Get Real With God Part 2 | Get REAL With God with Chris Schlotterbeck

Welcome to Hub City Vineyard.

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change me to 970-00.

Thank you and enjoy the message.

So welcome to HCV.

We're so glad you're here.

If you're joining us from home, thank you for welcoming us into your space.

All of you know when football kicks off so does HCV with our annual Jersey Sunday.

It's great to see so many Jerseys out there.

You representing your different teams.

Remember, like Rudy said, our growth groups, tailgate, so why not feed yourself a little

food is right after this in our parking lot.

Go to check it out.

If you're watching online, simply go to hcv.church forward slash groups and you can find all the

groups that are meeting this fall.

Many of you know that last week we kicked off a new series for the month of September

entitled Get Real With God.

So for the month, we're going to be discussing what God is looking for in the lives of those

who have a relationship with him.

I discussed what we do, what we love and how we walk or carry ourselves matters when it

comes to Jesus.

Based off the words written in Micah 6, 8, which read, no, O people, the Lord has told

you what is good and this is what he requires of you and me to do what is right, to love

mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

And over the next few weeks, I'm going to break down these verses one by one so that

we get a better understanding of what God requires for us.

Today we will be discussing two words that have become something different in our day

than what Jesus originally intended them to mean.

They are the words good Samaritan.

Can we all say that together?

Good Samaritan.

Now, if you were to look that up in the dictionary or even better yet, their urban dictionary,

we learn that a good Samaritan is usually someone who goes out on a limb to help others

even if they are complete strangers.

Now obviously there are people living in our world today that do incredibly heroic things

for strangers on a daily basis.

People they don't know, people that they will never be rewarded for helping.

We can think of lifeguards or firefighters or first responders, paramedics, our police

force and nurses, people who daily do incredibly kind things and service for strangers.

But it has also become a term for someone who does something kind for a stranger in

a small way.

Like for example, you find a wallet in the parking lot and rather than keeping it or

looking through it, you return it so that someone can find it.

You see someone loading a bulky item into their car and instead of just walking by and

ignoring them and continuing on social media, you stop, you pause and you help that person.

We may hear someone remark, oh that was a good Samaritan or wow there is still goodness

in the world today.

As I share these different examples, many of you sitting in here as you reflect on your

life you think yeah I have performed actions like those and have been referred to or even

felt like a good Samaritan.

It feels good when we do things like that.

A term which of course comes right from the mouth of Jesus when he shared a parable with

a religious leader to answer a question.

Now we must realize when Jesus talks about a good Samaritan, this is not at all what

he means.

It's not just a nice thing done for a stranger out of the kindness of your heart.

In fact, the purpose of the story originally wasn't to inspire this religious leader, it

was to enlighten him, to literally put a mirror in front of his face to show him that he was

a no good Samaritan.

That he wasn't as good as he thought he was and we must remember this man was a lawyer

or an expert in religious law.

This is not like a defense attorney that is in our world today, right, who helps you in

a trial for a judge.

This is a religious figure, a seminary teacher, an expert who knew better than anyone else

what someone had to do to inherit eternal life.

This man would very literally spend his entire day and night every day thinking about and

trying to live out what God requires for us, trying to live out Micah 6, 8.

What does someone have to do to achieve wholeness?

What does someone have to do for God to be pleased with them?

What does someone have to do to be part of the resurrection?

How do we get to heaven?

You know, questions like this, this man would ponder, reflect on, teach others and share

with others how to do it.

This is what this man literally spent his entire life doing which leads us to our first

thought.

See, God requires his followers to love their neighbors.

God requires his followers to love their neighbors.

Again, back to Micah 6, 8, no, oh Lord, oh people, the Lord has told you what is good

and this is what he requires of you to do what is right.

Micah 6, 8 in the message paraphrased from Eugene Peterson says it this way but he's

already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women.

It's quite simple, do what is fair and just, here it is, to your neighbor.

Right, now as Jesus expands on it, the story of the parable of the good Samaritan begins

in Luke chapter 10 verses 25 to 27 when we read these words.

Luke 10:25–27

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question,

teacher, what should I do in an inherent internal 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.

Now when we break this down into context, remember we want to break the Bible down into

what is happening.

This man came to trap or test Jesus with a question, right?

He and the rest of his colleagues heard Jesus preaching the message of the kingdom.

This easy believism, this message, it says grace is available for everyone.

It doesn't matter if you're a prostitute, a tax collector, it doesn't matter what you

do.

If you just believe in Jesus, eat his flesh, drink his blood, whatever that means, look

at the sun being lifted up on the cross like Moses lifted up the serpent, right?

You don't have to follow or keep all the laws.

You don't have to fast or pray twice a day like the religious leaders did.

You didn't have to look and play the part of being religious.

All one has to do is believe in Jesus and you can be forgiven.

See these men, these religious leaders, they were frustrated and nauseous over this message

of grace that Jesus preached.

They were nauseated because the gospel doesn't allow them or us to be the hero of the story.

See the gospel, the good news always points to Jesus being the way.

He is Superman, if you will, and we are always the ones in needs of being rescued, being

saved while Jesus does the rescuing.

He, Jesus does everything that is required.

Now the religious elite, the leaders, they didn't like this message of grace, this good

news.

They wanted to earn it their own themselves.

They wanted to be able to do something and be proud of it.

They wanted to live such a holy life that God has to look down from heaven and say,

well done, I choose you.

You are so good.

I am so proud to have you on my team, right?

They wanted a religious experience that allowed them to puff out their chest and shine their

merit badges.

They did not like this message of the good news.

They did not like this message of grace.

And this is why this religious expert thought he was going to teach Jesus a lesson to show

him exactly what it means to follow God.

And it's funny as you fast forward to today, when you put this whole story into context,

suddenly all of us realize that's just a bad idea to even challenge the son of God.

You are biting off much more than you can chew.

It's not going to end well for this religious expert.

So he begins by simply asking Jesus a question.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Now in his mind, in this religious experts mind, he was thinking, well, if Jesus says,

all you have to do is believe in me and that is how you inherit eternal life.

He's got him.

He was going to catch him in his trap.

He was going to spring loose the trap and counter with the 10 commandments and point

out 25 different ways how the law and Moses validated what the experts are saying and

not what Jesus spoke, which of course was not going to work because Jesus, he answers

the experts question with a question.

What does the law of Moses say?

He says, and suddenly see, we find this religious expert.

He's on his heels.

He's caught off guard.

He thought he was, was going to catch Jesus in a trap with the law of Moses.

And suddenly he's not prepared to answer a question about the law of Moses.

So these are his words.

Well, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, your strength

and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

Which leads us to our next thought scene because of our sin nature, humanity is self consumed

because of our sin nature, humanity is self consumed.

Now notice Jesus's response.

Luke 10, 20 to 29.

Right.

Jesus told him, do this and you will live.

And we must realize when Jesus says, right, he means, yes, yes, yes.

Yes, that is correct.

If you can do that, then you would inherit eternal life, love God perfectly and love

your neighbor as yourself.

You know, Jesus says, do it and you will live in verse 28.

If you can do that, then you will live, which of course, if you really step and put it into

context, it's a backhanded compliment.

It's a jab to the ribs because within that statement, do this and you will live.

Jesus has insinuated the man is not doing it.

He's not living it like he says he is.

If you could love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor

as you love yourself, then yes, you would be justified before God.

But of course you have not done that and no one is capable of doing that.

So see, it gets real awkward.

And then suddenly the expert, he pivots again now asking, well, what is a neighbor or who

is my neighbor?

Know what it's how he's trying to draw out this conversation.

When you say neighbor, Jesus, you certainly don't mean everyone, right?

Who do I have to love like I love me?

Right?

Because there's no one that we love as much as we love ourselves.

Jesus responds to the question, who is my neighbor with a story?

And then we'll ask another question for clarification at the very end.

So what Jesus does in this famous story, one of the greatest stories ever recorded.

In fact, many people, not just in the church, but outside the church know it, right?

He's going to use this story to show the man, hey, you're a no good Samaritan.

But rather than calling him out and saying it to his face, he allows this religious expert

to find himself in the story, which let us continue Luke 10, 30 to 33, Jesus replied

to the story.

A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits.

Now I'm going to explain and tease out the whole story.

Now most likely this man lived in the Jericho region, picture a nice palm tree area, lush

and thriving.

He had gone to Jerusalem to worship or on a business trip and coming back home, he was

attacked by robbers.

Now this particular stretch of road, the people in the audience that would have heard this

story, they would have related and understood the danger to walking that road.

In fact, many of them would have been thinking, I hope he's not alone.

I hope he does not go unarmed.

Hopefully it wasn't too late of night because that place was so dangerous, okay, that it

was known as to be the place where people got mugged and taken advantage of.

It was 17 miles long and it was so notorious.

It was nicknamed the way of blood.

So let's continue.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up and left him half dead beside the road.

By chance, now other translations use, but fortunately a priest came along.

Now please understand a priest would be the number one most likely person to help out

in this situation.

There's a Jewish man lying on the ground, struggling to breathe, dying.

He's in danger, a priest, a man who represents God, a man that is supposed to be known for

compassion.

He's walking along the same road, no doubt just finished serving in the temple, was just

in church full of heavenly thoughts, full of the spirit.

He was reflecting on the goodness of God.

Surely this man would have sprung to help out this man that was dying.

But notice, the story continues.

When he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him

by.

Now please understand, when we think of road in our day, the roads back then were nothing

like our roads.

This road described in this story was simply a path.

It was no more than five or six feet wide.

It was very narrow, had lots of twists and turns.

So when we read that the priest avoided the man that was dying, he would have had to gone

out of his way, literally stepped over this dying man to get to the other side of the

road and get out of there as quickly as he could.

But it doesn't end there.

Let's continue.

It gets even better.

A temple assistant, also known as a Levite, the worship leader, if you will.

So think Carl Orette walked over to the man, looked at him lying there, but he also passed

by on the other side.

Hmm.

Now both the Levite and the priest literally were God's hands and feet for benevolence.

As people brought their tithes and offerings to the temple, these men would discuss and

manage the funds that would help out people.

So these two were the best shot at helping this man.

There is no one more likely to help than these two men who both by nationality and profession

were obligated to help, but they did what?

Nothing.

Now I'm sure they had lots of excuses just like you and I do as to why.

Oh, I've been serving God all day.

Now they had to get home to their families.

Or hey, if we stay around here too long, this might be a trap.

These robbers may come after us and if they catch us and kill us, who's going to take

care of the temple?

We are serving the greater good by not helping this guy.

Let's get out of here.

So Jesus continues.

Then a despised Samaritan came along.

And I just want to pause right there because we have to realize the Jews hated the Samaritans

and it's not often taught, but the Samaritans hated the Jews.

And there was a very tense rivalry that one felt that they were always better than the

other.

See long before these two groups of people were from the same family, but there was a

split and a feud.

Sound familiar?

Within the Samaritans because they would say, no, this is how our person worships.

And then Jews would say, no, this is how you do it.

And there was this intense hatred between these two groups of people.

But suddenly this man, this Samaritan, he's in the what?

He's in the spotlight.

And when listening to the story, the Jews would have immediately responded with anger

and disgust.

For example, listen to this.

In the daily Jewish prayers, prayers recorded for the Jewish believers to pray every single

day that became a part of their tradition, a normal Jewish man in this time during this

time would have included a prayer like this.

God, I thank you.

There will be no Samaritans in the resurrection.

That would have been a normal statement in their prayer life.

And see for you and I, it's difficult to understand and communicate the intense hatred between

the Jews and the Samaritans.

Heck even Jesus's own disciples, right?

The ones that were following Jesus, they hated the Samaritans and they were always confused

as to why Jesus, why would you go to Samaria?

Why would you minister to these people?

Right?

They were so confused in John chapter four, right?

When Jesus is hanging out with the woman at the well, he's breaking and defying cultural

bigotry, gender stereotypes.

He's destroying sexism.

Why Jesus, why are you doing this?

Because Jesus ministered to everyone.

He didn't care where they were from because he wants to build a church from every tribe,

tongue and nation.

And see this always confused the disciples.

I mean just the chapter before in Luke chapter nine, Jesus sent his disciples to go to Samaria

and to find a place for him to stay on his way to Jerusalem.

He wanted to stay a night, rest, eat, get refueled on his journey to Jerusalem.

So the disciple went out to try to rent a house to try to find food for Jesus to stay

and no one would help him.

No one would rent a room to them.

So they returned to Jesus.

Listen to these words.

Okay, this is James and John.

This is two of the three inner circle, right?

These are the disciples of the disciples.

They said to Jesus, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven and burn them up?

Two of the top three.

Like should we just burn them up?

But Jesus turned and rebuked him and he said, you don't realize what your hearts are like.

For the Son of Man has not come to destroy those lives but to save them.

Just imagine friends.

Like you have to really get into the story.

Imagine this interaction.

Jesus, they won't rent us a room.

They won't sell us food.

Should we blow them up?

Like Jesus, can we replay Sodom and Gomorrah on Samaria and just watch them all burn?

Just destroy the whole city?

It's like, what are they thinking?

Of course, Jesus rebukes them.

But do we understand now the gravity of the tension between the Jews and the Samaritans?

Two groups of people that just hated each other.

So after the priest passes by and after the worship leader passes by, the Samaritan comes

along and the Samaritan friends did three things that can change the world.

Three things that we can learn from the Samaritan that literally can change the world.

First, the Samaritan took notice.

Luke 10 33, then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, everyone say

saw.

Friends, we have to see the problem.

We have to open our eyes and make time in our schedules to see people in need.

We have to open our eyes to see crisis.

We have to open our eyes to see pain.

We have to be willing to listen to people's brokenness and allow the Holy Spirit to lead

us to people and into inconvenience that are an inconvenience.

Right?

As we walk through life, it's not always about following your schedules.

It's about Holy Spirit.

What do you want to do in me today?

And we learn that from Paul's words in Philippians chapter two.

Don't be selfish.

Don't try to impress others.

Be humble.

Thinking of others is better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

Right?

Friends, we have to take notice.

Number two, we have to have compassion.

Then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.

Now some translations use the word pity rather than compassion.

So the Samaritan, think about it.

He saw the man and he took pity or had compassion on the man.

And remember the voices inside the Samaritan's head would have been saying, this guy won't

help you.

This guy's not worth it.

This guy doesn't care about you.

Just walk away.

But this man, this Samaritan chose to feel.

He saw that Jewish man as a human.

He saw that broken, destroyed, beaten man as a person that had worth.

And if it were me, that Samaritan man was thinking, I would want someone to help me.

He was empathizing with others.

It's putting your feet into someone else's shoes and asking those difficult questions.

What would life be like for me if I was raised in poverty?

What would life be like for me if I grew up abused?

What would life be like for me if I lived in that part of the town or under in those

conditions?

When this Samaritan man saw the need, he felt the need and he had compassion.

He was on his way to becoming like Jesus because that's how Jesus lived.

Isaiah 53, three tells us that Jesus was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted

with the deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and he looked the other way.

He was despised and he did not care.

One of the most used words to describe Jesus's emotional state was compassion.

Matthew 14, 14, Jesus saw the huge crowds.

He stepped from the boat and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

The word in the Greek for compassion is the word nizomai.

And it describes when your stomach is literally tied in knots, when you feel sick on the inside

as you listen to or watch the stories of people that are abused and struggling in this life.

You literally feel their pain.

You feel their burden.

You feel their sorrow.

And that is how Jesus felt because he had compassion on people.

See the Samaritan man, when he saw his enemy lying there, he was willing to feel the pain

of that man, what he was going through.

He had been beaten.

He had been robbed.

He had been left for dead.

And when you do that, when you see, when you have compassion, then you can move to the

next most crucial step.

You take action.

Luke 10, 34 to 35, going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil

and wine and bandaged them.

And 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 innkeeper two silver coins telling him, take care of this man.

If this bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.

The Samaritan was willing to take action.

And friends, I love our community of faith.

I absolutely love pastoring HCV because you know something?

We get it done.

We buy backpacks for the backpack giveaway.

We give away thousands of pieces of candy for the upcoming trunk or treat.

We supply families with Thanksgiving meals because they don't have them.

We give Christmas gifts to children of incarcerated parents.

You just heard from Jess and Rudy.

We can purchase tickets to a spaghetti dinner, a delicious spaghetti dinner, bringing family

and friends to raise money to end human trafficking in modern day slavery.

We can spend a weekend running a race or walking for those of you that are slightly injured.

Or you could sponsor a child to end child exploitation in the U.S. and around the world.

You're going to learn today there's going to be people opening their house to host a

growth group.

Some of you are serving cups of coffee every Sunday morning or teaching our kids.

We're all busy.

We have obligations.

We have family commitments.

We all need time to relax.

But if we're willing to serve, if we're willing to take notice, if we have compassion and

take action, God will use us to change the world.

Amen.

But everyone say but.

This is not the point of the story.

Listen, this isn't a rah rah session about getting out in the community and being a good

Samaritan.

This is not a guilt trip to make you feel like, oh gosh, I need to change.

I shouldn't be so selfish.

I need to serve once a month.

I need to get in the group.

I know being around people helped me to grow and become more like Jesus.

I know that when I give financially, it changes people's lives.

I know people get baptized and they spend eternity with God.

No, this talk is not about you going out and being a good Samaritan.

This story, remember, was told to help this man see that he was a no good Samaritan and

neither am I and neither are you.

That's the point.

This is not a motivational message.

Hey, try a little harder.

I'll lend you the could.

Yeah, I should serve.

Yeah, I should give.

I gotta, I gotta share the good news.

This man was being told the only way for him to inherit eternal life was to be so good

and to love God so much and to love your neighbor so selflessly that you love him more than

you love yourself.

And who the neighbor is, is every person you have ever hated.

Think about that.

Listen, we don't love the people that love us as well as this man loved the one who hated

him.

The point of this story was to make the desperate man realize it's impossible.

Who then can be saved?

We need to get to a place of realizing what Paul wrote in Romans 320 for no one can ever

be made right with God but doing what the law commands.

The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

The point of this story was to make this religious expert and to make you and I realize that

it's impossible to live out in his own strength than he needed someone else to help him, which

leads us to our truth of the day.

Jesus is the good Samaritan.

He is the one who came down from heaven.

He is the one who came down off the donkey.

He is the one who carries oil in one hand and wine in the other.

Wine, speaking of his blood shed for the sins, oil speaking to the anointing of the Holy

Spirit.

Not only the cause for the forgiveness of sin, but the Holy Spirit that empowers us,

comes upon us and energizes us, bringing our dead bodies to life.

This story is not about being a bad guy, love like a good guy.

It's actually you and I are dead guys and a God guy came down from heaven and do what

we could never do.

He found us half dead.

Dead spiritually, but alive physically.

Hanging on in the gutter, unable to help ourselves and Jesus, he's willing to bandage us, to

put us on his horse where he should be riding.

Instead, he puts us on his horse.

He was willing to go into earth and bring you up out of death into life.

Jesus is the good Samaritan.

He's the only one that can help us.

See this talk is not meant to challenge us to go out with force.

We're an army church.

Let's go take over the streets of the tri-state area and let's be good neighbors.

No.

This is about all of us realizing that we need a good neighbor and Jesus is willing

to be that for us and that is why he came to earth.

Loop 10, 36 to 37.

Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by

the bandits?

Jesus asked.

The man replied, the one who showed him mercy.

Then Jesus said, yes, go and do the same.

See once we have this revelation that you and I, we're the man beaten in the street,

that we're the ones lying dead, left for dead.

The only logical next step is to find ourselves in the story.

Remember I talked about this last week when reading through the Bible for many of us,

we have to immerse ourselves.

We have to relate to a person in the story and if you're anything like me, who do we

want to be?

We want to be the hero.

Right?

In David versus Galat, who do we want to be?

Do you want to be Galat?

No, you want to be David.

Right?

When Peter walks on the water, who do you want to be?

You want to be Peter.

Oh, I got out of the boat.

I love it.

Right?

We will always want to be the hero.

But in this story, it gets real complicated because when I read this story, I want to

be the good Samaritan.

And I'm sure all you do as well, but more times than not, in fact, every single day,

I fail.

And if we're honest with ourselves and we look in the mirror, we are a lot more like

the priest and the temple assistant or the worship leaders.

And I want to challenge you with this church, these words written by the prophet Amos.

See, so often within the church, we gather on Sundays.

I mean, it's an incredible times of worship.

You know, we sense and feel the presence of God.

We were singing greater, you Lord, and just all your voices singing to God and raised

arms.

Right?

I was encountering God.

I was sensing his Holy Spirit.

I was ready to change the world and be in his presence and then it ends.

And we have to walk outside of these walls.

And why is it when we walk outside of these walls, everything changes?

Notice what we read in Amos 5, 21 to 24, from the message paraphrase, I can't stand your

religious meetings.

I'm fed up with your conferences and your conventions.

I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals.

I'm sick of your fundraising schemes, your public relations and image making.

I've had all I can take of your noisy ego music.

When was the last time you sang to me?

Do you know what I want?

I want justice, oceans of it.

I want fairness, rivers of it.

That's what I want.

That's all I want.

See church, God wants our worship in here and out there.

It's not very complicated, but for us to live it out there, we have to realize we're never

going to be the good Samaritan Jesus is.

And we are the men and women that are lying in the corner, in the ditch, beaten, dying

with no purpose or no meaning and we're saved by grace.

And God then fills us with his Holy Spirit.

I often compare by encounter with God to Paul's.

If you've ever been to start with why I kind of share my testimony a little bit about how

I met Jesus and how he just knocked me off my horse and said, no, it's not about you

anymore.

And that's why I believe God is challenging you and me to see ourselves in the role of

the innkeeper.

That's right.

The innkeeper think Motel six.

We will leave the light on.

See this is where God wants us to be serving every day where Jesus brings people to us.

See this talk does not put any pressure on us.

I'm not raising an army.

I'm not rallying the troops now, right?

I don't have to go out and be the good Samaritan.

No, it takes all the pressure off.

God is not calling you and me to save the world.

Jesus has already come to do that.

But anyone that Jesus chooses to bring into the end, into the church brings across our

path.

Remember we are the church.

We are to be the innkeeper springing into action and to continue doing what Jesus has

already started.

Performing first aid, serving people, sharing the good news.

Think about it.

The good Samaritan told the innkeeper that he will return.

And when I do, I want to find you aiding and serving this man back to health because I

saved this man.

So we are to take anyone that Jesus brings to us and do everything we can to help them

to serve them back to wholeness.

Because only God can forgive sin.

Right?

We experience the forgiveness of our sins when we come to God in prayer.

But the Bible says that through each other's prayers, when we pray for one another, we

become whole and healed.

Right?

We ask God to forgive us, but we confess our sins to one another that you may be healed.

See, we are meant to be working as innkeepers as we gather here at HCV doing what?

Pointing people to Jesus.

Did you realize that one invite can change someone's eternity?

One invite can change someone's eternity.

And my wife, Jess, was on a trip and she visited a church while she was away.

And she found this idea of these new cards that we created.

And I want to empower you with this.

Listen, for those of you that are timid, you feel pressure when you're out talking with

people about God or trying to share the good news.

Here's what these cards say.

Come sit with me Sundays at HCV.

That's all it says.

Come sit with me Sundays at HCV.

A simple invite that could change someone's eternity forever.

And all you have to do is say, hey, I'll meet you at the East entrance.

I'll meet you at the West entrance.

I'll meet you up at the pavilion and we'll walk in together.

All you have to do is put it into someone's hands.

They may scan that QR code that's on the back and watch this crazy tattooed pastor on a

Sunday morning and they might kneel down in their living room and give their life to Jesus

and their lives are changed for eternity.

So I want to challenge you.

We had 5,000 of these cards made.

Go give them all away.

Go give them all away.

They're all out there on the poster.

There's a poster out there right by the praying hands.

Grab a bunch of them and invite people to come, which leads us to our two simple challenge

points becoming innkeepers of God.

And these aren't action steps.

Okay.

These are challenge points.

Number one, what we have, we have been given.

What we have, we've been given.

The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, take care of this man.

Now two silver coins in our mind, we think, oh, that's a small amount.

This, this, uh, this Samaritan, he gave this innkeeper a little bit of money.

He must not have been that hurt.

Couple of days he would have been healed and left.

Not true.

He gave this man two silver coins or two denarii, which equaled 60 days stay in the inn.

Archaeologists have discovered signs with the rates for saying in an inn in that day.

It costs one 32nd of a denarii.

So he gave the innkeeper a whole lot of money, which tells us this beaten man was really

sick and this Samaritan said, here's enough money for two months.

And the innkeeper was given the money for a purpose.

What was the purpose?

The innkeeper was to use that money to help this man.

Everything that God has given us comes from him.

He owns it all.

The breath in our lungs, the talents we've been given, the money in our pockets, the

jobs we are working, the opportunities we had growing up, the schooling we received.

There is no such thing as a self-made man.

No such thing.

If so, if you, if you look at yourself that way, which part of yourself did you make?

I don't think you made anything.

Everything we have as a gift and God wants to use our gifts, everything he puts on us

for others.

Look at Matthew 25.

Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you are blessed by my father, inherit

the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.

I was hungry.

You fed me.

I was thirsty.

You gave me a drink.

I was a stranger.

You invited me into your home.

I was naked.

You gave me clothing.

I was sick and you cared for me.

I was in prison and you visited me.

And the king will say, I tell you the truth.

When you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it

to me.

God wants us to point people back to him.

God wants us to serve and bandage people and heal people.

So they realize they're not alone and they're loved by God, which leads us to our final

takeaway.

Whatever we give will be rewarded.

Whatever we give will be rewarded.

Luke 10 35.

The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, take care of this man.

Now notice if his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.

See Jesus promised that when he returns, he's bringing his rewards with him.

What is his reward?

His reward is whatever we do above and beyond the things he's called us to, right?

When we say yes to the vision of the church that says, no, we want to reach people that

don't go to church.

If people are in a church, God bless them.

High five them.

But if people don't go to church, reach out and invite them.

When we say yes to reach the forgotten in our communities, those people that are in

nursing homes that are stowed away and locked away and never visited, Jesus desires that

we extend his grace to others and invite them to receive new life through what?

Through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And we're not doing this to receive a simple reward.

We're not doing this to earn God's love.

No.

We do these things because we've experienced God's love and we just want to give it away.

We just want to give it away.

Listen to the words of Charles Spurgeon.

What the law demands of us, the gospel produces in us.

It's not about the law.

It's about the good news being produced in us.

And it's just powerful.

See, this religious lawyer thought he was going to earn God's favor by loving him and

loving his neighbor.

But if we think that way, you know something?

It's all about the minimum requirements.

Okay, God, what's the minimum work that I have to do?

And we do this all the time in our everyday life.

How long does the paper have to be?

How many words?

How many times do I need to show up at church?

How many?

How many?

See, we do it to earn our response.

Right?

And we always want to get away with just a little.

But when we're motivated by grace and love, our response should be, know God, how much

can I accomplish?

I don't have to do any of this.

Right?

We don't have to do anything.

And it's never going to change God's opinion of you if you're in a relationship with him.

He's going to look at you as a masterpiece.

It's not going to make us look better or worse in his height, in his sight.

Therefore, I want to give more.

I want to serve more.

I want to reach more in the hope city with this good news.

Because listen, by the time I die, by the time I'm being carried away and there's a

celebration of life for Chris, all I want is that people say, that man pointed me towards

Jesus.

I want people to say that I encourage them to receive and experience God's love.

I want people to say, no, that man raised up the next generation and empowered people

to be better people.

That's it.

What are we going to get out of it?

We're going to be rewarded with the simple words, well done, my good and faithful servant.

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

Our lives will be saved for eternity.

Not saved from the penalty of sin.

That was taken care of at the cross, but talking about saved from a wasted life.

Saved from a life that's a wasted story.

A story where you live for yourself and not for the bigness of God's kingdom.

For his work on earth.

And being at this Jersey Sunday, I want to tell you about a man named Jim Becker.

He was a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan.

There's an image of him that's going to pop up on the screen.

This is actually a picture taken when he was inaugurated into the Green Bay Packers Hall

of Fame.

The problem was Jim and his wife had 11 children and he could not afford to go to the games.

But there was a blood bank that he discovered would pay him $15 every time he gave a half

plane of blood.

So Jim went faithfully every single time there was a home game.

He gave blood and he sold it cheering the Packers on along the way.

And he did it for 56 years.

He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

But what he did not know in all those years, that entire time that he gave his blood just

to sit in those seats, was that he had an often fatal disease called hemochromatosis.

This is essentially where the blood, where there's too much iron that builds up in your

body.

And they estimate this man would have been dead at age 45.

He did not even know he had the disease.

And did you know the only treatment and the only cure for hemochromatosis is giving blood

at least once a month, which he did for 56 years.

Now, now here's the crazy thing.

Jim did it because he thought it was putting him into a seat.

He did not know it was saving his life.

And for many of us, we have to realize this mission to be innkeepers, it's about God just

saving our life and us giving him the glory.

Because Jesus promises in Luke 6, give and you will receive.

Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more,

running over and poured into your lap, the amount that you give will determine the amount

you get back.

Are you church willing to give your life away, becoming innkeepers so that others will experience

eternal life?

There's no impossible, I believe that you are working now, so pour it out, oh pour it

out.

Thank you.