth is divinely-powered, knowledge-driven, diligently pursued, and kingdom-confirming.

We will reinforce this a little bit today as we consider our last Core Value: PRACTICAL IMPACT: We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.

As I have mentioned over the last few weeks, our Core Values are both informational and aspirational: they describe both who we are as a church family now and who we WANT to be in the future.

Our focal passage this morning is found in Luke 10, verses 25 through 37. So as you are able, please stand as a show of honor to the reading of the Word of God this morning, and turn in your Bibles or Bible apps to Luke 10:

Luke 10:25–37 CSB

25 Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” 28 “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. 34 He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”

PRAYER

I know that we just finished going through the Gospel of Luke for the last year, and so we just saw this passage at some point in that time. In fact, on July 13 of last year, we looked at the entirety of Luke 10 in a single message. But this passage is basically where the explanation sentence of this Core Value comes from, so I really couldn’t NOT preach it. We didn’t really unpack this much in July, so this morning, we’re going to go a little deeper.

One thing that I realized about our four Core Values as I contemplated this last message on them this week is that, in perhaps a simple way, our four Values each speaks to a different aspect of our life as a church family: Authentic Family speaks to who we ARE. Real Truth speaks to what we BELIEVE. Transformational Growth refers to what GOD is doing in us. Practical Impact is what we want to DO.

I think that nearly all of us would agree that we want Eastern Hills Baptist Church to have a genuine, practical impact in the lives of actual people outside of the 300-ish people who are in this room this morning or who are watching online.

However, this leaves us with questions: WHO is responsible for that impact? WHERE and WHEN should we look for opportunities to have an impact? WHAT are we doing in order to have an impact?

This morning’s focal passage isn’t unfamiliar to most of us. It contains two very well-known portions of Scripture: The Great Commandment and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And my prayer this morning is that as we look at this passage, we will come to answers to these questions—answers that we will then live out.

And first, before we face those others, we must consider the question that is most important.

1: The most important question

It might have been easier to just look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan this morning by itself, since it is so directly related to the Core Value of Practical Impact. However, the context of the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke is absolutely vital if we want to understand just what Jesus was saying. So verses 25-37 form a united whole: we aren’t really understanding the parable if we leave off the part about the Great Commandment, because the parable flows out of this expert in the law asking Jesus the most important question:

Luke 10:25–28 CSB

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Luke give us some insight into the attitude of this expert in the Law. We are informed that this man’s question wasn’t genuinely something that he was seeking a deeper understanding of, but a “test.” His goal was to see what Jesus would say, hoping that Jesus would somehow get the answer wrong, and this “expert” would be able to show off how smart he is by putting Jesus in His place.

But Jesus doesn’t give into his game. Instead, Jesus flips the script and asks the “expert” what he thinks is the answer to his question. The answer given is an amalgamation of two verses, one from Deuteronomy and the other from Leviticus:

Deuteronomy 6:5 CSB

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

Leviticus 19:18 CSB

18 Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

The point of the multi-part loving of God, both in Deuteronomy and in the quotation in Luke, is not to split the person into three (or in Luke, four) parts, but to say that we are to love the Lord with all that we are: our whole being. Then, we are called to take care of our neighbors as well as we take care of ourselves—including forgiving them if we have a reason to hold a grudge against them.

In Luke, Jesus actually tells the expert that this is the “right” answer. However, the question itself shows a fault in this man’s thinking: that something we DO is how we gain eternal life. To be completely honest, this isn’t exactly wrong. Jesus’s instruction to this man: “Do this and you will live,” is actually true. If you can manage to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, as well as to love your neighbor as yourself in a completely perfect fashion, without fail, for your every moment of your entire life, then you would deserve eternal life. However, we haven’t done this. And, we can’t do this. If this is the standard, then we fail. Every single one of us—except Jesus.

This is exactly why Jesus came! He lived the life we cannot live and loved the love we cannot love—He perfectly did the will of the Father, loving Him with His entire being. And not only that, but He loved us perfectly as well, especially shown in His death on the cross.

John 15:13 CSB

13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

This is how Jesus loves us. He has loved God perfectly, and has loved us perfectly. Only He deserves eternal life. All of the rest of us deserve the wrath of God against sin. But Jesus laid down His perfection to take away our imperfection through His death. And then He put death to death by overcoming it and rising again, never to face death again.

When we repent of going our own sinful way and believe the Gospel—the message of hope through what Jesus has done to take the wrath of God away from us—we are given the eternal life we could never have deserved.

John 3:36 CSB

36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.

We can only have eternal life if we have Jesus, because Jesus is the only source of eternal life:

1 John 5:11 CSB

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

So this expert’s most important question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” is still the most important question. We are given eternal life by surrendering to the truth of the Gospel: believing that we could never earn eternal life, and so Jesus bought eternal life for us by His blood, and then beat death by the power of the Spirit. To be saved, there’s nothing that we actually DO. Instead, it’s more something we stop doing: we stop persisting in our sinful unbelief and give up. Paul said it this way:

Romans 10:9 CSB

9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Will you give up this morning? There’s no way to be righteous before a holy God in your own strength. The only way you can be right before Him is to have the righteousness of Christ imputed or credited to your account. And that happens through faith in what He has done for us. Confess to God that you surrender and believe. You could pray something like:

“God, I admit that I have sinned and turned away from You. I don’t want to go my own way any more. I believe that Jesus died to pay for my sins and that He rose again, and that He is Savior and Lord. I surrender completely to You, turning from my old life and trusting in what Jesus has done for my salvation. Please save me.” It’s not the words; it’s the heart of surrender that matters. Don’t leave today without settling your answer to this most important question.

With that clearly stated, we move on to our next point:

2: Compassion questioned

This man knew that he didn’t fulfill the Great Commandment that Jesus had just quoted. He knew that he wasn’t “doing” what Jesus said would bring eternal life. He knew that if that was the standard, then he didn’t measure up. But instead of repenting and confessing his need for God’s mercy, he decided that the best plan was to try and move the goalpost, at least of the neighbor part:

Luke 10:29 CSB

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Again, this expert in the Law was looking for a way to be declared righteous on his own merits by having Jesus limit the definition of “neighbor.” The Jewish thinking of the time about who they considered to be their “neighbors” ran primarily along ethnic lines. There were Hebrew people, generally seen as “neighbors,” and Gentiles, generally seen as “non-neighbors.” There were exceptions to the neighbor rule for certain Jews, such as tax collectors (Matthew, Zacchaeus). If this man were a Pharisee as well, then some Pharisees were so busy looking down on people that they didn’t see those people as neighbors either:

John 7:49 CSB

49 But this crowd, which doesn’t know the law, is accursed.”

These were just the general Jewish populace they were saying were accursed—certainly not “neighbors.”

This expert hopes that Jesus will affirm his shunning of certain people so that he can redeem himself, if not in the eyes of God, then at least in the eyes of the people around him. He knows that loving his neighbor as himself must involve showing compassion to others, and he wants Jesus to agree that not everyone is worthy of this man’s compassion.

Jesus answers with a parable:

Luke 10:30–32 CSB

30 Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

This story would have felt very familiar for the people who were listening to this conversation that day. Jesus refers to a man, almost certainly a Jewish man, making the fairly common journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jericho was about 17 miles east-northeast of Jerusalem, but since Jerusalem was situated on a hill, every trip on foot is “down” from there. The 17 mile trip goes from about 2500 feet above sea level to about 800 feet below sea level in Jericho, so about 3300 feet of descent, through several different climate elevations. Most of the trip is comprised of narrow paths through rocky, hilly terrain, which often formed narrow canyons, and is strewn with caves. It was ideal terrain for bandits and robbers, who had plenty of places where they could hide in order to get the drop on their victims.

So the man in Jesus’s story was set upon by these robbers, who beat him and stole everything he had, including his clothes.

So enters the person who everyone, including the expert in the Law, would have expected to be the hero: the highly religious, highly moral priest. This man would have served in the Temple, and had the authority to make sacrifices. He was in the Jewish elite. But the priest sees the man, crosses to the other side of the road, and continues on his way.

Following along after the priest a bit later is a Levite: a member of the priestly tribe, but not one of the families that could perform sacrifices. This man would have been one who did the “work” of the Temple, perhaps one who policed the Temple mount. He was basically a priest’s assistant, but he refused to assist this man and passed by on the other side of the road.

Helping this man would have been an expected moral obligation, but both the priest and the Levite avoid him by getting as far away from him as possible.

A couple of things to note: First, we can’t really guess as to why the priest and the Levite pass this wounded man by. We can guess all we want, but we know one thing for sure: they didn’t exist. This is a parable, and so these may be perhaps typical people, but they were not actual people. The only way we could know the motivations of these characters that Jesus created is if Jesus told us what their motivations are. Basically, it is enough to simply state that they just didn’t care enough to stop and help.

Second, when they passed by on the other side of the path, this wasn’t a great distance. In the unsafe portion of this journey, it’s not like the path was as wide as Montgomery or even as wide as Morris. It was more like the width of the path from the parking lot to the school door across the courtyard. Eight feet across at most, and often much more narrow than that. When these guys crossed by and passed by on the other side, they could still see the man, still hear him if he was lying there groaning, and were still able to respond to him if he called out to them for help, even if it were merely a whisper.

While our salvation is not earned or deserved by how we help or don’t help someone, one thing we need to notice here is that this man had a legitimate NEED. It’s not that he simply wanted something. It’s that he NEEDED it. He was left “half dead.” Without assistance, he would likely die.

As we saw last week in 2 Peter 1, there are characteristics that our lives should take on that confirm the fact that we have been saved. There’s fruit that our lives are to bear, things we are to grow in that give evidence of the fact that we’ve been brought to life through the Gospel.

The first thing that I want us to consider is that all around us, church, are people with a legitimate, desperate spiritual NEED. They need Jesus. They are bound for Hell without Him. They aren’t just half dead...spiritually speaking, they are completely dead. We have the means of helping them by sharing what we have—the Gospel—with them and pointing them to Jesus. But lots of times we pass by on the other side, don’t we? We do so for lots of reasons. We’re busy. We aren’t sure what to say. We don’t want to be rejected. We don’t want to offend. We’re the priest and the Levite as far as their spiritual needs are concerned.

And in addition to that, we have resources that we can use to serve other people, to bless them when they have other legitimate needs. It doesn’t have to be money or things. It’s time. It’s care. It’s listening. It’s comfort. It’s compassion.

In Matthew 25, Jesus has some hard words for those who think that they belong to Him, but bear no fruit in their interactions with others.

Matthew 25:31–33 CSB

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left.

Matthew 25:41–46 CSB

41 “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger and you didn’t take me in; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn’t take care of me.’ 44 “Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help you?’ 45 “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Again, this isn’t Jesus saying that we earn our salvation by doing these things. Jesus is saying that if we have no fruit in our lives, no love or compassion for other people, then perhaps the reality is that we aren’t actually saved at all. The right response to this discovery? Repentance and faith, followed by obedience. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what is truly going on in your heart and respond accordingly.

At this point, this expert in the Law would have been anticipating what would happen next in the parable. There was an expected interaction that he was looking toward: the religious elite hadn’t helped. The Temple leader hadn’t helped. The expected next person, the “hero,” was likely a Pharisee—the religious examples of the moral common man. But this isn’t what happened.

3: Compassion qualified

The hero isn’t a Pharisee. The hero isn’t even just a common Jewish man who comes along and helps this poor man. Instead, the hero in Jesus’s parable is a Samaritan—a person seen as a pagan “half-Jew” because of the resettlement of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians hundreds of years before Jesus told this story.

Luke 10:33–35 CSB

33 But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. 34 He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’

When most of the U.S. hears the word “Samaritan” today, what do they think that word means? Outside of the church, most have no idea that the actual definition of “Samaritan” is “someone from Samaria.” They think that it refers to someone who is generous in helping those in distress. Because of how the term has so infiltrated our language and thinking, many have no idea that the term comes from the Bible and by itself actually has very little to do with being kind to people in trouble.

However, because of the parable that Jesus told in response to the lawyer’s question in Luke 10, the definition of the word “Samaritan” has morphed into how it is generally used today.

The ironic thing about this is that when Jesus used the term in Luke 10, it likely was met with wide-eyed gasps of disgust from His audience. The Jews hated the Samaritans, and the Samaritans hated the Jews. The Jews had told the Samaritans that they couldn’t take part in restoring the Temple back in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. After that, the Samaritans tried to keep it from being built. Then they had built their own temple on Mount Gerizim, but the Jews had come and destroyed it in 128 BC. The Samaritans later had defiled the Jerusalem Temple courts by coming in right after the gates were opened for the Passover and literally throwing corpses around the Temple (Josephus). Calling someone a Samaritan was the height of insult for a Jew:

John 8:48 CSB

48 The Jews responded to him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you’re a Samaritan and have a demon?”

But this Samaritan travelling this road comes upon this man in need, and he supplies for his need in a bunch of ways. He cleans his wounds with his own wine and olive oil. He bandages those wounds, likely by tearing up his own clothes. He puts the man on his animal, which means that he must walk to wherever the inn is. He cares for this man for the rest of that day, and then pays for the innkeeper to take care of him, likely for about 24 days to follow, and promises to cover any expenses over and above that amount should it be necessary. He expects nothing in return.

The Samaritan makes wise use of the resources that he has—wine, oil, bandages, donkey, money, and even his time—in order to bless this complete stranger who likely would have hated him if they had passed each other on that path in upright circumstances. But the man’s need is what determined the Samaritan’s response. He met the man where he was, and did what he could to meet the man’s legitimate need.

Robert Stein writes,

Jesus and Luke sought to illustrate that the love of one’s neighbor must transcend all natural or human boundaries such as race, nationality, religion, and economic or educational status.

— Robert H. Stein, New American Commentary Series, Volume 24—Luke

See, the point of this parable isn’t that we should be nice to people that we consider to be our neighbors. It’s that we should be much more concerned about BEING a good neighbor than about who our neighbor is. The issue isn’t THEIR identity… it’s OUR identity in Christ that matters. And being a good neighbor to others involves making wise use of our resources, whatever they may be, so that we can show genuine compassion for someone in legitimate need. This is why Jesus said about those on the right (the sheep):

Matthew 25:34–40 CSB

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 “ ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Compassion for others should flow almost naturally out of a mature saving relationship with God, and that compassion (seen last week as brotherly affection and love) confirms that we belong to Christ.

And the impact here is decidedly practical. Are we seeing ourselves as neighbors, or are we looking to limit who we have to be neighborly to? Each of us has a sphere of life that we operate in. And in that sphere are other people that we might interact with—our neighbors. And we each have resources that we can use to have a practical, compassionate impact in others’ lives.

This is why this is our fourth Core Value. We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.

4: Compassion called

Very quickly, I want to address the “punchline” of this passage, and then give a couple of tips and resources for helping us be more effective in making a practical impact. Jesus ends the parable by asking the expert a question:

Luke 10:36–37 CSB

36 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”

The answer to Jesus’s question is obvious. There was nothing else that the expert could say. However, he still avoids admitting that the hero of the story was a Samaritan. “The Samaritan” would have been a normal answer to the question, but instead he resists giving the character’s nationality.

Jesus tells him to “Go and do the same.” Go and BE a neighbor. Because if we see ourselves as being a neighbor to those around us, doesn’t everyone we come into contact with become our neighbor? And Paul challenges us to serve others as we have opportunity in Galatians 6:10:

Galatians 6:10 CSB

10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

So what are we going to DO, church? Do we want to have a practical impact in the lives of those around us—our neighbors? Here are a few practical things you can get involved in right now.

Neighborhood ministry. We can learn to be a good neighbor to those who live around you, and make an impact through building those relationships. We want to be a church known for the impact that we have in our immediate community and individual communities. How can we serve the people who we live near, work with, and do recreation with, in practical ways? We call these “Neighboring Moments.” Get to know your neighbors. Listen to their stories. Pray for them. Serve them in simple ways.

The Bless App. BLESS: Begin with prayer. Listen. Eat. Serve. Story/Share. Sign up using the QR code. If you need a link instead of a QR code, let me know by email.

And we want to celebrate those moments where we do what we can with what we have as we have opportunity as a church family. But to celebrate them, we’re going to need to record them. So we’re launching a new email address and text number for you to send in your Neighboring Moments reports. When you serve your neighbors in some sacrificial way, let us know. Email impact@ehbc.org. Text 505-226-3445 (keep in mind that you likely will not hear back from either email or text...it’s not really for two-way communication). This isn’t about showing off or bragging, so generally only one person on staff (Trevor) is going to be looking at the account and bringing reports to staff meeting, and then we’ll start highlighting one or two reports anonymously each Sunday. What gets celebrated gets repeated, so start sending in your reports of how you’re making a practical impact in the lives of your neighbors!

Closing

Church, we are the body of Christ—including His feet to go and hands to serve. We are called to have a practical impact in the lives of our neighbors. We are to seek to meet their needs wherever we find them.

So to bring it back around to our initial questions about practical impact:

WHO is responsible for that impact? We are called and commissioned to have a practical impact in the lives of our neighbors.

WHEN and WHERE should we look for opportunities to have an impact? Wherever and whenever we get to be a neighbor, because the neighbor relationship is defined by our identity and by their need.

WHAT are we doing in order to have an impact? We should be making wise use of the resources that God provides to us in order to bless others in their need.

But ultimately what we see in this passage is that Jesus is the true example of a neighbor, because He gave all that He had for our benefit and blessing because of the true need that we had. We’re the man in the parable, beat up and dead. We were separated from God because of sin, and Jesus spanned that gulf by His life, death, and resurrection. Eternal life is found only in believing in Jesus.

Baptism

Church membership

Giving

Prayer

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Ex 26, Jn 5, Pro 2, Gal 1)

No Pastor’s Study - business meeting then Wendy’s. Must have a quorum of 50 members to vote.

Prayer Meeting this week: back to looking at the Names of God

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Romans 13:9–10 CSB

9 The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.

Go and make an impact this week!

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