Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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.”

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.”

“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?”

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.