Unraveling the Good Samaritan Parable

Luke chapter 10, we started in verse 25, and we looked this morning, 25 through 37.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And this is part two of a message that we started last week.

But here in the gospel of Luke, Luke moves on to record for us a conversation

between Jesus and get this, y'all, a religious leader referred to,

if you look in verse 25 again, as an expert in the law.

I mean, we're tipped off, though, at the outset that his motives here are not

pure and his question is not an honest one.

But even though his intention here in this passage is to test Jesus,

his question was an important one. What was that question?

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

The wording of the question here, it really implies that he's looking for one

specific act that he can perform that will give him the key to eternal life.

But as he so often did, Jesus quickly, he effortlessly flips the script, right?

The lawyer has come to trap Jesus, but with a single quick question from Jesus,

the expert finds himself on his back foot, right?

And instead of answering the question, Jesus puts it back to him, verse 26 and 27.

And based on his extensive knowledge of the law, he says, what needs to be done in verse 26?

The man's answer, verse 27, is what? Well, it's a combination of Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19.

The law demands both that we love God with everything that we have and that

we love our neighbor as we love who.

Ourselves, right? And so we might expect Jesus here would just verbally eviscerate

this guy, you know, this insincere questioner, because he knew their hearts, right?

But surprisingly, in this passage, he indicates his approval of the man's answer in verse 28.

Matthew 22 also talks about in verses 34 through 40.

And it'll soon become evident, though, that the terms of the commandment need

to be defined carefully.

And so that's where we dive in deeper today, because first of all,

we see the wrong question.

Remember we said that earlier, it's the wrong question. At this point,

the lawyer should probably just cut his losses.

He stood up to test the teacher, maybe hoping that Jesus would say something

controversial about the law of Moses, but it didn't happen.

But Jesus played it straight, affirming here in this passage an orthodox application of what?

The two greatest commandments.

So there's not going to be, we already see, there's not going to be any theological

fireworks today in this passage.

Now the question though lingers in the air.

Has he really met the requirements of the law?

You could ask yourself that same question. Have you really met the requirements of the law?

Could anyone honestly say that they have cleared the bar of wholehearted,

total soul, complete strength, all mind, love for God?

I don't see any hands going up, right?

I don't, right? None of us can say that because Jesus here did not simply affirm the man's theology,

but he instructed him here in verse 28 to actually do what the law commanded in order to live.

I mean, after all, this is what the guy's trying to ask, right?

And sincerely, but he's trying to come to this and trip Jesus up.

But you see, this man was controlled by desire, y'all, to justify himself.

Don't you think we still fall into that trap today? I mean, hey,

how many of you blow it sometimes? My hands up, okay?

I mean, blow it sometimes. Maybe we're, I don't know. You can make all sorts

of reasons why, you know, I was too tired, didn't get enough sleep, whatever.

But we just blow something and we accidentally offend somebody or whatever happens.

Maybe we miss an appointment, whatever it happens to be.

And it's just like, the first thing that we tend to do is what?

Justify ourselves. We make all these excuses as to why it didn't happen,

right? Why something didn't happen.

And that's what this guy's trying to do here. And so, as we said earlier,

he asked exactly the wrong follow-up question.

He should have asked, how can someone find eternal life if they failed to love

God and his neighbor perfectly?

Because we just determined none of us can even meet that standard,

right? We don't do it perfectly.

And in that case, Jesus would have responded with the good news, right?

That he had not come for the righteous and spiritually healthy,

but for those sinners who knew that they were in need of a physician for their

souls, right? As it talks about in Luke 5 that we studied a while back.

You see, we got to remember, church, that Jesus came for sinners.

He didn't come for the righteous because there is none righteous,

as the word says, not even one, not even one.

And so, but however, this teacher of the law didn't want Jesus to justify him.

Instead, he wanted to what? To justify himself in verse 29 there.

He wanted to be right with God on his own merits.

And so he sought to do what everyone operating, get this today,

with a works-based religion do.

Whatever one of them must do. try to lower God's standards down to a place where

they can be cleared by means of what? By means of our own human effort.

So in that light, don't forget this, Eastwood, the man's request for clarification

seems like an effort to limit the law's demands.

If eternal life requires him here to love his neighbor, think about it,

then how tightly can he draw that circle of people to whom he owes that kind of love?

Maybe if he can define the terms of the law just narrowly, he'll be able to

do the things necessary to inherit eternal life.

But let's look at the story that's next. Let's look at the story this morning.

The story that Jesus tells this man, it's well known to all of us here today,

But it's hard for us to appreciate, I think, exactly how shocking it would have been to this lawyer.

We're told that a man was walking down from Jerusalem to where?

Jericho. And, you know, it's a treacherous but commercially important route.

There was a winding 17-mile journey through limestone crags.

It's descended like 3,400 feet to 800 feet below sea level.

Numerous caves along the route provided a perfect place, by the way,

for thieves and robbers to hide.

And as a result, this route was famously dangerous.

In fact, most people would not have attempted the journey alone.

And so when Jesus begins this parable with these words in verse 30,

a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

The stomach of everybody that was listening there, y'all, would have tightened

up. It's like saying a man walked down a dark alley alone.

Everyone probably would be able to guess what happens next. I mean,

the man is going to be robbed. He's going to be beaten.

That's precisely what happens, right? But the attack is not really the important

part of the story. What? What, Brother Jones? What do you mean?

Well, we're not told anything about the man, whether he was rich or poor, good or bad.

We're not even told anything about the robbers. but instead as you look at this

passage today the central actors if you will in this story the ones for whom

we're supposed to learn something are who,

the three passerbys, right? And initially, you know the story,

the victimized man seems to have a good bit of fortune for a priest happens

along down the road in verse 31.

I mean, Brother Ronnie, even though this doesn't compare to then necessarily

in the same way, it's kind of like Brother Judd comes down the road, right?

And it's not a far-fetched development for many priests lived in Jericho and

they would use this road to return home after their temple service had taken

place in the capital city there.

But our hopes here, if we look at the passage, they're going to be quickly shattered, right?

As the priest passes by without adding or aiding, adding to help him or giving

him anything or aiding him in any way.

And in the same way, a Levite comes and goes without helping him in verse 32.

I mean, those are led in worship, right? And it's easy to condemn these two

men as heartless, is it not?

I mean, that's what we see, right? it's like wow they didn't

even help him they didn't do nothing right but their behavior i

want y'all to get this today was not completely without explanation

because after all this was obviously not a safe place to stop the man lying

there in a pool of blood his own blood was probably proof positive that there's

more dangerous people out there in the area in addition the beaten man may have

looked as if he were already dead because the scripture says that he was left half dead in verse 30.

Maybe they thought he was dead. I don't know. But if he were dead,

then touching him would not help

him, but it would result in ceremonial uncleanness for the priest and the.

They did not know if they had any obligation to this man. He was not family,

in other words, and they didn't even know if he was a Jew.

And so perhaps the smart decision for them was simply to keep moving along the road.

But we have the third person to come into the story. Who's that?

The Samaritan in verse 33. Y'all, we've already experienced a taste of the tension,

you remember, that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans.

For a Jew, get this today, don't miss this point.

Samaritans were the kind of people on whom you would actually hope,

as we looked last week, that fire from heaven would fall on them to the Jew.

As we look back in chapter 9, verses 51 through 56 from last week,

and in the ears of Jesus's audience, he would have been roughly, don't miss this,

like an Islamic extremist operative would be to somebody in the West where we are.

Surely that's going to be the villain in the story, right?

That's how they were viewed. But instead, what happens in verse 33?

He took pity on him. And he lavished kindness on the wounded stranger at his

own personal expense, by the way.

And despite all the potential danger, he pulled out what?

Scripture talks about it. He pulled out oil and wine and attended to the man's injuries in verse 34.

And laying the man on his donkey, what did that mean?

Well, that meant he had to walk the rest of the way to the end, right?

And once they arrived there, the Samaritan actually spent his time and a considerable

amount of money making sure that this man's needs were provided for.

It talks about in verse 35 that we read.

And the man's kindness here, don't miss this, it's extravagant, extravagant kindness.

The fact that he is a Samaritan makes this story scandalous with this kind of kindness shown.

So with all that being said, I guess you could say the question that is the

answer, the question that is the answer.

And that's this next part, this next slide that the parable actually here,

you know, it just actually looks at Jesus's answer to the religious leader's question.

He wanted to know how narrowly he could construe his obligation and still please God.

So he had asked, who is my neighbor, right? But in the end, all he gets from

Jesus is a question to answer. What is it? Let's look.

Verse 36, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell

into the hands of the robbers? That's the question.

You see what Jesus did there? He effectively reframed that whole discussion

by asking the question that the teacher of the law should have asked.

Instead of saying, who am I required to love?

The question he should have been asking is, to whom can I be a loving neighbor?

To whom can I be a loving neighbor?

You see, Jesus' closing words here in this passage drives home that point home

in verse 37. What does he say?

Go and do what? Do likewise, right?

Go and do likewise. Love for one's neighbor requires us to imitate the Samaritan

in his extravagant, his costly, his self-sacrificing, dare I say it,

his culture-crossing love.

You see, verse 27 of chapter 6 talks about that followers of Jesus are called

to show love for anyone in need, even if that person would consider us an enemy.

Tim Keller actually summarizes this point well, and I thought I would quote what he said.

He said, we instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves.

We do it for people like us and for people whom we like.

Jesus will have none of that. By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, he said,

Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in

need, regardless of race, politics, class, and religion, is your neighbor.

Not everyone is your brother or sister in the faith, but everyone is your neighbor

and you must love your neighbor.

Wow. I mean, so we look at the real good Samaritan this morning.

Y'all have heard this story a lot. I know you're familiar with it.

This whole incident, though, began with a man asking if you remember how he could inherit what?

Eternal life. But in the end, he wanted to know how he could earn it by his obedience to the law.

And after Jesus defined his obligation to neighbor love in the broadest terms,

he unmasked that question that lingers in the air even today.

Do you still want to depend on your obedience to the law?

Are you still interested in justifying yourself?

Are you or are you now ready to

admit that you cannot earn eternal

life by your religious performance come

on that i mean i didn't hear an amen there but i want to tell you something

you cannot earn eternal life by your religious performance eastwood and in the

end we did not understand jesus parable until we put ourselves in the proper place in the story.

Some of you right now, your brain's working to say, where should I be in the story?

We tend to read it, I think, a lot as if we're only meant to find ourselves

in the people who pass by the helpless man.

In that case, maybe the most important question would be, will you show love

or will you just ignore the needs in front of you?

And as we've seen, that's an important question for us to ask as followers of Jesus.

But when we actually step back and we look at the bigger picture,

we see that we actually bear more spiritual resemblance, you know, to who?

The helpless man dying by the side of the road than we do to the Samaritan.

You see, unless somebody calms Eastwood to rescue him with sacrificial neighbor

love, he's going to certainly perish.

And in the same way, y'all, we are in desperate need of someone to show love

to us in our sin-sick condition.

And from that perspective, we can see that Jesus is the true good Samaritan.

He came to us, y'all, while we were still his enemy, Scripture said.

He met us when we were dead in our sins and trespasses.

He fulfilled the requirements. He paid the price so that our soul's wounds might

be healed. It's only by trusting in Christ's death and his resurrection,

church, for us that we can inherit eternal life.

A lot of times we like to picture ourselves as something that we're not, right?

Man, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And I pray today that you realize

today, Maybe some of you are celebrating the fact that Jesus,

the true good Samaritan, came and lifted you up and forgave you of your sin.

But some of you may today be sitting here thinking that, hey,

I'm going to do it myself.

And this whole passage is where it turns on its head, right?

It's like, no, we're helpless. We're the guy on the side of the road.

We're beaten. We're half dead. We're dead in our trespasses and sins, actually.

Not just half dead, right? We're dead dead. But once we've understood that truth,

we'll find that we're able to truly extend ourselves in love to those around

us who are in physical and spiritual need.

In fact, a heart that's been touched by the unmerited love of Jesus will be

moved to show that love to other people, y'all, who may not deserve it, who don't deserve it.

Because newsflash, I don't deserve it. You don't deserve it.

Jesus has loved you.

Go and do likewise. It's time to stop warming a pew, and it's time to go fulfill

the Great Commission, to go into all the world, make disciples. Amen?

There's a lot of people in need out there, a lot of people who are struggling.

And I hope today, if some of you found yourself in this place today,

maybe you've never come to that point where you realize that you needed any help.

Maybe you always thought you were a good old boy or a good old girl, right?

You know, we always think, oh man, I know Jesus is the only way, but do we?

Because it seems like we always try to justify ourselves. We always try to make

ourselves a good guy. We always are doing that.

Somehow we think if we do enough, do, do, do, do, right?

But you know what? That's the good works gospel, which is a false gospel.

The real gospel, you know what it is?

D-O-N-E, done.

Jesus, done. It is finished on the cross.

He laid down his life. He was our substitutionary atonement. He died in your place.

As my brother says, the gospel in four words is Jesus in my place.

He died in my place. He took the wrath of God that I deserve on the cross,

and he bore it upon him, his own self, and he died as a substitutionary death in my place.

He was the second Adam where the first Adam failed, and he was able to provide that atonement for me.

And today, if you'll repent, if you have not done that, turn away from your

sin through the power of the Spirit, and you turn to Jesus Christ alone.

Say, Lord, forgive me, a sinner. Lord, I trust in what you've done for me,

Lord. I'm not trusting in my good works anymore, Lord.

It doesn't matter how many times I come to church, how much I give in the offering.

How many times a day I read my Bible? All those are great things.

Many things Christians should do, but they won't get you to heaven.

Only the blood of Jesus, only through his death. When it says the blood of Jesus,

it's talking about really his death on the cross when he gave up his life's

blood for us on the cross.

You see, the expert in the law here, he tried to lower God's standard down to

a place where he could be cleared by human effort.

I don't know about you, but maybe you're tempted in some ways so that you can

view God's ongoing and love for you is earned by you in some way.

Don't do that. Don't ever think that somehow that Jesus didn't take all your

punishment on the cross.

He forgave your sins. If you put your trust and faith in him,

he forgave your sins. Far as the east is from the west, they're remembered no more.

Past, present, and future. You are forgiven.

You are forgiven. Some of you may struggle to forgive yourself,

but I want you to know this today.

Do you have better love than God does?

When God says it's forgiven, that my life's blood is good enough in your place,

the God of the universe dying on the cross in our place, what more valuable

sacrifice could there be?

Remember, he had to be truly God and truly man to be that sacrifice all the way.

Because he had to be truly God because he could have never lived the perfect

life that we couldn't live and we can't live.

And he had to be truly man because he couldn't die in our place if he was not

one of us. We don't understand all the mystery, but we know from the word of

God that 100% man, 100% God.

And it took both to 100%, right?

To be that sacrifice for us. I don't know today where you see yourself today,

but I hope today you have an appreciation for what Jesus has done for you.

Those of you that know the Lord and those of you that don't realize you can't help yourself.

Remember you're dead in your trespasses and sins.

It only takes Jesus, the true good Samaritan, who's going to come,

he's going to lift you up, and he's going to actually take care of you.

He's going to be the one that provides the salvation for you.

And I encourage you today, if that's you, don't walk out of here today without Jesus.

You step out in faith. Right now, some of you, even right now,

I know I've said, Lord, please forgive me a sinner.

Lord, I want you in my life. I want you to be the boss of my life. I want you to be my king.

And some of you may need to do business with God about some other things that you've seen today.

I just encourage you to let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart about whatever it is.

Let's all stand together and let's pray today. Father God, I thank you so much

for those here today. I thank you for your word.

Lord, I thank you that, Lord, you're the true good Samaritan.

God, I pray today as you move in hearts, Lord, that people respond to you in obedience and faith.

Father, I pray that maybe there are some here who possibly have never given their lives to you.

I pray today that would be their day of salvation.

Today that their soul-sick, sin, wounds can be healed and covered under your blood.

Father, for others, maybe it's the fact that I've been trying to realize,

and you know, I know Jesus saved me, but it's just like I'm living to say I did it in some way.

Maybe some people need to repent and just say, Lord, forgive me for not reaching

out and being a neighbor to those you put in my path, Lord.

Lord, help me to have your eyes, whatever it is, to see your heart.

I pray right now, Lord, that you do just move in our midst, Lord,

and that people respond to you.