Luke 10:25-42

Hey, this is Josh with Haven City Church.

Thanks for tuning in to our podcast.

In this sermon, we're looking at the second half of Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Uh, it includes the famous parable of the Good Samaritan.

And we ask the question, why did Jesus tell this parable?

Which is really kind of the most important question you could ask.

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All right, God bless.

Luke 10, 25 through 42.

We've been going through the book of Luke for the last year since Christmas, and we're having a great time.

We're in a new section.

This is our third week in this journey that Jesus is taking from his home country of Galilee up to Jerusalem.

And so Luke 10, 25 through 37 is gonna f or 25 through 42 rather is gonna finish off chapter 10, obviously, but it's also finishing off this set of instructions that Jesus is giving to his disciples.

So let's read this together, starting in verse 25.

This is the NIV version, Luke 10, 25.

On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.

Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

What is written in the law, he replied.

How do you read it?

He answered, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

You have answered correctly, Jesus replied, Do this and you will live.

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

In reply, Jesus said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

So too a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, pass by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring and on oil and wine.

Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day he took him out, uh took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper.

Look after him, he said, and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have had.

So let's stop there for just a second.

Um, no, let's go to verse 36.

Which of these three do you think, as a neighbor, uh, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?

The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him.

Jesus told him, Go and do likewise.

So that that finishes off the story of um the good Samaritan.

We're gonna stop there.

We'll come to the story of Martha and Mary in just a second, but let's pray.

God, we just ask for you to speak into our lives.

We want to, first of all, just thank you for our kids.

Thank you for Miss Melinda, who's willing to give up her Sunday morning uh time to be um caring for them.

So um bless their class.

We pray that you'd speak to them, that you would shape them into your image, Jesus, that the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus would shine in their lives.

So bless them, we pray.

Um, for us, God, we want to yield our hearts before you.

You know our week.

God, you know everything that we've gone through this week.

And we pray.

We we we're a people that um have no excuse.

We just need your mercy.

We can't bring before you anything good or any any um any good fruit that's our own.

We just come before you and we say, God, have mercy upon us as a people.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit, speak to us, Lord.

As we encounter your word this morning, as we look into this text, we pray that you would strip us of our own self-righteousness and that you would make us just a humble people that's absolutely dependent upon you.

So we give you this time.

Speak to us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So we're on this travel narrative.

Jesus is going up to Jerusalem, and actually, by the time we finish out this chapter, when Jesus encounters Mary and Martha, that's in Bethany.

And Bethany is very close to Jerusalem.

It's just a short day's journey from Jerusalem.

But here Jesus encounters this uh individual.

He's called an expert of the law.

Do you see this?

He says, on one occasion, an expert of the law stood up to test Jesus.

It's an interesting um account that takes place.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus asks him what's written in the law.

It goes through this context here, and then we go into the story of the Good Samaritan.

Now, the Good Samaritan is permeated our culture.

This is the the term Good Samaritan, you would see it on TV.

You'd hear it on the street.

I don't know how many people who use that term are familiar, but the general idea is that you're offering like a good deed or a kindness to somebody that maybe it's unexpected, right?

And so the framework of this parable that Jesus tells is that there's this man who's traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.

And on this notorious route, um kind of like you know, walking down a through a bad neighborhood in our area, right?

Um that's what this route was like.

He gets jumped, beat up, and left for dead.

Um it's around it's amazing to me how much this reminds me of like the stories you read like weekly in the newspaper in Baltimore, like people who just get beat up.

Um I'm bummed that Claude's not with us because he actually has a story like this.

In the middle of the afternoon, right up here at a bus stop, a lady um got like sucker punched and got her stuff stolen a couple months ago, and he was standing right there and he helped her.

Um but but the guy gets beat up, left for dead, and wouldn't you know it, as a Jew, the first person that walks by is a priest, right?

And so, of course, you'd think, oh, the priest is gonna help him out, right?

That's that's what the person listening to this parable would think.

But the priest walks around to the other side of the road.

Then a Levite comes along.

So the Levites is uh who are the Levites, right?

You have the 12 tribes of Israel, and the Levites were the ones that were designated as God's chosen tribe.

They didn't have their own land.

They instead were to serve God primarily.

And so, again, somebody who is genetically, like just has a godly heritage.

Again, they you would have expected this is the person that would help, help you out, right?

And so that guy goes around to the other side.

So the next person that walks along is a Samaritan.

We've already encountered the Samaritans in our story.

The Samaritans are at odds with Jews.

They are um genetically different, they they are a different race, they're a mixed race, kind of like mutts of Jews and Gentiles.

They have a different religious system, they don't believe that worship has to happen in Jerusalem, and they're not really that hospitable to Jesus.

And so the person, um, the Samaritan comes along, and this is the person you would not expect to help the robber who's been beat up, right?

But what happens?

The robber, or I mean the um Samaritan helps the man who is robbed, right?

So it's it's that surprise, it's a good story, right?

Any good story has a point of crisis.

What's the crisis?

The guy's beat up, he's laying there, is he gonna die, what's gonna happen to him, right?

We're all left hanging there.

And then a better story is like the surprise.

The surprise is wait, the guys you'd expect to help him out don't help him out, and then the guy who you would never expect to help him out does help him out, which is the Samaritan.

Right?

And not only does he help him out, but what extent?

I mean, he he completely lays down his life, gives up money, gives up security, gives up identity to help this man out.

Right?

It's an amazing account.

Again, I'm kind of assuming that we're somewhat familiar with the parable of the Samaritan.

And Jesus asks at the end of the parable, who was the neighbor?

Right?

He says, it's the Samaritan.

So that so this expert of the law kind of gets who's playing what role in this particular story.

But here's the thing: here's what's so important to you as you're reading the Bible, is that you're reading the Bible and understanding where these types of stories, what's the context that they fit into?

You may understand and know the story of the Good Samaritan.

And it's easy to take this story and go, yeah, I want to be a better neighbor, right?

But let me ask you this question.

Why did Jesus tell this story?

We we have to go back to the context that it's found in.

And this is the context.

Now, is this a pleasant exchange?

Is is this like a disciple of Jesus that's asking, how can I be more loving in my life?

No.

No.

This is an expert of the law who's trying to test Jesus.

Here's what's weird about this.

Let's look at this for a second.

This guy asked the question, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Right now in my life, I would pay a million dollars for somebody to walk up to me and ask you that question.

I mean, my whole life is focused on mission, right?

We're here, we're trying to plant a church, we're trying to see people come to a personal relationship with Jesus.

What a great question.

And how does Jesus answer?

What does Jesus say?

He says, Well, what is written in the law?

How do you read it?

And the expert in the law gets, he cites the law, right?

And in verse 28, Jesus says, You have answered correctly.

Jesus replied, Go do this and you will live.

Wait a second.

This is somewhat confusing.

Because you guys know we've been talking about salvation and how salvation works to a great extent.

And yet here it seems like Jesus is saying to inherit eternal life, you need to go and do the law.

Jesus had another exchange that was similar to this in Matthew 16, 22, which I don't seem to have put into my, or uh 1916, I didn't put into my notes.

There it is.

There you go.

1916-22.

Um Jesus uh just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?

And he says, Why do you ask me about uh what is good?

Jesus replied, There is only one who is good.

If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.

Uh which ones, he inquired, Jesus replied, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you should not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, love your neighbor as yourself.

Then verse 20, All these I have kept, the young man said.

What do I still lack?

Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go and sell your possessions, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come and follow me.

When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth.

This is the story of the rich young ruler.

That's what we that's the story.

The question that we kind of encounter as we look at this is, what's going on here?

Why is Jesus not just explaining the gospel flat out?

Right?

Because we know this, that in John 6.28, John 6.28 and 29, it says, Then they asked him, What must we do to do the works God requires?

And Jesus answered, the work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent.

I'm going to give you actually a couple of verses here to play this out a little bit.

Because on one hand, Jesus is telling this expert of the law, go do the law, and you'll inherit eternal life.

But then on another account, in John, he's telling him the work that you must do is to believe.

In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, it says, For it's by grace you've been saved through faith.

Ephesians 2:8

This is not from yourself, it's a gift of God, not by work, so that no one can boast.

Again, what's going on here?

We understand salvation as a gift of God, and yet Jesus seems to be saying something different.

Romans 1:17.

Romans 1:17

Romans 1.17 says, For the gospel, for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.

Those three verses, John, Ephesians, Romans, makes it really clear that salvation comes through faith.

And yet again, I ask you, what is Jesus doing with this expert in the law?

Can we push it a little bit further?

I'm going to read to you a quote.

When we look back in church history, for about 1,400 years of church history, 1300, 1400 years of church history, the Christian church, there were two wings to it.

There was the Orthodox wing and there was the Roman Catholic wing.

And Roman Catholicism became more and more corrupt.

And by the time you get into the 16th century, a man named Martin Luther has this radical encounter with the grace of God through the book of Romans.

He's a monk who's reading through Romans.

He's been doing church, the Catholic Church thing, and he sees that salvation is for individuals, not through the church and not through the sacraments, but by faith alone.

So Romans 1:17 says the gospel of righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith.

Romans 1:17

It's by faith.

This strikes Martin Luther, and he has this, you know, epiphany, this moment that's like that strikes him, that salvation is through the grace of God.

And he wants to reform the Catholic Church.

At that time, the Catholic Church was selling penance, which are uh which was the idea that you could buy your way out of purgatory, or you could pay for a family member to do less time in purgatory.

They were trying to build um St.

Peter's Cathedral, and this is and this is the time of uh uh Michelangelo painting the uh Sistine Chapel.

Uh is Sistine Chapel?

Yeah, it's kind of around roughly around the same time, right?

The church needs money to do what it wants to do, and it's totally corrupted God's message of the gospel.

So Martin Luther hopes to see this um change take place, and he begins to talk about how salvation, eternal life, comes to those who place their faith in Jesus Christ.

And he nails these 95 thesis, these arguments, these points, to the Wittenberg door, which was a way at his time to basically provoke a public debate, right?

That's how you would ask for the discussion to be opened.

Well, he ultimately gets kicked out of the Catholic Church.

His hope for internal reform does not come to pass, and that begins this reformation process.

He's one of the most notable figures.

There's other guys that are experiencing the same thing.

This idea that salvation, a relation, a personal relationship with God comes through faith, not through the church.

The church plays a very important role in our relationship with God, but it doesn't save us, nor does it mediate on our behalf.

It's a great time in church history, and and we're actually recipients of all that God did during that time.

And so again, Jesus here in our text is asked by an expert of the law, how can I inherit eternal life?

What in the world is going on here?

First of all, you gotta note that this lawyer was testing Jesus with the intent of injuring his reputation.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but have you ever been in a setting where you're interacting with somebody and they ask you a question, not to hear your answer, but so that they can get past your answer and they can share their own points.

Those people are very irritating.

But but you know what I mean, right?

If you have kids, maybe you've encountered that.

It's a weird, awkward type of person that they really want to show off, or they really want to belittle you in some like manipulative way.

And so that's what's taking place here with this expert of the law.

In fact, the word test here that is used, when he says it says he wanted to test Jesus.

Do you see that in the text?

It says he wanted to test Jesus.

It was this is the word is only used in a negative way throughout the New Testament.

The follow-up question was, and and and the follow-up question that he asks, it says in the text, let's go back here.

I'm gonna try to use my clicker and go back to come on, go backwards.

So there we go.

He says, uh, you have answered correctly.

Where does it say that he wanted to justify himself?

Do this and you will live.

Well, I guess you have to go on a little bit further to see it there in the text.

But this is really kind of the unlocking of the text, so it's important that we all are on the same page.

Let me find it here.

You see the where it says he asked the question because he wanted to justify himself?

See it in front of you there.

But he wanted to justify himself, so we asked Jesus, who is my neighbor?

Yeah, so the next verse that's not up there.

He wanted to justify himself.

So Jesus has already told him, yeah, you've answered right.

And then what comes right here is this idea of, well, let me ask you who's my neighbor.

He wants to justify himself.

Note the story of the Good Samaritan did not provide the lawyer with a chance to further justify himself.

The story only made his self-justification more impossible.

The story, here's the point.

Remember, we asked, what's the point of the story?

The point of the story is not here's your recipe for being a better neighbor.

The point of the story is to make the bar so high for this expert of the law that he'll cry out to the true and better Samaritan, which is Jesus right in front of him.

You see, people, we want to, as a religious people, we most people believe in some kind of ethical code.

We believe in some form of righteousness, but here's what we do: it's kind of this structure, this religious code, but then when we fall short, we look for loopholes, how we can justify ourselves, how we can get around the law.

Right?

We encounter this whole idea of love God perfectly and love your neighbor as yourself, and then it's like, well, if if we could just kind of like narrow down.

The idea of like who's really my neighbor, then I will have fulfilled the law.

But Jesus tells this story, and there's these surprising elements that takes God's standard to this whole other level.

It's not just the geography, not just the person that lives geographically next to you, but it's the need that's right immediately in front of you, the person that you naturally would be opposed to, the person that you maybe have been raised and your heritage says you ought not to bless or care for, that is your neighbor.

And so what it does is it takes the expert of the law, just like Jesus took the rich young ruler, and it it deals with a heart issue.

It deals at the with the core of the individual.

Here's the idea.

Jesus is turning the lawyer's test on its head.

The lawyer will leave this encounter feeling the full weight of the law.

He's gonna leave this encounter feeling like, wow, man, I have not fulfilled the law to the extent that it needs to be fulfilled.

Here's the thing we are all in process.

We're all in process.

This individual is in process of understanding and understanding that he is a sinner in need of a savior is the first step.

This man came into the conversation thinking that he could look down his nose at Jesus.

He left humiliated, realizing that the law and God's standard is so much higher than what he's able to perform.

One author puts it this way we might have expected a parable telling how a Jew should show love to anybody, even to a Samaritan.

But in fact, Jesus shows how even a Samaritan may be nearer to the kingdom than a pious but uncharitable Jew.

For although the lawyer asked, Who is my neighbor?

In other words, who is the person that I should help?

Jesus suggested that the real question is rather, do I behave as a neighbor, person who helps others?

Do I behave as that person?

Jesus does not supply information as to whom one should help.

Failure to keep the commandments springs not from a lack of information, but from a lack of love.

It was not fresh knowledge that the lawyer needed, but a new heart.

In plain English, this man needed conversion.

If you're dealing and relating to God and trying to show God how you've kept his law, you are not relating to God in a right way.

The way that God wants us to relate to him is to first be humbled and understand that the law is a standard that we cannot measure up to, and that we need to have a savior.

We need our own good Samaritan that will rescue us.

Let's walk through this really quickly through the book of Romans.

Jump here ahead.

In Romans chapter 3, this is all spelled out.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

So all of Romans chapter 3 and 4 deal with this theme.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Three, four, and actually five as well.

Come on.

Romans 3, verse 20 through 22.

Romans 3:20–22

Says this.

This is the experience that the expert in the law has.

He becomes, because the Jesus brings in the law, he explains what is a neighbor, he becomes aware of his sin through this process, through this parable.

Verse 21.

But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify.

This is righteous, this righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.

Do you see that?

This righteousness is given through what?

Faith.

Here's the thing.

When Jesus spoke to this expert of the law, he wasn't lying to the man.

There are two ways that you can inherit eternal life.

You can either live a perfect life from birth to death and completely fulfill the law of God and inherit eternal life.

But if you're incapable of doing that, if you fail once, you're a liar, you cheat, you have pride in your heart, you're dishonest.

If you fail once, then you failed to fulfill God's perfect law.

And you are no longer qualified, I'm no longer qualified to be justified or made righteous through my own works.

Instead, I need the righteousness that is of Christ through faith.

Those are the two ways.

Those are the two ways.

So when Jesus tells the expert of the law, here is how you can inherit eternal life, that's completely correct, right?

It leads this expert of the law to a point of self-discovery.

He's going to look himself in the mirror.

He's going to hear Jesus' words, and he's going to say, I am not measuring up to that standard.

It should have led him to a place where he realizes that he needs Jesus.

It's such a beautiful thing to watch Jesus do this in the text.

So, what about those of us who have already gone through the process, right?

We've already placed our faith in Jesus.

What does this text leave for us?

First of all, we're reminded again that there was no way we could have saved ourselves.

The law is too high of a standard.

When we look at Jesus' encounter, we are reminded that we do not have the ability to save ourselves.

Second, we want to resist the temptation to moralize this text.

Moralizing the text means that we take the story as a good example of how we should behave, but we attempt to do it without being the branch connected to the vine.

In other words, you read the story of the good Samaritan and you try to obey the standard that Jesus lays out without being connected relationally to Jesus.

Jesus wants to help you be a good Samaritan, but he does it through you.

He doesn't say, hey, go be that good Samaritan, I'll see you when you come back.

No, he works in our lives by the Holy Spirit so that we can have this type of love.

Third, third, not third, third, this text gives a concrete example of the fruit that comes from a life that is abiding in Jesus.

If you are abiding in the vine, if you are relationally connected, if you're spending time with God and you're f and you're reading the Bible, this is what your life will look like.

You will look like the Samaritan that drops what he's doing and serves.

And fourth, we are given a vision for neighboring that God wants to produce in us by the Holy Spirit, right?

So Jesus is laying out, like, here's what it looks like to be a good neighbor.

We can't do it without Jesus, but once we have a relationship with Him, with Him, He wants to work through us so that we can live in this way.

Last point here.

Last point.

This is this is what you and I need to take away from this.

It's easy to read these stories, and I'm tempted to do this.

I don't know about you, but I want to put myself in the shoes of the Good Samaritan.

But you know who we are in this story is we're the guy robbed, beaten, left for dead, and our good Samaritan is Jesus, right?

Religious people don't have mercy on you.

They don't care about you.

Right?

The people that maybe genetically should have cared for you, maybe they don't care for you.

Jesus loves you.

He cares for you.

He sees you on the side of the road.

And if you're today in a place where you feel beat up and left for dead, know this the Bible presents Jesus as your Savior, who came into the world to rescue you and I from the ravages of sin, from the destruction of sin.

He's come to be our good Samaritan.

He's the hero.

Alright, let's close out with just looking at the story quickly of Mary and Martha.

This is verse 38 through 42.

Closing out the chapter, it says this as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her, tell her to help me.

Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

Here's what you need to understand in order to apply this text in your life.

There are two people here that are in stark contrast.

One is working and the other is sitting, learning from Jesus.

And the story is recounted by Luke because Jesus' response to Mary is surprising.

It's very surprising.

One is obvious, right?

It's obvious that it's surprising because Martha feels left alone.

Don't you feel bad for Martha?

She's doing all the work.

Don't you pity her?

Poor Martha.

Oh, poor thing, right?

And Jesus rebukes her.

Right?

I mean, I don't know how public this was, but he like just nails her.

He says, You're worried and upset about many things.

And then he kind of and he praises Mary for what she's doing.

And so there's the lesson that's contained within that of Mary here learning from Jesus.

She is doing what is needed.

Right?

She's sitting at the feet of Jesus.

The busyness, it's okay.

I think Jesus would have been content, like if Martha would have also kind of left the tasks that she saw in front of her to just be with Jesus.

Oh my gosh, that is so not my personality when I read that.

Just being totally transparent with you.

I love to work.

I love to work, you know?

I I work six days a week from like five in the morning till eight o'clock at night.

And I do different things with my family throughout the day, but I just love work.

And so to have Jesus say this to Martha, I mean, it's just like, I need to hear that.

But here's the other neat thing that we wouldn't recognize in our culture.

The language here where it says that Martha or that Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, that phrase is the phrase of what a student does in a classroom within this culture.

So it's not just referring to the posture of Mary at the feet of Jesus, it's referring to Mary being a student of Jesus.

And in this culture, which was hierarchical, women were not allowed to be students.

And so there was a cultural violation that was taking place by Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.

She was doing something that was culturally inappropriate.

And rather than Jesus trying, you know, being forced to knock her back into line based off of her gender, Jesus affirms her and says, no, she is doing what is better.

And so there is this, again, what we see is that Jesus doesn't affirm the hierarchical culture, but he elevates woman out, a woman out of that cultural suppression, and he gives her the position that only a male should have been able to have taken.

So there's a very interesting thing that culturally is buried within the text as well.

You gotta love Jesus, right?

You gotta love Jesus.

These Luke is, he's a historian that's recounting Jesus in these different scenarios.

Again, there's a conflict, it's a good story.

The conflict is Martha upset.

And the answer is again, surprise, surprise, Jesus affirms Mary in her role.

So let me just encourage you.

Um we we talk about this often, but but let me encourage you this this week in your own walk with God to spend time at the feet of Jesus.

And and what that looks like for us as believers is that we set aside some time.

We read the Bible as God's word, we pray, we talk to Him about our day.

Oftentimes there's some form of journaling and capturing that.

Um, right now I'm going through the book of Acts.

I know some of you I've talked to you about your own Bible reading.

Um share with one another.

I know, I know Jeff gets on a Slack and he puts up those verses every day.

I would encourage you just to be having a relationship with God because He's already spoken to us through His Word.

Let Him speak to you through a time of prayer.

Write down, have a paper journal or an electronic journal where you're taking notes on what you think God is showing you.

That's how we grow and that's how we we grow in this relationship.

That's how we be Mary's in our own life.

Amen.

Amen.