Parable of the Good Samaritan

Good Morning, welcome to our service.. we are in our Summer Series - The greatest stories ever told and going through the parables of Jesus taught…Jesus parables were about the Kingdom of God, about the importance of having right relationship with the father… about having right relationship with one another… and about the end of times.. The parables were designed for us the hearers to meditate and to seek truth… parables both hide and reveal truth… it was to feed those who were hungry for spiritual truth and hide it from those who were continually trying to test Jesus…and had the wrong motives..

This morning we are going o be looking at the parable of the Good Samaritan.. One of the most well known parables… Even if you know nothing about the bible you have hear the phase — A good Samaritan.....we associate a good Samaritan with good deeds.. we say this person is a Good Samaritan…

But as we dive into this parable we are going discover that is much deeper than doing good deeds and good works…The parable deals with both our Belief and our Convictions....

What is the difference between a belief and a Conviction?

When you living in the city getting on off the subway becomes second nature… When you are visiting a city it becomes a little more challenging… You have think about everything...finding the right platform... making sure your on the right line...heading in the right direction...

The point is that you have to be standing on the right platform to get onto the right train... When it comes to our belief system... they are like those platforms they are important…We stand in Faith.. There is a part of faith that needs to be rational.. it needs to engage the intellectual part of us... Faith requires understanding… faith requires the platform of belief..

OUR beliefs are what help us head in the right direction…WHEN OUR BELIEFS ARE WRONG WE ARE HEADING OFF IN THE WRONG DIRECTION..

but belief is not enough... James says you have faith that is good let me show you my faith by my actions...

James 2:17–18 ESV

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James tells us that Faith and deeds are an imperative... Faith needs Action --- or Conviction... Faith is standing on the platform.... It takes Conviction to get on the train... You can have all the faith you want... but it takes action on the conviction to get into the train.. If you don't have the conviction... the train will come and go and you will be left on the platform...

We see this in the very definition of Faith… One of the great chapter on Faith is Hebrews 11..

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith is the assurance — the intellectual part of Faith… we assurance of things hope for.. Faith is also the conviction… that help us with the unknowables…

When you bring faith and belief together it is power… the author of hebrews says.... That is by Faith --- Belief and conviction that we understand that the

universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

This is imperative for us as a church... What brings us together is BELIEF.. Things like statements of Faith and the apostles Creeds…

One faith, One Lord, One Spirit, one body, one Lord.. .... these kinds of statements hold doctronial value...

There is a unity and oneness that brings us together as Church... It is what pulls us together...

But Conviction is what makes us go out into the the world AND LIVE OUT our FAITH.... GET THIS IT is not Belief but Conviction... It is the conviction that we are living in world that is suffering -- in a world that lost and is in need of saving... IT IS THE CONVICTION THAT JESUS CAME TO SEEK AND SAVE THE LOST.... without the conviction OF FAITH... We standing on the platform… and we can miss the train..

T/s Why does our Belief and Conviction always go hand in hand?

1. Belief on it's own leans towards self-justification

The parable of the Good Samaritan, begins with a question from a lawyer an expert in the law …He was not a lawyer like you or I would think of a lawyer today. We think of lawyers in terms of civil or criminal law.

An expert of the Law an expert in the Law of Moses and the Mosaic Law and the Old Testament law and all of the rules and regulations have been added to that in Judaism.

There is a wide range of questions He could have asked but… He asks Him the question of all questions… Te.. How Can I inherit Eternal life? The question is a belief question… He is challenging Jesus theology..

He was attempting to trip Jesus up… lets read the set up for our text..

Luke 10:25–29 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.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Now first of all we need to understand that the lawyer is not really wanting to know the answer to this question … In His mind He already has Eternal life..

As a Hebrew part of the covenantal people… all he would need to keep the law so that at the time of his death he would continue to be part of those of the covenant and promise.... He would literally inherit eternal life… by virtue of his birth…as long as he kept the law...

Judaism was a works/righteousness religion so thinking that he knew all the 722 plus laws and he had all the boxes checked off...

He wasn’t questioning his own salvation… He was trying to set a trap for Jesus…

He is thinking that he is going to stump Jesus with this question… Because he thought that..... if Jesus really knew the law there is no way he would be hanging out with tax collectors and sinners… there would be no way he would be talking about eternal life and the kingdom of God… without adding of the requirements of the law...

So, Jesus responds to the lawyers question with a question…

Jesus responds, “ ‘What is written in the Law?’ . ‘How do you read it’ ” (Luke 10:26).

Don’t you hate it when somebody does that? And Jesus was a master at it, and he’s doing it for a reason. He says, “You’re a lawyer, what does the Law say?”

The challenger finds that himself is the one being challenged.

The lawyer has no hesitation…he basically gives a pat answer .... He says

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and all your mind... and love your neighbor as yourself...

This guy did not think this up. We know at the time law experts had studied the moral law of God and had come up with these basic two principles -- From two important verses —One is

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

This was taken from the Shema… that was prayed every morning and evening… reminding Israel that the Lord is One God… and Lev 19:18 love your neighbor…

Jesus says to the man you have answered correctly…The Bible Scholar basically gets good grade A+ ---

This command if foundational to both the OT and NT… Jesus was asked by a Pharisee what is the greatest commandment… Matt 22:37 you shall love the Lord your God with you whole heart soul and mind… and the second love your neighbor as your self...

Jesus says to the Lawyer… follow what you already know and you will live...

This is the point where the lawyer begins to realize that Jesus is turning his own argument against him... When you start an argument.. the last thing you anticipate is for the other person to agree with you...

Now, he feels the need to defend his position... The scripture tells us that... Desiring to justify himself.... He ask who is my neighbor?

When I was fresh in college --- We had one particular professor that would remind us the importance of interpretation is definition --- He would say definitions — definitions…

Definitions are important.... because what Jesus understood as a neighbor and what the lawyer saw as definition were two different things..

The Jews understood this to refer to members of the same religious community, that is, fellow Jews and this is how the lawyer would understand it

The Jews split hairs over this question and excluded from “neighbour” Gentiles and especially Samaritans.

“We can’t love everyone! Where do you draw the line? What about tyrants? What about blasphemers? Really, Jesus, who is my neighbor?

Here is Jesus hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes... How would you define Neighbor?

This lawyer was wanting to win an argument... but there is a flaw... and he identifies the issue himself... Who is my neighbor?

the lawyer wanted to make the issue somewhat complex and philosophical, but Jesus made it simple and practical. He moved it from duty to love, from debating to doing.

To love the neighbor as oneself does not mean to love the other as much as you love yourself, but it does mean to love the neighbor in the way you would love yourself. The call is to behave toward the other with the same consideration and concern that one naturally (and properly under most circumstances) shows about one’s own welfare

T/s Why does our Belief and Conviction always go hand in hand?

2. Belief on it's own leans towards being Self-Serving

The parable of the Good Samaritan is the response to the simple question who is my neighbor?

Jesus tells this story of a man who was going on this journey down from Jerusalem to Jericho…Jericho was about 15 miles from Jerusalem... It was a suburban-type community, was where priests often lived, traveling to Jerusalem to perform their duties.

Not only was it a WELL TRAVELED road BUT IT WAS ALSO notorious for its robberies and became even more dangerous when Herod laid off forty thousand construction workers, leaving plenty of unemployed, some of whom turned to crime..

Five miles above Jericho was a particularly treacherous pass called “the red or bloody way,” because it was very easy for someone to be hiding, a gang of robbers to be hiding in a cave and to prey upon unsuspecting passersby…

This Jew who is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho falls into some unfortunate circumstances… He is attacked by these robbers steal his clothes, is possessions, the beat him to the point where he was hanging onto his last breath… An while he lay there dying a priest happened to be traveling on the same road… Those listening to this parable would have been thinking… How fortunate for this man..

So, a priest who knew the responsibility of the Law toward strangers and to the needy..The law was clear in that you not only took care of your friends but even your enemies… Exodus 23 talks about even if your enemy has a donkey stuck in a ditch, you should help the donkey out of the ditch much more so the enemy if he is stuck in the ditch.

But when the Priest sees Him... he passed over to the other-side...

Literally, he walked the opposite way. The Greek verb indicates that he went as far away as possible.. Now, this is shocking that a priest --- who knew the law would by pass the injured man...

There has been much discusion on why this priest might have avoided this man...

Charles Spurgeon in a sermon speculated that...

Perhaps he was going down to dedicate some synagogue, or preach a sermon on some important subject, and had the manuscript in his pocket. As he was going along on the other side he heard a groan, and he turned around and saw the poor fellow lying bleeding on the ground, and pitied him.... But decided he had too much business, and could not attend to him..

Other have thought Maybe he feared ambush by the robbers.

It is also possible that the priest thought that the man was dead and was unwilling to defile himself by contact with a dead body (J. Mann*); The Pharisees held that a priest would not be defiled by touching a dead body when there was nobody else available to perform the burial, but the Sadducees stated that he would be defiled..

So, Priest continues on his journey…

Well, no problem because a little later a Levite came along… He was basically the priest’s assistant. The priest had responsibility for the primary sacrificial duties in the temple, and the Levite would care for, maintain the temple and do a variety of other things. And so a Levite, who also knows what the priest knows,

Here is the thing both the Priest and the Levite… Don’t stop… What is implied here is that both of them must have Justified their actions ---or rather they made an excuse for their inaction...

That is what you would call belief without Conviction…That is standing on the platform… not willing to get on the train… These men had Belief and not conviction...

T/sWhy Belief and Conviction always go hand in hand?1. Belief on it's own leans towards self-justification2. Belief on it's own leans towards being Self-Serving

3. Belief and Conviction together leans towards Compassion

Dr. Laurence M. Gould, president emeritus of Carleton College, said

“I do not believe the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles. I don’t think our civilization will end that way. I think it will die when we no longer care. Arnold Toynbee has pointed out that nineteen of twenty-one civilizations have died from within and not by conquest from without. There were no bands playing and flags waving when these civilizations decayed. It happened slowly, in the quiet and in the dark when no one was aware.”

So, at this point we still have not met the good Samaritan… . The real shock of the Parable is not the inaction of the priest and the levite but rather the actions of the Good Samaritan...

In a Jewish mind there was no such thing as a good Samaritan… There was a deep hatred between Jews and Samaria went back over 400 years.... The issues centered around racial purity, because while the Jews had kept their purity during the Babylonian Captivity, the Samaritans had lost theirs by intermarrying with Assyrian invaders. Not only that they set up a rival temple… on Mt Gerzim rather than Solomons temple in Jerusalem…

There was great animosity between jews and Samaritans…

Jesus continues the story ---- So Here comes one of those you...know... Samaritans -- Half breeds…But, when the Samaritan saw the man left for dead on the side of the road he had compassion--- He is deeply moved by this mans suffering.

This is Extraordinary... unusual compassion… unexpected compassion.. That went way across religious and ethnic boundaries...

If we are honest most us are drawn towards sameness… People that are similar to us… similar backgrounds... There have been a few times around Chico where we have over heard familiar South African Accent… Immediately there is that recognition… it might be the way something is phrased.. We nearly always stop and have a conversation…because we are attracted to sameness..

.. But the Gospel is never about sameness… it dismantles all ethnic barriers… The great commission is to

Matthew 28:19 ESV

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

The world nations is the word enthnos all peoples and tribes… it literally means every enthnic group..

The Gospel is inclusive about every person..those us who carry the words of life are responsible to exerercise unusual compassion… towards those who are different from us...

We learn from the Samaritan of unusual Compassion..

What does it mean to have compassion?

Compassion is that which causes us so to identify with another’s situation such that we are prepared to act for his or her benefit.

Compassion is a verb not a noun… it does… it acts on behalf of others...

Not only did the Good Samaritan stop , but he began the healing process... bound up his wounds... poured the oil and the wine... healing properties..

Wine was used as a disinfectant to cleanse the wounds, oil was used in the ancient world as a curative.

The irony is that both wine and oil were used in worship in Jerusalem. The priest and Levite—the very ones with a supply—made no attempt to use in practical life what was used in worship. Instead, it is the despised Samaritan who takes these elements of worship and applies them to the broken and bleeding Jew.

He set him on his own animal and too him to the inn and too care of him... He didn't leave him there... spent the night with him.. This didn't take an hour out of his trip... this set this man back a whole day... then he took out two denarii -- equal to two days work and gave it to the innkeeper and said take care of him.. this was extra...

Compassion - impacted His journey, His Time, His Finances... and on top of that he said - if there are any other expenses -- I will take care of that when I return...

We may read this parable and think only of “the high cost of caring,” but it is far more costly not to care. The priest and the Levite lost far more by their neglect than the Samaritan did by his concern. They lost the opportunity to become better men and good stewards of what God had given them..

Some 200 years ago Charles Spurgeon the prince of preaches stood up in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Chicago…..

“Chicago needs Christians whose hearts are full of compassion and sympathy. If we haven’t got it, pray that we may have it, so that we may be able to reach those men and women that need kindly words and kindly actions far more than sermons. The mistake is that we have been preaching too much and sympathizing too little...The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of deeds and not of words”

Jesus did not define the word neighbor. He described a neighbor. He doesn't deal with academics he deals with actions..

Jesus turns the question on its head and says, “It’s not about determining who your neighbor is, it’s about defining what it means to be a neighbor.”

That Major shift!!. Not about determining who a neighbor is but defining what it means to be a neighbor who cares for those in need...

Jesus was putting belief and conviction together!

Jesus then asks the religious lawyer... Which of these three PROVED to be a neighbor?

The lawyer -- answers "the one who showed mercy."

The Lawyer couldn’t even bring himself to say Samaritan. He didn’t say the Samaritan had, no, “The one who had mercy on him.” It’s like he doesn’t even want to admit it. And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise”

And in a short story, Jesus has just shattered the religious elite and shocked the religious teachers into realizing that there is a love that supersedes religious knowledge and religious position and religious status...

The question that Jesus answers is who is the real law keeper… the priests or the Samaritan… The lawyer By bowing to the logic that the Samaritan showed mercy — Was admitting that the Samaritan can keep the law better than he can.

the Samaritan was the keeper of the Law. He loved those who came his way as himself, and this showed that he loved God with all his heart...

Therefore the one who has true faith has eternal life… Faith and Conviction..

Jesus’ command, “Go and do likewise

When it comes to justification both the Lawyer and the Priest and the Levite tried to justify themselves.. The Bible clearly teaches us that

No one can be justified by the works or the law...

Romans 3:20 ESV

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Remember the Question that this lawyer asked was how can I optain eternal life? There is only one ways.... it through grace.

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

When you think about it the man that was bleeding and dying was the one who received grace… he didn’t do anything in himself to deserve saving… He was left for dead… it is the good samaritan that gave him unmerited favor...

Eternal life for Jesus was Grace...

The Samaritan identified with the needs of the stranger and had compassion on him. There was no logical reason why he should rearrange his plans and spend his money just to help an “enemy” in need, but mercy does not need reasons. Being an expert in the Law, the scribe certainly knew that God required His people to show mercy, even to strangers and enemies

I want us to see this morning is this is not just a story about helping other people. This is not just a story about helping other people. There’s something deeper here. There’s something more profound at work — It is about our belief and conviction… this is a story about us needing a new heart

If we really believed in the importance of people receiving eternal life… Are we acting or on that conviction… or is it just a belief… that we are holding onto...

conclusion

One of the dangers we faith as the Church is complacency...

The editor of American Opinion quotes the statement that William Schlamm a well known journalist who said...

“ the epitaph of our society should be read as : “This civilization died because it didn’t want to be bothered.”

What an inditement on our generation..

What we need is more than a belief system we need the conviction of faith. Faith that moves from complacency to action that moves towards others.... From my agenda to God's agenda..

We need to ask ourselves the question --- What platform am I standing on? What are my beleifs… The second question… If if I have belief what are my convictions? what am I acting on?

What would happen in our lives if our Faith and Conviction went hand and hand... What would that mean for us as a church?