Parables of Grace: The Parable of the Good Samaritan | Guest Speaker: Josh Teague

Good morning.

Nice to see you all.

How are we?

Good, good.

Nice to see you all.

If we haven't met, my name is Josh Teague.

I'm just one of the elders.

I'm a member here at the church.

So this is not something I normally do.

During the week, though, I'm I work in the world of software.

I'm a husband to my wife Lauren and my four girls.

We live here in Marietta.

And so it's nice, it's a privilege to get to do this with you guys this morning to share the gospel.

And today we've got some very good news to soak in together.

But with that in mind, let me open us up with a word of prayer and then we'll get started.

Bow our heads.

Lord, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for this building, Lord, that we get to church, that we get to worship in, Lord.

Thank you for the families represented here, Lord.

Lord, we pray, Lord, today, that your truths are spoken.

Lord, that I learned something new this morning about you.

And Lord, we pray that, uh, Lord, your um our worship today, this morning, and our thoughts and our hearts, Lord, are pleasing to you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, as you may know, it's that little context here.

We're doing a summer series on the parables in the New Testament.

And this morning we're looking at the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Now, everybody knows these words, Good Samaritan, right?

This is a very common thing we hear about in culture.

Uh, we it's in the daily news, it's in pop culture, it's in the nonprofit world, the good Samaritan.

And it was even in preparing to speak on this topic that you know, I saw these words Good Samaritan.

It's kind of like when you get a new car and suddenly you see that car you got just everywhere.

It's just kind of like, what have I done?

You know?

And so I saw the words Good Samaritan everywhere, and so just like this constant reminder, you need to be like planning for this and getting this together, and so but anyway, it's really eye-opening because we just see it everywhere.

Uh, you know, somewhere along the way, I saw a headline on the internet that said, Paris Jackson robbed while trying to be a good Samaritan.

So Paris Jackson, this is it's in celebrity culture.

And she was robbed.

It's almost like it's part two of the story we never heard.

The Good Samaritan was robbed.

It's interesting.

I think she's okay, by the way.

Um but I was curious because I just happened to see this headline and I did some Googling for, I typed into Google, celebrity good, and then the drop down was celebrity good skin.

And then secondarily was celebrity good Samaritan.

It's a topic, like this is a real thing.

I was just stumbled into it.

And there are articles and there's lists like you just wouldn't believe around celebrities, you know, these people that we worship helping lowly people like the rest of us, right?

I didn't read any of them, I was a little bit tempted, but you can go look this up yourself.

There's some good ones.

I'll read you a few of the titles of these articles I came across.

Number one, these are all lists, by the way, 29 celebrities who have saved the lives of regular people.

So again, we're just establishing class structures.

We're gonna just be okay with that.

A second one I saw, these are all on the top page of Google.

Twenty times celebrities have pulled off awesome good deeds.

Okay?

So we have 29 times, 20 times somewhere in there.

We've done this a few times.

Uh and last but not least, this was my favorite one.

I don't even know what it means, but I liked it.

Celebrity good Samaritans.

Oh no, they didn't.

I don't know.

You know, so I'm I imagine these are very like high-quality pieces of writing.

But uh it's lost all meaning, this this phrase, Good Samaritan.

It's lost all meaning.

We don't know what this is as a culture.

Even as Christians, we forget, right?

So today we're gonna get into the original story.

And as we do, I want us to understand this parable today.

It's it's all about Jesus.

All through it.

It's all about him.

That's point number one, by the way.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is all about Jesus.

So this morning, let's be looking for evidences of him as we read.

Okay?

We'll start with Luke 10.

It's in your bulletin if you've got it.

Luke 10, 25.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test.

This is somebody probably in the Jewish uh leadership, saying, Teacher, he's saying, Jesus, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus said to him, Well, what's written in the law?

How do you read it?

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

He recited that.

And Jesus said to him, You've answered correctly.

Do this and you'll live.

And he's probably thinking, Yeah, I got that.

Seems pretty straightforward, just two laws.

We can probably do that, right?

We can love the Lord with all our might, all our head, and all our strength, and we can love our neighbor too.

I like those simple requirements.

We could probably just go home now, right?

No big deal.

Now, Jesus, in the same way that he is both God and he is man, I think in this moment he is being both sincere, he's being direct with this person, and perhaps he's also prodding at him a little bit, as we'll find out.

Because Jesus, he knows the heart of this man, he knows what is kind of underneath this question.

He's God.

He's wanting to kind of get at that a little bit.

And so Jesus answered very simply, and we'll pick up in verse 29.

But he, the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, But who is my neighbor?

So perhaps here at best, the lawyer he just wants to clarify his question.

It's best case scenario.

But at worst, and what we'll find out, is we're seeing the real motive of his heart.

We're seeing the question underneath this question.

He wants to kind of justify himself and kind of say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's clarify something here.

You know, he's saying, I'd like to draw a circle around my neighbors.

Who must I love that's a neighbor?

Like, what who are these people?

And are there people that maybe, hmm, no thanks.

I'm good.

I don't want to complicate my life with you know people that are hard to love.

All right.

Surely I'm loving the Lord, right?

Uh and so you know, he's probably thinking, you know, I've got this book, I've got that first part done.

I'm loving the Lord.

I've got this book.

I know it by heart, by the way.

I was able to recite it by memory for this supposed teacher man here.

I've got that part down.

Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So this is where we pick up the parable.

Keep in mind though, this parable is in response to this man's rather insincere set of questions.

Number one, how do I get to heaven?

Now that we all want to know how we get to heaven, right?

That's okay.

But two, but he's not actually asking, how can I love my Lord?

How can I actually love the Lord?

What does that look like?

He's just saying, how do I get to heaven?

So, you know.

Number two, he's asking, who is my neighbor?

Not even like how can I be a good neighbor, but just who is it?

He wants to desire some exclusivity.

He wants to establish a sense of an in and an out, a person who's in and out.

He's caring more about the duty, the requirements of this, and not the joy to be found in doing it well.

Now we're picking on this guy, but we all do this, right?

We're gonna pick on this guy a little bit.

Well, we all do this.

We want to find the rules and the procedures by which we are accepted.

And not necessarily, okay, I'm gonna fail at that.

How do I do it well, though?

So this man's been robbed, beaten, he's been left for dead.

He's on the side of the road.

Without clothes, by the way, he's totally unidentifiable, which means you can't slot him in any kind of you know socioeconomic uh slotting.

He could be rich, he could be poor, we don't know.

But you can tell from a simple glance that it will be a significant sacrifice to care for him, much less love him, like scripture's calling for.

Is he really worth my time?

I've got to get to the soccer game.

Why should I do this?

He doesn't need 15 cents.

Or, you know, maybe I can just sign him up for a handout program or something, right?

And get along my way.

No, he needs somebody to save his life.

He's dying.

We're dying.

We are dead.

As unbelievers.

Now, by chance, it says a priest was going down the road.

And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Now, why didn't this priest help?

Russ, why didn't you help?

Because he couldn't touch the lighting with the father.

Yeah, yeah, we but that's definitely that.

There's there's the commentators we believe that it perhaps he couldn't touch him, because there's Jewish law that says you can't touch the corpse of a dead body on, you know, because of purity reasons.

There's also folks that believe, you know, perhaps that's actually not the case.

Perhaps he was actually going down along the road away from Jerusalem.

His temple duties might have been over.

So maybe he could have helped.

We don't know.

We'll keep going, verse 32.

So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place in Psalm, he also passed by on the other side.

You can think of a Levite functionally as somebody who just helps the priest.

This is maybe, you know, you know, there is definitely a significance to their ancestry and their lineage, uh, but think of them maybe as you would maybe a deacon or an elder, somebody helping out a lot.

Now, Jesus himself, he doesn't get into reasons why neither of these people helped.

And I think he intentionally avoids it for a couple of reasons that we'll find out.

Number one, I think ultimately those reasons they just don't matter.

They just don't matter.

Whether it was for ritualistic reasons, maybe it was for fear, maybe it was for protectionism, or maybe laziness, which is often the case for me.

We don't really know.

But we know they're not loving the neighbor as themselves, as scripture is calling for.

Which brings us to the second reason.

I believe Jesus is what he's doing is he's actually trying to put the lawyer in a little bit of a box.

He's cornering him a little bit.

He's ultimately setting him up to see who was the neighbor to him.

He's trying to basically put this lawyer in the story and they say, okay, if this was you, how would you want to be treated?

That's what scripture calls for.

Who was the neighbor to him?

Don't you know that if the self-righteous lawyer, or maybe one of us, were to write this story, it would simply start and end with us.

You know, there'd be a guy on the side of the road.

Let's just pick up the story there.

You know, you see a man in dire need.

This a Christian was walking along the roadside.

He sees this man in dire need of help.

He put everything down.

And in the process of doing so, this Christian realized that this man was a drug addict.

Or maybe a wealthy person, we don't know again.

Or maybe this person he determined was a liberal or a conservative.

But he was an enemy.

And wouldn't you know it that the Christian said, I don't care, I'm gonna help this guy.

And he put aside his differences and he helped him anyway.

Way to go, Christians.

Right?

That's probably how we would write it.

We would know it's false, we know it's completely, we don't do this.

But maybe it's how we would write it.

It's not how Jesus works.

But what we see next is that the it's the oppressor that helps the man in need.

And it's been totally flipped.

The oppressor is the loving neighbor to this man.

So this is verse 33, we'll pick it up there.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, he came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Okay, so who is this Samaritan?

This is where the parable gets a little bit more interesting.

This is, you can think of a Samaritan or the Samaritan people as really the archenemy of the Jewish laity.

They were social outcasts at best, but at worst they were literal enemies of the Jewish leadership.

And it really would have been unimaginable for a Samaritan man to help a Jewish man.

And definitely the other way around.

They were at opposite ends.

Think of Jesus' command, again, to love your enemies.

And the context here will land, I think, appropriately.

These are enemies.

And also, I think this is actually worth mentioning.

What happened just one chapter back in Luke 9?

I think this is pretty interesting.

Uh Jesus was on his way to the cross, he was on his way to Jerusalem where the cross, he was headed that way.

He was looking for a place to stay.

He was homeless.

He was with his disciples, but they were looking for a place to stay.

And he sent some people ahead into a Samaritan village and said, Can we just ask them if the Samaritan will see if they'll host us?

And they said, No.

They said, We know who you are, we know where you're going, we don't want to have you here.

So they said, No.

They were not very accommodating.

So let's see how some of the disciples react.

This is in Luke 9, flip back one page to verse 54.

I'll read it here.

And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they realized that the word came back, they couldn't stay there.

They said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

That's pretty strong, right?

Can we just curse them and be done with them?

You have the power, we have the power within us.

Why don't we just do this once and for all be done with it?

Now, Jesus then said, he just turned to them and rebuked them.

And it says, and they went on to another village.

Now, we don't know specifically what Jesus said in that moment, but we know it was a rebuke.

We probably know it wasn't really pretty.

I kind of like to think that with Luke, when he's compiling these stories, when he's actually writing the book of Luke, I kind of like to think that he's writing along, he's like, oh yeah, then we got that part where, oh yeah, they sent them to that.

And James and John got completely, you know, rebuked.

Maybe I'll just leave those details out for their sake.

You know?

I'm gonna do them a solid, because uh, let's just not get there.

So he rebuked them and they went to another city.

The end.

Okay?

But anyway, I think what we're seeing here is that in light of this very recent personal rejection from Jesus, Jesus uses the Samaritan people, the outcast, the oppressed, those that rejected him.

He uses them as the grace figure who will save this dying Jewish man.

Are you guys with me on this?

This is forgiveness.

This is instant forgiveness.

This is what forgiveness truly looks like for us.

How many times do we do this?

This is Jesus, though.

So we're only getting started.

Back in uh verse 34, back in the parable.

He, the Samaritan man, went to him, he bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, probably as an antiseptic to help cleanse the wound, and he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Now, the Samaritan man, by the way, uh he set the dying man on his animal.

Probably he had a single animal.

We can just imagine this.

So that meant the Samaritan man's walking, and uh the dying man is just up on this horse.

So this is not a three amigos situation, if you follow me.

This is not like, you know, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and uh Martin Short on the same horse.

If you've ever seen that movie, this is not that.

So don't picture that.

Don't you dare picture that.

This is one man walking, one man riding, full stop.

This is sacrifice.

So he gives him a ride, he puts him in an Uber, and he meets him at the end where he continues to lavish attention and love on this man.

He's saving his life.

He's saving his life.

He provides weeks, if not a month's worth of money.

We don't know what insurance looked like, but can you imagine bringing somebody and being like, ah, he's not under my insurance plan, but anyway, just take him.

I'm not sure how much this is gonna cost, but do it.

And he and then he tells the innkeeper if you end up spending more and you need more, just go ahead and do it.

Let me know, I'll swing by later and I'll pay the deed.

It's all good.

No big deal.

So again, he doesn't just call for others to help him, he doesn't just toss them 15 cents, he goes into debt for this guy.

Which brings us to point number two this morning.

Jesus has lavished this love on us.

Nobody was a better neighbor to us, nobody is a better neighbor to us than our Lord Christ.

Nobody did it better.

And we see this kind of high calling, as you know, all through Scripture.

This kind of high calling for sacrifice for the oppressed, all through Scripture.

Listen to these words from Isaiah 58.

This is the Lord speaking.

He says, Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your home, and when you see the naked, cover him.

And do not hide yourself from your own flesh.

Last phrase he's saying there, hiding yourself from your own flesh.

I think what he's getting at is don't deny the fact that this person could have been you.

Don't deny the fact that the Lord, we were all made in the Lord's image.

This is you, he is you, you are him.

It goes on.

Pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted.

Now, in tribal and protectionist societies like we see here and in the Old Testament, and let's face it, here in America too, this is pretty radical thinking, right?

This is exactly what the Good Samaritan is doing, though.

He's saying, as the words in Isaiah say, he's pouring himself out.

He's not just helping, he's giving him everything.

He's dying for this man, he's dying to this man's needs.

As we are to die for Christ.

So, in closing out the conversation with the lawyer, Jesus asks a rhetorical question.

He says, Which of these three people proved to be a neighbor to the dying man?

And the man says, the one who showed him mercy.

Note here how he can't even bring himself to say the words the Samaritan man.

That's how deep their hatred was of one another.

And yet, again, this love is just being poured out, poured out.

And so it is kind of funny how we as a society we're kind of a little heavy-handed, if I can say so, about when it comes to naming our organizations this.

You know, whether it's a hospital or a nonprofit, named the Good Samaritan, so-and-so.

It's kind of like we want to remind people no, it wasn't just the one who showed mercy, it was the Good Samaritan.

All right?

That's who it was.

Face it.

It's a good thing.

Jesus closes with, you go and you do likewise.

So what's Jesus saying here?

Seems pretty clear.

It's pretty harsh.

He says, what he's doing is he's holding up his law as the standard by which we will be measured for eternity.

He's saying this is important.

And this is how high of a calling you have.

Now, will we be able to honestly love, like the Samaritan loved?

I mean, think about it, this is just one man.

We we go through every day this is happening.

Will we be able to honestly love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with your mind, oh, and also your neighbor as yourself?

That's that's a lot.

By our own strength, no, we're not gonna be able to do that.

Uh, we won't.

Certainly not by the example again of the Good Samaritan.

We are all works in progress, amen.

Jesus is answering the Lord's question here very directly at the end.

He's saying, okay, to gain eternal life, that was your question.

This is the standard.

And the standard is much higher than you ever imagined.

You thought you had it right.

You thought you were loving me, you thought you were loving your neighbors, but it's actually way higher.

My holiness standard is so high, you have no idea.

So, where do we where do we end every sermon?

Do we leave it there?

No, we sit with Jesus.

We have him.

He is sufficient for us.

He lived the perfect life of the Good Samaritan.

He died for us, he lived the perfect life, the perfect sacrifice, and he's risen.

And so when God looks upon us as Christians, as believers, he sees his perfect son, he sees his son Jesus.

We are accepted.

And we have been deemed holy beyond that.

Not just accepted, we are seen as holy saints, by the way, because of him.

He's died for us.

Which brings me to the final point of the morning, and we'll close here.

By grace, it's a bit of a wordy one, by grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit, not of us, we are free to do as the Good Samaritan did.

And we are called to do as the Good Samaritan did, but we're to do it out of joy and not out of this sense of obligation.

We're to do it out of joy.

And certainly without the burden of it being the measure of our acceptance.

By grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are free to do as the Good Samaritan did and are called to do, but without the burden of it being the measure of our acceptance.

Can we pray for us?

Hold on here.

God, we thank you for this morning.

Thank you, Lord, that though the calling here is such a burdensome thing, Lord, you have come to die for that, Lord.

You have come to die for us as sinners.

Lord, thank you that in you, Lord, um, we are accepted.

Lord, show us uh creative ways, Lord, to love others.

And in doing so, Lord, just let us do so with joy and in rest, knowing, Lord, that you are, ultimately, Lord, you are accepting of us.

And we praise you for that this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.