Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - Would You Be My Neighbor - Luke 10:25-37

I'm glad you're all here. My name is Jordan, Thanks

for coming. We are continuing in our series called Luke

The Orderly Account of Truth, where we've been looking at

Luke's careful examination into eyewitness testimony about the life, ministry, death,

and resurrection.

Of our Lord Jesus. Today, I'm sorry to.

Say, we're gonna be looking at a challenging text, challenging

because it shows us we've got some work to do.

We're gonna be looking at a text in Luke chapter

ten where a lawyer, an expert in the law the

law of God, tests Jesus and questions him, and Jesus

answers with a parable that shows the lawyer and us

who our neighbors are, how a believer treats their neighbor,

and how we are to be merciful to all of them.

So get ready. It challenged me. I know it's gonna

challenge you.

As I said earlier, we're gonna be in Luke chapter ten,

We're gonna be in verses twenty five through thirty seven,

and if you're taking notes, my sermon today is titled.

Would you be my neighbor? Would you be mine? Could

you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor.

I toyed with the idea of calling it like a

good neighbor a Christian is there, but that felt kind

of cheesy. And mister Rogers, I mean, come on, anyone

else grew up listening to mister Rogers.

Yeah, you're sorry, don't be sorry. I love mister Rogers.

All right, turn the thing too, Luke, chapter ten versus

twenty five. I'm gonna read through it and then I'll

pray and we'll get into my sermon. On one occasion,

an expert in the lass stood up to test Jesus teacher.

He asked, what must I do to inherit 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, and with all your soul, and with

all your strength, and 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 as Samaritan, as

he traveled, came where the man was, and when he

saw him, he took pity on him. He went to

him and bandaged his wounds, pouring 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 out two dinari and gave them

to the innkeeper look after him.

He said, and.

When I return, I will reimburse you for any extra

expense you may have. Which of these three do you

think 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. Let's pray, Lord, I thank you

for this challenging text that shows us that we always

have work to do to be sanctified by the truth

of your word to be holy as you are, Holy.

Lord, let it convict us.

Help us to sit with it and wrestle with the

reality of this text that shows us that everyone is

our neighbor, that we are to show mercy as you

have shown us mercy. Help us to submit to your

word today and to be better because of it. In

your name, Amen. So last week I stumbled across an

old interview of a political leader who claims to be

a Christian, and in speaking about religion, this politician said,

and this is paraphrased, the politician said, religion is such

a great thing. It gives you a reason to want

to be good, because we all want to go to heaven.

If you don't have heaven, what's the reason to be good.

And the sad part is that's how most Americans view

Christianity in heaven and salvation eternal life. It's thought that

to obtain heaven, to obtain salvation or eternal life Christians,

simply being a Christian means simply being good. That if

you're good, you can obtain eternal life in heaven, but

if you're bad, you get eternity in hell. But the

truth is, no one is good, No one is good.

God's word tells us all have sinned and fall short

of the glory of God. No one can obtain or

inherit God's kingdom. We cannot obtain or inherit his salvation

by our good deeds or our own goodness. The lawyer

in our texts today that's speaking to Jesus is an

expert in God's law. He knows his stuff, and he's

testing Jesus. He's asking Jesus to confirm that he's doing

everything in his power to inherit or obtain eternal life.

But start in verse twenty five. Let's see how this unfolds. Unfolds.

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, and with

all your soul, and with all your strength, and with

all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

So far, so good.

We get a solid answer from this lawyer. He asks

his question. Jesus graciously responds, well. One thing I love

about Jesus' response is that he answers the man's question

with a question, and it's expert level communication and a

great tactic for getting to the heart of the matter,

which Jesus always does. In Verse twenty eight, Jesus responds,

you've answered correctly, Do this and you will live.

Now.

This is where the conversation shifts. The lawyer, being concerned

with his eternity, asks what he has to do to

inherit eternal life, and he tests Jesus because he wants

to be sure he's not missing anything. Jesus brilliantly has

the man answer his own question. And when I was

preparing the sermon, I got to this part and I

couldn't help but wonder what was the internal dialogue in

this lawyer's head. When Jesus asks him, how do you

read the law? What does it say? He's probably thinking like, okay,

how do I inherit internal life? What does God's law say?

Right?

Okay, love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, or your strength, all your mind,

and love your neighbor.

As yourself.

Crap, I imagine what's something like that? Because as soon

as he gives his answer and Jesus responds with.

Yep, do that.

We see the lawyer start to comprehend the full weight

of what he had just confessed. 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.

Do all of that, and you will live.

Love God with everything you have all of the time,

and love your neighbor as yourself, and you will live.

We need to let the weight of that sink in.

The seriousness of it, the reality of it sink in.

If the way to the Father is loving him with

everything we have, everything we do, all of the time.

Can anyone inherit or obtain God's gift of salvation by

being good?

No.

Look at Romans three ten, as it is written, there

is no one righteous, not even one. There is no

one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There

is no one who does good, not even one. No

one can inherit or obtain God's gift of salvation. No

one can inherit or obtain it by our works, our deeds,

or our own goodness. Because no one is good. Don't

ignore the weight of that. Don't ignore the reality of that,

because once you wrestle with that truth, you begin to

understand the true weight of our sin.

Look at Romans three twenty.

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight

by the.

Works of the law.

Rather, through the law, we become conscious of our sin.

When we are brought face to face with the gospel

of Jesus Christ, face to face with our own sinfulness

and the reality of our complete and total depravity and

the impossibility of obtaining salvation through our works, we come

to understand our need for a savior. We should always

think about and consider our need for Jesus. But don't

stop there after you consider that, rejoice. Rejoice because while

we could never have earned it, God's salvation was freely

gifted to us by the sacrifice of our savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

So, if you're taking notes, my first point is this

salvation is not a reward that is earned, It's a

gift freely given. Salvation is not a reward that is earned.

It is a gift freely given. God knew we could

never even come close to loving Him the way we

have to in our sin, in our unholiness we were

so far from him that we could never even hope

to catch a glimpse of him.

Because of his great love for us.

He made a way, the only way, the only way

to him, by the blood of his son. Not only

willill we be will we be able to one day

approach him. We can approach him on his throne, but

by Jesus, in the shedding of his blood, we can

embrace him.

As a loving father. Let's keep moving.

So the lawyer rightly states what is required to inherit

eternal life. Jesus tells him, yes, do that and you'll live.

And we see the weights of this lawyer's confession hit him.

Here's what happens next verse twenty nine. But he wanted

to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, and who is

my neighbor? Now, this is where the lawyer reveals his

heart as he's starting to deal with the reality of

his own confession. He wants Jesus to clarify who his

neighbor is. Have you ever asked a question that you

already know the answer to? Kids do it all the time.

My daughter always repeats the same phrase when she's about

to ask permission to do something, Just.

Say Dad, I know you're going to say no, But.

Knowing the answer doesn't stop our kids from asking because

they're hoping for a different outcome. And we all did

this as kids, nor did it stop when we grew

up and matured. We continue to ask for answers we

don't want to hear. Maybe it's because we don't want

to change. Maybe it's because we don't want to give

up doing what we want to do or relating to

back to our text today. Maybe we don't want the

answer because Jesus shows us that we need to be

neighborly to everyone. This lawyer he knows who his neighbor is.

He's an expert in God's law, and as a teacher

of that law, he knows God's law about who his

neighbor is. Look at Leviticus nineteen. This is one of

the laws that this expert in the law would have

grown up knowing. When a foreigner resides among you in

your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among

you must be treated as your native born. Love them

as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am

the Lord, your God. When God ends a statement with that,

you better listen up. I am the Lord, your God.

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as native born,

love them as your self. This lawyer's asking the question

because he wants to justify his own position, his own understanding,

his goodness, by his own standard, not God's. And here's

why this is problematic. When you try to justify your

own goodness or how we follow God's law by our

own standard, we ignore God's actual standard of holiness.

I'm gonna say that again.

When we try to justify our own goodness or how

we follow God's law by our own standard, we ignore

God's actual standard of holiness. My next one is this,

God's law is easy to keep when measured by our

own standard. God's law is easy to keep when measured

by our own standard. Or you can put it this way.

It's a bonus point for you.

God's laws are easy to keep when we pick the

laws we want to follow. They're easy to keep if

we pick the ones we want to follow, like this

lawyer trying to justify himself. If we measure our success

of keeping God's law only by the laws we're good

at keeping, then we ignore the whole of the law.

In our law breakers. There's no middle ground, there's no

halfway points. God sets the standard, not us. You see

how much we need Jesus. God sets the standard, not us.

And in trying to justify himself, the man asks, she's us?

Who is my neighbor? And Jesus responds by telling him

this beautiful parable verse thirty. 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 to a levite. When he came to

the place and saw him pass by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was,

and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring 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 out to Dinari

and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said,

And when I return I will reimburse you for an

for any extra expense you may have. This parable of

who his neighbors are and how to be a neighbor

to them would have been incredibly difficult for this lawyer

to deal with. It would have been incredibly difficult for

him to listen to this and then accept it. Jesus

gives him an example of a priest, someone that's dedicated

their life in service to God and was considered a

paragon in his community. This priest sees the man in need,

vulnerable and dying, but ignores him. And not only does

he ignore him, he goes to the other side of

the road, does distance himself from him, and goes about

his day. Then a levite comes along, someone that works

in the service of the temple and to the priest

who knows the law of God. He too passes by

on the other side, distancing himself from the man dying

on the side of the road. And finally a samaritan

comes along. It takes pity on the man, it shows

him mercy. The samaritan went out of his way to

care for him and gives up an entire day's wage

to pay for a room at the end, and then

promises to reimburse the innkeeper for any additional costs.

Goes above and beyond.

Samaritans, for a little bit of context, were a group

of half breed Jews that intermarried with Israel, and because

of this and their pagan like worship and in twisting

of God's word, the Jews regarded them as the worst

of the human race. So for the dying man and

Jesus's parable to receive mercy from the Samaritan but not

the priest, not the Levite, would have destroyed this lawyer's

belief or his standard of who his neighbors actually were.

His standard would have come crumbling down. After giving this parable,

Jesus says, which of these three do you think was

a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands

of the robbers? The expert in the law replied, the

one who had mercy on him. I kind of imagined

the lawyer going, the one who hadn't mercy on him?

What the one in mercy on him? In asking Jesus,

who is my neighbor, this lawyer gets a literal come

to Jesus moment and has shown that everyone in it

is his neighbor, and he is to be neighborly and

merciful to all of them. Imagine the difficulty this man

had in coming to terms with that. Take it a

step further. Consider what this means for us. I'll make

it more personal. Consider what this means for you. Consider that.

Think about this point. We don't get to choose who

our neighbors are. We don't get to choose. This lawyer

is being confronted with the truth that he can't pick

and choose who his neighbors are, and neither do we.

We don't get to choose who our neighbors are. As believers,

we are to treat everyone as our neighbor and show

our neighbors mercy as Christ is merciful to us. We

don't get to choose who our neighbors are. I know

that's difficult. I get it. I do. I'm gonna take

a few minutes to share something real and personal with

you because it's relevant to this point in the scripture.

This was a tough sermon for me to prepare because

this text from God's words seriously challenged how I'm doing

at treating people as my neighbor. It was tough to

prepare because it brought me face to face with the

fact that not only do I not get to choose

who my neighbor is, I also don't get to choose

to show them mercy. I don't get to choose. It

was difficult to prepare considering some recent history in my life.

It's back in the spring of twenty twenty two, my

mom called me and shared that she had moved out

of my parents' home and was going to live with

my older sister. And she informed me that she hadn't

been happy for a very long time, and after thirty

plus years of minas marriage, she was going to divorce

my father. She decided she wasn't interested in fixing any

of the issues that they had. She wasn't interested in counseling.

She didn't want to save what they had, no matter

how much my father wanted to fight for it, and

it broke me. I felt like everything I knew about

my childhood, about my parents' marriage disappeared in an instant.

Later on that year, my parents divorce was finalized, and

shortly after I met with her and she shared with

me more shocking news that she had reconnected with a

foreign exchange student from her childhood and was going to

visit her in India to find herself, to find happiness.

Then in two thousand and three, she informed that she

was going to remain in India and had convert to Islam.

My mother, who along with my father, had raised me

to believe, trust in, and submit to Jesus as God

and King, had abandoned her vows to my father before

God and chose to instead worship a false God, one

that didn't condemn her actions or convict her of her sins.

My mom feels like a stranger to me now. I

can no longer call her a sister in Christ. It's

difficult for me to even call her a mother, a grandmother,

and I struggle even considering her a neighbor, let alone

practicing mercy toward her. But in this text, Jesus showed

this lawyer and showed me that I don't get to

choose who my neighbor is. I don't get to choose

whether or not to show them mercy. We don't get

to choose who are. You don't get to choose who

your neighbor is. You don't get to choose whether or

not to show them mercy. Your neighbor is the person

next to you, your neighbor is the coworker that was

chosen over you for a promotion. Your neighbor is the

person that looks different from you. Your neighbor is the

one who votes differently than you. Your neighbor is the stranger.

Your neighbor is your enemy. For me, specifically, my neighbor

is my parent that in their sin hurt me. That

doesn't exclude her. We don't get to pick and choose.

Believers are to treat everyone as their neighbor and extend

mercy to all of them. I'm not saying this means

we accept their sin. I'm not saying that at all.

We still have to share the gospel message with them.

They still need to repent of their sin and believe

in Jesus. But we also don't wait until if or

when they repent to extend mercy to them. We don't

wait until if or when a person repents before we

treat them as our neighbor. Being a sinner does not

exclude a person from being on our list of neighbors,

because that's not what God did for us. That's not

what God did for us. If God's condition for showing

us mercy was to first be sinless not a single

person in this world, not a single person on earth,

not a single person throughout history, could ever obtain his salvation,

could ever obtain his mercy. Praise God. That's not the condition.

Praise God, That's not the condition. In our sinfulness, God

was merciful. Look at Romans. But God demonstrates his own

love for us in this While we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

Amen.

While we were still sinners, God was merciful. He was

merciful and sent his only begotten son to die for

us and save us from our sin. He didn't wait

for us to be sinless before he did that. Look

at Colossians one, verse twenty two, verse twenty one.

Excuse me.

Once, Once you were alienated from God and were enemies

in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now

He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death

to present. Did I read that right? Excuse me?

But now yeah, thank you.

But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body

through death to present you holy in his sight, without

blemish and free from accusation. Amen, while we were still sinners,

God was merciful while we were enemies. While we were

aliens and strangers to him. He was merciful, and through

his son's death we were reconciled to him Ephesians one

four through six. For he chose us in him before

the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless

in his sight in love, he pre destined us for

adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his

pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace,

which he has freely given us in the one he

loves Amen. As strangers in our sin, he was merciful

and gave his son to save us from our sin

as enemies and rebellion. He was merciful and adopted us

to sonship through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And according to his perfect will, according to his good

pleasure and the over abundance of his love, he chose you.

He chose a sinner, he chose his enemy, he chose

the alien, he chose the stranger, and reconciled you to him.

And by his grace and his mercy, we are called

not to choose who our neighbor is.

Or to whom we shall show mercy.

We are called to show mercy to everyone, to our enemies,

to the unbeliever, to the stranger, because God showed us

the mercy while we were all of that.

With the knowledge of what.

God has done, and with Christ as an example as

our example, we show mercy to our neighbors.

That's everyone. That's the fellow believer.

It's the person you disagree with, the homeless person you

drive by every day, the person that cuts you off

in traffic, that's real. Your neighbor is the stranger, it's

your enemy. It's not easy, but as believers in Jesus Christ,

by his teaching and his exams ample, we treat all

of them as a neighbor.

We show all of them.

Mercy, just as God showed us mercy. After his confession

that it was the Samaritan that acted as a neighbor

and showed mercy to the dying man and Jesus's parable,

Jesus replies with this command, go and do likewise, Go

and do likewise. Notice that Jesus didn't say good, you

understand it. I'm so happy that you get it now

and then walk away. Jesus never lets you have the fuck.

No.

Jesus parable revealed the pride the self justification and the

sin and this man and commanded him to go and

do what he just confessed. His command is, you know

who your neighbor is. Now good, now go show them mercy.

So our lesson from this text today is this, You

can't choose your neighbors. You must choose to show mercy.

You can't choose your neighbors, you must choose to show mercy.

Scripture tells us that God's word is written in our hearts.

We don't have to guess who our neighbors are. It

shows us who our neighbors are. We don't get to choose,

and with Jesus as our example, we don't get to

carefully measure out mercy.

As we give it to those neighbors.

We give it freely, we give it sacrificially, and we

give it joyfully, just as He did towards us. We

don't get to carefully measure out mercy as we give

it to our neighbors. We give it freely, sacrificially, and joyfully,

just as He did for us. That kind of mercy,

the kind of mercy Jesus showed us, is undeserved. It

is kind, it is selfless, it is loving. That kind

of mercy looks past differences to help others in need.

And listen.

When we miss the mark and when we fail in

our own pride, in our own sinfulness, and our own

self justification. Whatever difficulty you may have in treating your

neighbors everyone with mercy, repent and rely on God's unending

mercy and do better next time.

Praise God.

Rely on God's unending mercy towards you as you strive

to extend God's mercy to your neighbors