The Good Samaritan -- Who Is My Neighbour? | Rev. Michael Fredericks

We continue this morning in the gospel

according to Luke

and this is part 29 of the series who

and the question today or the title of

the message is who is my neighbor as we

look at the good Samaritan parable in

Luke 10.

Jesus was on his way home uh from

Galilee.

Not on his way home. Jesus was on his

way from Galilee to Jerusalem for the

last time, teaching and performing

miracles along the way. He took a route

that would take him through Jericho. And

from there he would follow the Jericho

road uphill through rocky terrain to the

city of Jerusalem where he would spend

his last week on earth, be crucified,

die, buried, and rise again.

At some point on some stop along the way

on this journey towards Jerusalem,

perhaps early in the journey, he's

teaching a crowd.

And he's asked a question which leads to

Jesus sharing one of his most memorable

parables, the parable of the good

Samaritan, which as I looked at this

week in my 16 years of being a full-time

pastor preacher, I've never actually

preached a sermon just on the good

Samaritan. you think, well, wouldn't

this be a regular one? But I've I've

referred to it from time to time, but

I've never actually preached on this

text, so that's kind of exciting. Um, so

the parable of the Good Samaritan and

the conversation that precedes it is

found in Luke 10:es 25-37.

And the text will be on the screen this

morning. You can follow along there. I'm

reading from the New Living Translation.

So this is what it says.

One day an expert in religious law stood

up to test Jesus

by asking him this question.

Teacher, what should I do to inherit

eternal life?

Jesus replied, what does the law of

Moses say? How do you read it?

The man answered, "You must love the

Lord your God with all your heart, all

your soul, all your strength, and all

your mind, and love your neighbor as

yourself." "Right," Jesus told him, "do

this, and you will live."

The man wanted to justify his actions.

So, he asked Jesus, "And uh who is my

neighbor?" And Jesus replied with a

story. A Jewish man was traveling from

Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was

attacked by bandits. They stripped him

of his clothes, beat him up, and left

him half dead beside the road. By

chance, a priest came along. But when he

saw the man lying there, he crossed to

the other side of the road and passed

him by.

a temple assistant or a Levite

uh walked over and looked at him lying

there, but also passed by on the other

side.

And then a despised Samaritan came

along, and when he saw the man, he felt

compassion for him. Going over to him,

the Samaritan soothed his wounds with

olive oil and wine and bandaged them.

Then he put the man on his own donkey

and took him to an inn where he took

care of him. The next day he handed the

inkeeper two silver coins, telling him,

"Take care of this man, and if his bill

runs higher than this, I'll pay you the

next time I'm here."

Now Jesus turns back to the the man who

asked the question. Now which of these

three would you say was a neighbor to

the man who was attacked by bandits?

Jesus asked. The man replied.

The one who showed him mercy. And then

Jesus said, "Yes. Yes. Now go and do the

same."

All right. Beautiful, beautiful text of

scripture.

Let's talk about this

what this conversation is all about. So

the the the context of this parable is

indeed this conversation Jesus and an

expert in the law. A person this man who

had spent a lot of time studying the

Torah. When we talk about an expert in

the law in the Old Testament, we're

talking about the religious law, the law

of Moses, the first five books of the

Old Testament that contain the law.

And so this expert in the law stands up

to ask a question. It says he stood up

to ask a question. Normally this would

be the physical posture of a sincere

student approaching the rabbi with

genuine curiosity. They would stand up

and ask their question. But instead this

expert stands up with his question to it

tells us quote test Jesus. He wanted to

trap him, trap him into saying something

against the Jewish law.

And so he asks, "Rabbi, teacher, what

should I do to inherit eternal life?"

Again, probably expecting Jesus to say

something that bypasses the law of Moses

so he can accuse him of being a false

teacher. Uh, but Jesus is not easily

trapped. Cleverly, he turns the question

back to the legal expert and he says,

"Well,

what does uh what is here? What say?

What does the law of Moses say? How do

you read it?" I like that. Smart.

Doesn't really answer it. Ask him to

answer it. And the lawyer replies with

part of the shama, which is found in

Deuteronomy 6. This is a uh famous

passage that uh Jewish children from

childhood are taught to memorize and

recite every day. Uh and it talks about,

you know, the Lord God is one and love

the Lord your God with all your heart,

soul, mind, and strength. And so he

quotes part of that and says, well, yes,

of course, the the uh how we have life,

how we inherit eternal life is by loving

God with all of our heart and soul,

mind, and strength and all that. And he

adds for good measure from Leviticus

Leviticus 19:18

19:18.

And also, love your neighbor as

yourself. Together, these two verses are

known as the great commandment.

Love God. Love God with every fiber of

your being and love your neighbor as

much as you love yourself.

Verse 28.

Write. Jesus told him, "Do this and you

will live." Now, Jesus here is probably

making a reference to Leviticus 18:5,

Leviticus 18:5

which says, and put this up on the

screen, please. Uh, you shall therefore,

this is in the Old Testament law, you

shall therefore keep my statutes and my

rules, and if a person does them, he

shall live by them. He shall find life.

Right? So, this was the question. How do

I find life? How do I find an eternal

life? And uh the Old Testament law says,

"Well, yeah, it's by keeping the law.

Keep all the law, the statutes, and

God's rules, and you shall live by

them." And in Romans 10:5, Paul refers

Romans 10:5

to this as well. And he says, "Moses

writes that the law's way of making a

person right with God requires obedience

to all of its commands." He's referring

back to this passage in Leviticus 18:5.

Leviticus 18:5

So Jesus basically says to the legal

expert here, "Yes, you've given the

right answer according to the law."

According to the law, you've given the

right answer. You're wondering, "What do

you have to do to inherit eternal life?

How do you earn your way into heaven?"

And you're right. You are the legal

expert after all. According to the law

of Moses, all you have to do is obey the

law by loving God completely and loving

your neighbor fully, and you will be

right with God. You will have eternal

life.

And yeah, I suppose that if anyone was

able to truly love God perfectly and

truly love their neighbor perfectly,

then I guess that would be a sinless

person who isn't in need of grace.

But we all know that nobody but Jesus

has ever been actually able to meet that

standard of loves. And so in the context

of the original question, when when

Jesus says, "Yeah, you've answered

right. Do this and you'll live." It's

like Jesus is saying, "Sure, if you can

jump over this impossibly high 50ft

fence, you'll inherit eternal life."

That's what the law of Moses has to say.

But Jesus in this, I believe, that's not

the right slide.

There we go. Jesus is exposing the

impossibility

of self-s salvation through keeping the

law. Yes.

>> So, you might think that he's saying,

"Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. That's"

But actually, he's kind of turning it on

its head. Jesus is clever, you know, and

he's exposing the impossibility of

self-salvation

through the law. Jesus came to earth to

ultimately die on the cross for our sins

as the sacrifice for our sins because of

the fact that we are not able to keep

the law of Moses. We have all sinned. We

all need God's grace to be saved and

given the gift of eternal life. We can't

earn it. We can't do enough good works

to achieve it no matter how hard we try

because we can't escape our selfish,

fleshly, sinful nature that always to

one degree or another is just lurking

around the corner and interferes with

our ability to sincerely love God and

others fully and completely.

So Jesus answers the man's question

brilliantly in a roundabout way. And

what he's actually saying to this man

who asks, "What shall I do to in inherit

eternal life?" What he's actually saying

is, "Sir, you actually can't do anything

to inherit eternal life. You need to

repent of your sins and follow me."

And this is a message that so many still

need to hear because there are so many

people out there like that expert in the

law who are trying to figure out what

hoops they have to jump through, how

many good deeds they have to do in order

to earn their way into heaven. When the

word of God is abundantly clear in

Romans 3, for example, where it says,

"For all have sinned and fall short of

the glory of God, we can't meet his

impossibly high standard,

>> and therefore we are justified by his

grace as a gift." Amen, Nova.

>> Amen. Through the redemption that is in

Christ Jesus, not in us. We can't

justify ourselves.

Thank you, Lord.

>> We are saved by grace through faith, not

by works, lest any man should boast.

>> But this expert in the law doesn't

really pick up what Jesus is dropping.

He doesn't really get it. He's not it's

not registering for him. And so, he asks

a follow-up question because he wants to

justify himself by works. Or another way

of saying that is he wanted to save

himself.

Verse 29,

the man wanted to justify his actions. A

better translation is justify himself.

So he asked Jesus and uh and who is my

neighbor anyway? So the lawyer here is

actually trying to limit limit who he

needs to consider his neighbor

to make it easier to obey the command

and be saved. Right? He's thinking,

"Okay, I I got it. So I've got to love

God. Yeah, that's I can do that. I can

love God with all my heart and love my

neighbor to as myself to earn my

salvation." Okay. Well, definitely I

love God, but the neighbor thing, let me

just get some clarification on that,

Jesus. Okay? Because like when we're

talking about loving neighbors, like we

mean we mean like our fellow Jews,

right? Let's start there, right? We mean

our fellow Jews. And and even more

narrowly, we mean like good, righteous

Jewish people, right? Like my neighbor

is someone like me, right? Who's easy to

love, right? Jesus, my neighbor is like

my friends, right? Jesus.

And Jesus loves this question.

One of Jesus's favorite teaching topics

is loving people. He's always going

around like, "Love your neighbor and

love your enemies and as I have loved

you, love one another." It's like his

favorite thing to talk about. Any chance

Jesus gets to talk about love, he takes

it. So Jesus answers this qu. He loves

this question. Oh, you're a good

question. Who is my neighbor? Well, let

me answer that question. And he tells

him a parable, a story.

Verse 30, he says, "A Jewish man was

traveling from Jerusalem down to

Jericho. He was attacked by bandits.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat

him up, and left him half dead besides

the road." So the the the listeners of

this story could picture this very

easily. Jericho was about 17 miles. This

is not the Old Testament Jericho that

was demolished, but uh a different place

or similar maybe right near Jericho. But

anyway, it was about 17 mi to the east

of Jerusalem. And it was a notoriously

dangerous road between the two cities,

very steep, lots of mountains, lots of

caves where bandits could hide. Uh, and

so they could picture this, as Jesus

says, this road between Jerusalem and

Jericho. They're going, "Oh yeah, yeah,

I know that place. That's dangerous

territory. You better not stop there.

You be careful when you're going on that

road." And so this Jewish guy is on this

road according to this story. It's not

necessarily a true story. It's just a

parable. But Jesus says, "Imagine that

this Jewish guy gets beaten to a pulp

and left for dead on the side of the

road."

And then the story goes that a priest

happens along the road and sees this

beat up guy and makes a decision to

intentionally avoid him and keep going.

And likewise, the temple assistant, aka

the Levite, does the same thing. Now,

this raises the question. Why wouldn't

the priest and the Levite help this

injured man? Were they wicked,

uncompassionate, judgmental people?

Well, maybe.

But there's more going on here. These

men were likely traveling on this road.

Think about it. It's the road between

Jericho and Jerusalem where the temple

is.

They were likely traveling on this road

to perform some sort of priestly

functions. Priests and Levites were

responsible for the religious life of

the nation. This would be like the

pastor and the worship leader on their

way to church for an important service

or meeting or Bible study and maybe

they're running late.

And if the priest or Levite stopped to

help this man, they would run the risk

of becoming ceremonially unclean.

According to the Jewish law, if the

half-dead guy on the side of the road

turned out to be all dead

or not just mostly dead as it says in

the the great movie The Princess Bride,

remember that one? Ah, he's not dead,

he's just mostly dead.

So good. Anyway, um if he turned out to

be all dead,

then they would make themselves unclean

by touching a dead body and would have

to go through a whole week long

rigomearroll to resolve their

uncleanness before they could return to

their duties. What an inconvenience.

Furthermore, they wouldn't be allowed to

eat from the tithes or even collect

them, right? So, how did these people

feed themselves? Well, similar to how

our model today, people give tithes to

people gave tithes to the church or to

the temple which were, you know, food

and things from their harvest. And

that's how the the priests got to eat.

And so when you give tithes and

offerings to the church, I get to feed

my family. Isn't that wonderful? Thank

you. Um I'm I like eating as you can

tell. Um but anyway, so if they if they

uh didn't uh they weren't able to get

collect the tithes, they wouldn't be

able to feed their family. That's a

whole big thing. Um, and so if if if

they or if they helped him and then

later he died, they would be required to

tear their robes, which was a thing too

that was part of the rules. And in doing

so, they would have violated laws

against the destruction of valuable

property. So needless to say, stopping

to help this poor guy on the side of the

road would be a major, not a minor, a

major inconvenience. And these are

important people who had stuff to do,

places to go, duties to perform. They

didn't have time to stop. They probably

figured, well, you know what? Somebody

else will come along and help. Someone

maybe who isn't as busy or as important

as me. But for them, they were in a

hurry and not willing to take the risk

necessary to care for this man. So, they

chose to ignore and stay on task.

The irony is that these two men were so

focused on strict adherence to the

religious law that they completely

missed the heart of the law altogether.

They were great at religion

but not so great at the heart of God,

understanding the heart of God. Great at

customs and ceremony, but terrible at

compassion.

Great at the law, terrible at love.

They are the example of what not to do.

So we have the priest first, then the

Levite,

and then the listener of the story would

expect the virtuous third character to

be a Jewish lay person. Right? You would

have the priest, that's the highest,

then the Levites the next down, and then

a lay person. And so you as this as

they're hearing this story, they're

expecting Jesus to say, "There was a

priest and he failed, and then the

Levite failed." And then they're going

to say, "But then a lay person came

along to put to shame the the priest and

the Levite." But then this Jewish lay

person came along and he helped them.

But actually, to further emphasize just

how radical Jesus expects us to love

people, the hero of the story isn't

Jewish at all. It's a Samaritan.

And what's a Samaritan? Nothing much.

What's a Samaritan with you?

>> I'm clean.

>> Sorry, that was really dumb. I I just

Anyway, what's a Samaritan?

Sometimes you try, you swing for the

fences, and you strike out. Anyway,

what's a Samaritan?

Samaritan,

um, the Samaritans were a a racial

group. They were really, uh, hated by

the Jewish people. Uh if you look at a

map of Israel, you'll see in the in the

southern part of Israel at this time was

Judah, okay, where Jerusalem was and in

the north was Galilee where uh the Sea

of Galilee was and all the places where

Jesus ministered early in his ministry.

And between them uh is this large area

that was well, it's not that large

really. The Holy Land's small, but this

area was Samaria. And this was people uh

who if you go way back in the Old

Testament, you can find out the history

of of of how they kind of divided from

the rest of the people of Israel. And uh

they had religious disagreements. They

intermarried. And so the Jewish people

thought of them as you know half breeds

uh unfaithful

uh they they really they hated each

other, the Samaritans and the Jews. So

when you were traveling between Galilee

and Judah, uh you would try to avoid as

much uh Samaritan people as you could

and try to find ways to get around the

major towns and all that sort of stuff

so you didn't have to interact with the

Samaritans.

And so today, if Jesus was telling this

story to to Jewish people,

who would he who would be the good guy

in his story? Who do you think? It'd be

a Palestinian probably, right? You can

see today the the hatred between the

Palestinians and the Jews. And so if

Jesus was telling the story today, he'd

say, "All right, so first there was a

Jewish priest and then and then a temple

person and then and then it was a

Palestinian who came along and saved the

day." Ooh, that would hurt. Or if he was

telling the story to a Ukrainian today,

he'd say, "Then a Russian guy comes

along." Or if he was telling this to a a

mega Republican, he'd say, "Then a

Democrat comes along."

You get the picture. This is love across

the lines like we talked about a few

weeks ago.

Verse 33.

Then a despised Samaritan came along and

when he saw the man, he felt compassion

for him. This is uh this is extravagant

uh love and generosity that is shown as

we if you were to continue reading this,

you'd see all the things that he does.

He's extravagant and over-the-top

generous with his money and his time. He

the money he leaves at the end it says

two uh silver coins to daenery would be

two days wage this would be enough to

cover a couple of weeks worth of food

and lodging and even for the Samaritan

to go to the inn as a Samaritan outsider

that would be risky but this Samaritan

hero is willing to bear all the risk

make all the sacrifice to show kindness

and compassion to a complete stranger

who society tells him should be his

enemy

And then Jesus says, "Now, which of

these three would you say was a neighbor

to the man who was attacked by bandits?"

I like that he switches it around. The

question was, "Who is my neighbor?" And

and he says, "Which of these was acting

like a good neighbor?"

And the man replied, "The expert in the

law can't even bring himself to

say,"Well, it was the Samaritan. He

can't bring himself to say that, but he

does say it. The one who showed him

mercy." Yeah, the nice guy.

The idea of a good Samaritan was an

oxymoron for the Jews.

But indeed, this Samaritan in the story

demonstrates powerfully what neighbor

love looks like.

And Jesus said, 'Yeah, now go and do the

same.

There's a a book that I read a few years

ago. Uh it's really fantastic. It's

called Everybody Always by Bob Goff. He

also wrote a book called Love Does was

his first book, which some of you may

have read that. This is a followup to

it. Everybody always. And it's about

loving Everybody Always. And Bob uh this

man has quite a interesting person. has

lived a really amazing life. Um, and he

tells stories throughout his from his

life of experiences of loving people.

And uh, I just want to share one of the

stories that I found memorable when I

read this book. He says this, "For the

last 22 years, we've put on a New Year's

Day parade to celebrate our neighbors.

Our parade starts at the culde-sac at

the end of our block and ends at our

front yard. Our whole family wakes up

early every year and we blow up over a

thousand helium balloons. We're the

reason there's a helium shortage.

Before we start taking the balloons out

of the house, we give thanks for our

neighbors and for the privilege of doing

life with them. Our block has only 20

houses if you count both sides. So, our

parade isn't a long one. Our first year

there were only eight of us standing at

the beginning of the parade route. We

stood together at the end of the

culde-sac trying to look like a like a

parade. Someone said go and we started

walking down the street and waving to

the six neighbors who were watching. Now

there are probably four or 500 people

who come each year. Kids pull wagons

full of stuffed animals and pet

goldfish. There are no fancy floats.

Bicycles with baseball cards and the

spokes are the norm. By the time we all

line up for the parade these days, we're

already at our house and sometimes a

little past it before anyone starts

moving.

Here's why we do it. We can't love

people we don't know. You can't either.

Saying we love our neighbors is simple,

but guess what? Doing it is too. Just

throw them a parade.

We don't think Jesus's command to love

your neighbor is a metaphor for

something else. We think it means we're

supposed to actually love our neighbors.

Engage them, delight in them, throw a

party for them. When joy is a habit,

love is a reflex. Because we've been

putting on the parade for decades, we

know all the people who live near us. I

don't know if they've learned anything

from us, but we've learned a ton about

loving each other from them. God didn't

give us neighbors to be our projects. He

surrounded us with them to be our

teachers. Isn't that lovely? And and he

also talks later in the chapter about

this lady Carol uh who was his neighbor

who had cancer and uh and uh at one

point they decided to make her the the

queen of the parade to celebrate her

life. Beautiful. Anyway, um it's it's a

great book. I want to read a quote that

he shares as well about uh about this

idea of of who our neighbors are. He

says, "Each of us is surrounded every

day by our neighbors. They're ahead of

us, behind us, on each side of us.

They're every place we go. They're

sacking groceries and attending city

council meetings. They're holding

cardboard signs on street corners and

raking leaves next door. They play high

school football and deliver the mail.

They're heroes and hookers and pastors

and pilots. They live on the streets and

design our bridges. They go to

seminaries and live in prisons.

They govern us and they bother us.

They're everywhere we look. It's one

thing we all have in common. We are all

somebody's neighbor and they're ours.

This has been God's simple yet brilliant

master plan from the beginning. He made

a whole world of neighbors.

We call it Earth, but God just calls it

a really big neighborhood.

And and it's not just

neighbors in our physical neighborhood.

We have local neighbors, but we also

have global neighbors.

Part of the application of the Good

Samaritan neighbor love principle

includes acting globally to help the

world's poor.

Now, in the text we read, the religious

expert asked the question, who is my

neighbor? He asked it to try and lower

the bar of who he had to love. And

Jesus's response does the exact

opposite. He raises the bar. He invites

us to love everybody always. People we

like and people we don't like. People

who are suffering around us who we can

help. He invites us to a life of

generosity and courage and a life that's

willing to be interrupted

for the sake of care and connection with

other human beings.

I admire people who who move at a slow

pace.

People who stop and chat and look you in

the eye and listen even when they're

actually really busy. I have a personal

tendency to always be in a hurry. And

I'll some of you know this cuz you've

been on the receiving end of this. I

I'll I'll say hello to you while walking

past you to get to my next thing. Hi,

nice to see you. Got to go. That's kind

of me. most of the time. I know I do

that and I'm sorry I do that.

I want I want to be more like Pastor

Chad.

Chad stops and takes the time with

people even if I'm sure he's got a lot

of stuff to do. And there's a lot of you

that are like that, too. You you slow

down for people.

Love takes time. Slow is the speed of

love.

>> Yes,

>> we talked about that at the conference

on Friday, too.

Isn't it hard to imagine Jesus being in

a hurry? Jesus running from place to

place like crazy, losing his cool

because he's running late for meetings,

multitasking three or four things all at

once in order to be more productive. No.

When we read about Jesus, his whole

nature is this slow, calm pace.

>> Yes.

>> I I like watching baseball. We've been

watching a lot of baseball in our house

these days. And they'll often talk about

when a batter is getting behind in the

in the in the pitch count, they'll say,

"He needs to slow down." The announcers

say, "He just needs to slow himself

down." Or they'll go out to the they'll

do a a mound visit, right, out to the

pitcher. So they'll slow down, get his

heart rate down, get his head thinking

straight again so he can throw good

pitches, right? We got to do that in

life. We got to take mound visits once

in a while, don't we? We need to slow

down.

With Jesus, you can just rest and

breathe and sit for a while. He didn't

run anywhere. He walked.

I don't any stories of Jesus running. He

walked. He took his time. John Ortberg

says, "Following Jesus cannot be done at

a sprint. We'll get ahead of him. We'll

run far ahead of him." Go, where's

Jesus? He's back there.

So, this is what Jesus invites us to do.

This is how Jesus invites us to be

merciful, compassionate, generous with

longer tables and wide open arms that

stretch across racial barriers or

anything else that divides us, even when

it's risky and costly.

>> I'm inspired by stories of Christians

throwing caution to the wind for the

cause of love.

like David Wilkerson

answering the spirit's call to leave his

small rural church to minister on the

streets of inner city New York to gang

members. Some of you have read that

book, The Cross and the Switchblade,

Nikki Cruz and all that. Or like Corey

Tenboom

during World War II, Corey and her

family hid Jewish people from the Nazis

in her home in the Netherlands. They

knew discovery could mean prison or

worse, but their Christian conviction

about loving their neighbors compelled

them to act even at great potential

cost. Or like countless Christians going

way back to the bubonic plague in the

Middle Ages who took in abandoned

children, cared for neighbors, buried

the dead, and served the sick even when

they knew they might become infected.

like Bob Goff and his family throwing a

parade on their street every New Year's

Day so all the neighbors can get to know

each other and so on and so on. And like

so many of you in your own quiet way

loving the people in your orbit even the

ones who are sometimes hard to love.

>> So let's get back to the original

question.

The religious expert asked Jesus, "What

should I do to inherit eternal life?"

This is the context for this whole

conversation, this whole parable.

Jesus has been leading us to see

something really important here. If the

standard is love God completely and love

your neighbor fully like this good

Samaritan did, then yes, on paper that's

the answer. That's what the law says.

But if we're honest, that's not just

hard,

>> it's impossible.

Because none of us love God with every

fiber of our being all the time. And

none of us love our neighbor with that

kind of consistency either. We try

hopefully, but we fall short. We get

distracted. We get tired. We get

selfish. Life gets complicated. And even

when we want to love well, we don't

always get it right. And that means

something really important. We are not

the hero of this story.

>> Amen.

>> We are actually more like the man

on the side of the road,

beaten,

helpless,

unable to fix ourselves, unable to get

up and walk to safety on our own while

people pass us by offering us nothing.

And if the story ended there, it would

be hopeless.

But then Jesus shows us something else.

Because the real shock of this parable

is not just that a Samaritan stops. It's

that Jesus himself is showing us what

God is like.

He is the one who sees people others

walk past.

He is the one who moves toward the

broken.

>> Amen.

>> He is the one who takes the risk. Yes.

>> Pays the cost and doesn't stay at a safe

distance from our suffering.

>> And ultimately Jesus doesn't just cross

the road. He goes to the cross.

He gives everything so that people like

us beaten down by sin, unable to save

ourselves can be healed and brought back

to life with God. And so salvation is

not something we earn by being a good

Samaritan.

It's something we receive because Jesus

has already been our good Samaritan.

>> The answer to the question then, what

should I do to inherit eternal life is

to trust in Christ,

turn to him in repentance and faith and

receive his gift of salvation.

But then something else happens because

when that kind of love gets into you,

it changes you.

When you've been loved like this, when

you receive and understand the

incredible self-sacrificing love of God

demonstrated through the cross of

Christ,

it compels you to love like that, too.

First John 4:19 says, "We love each

1 John 4:19

other because he first loved us."

>> So, yes, there is still an invitation

here from Jesus. We're not off the hook.

Love each other.

Go and love your neighbor.

Live with eyes wide open. Don't pass

people by who are struggling. Don't live

in a rush that makes you blind to the

people around you

because Jesus found you bruised and

broken on the side of the road and he

loved you.

That's what love looks like. There's no

greater demonstration than that, but

that a man would give lay down his life

for his friends.

Now go and do likewise.

>> Amen.

>> Amen. Cool.