Luke 10:25-37 Love Thy Neighbor: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Patton Shinall

The Meaning of the Parables • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

Luke 10:25–37

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We are to love others like Christ loved us.

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Today we are going to be in and as we read this parable, we are going to see that Jesus says that all of the Christian life can be summed up in two commands. One is to love God and the other is to love people.

Have you every wondered why it is so hard to love other people? A common Christian idea is that our highest duty is to love God and to Love other people.

We get the Loving God part. We might not do it perfectly, but we at least get what it means.

However, loving other people is where it gets messy because other people are hard. Not us so much. We are adorable and endearing and everybody that meets us loves us, but other people are really hard to love.

In we are told the Parable of the Good Samaritan which is easily one of Jesus’ most popular and beloved stories. And in this parable, we encounter a man who struggled to know what it means to truly love others.

And through this story, Jesus showed us that if we are going to truly love others, we must love them like Christ loved us.

Eternal Life and the Great Commandment

Luke 10:25–28 ESV

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 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.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

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.”

Luke sets the stage by telling us that a Lawyer stood up and desired to put Jesus to the test.

This is no doubt in response to something Jesus said just before our passage.

Just before our passage, we are told Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Hearing this, the Lawyer realized that Jesus was talking about people like him. Jesus had the gall to say that the things of God were hidden from this Lawyer so he stands up and challenges Jesus.

He asks, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus responds, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

Now this man, being a Lawyer in Israel, was supposed to be a master of Old Testament law. In order to do his job well, he would need to know the ins and outs of the Old Testament Scriptures.

And the Lawyer does prove he knows the law because he quotes to Jesus two important verses from the Old Testament.

First, he quotes saying, “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 the second half of which says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is a great answer because Jesus himself gives this answer when asked by another Lawyer what is the greatest, or most important command in the Law?

In Jesus answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

When Jesus says, On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets, what he is saying is that if you would want to obey all the Old Testament, all you need to do is love God perfectly, and love other people perfectly. Everything in the law points to one of these two commands.

We even see that is true in the 10 Commandments. The first 4 deal with what it means to truly love God with all our life while Commands 5-10 outline what loving one’s neighbor actually looks like.

So the entire moral code given in the Law is summarized by two simple commandments. Love God and love others.

Going back to our story, Jesus hears this Lawyer’s response and says, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Now you’ll remember last week how we referenced this exchange and noted how it is peculiar that Jesus doesn’t share the gospel with this man.

After all, this man is coming to Jesus and asking the most important question anyone could ever ask, “How do I have eternal life? How do I get saved?” Except Jesus knows this man is self-righteous.

He is someone that trusts in his religious good works to get God to love him.

Knowing this, Jesus answers this self-righteous man and basically says, “You want to be saved? Keep God’s law perfectly.”

Jesus isn’t being cruel or lying to this man about how to be saved. He is trying to show this Lawyer his need for the gospel. Jesus was trying to show him that if he really understood the weight of the Law, if he really understood what it meant to keep it perfectly, then he would’ve known that it was impossible for him

This man should have heard Jesus’ response and said, “But I can’t do that! How what hope can I possibly have of being saved?”

Because the Law, the commands of God found in the Old Testament, Paul says in are to act like a mirror. When we look at God’s perfect and holy law we are to see how far short we have actually fallen. The Law was given not to drive us to despair but to drive us to a Savior.

But unfortunately, our Lawyer is not broken over his sin and inability to keep God’s law perfectly. He fails to see his need for a savior and so he doubles down and asks a follow up question.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Who Is My Neighbor?

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

This Lawyer continued to put his faith in his religious good works in order to justify, or make himself right with God.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But before we go casting judgement on this Lawyer, we need to see how every single one of us asks the same question he does.

We don’t find it hard to understand what God’s command love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. Even if we don’t do it perfectly we understand what it means.

However, every single one of us has tried to side step the second aspect of obeying God by asking, just like the Lawyer, “And who exactly is my neighbor?”

And this is incredibly important for us as a church because Jesus says that if we have truly been saved we will love him with all our hearts. Even more explicitly, he says in “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And if Jesus says that all of his commands can be summed up with Love God and love others, then it is crucial that we listen to Jesus’ answer about who our neighbors actually are.

The Jews in Jesus’ day, had a particularly narrow definition of who their neighbor actually was. For them it was a fellow Jew. More specifically it was a fellow righteous Jew. Someone who was faithful to God.

According to them, anyone outside of the nation of Israel could be considered outside the neighborhood of God.

And even more poignantly Jesus tells us in that the popular interpretation of was 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

In other words, the popular understanding of God’s law in Jesus’ day was as long as you considered someone else an enemy, you were relieved from any duty of actually loving that person.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

So basically, according to the Jews like this Lawyer, you didn’t really have to love anyone you didn’t really want to.

And here is what is so amazing about Jesus. Here you have this self-righteous Lawyer who really just wants to make Jesus look foolish and instead of shutting the conversation down and moving on when this man ask, “Okay, but who are the people I actually need to love?” Jesus shows him love by being gentle and patient with this Lawyer and he tells him a story.

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.

So Jesus starts by talking about this Jewish man. And if you are looking at the text, you might ask, “Wait, how do you know he is Jewish?” Because looking at the context this man is going down from Jerusalem the capital of Israel to Jericho.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Now Jericho was about 17 miles away from Jerusalem and every inch of those 17 miles was nothing but desolate countryside. But once you got through this countryside, you would enter into Jericho which was built around an oasis in the desert and became populace.

Because of this, merchants would travel from Jerusalem to Jericho to sell their wares, but the road there was dangerous.

The road to Jericho is surrounded by rocks and caves and was a favorite place for thieves to wait for unsuspecting travelers so that they could ambush them to rob them.

We are told that the man in Jesus’ story fell among robbers who stripped him naked, beat him within an inch of his life and left him there.

Consider this man’s sorry plight. He is all alone on a road that is nothing more than a countryside between two cities. He is beaten and bleeding all the while wondering if he would die before anyone even had the chance to happen upon him on their travels.

As luck would have it, someone does come along and this man gains a little hope that he will not die this day.

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.

Jesus here describes two men that happen upon this poor man who was beaten and left for dead.

First a priest comes down the road. Now priests were like Old Testament Pastors. They helped and led God’s people to worship him.

And coming down the road, the priest saw someone laying on the road. The man was bloodied and not moving. The priest thinks to himself “This man is surely dead.”

Because of this, the priest crosses the road to pass by on the other side without a second thought.

Then a little while later we are told a Levite comes down the road. Now Levites were assistants to the priests. According to the Old Testament, only descendants of Aaron (a son of Levi) could serve as priests, but all Levites were given the responsibility to help facilitate the worship of God among his people.

And this Levite sees the man on the road and just like the priest, instead of stooping down to help, he crosses the street and goes on his way.

And here is what is so surprising. Both of these men were set apart among God’s people to perform works of mercy and help God’s people. They were religious leaders who knew the Scriptures.

They knew the Great Commandment to Love God and to love their neighbors as themselves.

They knew that says “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

So both of these men, who knew that the Law required them to care for the poor and oppressed, but both of them proved that they didn’t really love God all that much because they refused to keep even one of his most basic commandments. To love their neighbor as themselves.

And our temptation is to get to this part of the story and think to ourselves, “How horrible of these two men? I would never have left a man in this kind of need to himself.”

But their attitude is precisely what we see in our own hearts today. We think, “I don’t want to get involved in this. That’s not my problem, I have enough things to worry about.”

We are also guilty of blind indifference and insensitivity to the needs of others, and we might not turn away every time we have the opportunity to help someone in need but we definitely don’t live up to God’s perfect law perfectly all the time to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So we are just like the priest and the levite, unloving and selfish more concerned about loving ourselves than loving other people.

But then Jesus describes a third man who comes along the road.

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.’

The man laying beaten and bloodied in the dirt would’ve looked up and had his hopes instantly dashed. I mean if a priest and a Levite both ignored me, then surely this Samaritan was going to do the same.

But instead, this Samaritan, “when he saw him, he had compassion.” This would have been shocking to the man and Jesus’ story as well as Jesus’ audience.

Because if anybody was not to be considered a “neighbor” it was the Samaritans.

Now the Samaritans were a people group who were cousins to the Jews. In order to understand why there was so much animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans, allow me to give you a five minute history on the entire Old Testament. You might think well that sounds ambitious, but let’s see how it goes.

So God called Abraham out of Ur and promised that through him God would raise up a people and through his line would come a blessing for all the nations, Jesus Christ.

And God blessed Abraham, and he prospered and God began to multiply the Jewish people. Then years later because of a famine, the Jews ended up in Egypt where they were eventually enslaved. Then God sent Moses to liberate God’s people and bring them out of slavery to give them the promised land. This is where God gave his people the Law and said, because you are my people you will live in holiness and obedience to me.

Then, because of disobedience, the Jews wander the wilderness for 40 years but eventually they are brought into the promised land to worship God and live as his people in peace.

Eventually the Jews begin clamoring for a king like the other nations. And God says to Samuel that they have rejected having God himself as their king and that the prophet should install a king as they wish.

Eventually this is how King David comes to power and God promises that through his line he would raise up a king who would reign over God’s people forever and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth for eternity, again pointing to Jesus.

After David came his son, Solomon, and after Solomon died there was political upheaval that led to a split in the Kingdom of Israel. The kingdom was split into two new kingdoms. Israel, also known as Samaria, was in the North and Judah was in the South.

Now the Northern Kingdom was basically run by wicked kings all the time who rejected God and his Law. Because of their disobedience, God raised up the nation of Assyria and Assyria conquered Israel in 722BC.

When Assyria took over, the Northern Kingdom they took most of the Jews out of the land and brought them into exile. In their place, the Assyrians brought in pagan people groups to settle the land.

There were some Jews who were left in Israel and these Jews intermarried with these pagan peoples creating this new race, called Samaritans, that true Jews considered “half-Jews” in the most derogatory sense.

The Samaritans kept some of the traditions of the Old Testament but they also blended in enough pagan worship practices that Samaritan worship became something different from both Judaism and paganism. Think about it like a Christian church joining with Buddhists and Muslims to create a whole new religion while still claiming to worship Jesus. Its kind of like that.

The Samaritans had their own Scriptures which were an appreciated form of the Old Testament and worship in their own temple instead of the Temple of God that was in Jerusalem.

Eventually the Southern Kingdom, Judah fell into disobedience and God raised up the nation of Babylon to overtake them. Babylon conquers Judah and again takes God’s people into exile.

After around 70 years, God uses the Kingdom of Persia to conquer Babylon and Persia allows the Jews to return to Israel to worship God.

When they came back the Jews began to rebuild the temple to worship and the Samaritans offered to help their brothers but the Jews, knowing these people had completely rejected God and worshiped idols, which was the very reason the exile happened in the first place, the Jews denied their help. Then tells us that the Samaritans went from trying to help to trying to sabotage the new temple.

A few years later, the Jews began rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall and Nehemiah and the samaritans again tried to stop God’s people from obeying God.

From that point onward, all the way to Jesus day, Jews and Samaritans had remained bitterest enemies because Jews viewed Samaritans as worst than pagans.

And this is why Jesus’ story is so shocking. If the priest and the Levite failed to help this man than surely this lowlife scumbag Samaritan would do the same or much worst. Instead, he comes to this man, who would’ve looked at the Samaritan as his enemy, and shows the beaten and bloodied man compassion.

And the way Jesus describes how the Samaritan cares for this man shows us two very important characteristics of truly loving other people.

Truly Loving Others Is Inconvenient

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.

The Samaritan comes to this man and binds his wounds and offers him whatever help he can give him from his limited supplies. He pours on oil and wine to help disinfect and heal the wounds at personal expense.

Then Jesus says that he puts the injured man on his animal while he walks alongside the rest of the journey, takes him to an inn and takes care of him.

The Samaritan’s compassion for his neighbor led him to action. He didn’t just say, I’ll pray for you and move on. He did everything in his power to help show mercy to this man who, if you remember would have seen him as an enemy.

He goes out of his way to help a complete stranger that before this day would have himself crossed the street just to not share the same sidewalk as a filthy Samaritan.

In our culture, we are told that love for other people should just come easy. So we, like the Jews reserve our love for people who are easy to love. People we like such as our family or friends.

And if love doesn’t come easy toward someone, that’s ok because they are disposable. The people in our life that are hard to love, in all honesty, we just cut out.

People leave their spouse because they no longer make them happy

We avoid our coworkers we think are annoying and if we do have to talk to them we just send them an email instead.

Or we get irritated when we are asked to serve our brothers and sisters in this church whether that is providing a meal after they have a baby, helping someone in our community group move, or serving in Little Metro to help teach our kids the Bible because if we were all honest, our preference would be to simply receive love rather than actually give love to someone else.

This is why truly loving someone else will always be inconvenient, because of the sinful bent of our hearts it just isn’t our preference or about what we want.

The Samaritan in this story had to let go of his preferred schedule and plan in order to help this man. He was willing to set aside his wants and desires in order to help someone else. He let go of his preferences for another person’s good.

Truly loving other people is inconvenient because we are selfish. But Jesus said according to It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Therefore, if we are truly going to be honest about whether or not we obey Christ in loving other people, we must ask ourselves, am I willing to let go of my selfish wants and desires for another person’s good?

Truly Loving Others Is Sacrificial

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.’

Not only did the Samaritan bind up the beaten man’s wounds and take him to an inn, he even stayed the entire night. Then when he woke up he gave the Innkeeper two denarii.

This was about two days wages and from what we know about hotel rates at this time was that this would’ve been enough for about two months stay.

If that weren’t enough, the Samaritan tells the Innkeeper that if he has to spend any more money to care for the beaten man, then he will pay it back the next time he sees him.

He basically gives this beaten and bloody Jewish man who would have surely looked at the Samaritan with disgust before today, a blank check to get better out of his own pocket.

The Samaritan shows us that to truly love someone else is to make sacrifices that only benefit the other person. The beaten man was a complete stranger to the Samaritan. He had never done anything for him, and yet the Samaritan does everything in his power to show him mercy.

What good is it to love other people when we are guaranteed to be repaid in return. True love does nothing from selfish ambition, to get something back, but only seeks to bless the other person. The Samaritan shows us that truly loving other people means to sacrificially love them.

But Even after all of this, Jesus is not just telling this story to tell us how to treat people who are hurt or in need. The whole point of this story is to answer the Lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?”

So Jesus goes from this story to ask the Lawyer a question of his own.

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.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Jesus Showed Us What It Means to Truly Love Others

The whole reason Jesus told this story was to show this Lawyer that he could not live up to the Laws demands. Remember back in verse 29 we are told that the Lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbor?” in an effort to justify himself.

He was trying to say, Ok, I feel like I have the loving God thing down, but the loving other people thing is kind of hard. Jesus, what is the loophole? Do I really have to love everyone or is it a select group of people? Who exactly is my neighbor?

Jesus’ response that this Lawyer was to go and do likewise was meant to show this Lawyer his need for a savior.

Hearing this story, Jesus’ audience would have seen the love of the Samaritan to be remarkable. However, Jesus’ point is clear. If we truly loved our neighbor like the law demands, perfectly, then the Samaritan’s love would not appear to be so amazing.

Jesus’ point is that we can’t obey the law like this. That we can’t love God and love others enough to earn eternal life. We need new hearts.

We don’t even love our own friends and family members with the perfect love that the Law demands much less our enemies like this Samaritan.

This kind of love is an amazing love. An out of balance love. A crazy kind of love, but what is so amazing about Jesus is that this is the exact kind of love he had for us.

Jesus Showed Us What It Means to Truly Love Others

The Bible tells us that our sin, our in ability to live in perfect obedience to the Great Commandment made us God’s own enemies.

What’s worst, tells us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were in a far worst state than the man in Jesus’ story who fell among robbers. Where he was beaten to within an inch of his life, we we completely dead.

But Jesus, did not see our plight and say, “Well serves them right. What do they expect me to do? I mean we told them if they sinned they would surely die.”

No. But Jesus had compassion on us and came to our world. says, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus showed us love that was inconvenient for him. He was worshiped and glorified in heaven by the angels but he willingly emptied himself, willingly became a man in order to live under the law and fulfill its demands to perfectly Love God and love others for us, and to suffer and die.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

This is why Jesus’ love was sacrificial. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to save us. It was all for our good and his glory. God was not required to save a single person, but because our God is so good, and so loving, he himself paid the penalty for our sin and died in our place under God’s wrath as our substitute.

And three days later he rose again so that when we put our faith in him we are given eternal life. Don’t you see? This Lawyer came seeking eternal life and Jesus’ response showed him that the only way you will ever have eternal life is if Jesus saves you.

We could never have fulfilled all that the law demands in our sin. Let alone the simple commands to Love God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But through the gospel and faith in Jesus, we are saved and given new hearts so that we can truly go and do likewise.

People that could never fulfill the laws demands are given forgiveness and new hearts to go and do likewise.

Go and Do Likewise (Principles For Loving Other People)

When Jesus saves us, we are given new hearts that long to obey God and we are given the power to obey through the indwelling Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, who lives in us.

Because of Jesus, what was once impossible, has become possible. Where once we hated God and hated others as the Bible says, now, through the gospel we are able to truly Love him and love our neighbor as ourself.

Remember, Jesus told this parable to explain who exactly we must consider to be our neighbors. Instead of just saying that a neighbor is anyone you don’t consider an enemy, Jesus uses this story to say that that is the wrong question.

Instead of asking, “Who is my neighbor?” We should be asking “Whose neighbor am I?” In other words, who do I have the power to love and help for their good even if it is inconvenient and sacrificial to me.

Because the main point of Jesus story is that your neighbor is anybody you have the ability to love like Christ loved us. Not just those that deserve to be loved.

So who are we called to love as ourselves? Truly anyone we possibly can. Jesus story seems to show that if you have the power to love someone else you should, and in doing so you will glorify God because that is exactly what God did for us.

So at this point, we could spend hours talking about all the different practical ways we can love other people. What I think would be most helpful for you this morning by way of application would be instead of going through every possible scenario of loving others to tell you two important biblical principles that I hope we as a church will allow to shape our lives so that we can truly love others as Jesus loved us.

Distinguish Between Burdens and Loads

2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

Paul calls us to bear one another’s burdens. The assumption behind this command is there are some things in life that are too heavy for any of us to carry alone and we should seek to love others by helping them carry those burdens.

These are things like getting diagnosed with Cancer, unexpectedly losing a job, or anything that is outside the normal realm of life that burdens us.

Then verse 3 shows us that if we o not or will not bear another’s burdens it is because we think we are above it. That we are not actually called to love them as ourselves.

We know this because when Paul says that by bearing one another’s burdens fulfills the law of Christ, he told us in that the law of Christ was to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Then we come to verses 4-5 and Paul says that instead of seeing ourselves as above our neighbor, we should examine our own life and responsibility before God where Paul reminds us that we will have to carry our own loads.

This is the difference between burdens and loads. The word used for burden describes a heavy and oppressive weight where as the word Paul uses for load is more like a backpack.

The principle here is that there are some things each of us has a responsibility to carry ourselves before God. For example, Paul says if a man does not provide for the needs of his family he has denied the faith and is worst than an unbeliever.

That means its not others responsibility to provide for his families needs its his own.

However, if a man was providing for his family and lost his job, that becomes a burden that we should joyfully help.

Here’s the big idea, loving others doesn’t mean you simply help or serve someone every time they ask because some things are their responsibility before God to carry themselves. However, we should all be quick to help carry one another’s burdens. This is where it takes wisdom from the Spirit to know when something is a burden or a load so that you can love others like Christ loves us.

Count Others More Significant Than Ourselves

If we go back to where we read that wonderful passage about how Jesus emptied himself, immediately before that we read So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

The big idea, is that if we truly want to love others as God commands, may we count others more significant than ourselves. To see other people as more important than us so that we can serve and love them to the glory of Jesus.

Because when you love other people sacrificially, when its inconvenient for you, you show people a very real picture of the gospel of Jesus because that is exactly what Jesus did for us.

That when we are presented with an opportunity to love someone else and we feel tempted to refrain, may we remember this passage and say, “Christ didn’t treat me like that. Christ didn’t just look out for himself, but he loved me when it cost him his life. Let me love them like he loved me.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .