The Great Samaritan | Duane Calvin

Welcome, hope community. It's good to see you. Come on, let's stand to our feet.

Those of you joining us online, welcome to Hope community.

And

what.

He.

In the fear I'm facing

doesn't change who you are or what you deserve.

Yes.

Yes. You're.

Jesus.

You're worthy.

Whether you say yes,

I never stop singing.

And when.

I'll never stop singing your, I never stop.

Singing. In your

singing.

Revelation chapter five,

there's this incredible story that's happening,

this unfolding the vision that John has.

We pick up in verse 11, it says,

then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the

elders, the voice of many angels, numbering,

myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying

with a loud voice,

worthy is the lamb who was sling to receive power and

wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and

blessing.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and

in the sea. And all that is in them saying to him,

who sits on the throne and to the lamb be

blessing and honor and glory and might

forever and ever. And the four living creatures said,

amen. And the elders fell down and they worshiped.

Of

the,

if you've been forgiven,

you've.

The.

Holy.

Holy.

Forever.

Holy.

So here I.

You deserve the glory.

Come on. Just bless him in this place.

Hallelujah.

Father, you deserve all the glory we can give.

And then so much more.

Father.

We love you. We commit this time to you.

Thank you for meeting with us.

We pray that our songs of love and adoration

is pleasing to you. In Jesus' name we pray.

Let the church say amen. Amen. And amen. Hallelujah. Hey,

why don't you turn to two or three people,

welcome them to hope as you take your seats.

Welcome to Hope Community Church. So good to have you here. And listen,

if it is your first time here at Hope, we are so,

so very glad to have you here. And actually at the end of the service,

if you head out these doors and to the left,

you're gonna see our next steps area.

And there you can find out more information about our church,

everything that's going on here at Hope.

We can also help you take your next step in following Jesus if that's where you

are. And listen, if you're joining us online and this is your first time, hey,

just type the word new into the chat.

We actually have some people that are dedicated there to help you to reach out

to you and get you connected here at Hope. Well, listen,

we've been in this series called Heart Check, right?

Where we are learning to be good stewards with our finances,

the things that God has given us, right?

Jesus said that where your treasure is there, your heart is also.

And here at Hope, we are a family of families, right?

We are a church that loves God follows Jesus, and we share hope.

And a family looks out for one another, right?

That's what we do here at Hope. And one of the things,

one of the ways that we actually look out for people how we help our church,

is we offer financial coaching here. You know,

Jesus said that he came to give us life and life more abundantly.

And we believe in that. And so one of the ways that we want to, uh,

trust God is not only know that he's called us to an abundant life, spiritually,

an abundant life in our families, but also with our finances.

And so we actually have a story of a couple that did exactly that.

They decided to make the decision to trust God with their finances and watch

how the power and transformation of God can work in their finances.

Check this out.

My name is Aza Johnson.

I'm Shane Johnson.

And we've been married for about four years now. Mm-hmm .

And we have a daughter and a son.

We started going to Hope in 2020.

The Sunday services are great. Um, but also all of the,

the classes that we've taken.

So we had reached out before about other classes like Reengage and the

premarital counseling. And then we wanted to start building a house.

And I figured, let's see if Hope has any resources that we could use.

So I just emailed them at their info email and someone replied back within like

a week and they're like, yeah, we absolutely can help you.

Here's your one-on-one coaches and uh,

these are the people that are gonna help you.

Also, like we learned in the premarital counseling,

it's always good to seek like godly counsel and our one-on-one counselors SL

went through our budget and reassured us where we were doing a good job.

And I think reassurance for me and my wife because there were some things

that we might have not agreed on. Like,

'cause she knows where all our money's going to. We.

Have d bounce toothpaste. Yeah. We have different budgeting styles.

It was also early in our marriage, very early.

So it kind of helps when you have somebody else,

an outside source sit you down and tell you, okay,

well this is what you're doing great, but here's how you can improve.

And that's what we were looking for as well.

But they were really great about it. Um, um, for example, you know,

we go on like on a date every month. And so on our budget it said like, fun,

fun budget, you know, and we went out to like dinner. Yeah. And they said,

we love that for you and you should have a budget for that. And we were like,

oh, great. That's, that's awesome to know.

So even if we walked in nervous by the time we left, um,

we felt like so much closer. Um, and to this day, I still keep track of our,

of our coaches and I give them updates about how we're doing with our house,

with our, with paying off our debt.

I would say for anybody that's scared or that's anxious about it,

that you should absolutely do it. 100%. There is no losing in this situation.

It's a win-win. If you are somebody that's good with finances,

you'll come in and they will tell you what a great job you're doing and maybe

offer some suggestions here or there.

And if you're somebody that needs to help because you just don't have a plan at

all whatsoever, and you don't wanna pay, you don't wanna live, you know,

paycheck to paycheck, definitely come in, they'll help you out.

They'll kind of give you a, a goal or a plan. Um,

so if you have any apprehensions or if you're anxious about anything,

please feel free to still apply and of course,

meet with them because they will really help you and suggest wonderful things

that you've probably never come up with before. Because we certainly,

we didn't think of many of the things that they offered us,

which are very small, but make such a big difference.

And they say money is the number one reason for like marriages.

Like some people argue it's a top reason. So financial freedom to me,

it really puts you in a better place as a Christian. And I mean,

there might be more ways you can pay it forward or pay the community or

whatever mission the church has.

Um, we wanna make sure that all of the things that we have been provided,

whether it's, you know, money or,

or goods or even a home that is being used to the best of our abilities for him.

.

Better check one, two better. Okay, let's try that again.

How we doing? Hope? Okay.

Well it is great to see all of you. Listen man,

can we just give a round of applause for what God did in that family's life, uh,

just through the financial ministry of the church? Praise God.

You know, I remember, uh, going through that same class years and years ago, um,

1999.

That was a year I remember more so than a lot of other years in my life.

And there were a lot of firsts that year.

And I remember it sticks out for a lot of different reasons.

Not necessarily because of the Prince song,

even though they partied like it was 1999.

Mostly the reason why it sticks out for me,

because it was a big first year in my life. Uh,

what do I mean by a big first year? Uh,

that was the first year that I called myself a married man.

We got married in 1999. So 25 years ago my wife said yes to me,

almost 26. I think I got that number right. I hope I did. Um,

but that long ago she said yes to me,

and we've still been walking with the Lord together for all of this time.

In addition to that, if I, uh,

didn't have enough on my plate by being newly married,

we had our first child that year. And in addition to that,

having our first child, we bought our first home, a town home for $58,000,

1800 square feet. Amen. Those were the days, right?

Those were the days. I mean, we did a lot of firsts in that year.

It was a first on so many fronts.

But the thing that I remember more than anything that was a first in my life

that year was,

I remember it was the first time that I opened up my checkbook and I

looked at what I had and I thought to myself,

I don't have enough. I,

we don't have enough. Like it wasn't because, uh,

we were like spending in ways that was crazy.

It wasn't because we weren't being good stewards of God's, uh, provision for us.

I mean, like, like I was an active duty marine.

I actually had a second job at a video store when they had VCR tapes.

I worked there. Uh, we were doing everything that we could. I, I mean,

like we had reasonable cars to drive. Uh, one of them was paid off,

one of them we had a very low payment on like,

like we were doing everything that we could.

And it seemed like when I got all the way to the end of every single month,

I would look in that checkbook.

And I felt like it just wasn't enough.

Like we couldn't get ahead. Like we couldn't,

no matter how hard we tried. And no matter how hard we worked, uh,

we couldn't see a better financial future in our lives.

And like we were doing everything that we could to live the way that God says to

live with money. But man, we were at a place where we just wasn't making it.

I mean, we was broke, BR okay? We couldn't afford to eat .

And I remember it like it was yesterday.

There were all these feelings of like sadness and,

and worry. And listen, if you are in that spot right now,

I need you to know before we even jump into this,

that God has hope and that man there is enough in the

kingdom of God. And at the time, I just couldn't see it.

I didn't know that there was enough. I tell you where this all came to head at.

You see,

we had started attending a local church and we had a great pastor there.

And we were sitting in church one day. Now listen, we were newly married,

so I knew if there was anybody who needed marriage help, it was us.

Like I didn't know what I was doing as a husband.

She didn't completely know what she was doing as a wife. And so our pastor says,

Hey, we're gonna have this marriage retreat and it's gonna be great,

and it's only a hundred dollars to attend.

And I just told y'all I ain't have enough.

And I'm sitting here thinking to myself like, how do we do this?

I know we need this, but, but how do we actually get to do this? Like,

what do we do? And as I'm talking to my pastor, he says, listen,

let's just pray together and see what God does in it, man. Come back next week,

we'll talk more about it. And so we pray together, Hey, I leave church.

And I'm like, oh, I had a need. They prayed for me. Great.

I'm not gonna be able to go to this thing.

I go back home and then the next week I come back and the pastor says, man,

I got great news for you. There's a couple in our church,

they want to donate a hundred dollars for your family to be able to go on this

retreat. And I got to go, you know,

as I look back that many years ago,

my wife and I marked that weekend as the weekend where so many things in our

lives changed.

Like that was the weekend we began to understand God's biblical role for

marriage. Like, like he, that he had a plan for our marriage.

That was the first weekend where I saw a lot of hope in my finances because they

started unpacking biblical truths about finances when you're married at that

conference, it was an amazing event. And man,

it was a hundred dollars that somebody gave, somebody saw us,

they had compassion on us, and they took action.

Somebody's a hundred dollars gift changed my

whole life. I experienced the help of the Lord. And,

and it was a beautiful thing. And, and, and here's the thing,

we never actually got to meet the people. They wanted to remain anonymous.

So it wasn't about them getting credit,

they just saw somebody who they wanted to help, somebody who had a need.

And they shared the generosity that God had given them with us.

And it changed our whole world.

They had care and compassion for us and they acted generously

and it was all motivated by their love for God and

them seeing people in need and responding. You know,

that's the behavior that we've been talking about for the last few weeks here as

we've been moving through this series called Heart Check. Uh,

it's a heart of generosity.

And if you have been around church for any amount of time,

you know that that word gets thrown around a lot, generosity.

And it's easily defined. Like generosity is the quality of being generous,

being kind, being unselfish,

especially when it comes to money and valuable things.

It's the idea of sharing with people in need,

what God has so graciously shared with us. And can I just say,

the Bible has a lot to say about generosity, uh,

like it's captured all through the pages of scripture.

We see this heart of generosity motivated by the heart of God himself,

like God is a generous God.

And because of that we should be trying to follow his example.

Lemme show you what I mean.

Like if you go to Proverbs chapter 22 and verse nine, uh,

Proverbs 22 · chapter mention

it tells us that the generous will themselves be blessed for they share their

food with the poor. There's that heart of generosity. Uh,

if you were to go over to one Timothy chapter six, verse 18,

it says that they are to do good, to be rich in good works.

And there it is again, to be generous

and ready to share. Big idea here.

God desires for us to be generous,

and it shouldn't be a surprise to us that he desires for us to be generous

because he is so generous. And if God is generous,

then we should hope to follow his example. And also in turn,

live lives of generosity. But if we're honest,

we live in a culture right now that doesn't necessarily value generosity.

As a matter of fact,

I think we live in a culture that celebrates individual individualism and

self-reliance. And listen,

there's nothing wrong with taking care of your own needs.

I think that's a good trait. But can I just say like,

the gospel calls us to something deeper.

It calls us to a life of generosity. The gospel uh,

tells us that we are to give selfishly to others what God has given to us and

even love others with generosity the way that God has loved us.

And so if you want to be a follower of Jesus,

a good indication that you are is that you are living a generous life.

And you see that kind of heart reflected all throughout the Bible.

You see Jesus actually sharing that heart with people through his actions.

But I tell you what else you see,

you see him actually talking to people about it all throughout the pages of

scripture. And he talks about it a lot, even when it's uncomfortable,

even when he has to stop for a minute and pay attention to people who he could

simply walk past. Instead,

he chooses to see them and share with them this heart of generosity that he

demonstrates. And today we're gonna look at a story where he does exactly that.

Uh, so if you have your Bibles,

I want you to go ahead and open up to Luke's gospel.

And we're gonna be looking at chapter 10 today.

And we're gonna be looking at verses 29 through verse 37, I'm sorry,

verse 25 through 37. And so just go ahead and open there.

And while you're doing that, verse 25 through 37, uh,

let me just kind of give you some details about Luke's story and get you

prepared as we begin to read together. Uh, first Luke is a man of many talents.

Now he is a doctor, he's a physician. Uh, he's also a first century historian.

Uh, he has a lot of important things to say about the Bible.

He's a disciple and a follower of Jesus.

And he authors this book by sharing stories and eyewitness accounts of the life

of Jesus.

So he's sharing things that he has seen with his own eyes and things that Jesus

has done, things that Jesus has said.

And the gospel of Luke is like this account that shows Jesus directly

confronting the hearts of people. And oftentimes when he does that,

he does it through direct confrontation.

Like I remember him calling somebody a brood of vipers, ,

that's a direct confrontation on your heart. But oftentimes when he does it,

he does it through these stories that we call parables.

And today we're gonna look at one of those parables,

the Parable of the Good Samaritan. So what we get to Luke chapter 10,

Luke 10:25–37

verses 25 through 37, here's what it says. On one occasion,

an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.

And he says, teacher, he asks,

what must I do to inherit internal life?

And Jesus hears this question and he knows that this man is trying to test him.

And so he responds by saying, well, what is written in the law? He replied,

how do you read the law? And he answered this man answers. He says, uh,

I love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul,

and with all of your strength and with all of your mind and love your neighbor

as yourself. And Jesus says, well, good, you've answered correctly.

Do this and you will live. But this man didn't let stop there.

He wants to justify himself. The Bible says. And so he asked Jesus,

and who is my neighbor? Now remember, right before we get too deep,

this guy is a lawyer, . And so he asked this question like,

be who's my neighbor? And Jesus responds in a way that is common for him.

He shares a truth, uh, through this story,

and he kind of goes on and here's what he says in the story,

which we call parables. In reply, Jesus said,

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

When he was attacked by Roberts, they stripped him of his clothes,

they beat him, and they went away leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going by down that same road.

And when he saw this man on the side of the road,

he passed by on the other side. And so to a Levite,

when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by as well on the other side.

Then a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was.

And when he saw him, he took pity on this man. He,

he went to him and he bandage his wounds and he poured on oil and wine.

And then he put the man on his donkey, brought him to an end,

and he took care of him. The next day,

the man comes out and he offers to denari, and he gave them to the innkeeper.

Look after them, he said, and when I return,

I will reimburse you for any extra expense that you might have.

And then Jesus asked this question,

which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man,

the man who fell into the hands of robbers and the expert in the law replied the

one who had mercy on him? And Jesus told him, well,

go and do likewise.

Let's unpack this a little bit because right outta the gate you got this lawyer

trying to test Jesus and he's trying to test Jesus, uh,

by simply asking a question. And remember,

this guy would've been an expert in religious law like he would've been a

lawyer, and his motivation is to test Jesus.

And what he is trying to do is offer a trap question and ask a question that

really doesn't have anything to do with the reality of what he's actually

supposed to live out. And so in verse 25, when he says, teacher,

what must I do to inherit eternal life? What this guy is actually asking

is, what's the least I can do?

What's the bare minimum amount that I can do and still be good

with God? You see,

the guy thinks that he knows the answer that Jesus is gonna give him.

And Jesus responds with these two simple statements that still ring true today.

He says a couple things that you could do. One,

love God with your heart and your mind and your soul and the other, uh,

love others as yourself. Pretty simple, right?

Jesus has answered the trap question, responded to the God,

the God responded to Jesus. Everything seems to be okay. Pretty simple.

But David Shapiro Cochran, the lawyer,

he decides to respond again and he, and he asked the question, well, cool,

great, I can do all that. But, but who is actually,

who is my neighbor? And can I just say like,

this guy wins the award for Loophole Lawyer of the Year,

right here with that question.

He's trying to find a way to get around these simple two commands,

love God and love others. It's not hard to know what to do when you hear that,

but this guy is trying to ask a question so he can get around it.

Who is my neighbor? And here's the thing,

I used to think this guy was like abnormal.

Like nobody would ask a question like that in the presence of Jesus.

But the longer I've been a pastor,

the more I realize he's a lot more like us than we care to know.

He's a lot more like us. I, I mean, honestly, like how many of us,

when we come into contact with somebody who needs help or when it comes to just

simply living a life that helps others regularly, how many of us,

if we're honest, like, like we just kinda,

we just kind of rather ask a question than actually do the thing that God is

calling us to do.

How many of us just like respond with a bunch of details rather than just get in

and do the work that God is calling us to do?

And so we ask questions just like this man to stop us from having to do the

thing God's called us into.

Who is my neighbor? ? Well,

first I I I just know that that's not the way that God would have for us to

live. But second, I wanna dispel this rumor.

So this is never a question that hope Community Church again in our lives.

And one of the things I love to do when I'm trying to answer a question is give

some kind of visual representation.

And so I found this chart in a book called The Art of Neighboring,

and it is like comically silly. Like, like when you answer the question,

who is my neighbor? Uh, here, here's, here's who your neighbor is. Like,

like in the middle though, that's us ,

that's our house. Like that, that's where we live. I live there. You,

that's your house. Like put your house in the middle of that. And, and,

and who is who? Who is my neighbor? E Everybody else,

all the other houses around that. That's,

that's your neighbor . Even the guy who don't cut his grass. Yep.

That's your neighbor. Uh,

even the guy who plays his music loud at night at two o'clock in the morning.

Yep. That's also your neighbor.

Like.

Like even the person who still has my casserole dish they've had for two years.

Also, also our neighbor, like a,

all of them are our neighbor, you know, according to net Bible.

But really according to Jesus,

a neighbor is any person irrespective of what nation they come from

or what religion with whom they are.

These are any persons who we live near, who we come into contact with,

with any kind of chance meeting.

All of them are our neighbors.

And if you ask the question like,

who does God expect me to support with this life of generosity?

All them who, who are the people in my neighborhood? Everybody

Who, who am I supposed to love? Everybody. Everybody we come into contact with.

And that might be to differing degrees based off the resources that God has

provided us. But can I just say like, if you can't do it for everybody, man,

do for a few what you wish you could do for everyone.

Because the heart of of generosity is demonstrated when we love

our neighbors. This guy asks a selfish question.

He asked a question that he already knows is not the right question. Uh,

because by nature,

generosity is supposed to be this bridge that leads us to the hope of the

gospel.

It's supposed to be a bridge that connects us through the way that we live

generously. But this guy with his smooth talk and talk,

instead of building a bridge, he is building a barrier.

He doesn't ask Jesus to define love,

he asks Jesus to define neighbor. But here's what he really wants to know.

What's disguised behind that question is a different question.

What he really wants to know is who is actually worthy of being treated the way

that I want to be treated? Or maybe there's a second question behind it. Like,

like who, uh, who is who is good enough for me to help in my own eyes?

Because.

Here's what he knows, that on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho,

this man has been beaten. And, and it's probably a sketchy part of town.

It's on the other side of the tracks. And,

and while they don't mention his ethnicity,

we know that there are cultural issues all over the places where Jesus is

talking and he knows that, uh, uh,

somebody has passed by, one person has already passed by,

that person happens to be a priest, another person has passed by.

That person happens to be a Levite. But then there's this one person,

a Samaritan, and he sees this man

and he helps, he sees him,

he sees him in his brokenness and in his bruised state,

he sees him laying there and he has compassion on this man.

And so because of it, he sees him, he has compassion and he takes action. Like,

like he helps. Can I just ask like, do we see people,

like,

do we see people who God is putting in our pathway every

single day

because it's easy in our current culture to just kind of walk by people? Like,

do we see people the way that Jesus sees people?

Do we see people as hurdles on the way to our destination?

Or do we actually see them as people created in the image of God

Who need to experience the love and the generosity that God has shown us?

Do we see people? You know,

there's an old saying that says that Jesus never went out of his way to help

anybody because it was never out of his way to help anybody.

And if we wanna see people the way that Jesus sees them,

and we do it through the lens of generosity, when the Sam stops,

he saw the person hurting

and he sees him and he offers this sense of compassion on him.

And compassion can be defined by a desire, uh, to suffer with another,

where their pain, the pain that they feel,

you often also begin to feel like you have empathy on that person and you stop

to help them even exactly where they are, even when it's inconvenient.

And these three men saw him, but only one had that kind of compassion.

And this is also, lemme just tell you,

it's an attribute of somebody who's been transformed by God.

Like if you ever want a litmus test to know whether you are a Christ follower or

not,

one of the best ways that you can tell that is when you see situations that need

somebody to step into with generosity, do you walk by or do you stop and help?

Because a transformed life is a generous life

and it leads us towards action.

And this guy takes action, it motivates him towards movement.

It leads him to act on the behalf of another because he sees the pain that that

person's experiencing. Uh, it gives him this great sense of compassion

and it moves him towards action instead of apathy.

Because here's what I know about compassion.

Compassion is supposed to be a catalyst for action.

Like when we see people hurting,

he should put our feet into motion.

We should act. And this man is hurt.

And this guy goes directly to him.

He gets off of his own horse, humbles himself for this man,

and he gets in close proximity. He doesn't stand at a distance.

He gets right up close to the middle of the meth. He, he gives his possessions,

right? He binds the man's wounds. And,

and notice he doesn't just throw money at him. He actually tends to his wounds,

he does it with oil and wine. He puts the man on his animal,

he gives of his time, he stops what he's doing and he deals with what he sees.

He even spent the night and gave money and more money and said, listen,

if there's any future expense, I got that too.

Jesus makes it clear through this story that this,

this is what a life

that will inherit eternal life looks like.

Man, there's so many questions, right? Jesus asks me like,

which of these three men will inherit the kingdom?

Which of these three men will be counted on that day, right? Uh,

which of these three men actually are showing the godly compassion and

generosity that I expect from my people to show which of these three

should you model your life after?

Which of these three is actually experiencing eternal life even today?

Which of these three demonstrates the heart of generosity of someone who is a

follower of Jesus? And clearly

it's the Samaritan. Jesus takes his question and he flips it on its head.

He changes the question from who is my neighbor to how can you be

a better neighbor?

He changes it from who do I have to love to instead? Who do I get to love?

And in doing so,

he offers this beautiful picture of not just service and support,

but it's a beautiful picture of the gospel as well. Uh,

let me explain what I mean. You see,

the generosity of the good Samaritan reflects the generosity that God has shown

you. And I, and just as a Samaritan saw the need,

Samaritan saw the need for the wounded man and responded with compassion.

So God sees us in our brokenness and he responds with compassion,

with grace and with love.

And he meets every single need that we have.

And he allows us to be a part of his kingdom. And can I just say,

there is no greater compassion than the love of Jesus Christ.

It's a love that carries you through everything.

It's a love that doesn't hold back.

It's a love that reflects God's heart of mercy,

a love that gives freely and and abundantly. And when we're generous,

when we live generous lifestyles and we orient our hearts towards living that

way,

we are reflecting the heart of God and the hope

of the gospel. You know,

our acts of kindness and compassion towards others are a way of showing the

world, uh, what God's love actually looks like in action. Uh,

generosity is not just about giving money, and I need you to hear this.

It's not just about giving money or material things.

It's about giving of ourselves, our time, our energy, our talent, our resources,

just as God has so graciously given to us. You see,

the story of the Good Samaritan teaches us that generosity is certainly

about meeting needs, but more importantly,

it's about a heart that wants to meet needs.

It challenges us to look beyond our own interests. Uh,

this story challenges to look beyond our own comfort and to see the world and

the way that God does through his eyes. And when we do this,

we become more than just givers.

We become agents of change reflecting God's love to

a broken world around us that desperately needs to see that there is hope.

Listen,

when I was in that position where I only had enough money to barely make it,

somebody through a generous gift of a hundred dollars showed me that there is

hope.

I'm not sure that I would even be a Christian right now

because it felt so hopeless.

What Jesus shares to this man.

Is.

Is what every one of us needs to hear. Let us go

and do likewise, generosity.

It's the posture and our hearts were always meant to be like what We follow

Jesus.

And our heart check today is about much more than our wallets.

It's about much more than our finances,

although those are an essential part of a life of generosity.

It's about our heart of compassion demonstrated through our actions as and as we

follow the example of the Good Samaritan,

we reflect the boundless generosity of our heavenly Father,

A father who has given us everything through the gift of salvation

and living this way with our generosity out front.

We share the real heart of Jesus Christ.

You know that couple so many years ago, they saw me,

they saw my wife and I, and they had compassion on us.

And through a simple a hundred dollars gift, they changed our lives.

They showed us the heart of generosity, the heart of the gospel. Uh,

they were living examples of, uh,

of what generosity looks like in action to my wife and I. And still to this day,

I am hoping to get to heaven and tell them thank you for what you did for us.

Because it changed us.

They saw themselves in the story and they took action.

They saw themselves in the middle of that Bible passage

and they responded through a life of generosity.

You know, uh, scripture, it is kind of like a mirror to us. Like,

uh, when we look in the words of scripture, it is supposed to show us ourselves.

And now we have to be careful about putting ourselves in the middle of the

scripture because we might say, I wanna be like Paul and I might respond, well,

you wanna be a murderer and a religious zealot.

And so we have to be careful by not ascribing to ourselves only the good parts

that we see in scripture. Uh, but scripture often shows us who we are.

It it's like a mirror put right in front of us where we see ourselves for who we

really are. And I wanna ask the question today,

when you look at the story of the Good Samaritan,

this beautiful parable, where do you see yourself?

What do you see, uh,

about your life right now and your heart right now when you look at this story?

Uh, because for instance, maybe you see yourself as the Good Samaritan.

You are that person that is extremely generous with the resources that God has

given you. And, and,

and while you are sitting here thinking and hearing this message,

you're thinking of new creative ways that you can give what God has given you

graciously to others who are in need. I mean,

I met a small group the other night of four Men and they're trying to start a

nonprofit that ministers to single moms. Like, that's it.

Praise God. There are a lot of you who are getting it and doing it.

And can I just say, we are so thankful you man,

fan that thing in the flame and share it with other people so we can be this

beautifully generous church.

There's a lot of things to be known for as a church.

Generosity ain't one I'm gonna be upset about. Amen.

So maybe you see yourself as the Samaritan and if that's you, keep going.

Praise God for you continue to do exactly that.

Or maybe as you look at this story,

you see yourself as the Levite or the priest.

God has been putting things in front of you every single day.

And for some reason, and whether it's our busyness or whether it is,

we feel like there's not enough in the kingdom. I thought there wasn't enough.

And then those people gave me a hundred dollars and I realized there was enough.

And if the people of God would do the things that we're supposed to and live our

lives of generosity the way God shares with us in his word,

I don't think the church would ever need another loan or anything else. Amen.

'cause there's enough. And maybe you've been walking past the needs,

or maybe you can't do it by yourself,

but through God's help and with a couple of brothers and sisters in Christ,

you'd be surprised at the needs that you can meet and the difference you can

make for the hope of the gospel.

So if you see yourself as a,

the priest of the Levite know that we need you

in the fight and your generosity matters.

Well, there's one other person in the story,

And maybe you see yourself as the person on the side of the road that day.

Maybe you're there and you are laying beaten and broken.

Maybe you've lost or you're about to lose your job. Maybe you're like,

I was in the beginning of the story where I just felt like I was failing and I

needed to know the love of Jesus.

Maybe you've lost a relationship where you've gone through a divorce.

Maybe somebody has ripped your heart right out from your chest and you are like

this man. You were just laying there broken and beaten,

and you desperately need somebody to take action.

You need somebody to see.

You.

Exactly where you are and to have compassion on you.

As we close our time, can I just share with you,

Jesus sees you, he sees you,

he has great love for you and compassion for you.

And he has already taken action through his death

and his burial and his resurrection,

and he has come back so that we might know that there is new life and

great hope in Jesus Christ.

And that resurrection gives new life to all who put their trust in him and

know that he wants to be generous to you as well and sharing salvation with

you.

And today can be the day that you decide to put

your trust and your hope in Jesus Christ.

And if that's you, we would love to meet you at the end of service.

We would love to talk to you about what it means to be a Christ follower.

And in just a moment, I'm gonna pray for you.

We're gonna ask God to show you a flood

of his compassion and his generosity.

Let's take a moment and pray together. Father God, we thank you for the day.

We thank you for your grace and your mercy and your love for us. We thank you

For this beautiful story of love and compassion,

this beautiful story of generosity in action.

What we know, father God, is that you desire for us to live generous lives.

And we pray that we be faithful to those kinds of lives as followers of Christ.

But we also know that there are those here today watching online

who do not know you. And so we lift them up before you. Father God,

we ask that they would receive your free gift of salvation by placing their

trust in you.

We thank you for being the God who began all things the God of the universe,

a God, uh, who sent his son Jesus to die on our behalf, on a cross.

And through his death berry and now resurrection,

he lives that we might have new life in Jesus Christ by putting our trust

and our faith in him.

And if you want to accept that gift of salvation,

if you wanna say yes to Jesus,

if you're watching online, even in your home, just type into the chat. Yes,

I say yes to Jesus.

And if you're here in the room with every head bow and every eye closed,

would you just lift your hand before you and say yes and before us and say, yes,

I wanna follow Jesus.

Just put your hand in the air if you are not a follower of Jesus. Amen.

Amen. And you'd like to be a follower of Jesus. I see that hand. Amen.

Praise God. Amen.

God, we know you desire for every one of us

to live lives of generosity.

And we thank you in this moment for your generous gift of salvation

in Jesus' name. Amen.

I.

I.

Check, check, check. 1, 2, 3. This thing is acting up.

That's okay. Come on y'all. Let's do that again. Give God some praise. .

Yep.

Wow.

Well listen, as we close our time today, uh, we are so thankful to the Lord, uh,

for this time of worship together.

And make sure that if you are new to Hope Community Church,

or if you've been coming for a while and you're not connected,

that you do exactly that. You get yourself connected.

And the way that you can do that is by stopping at our next steps area,

if you're at one of our physical campuses or online,

letting us know that you're new and will do everything we can to serve you and

connect to you and more importantly, help you get connected to Jesus.

Now listen, uh, as we get ready for next week and the weeks to come,

we are starting a brand new series and we're excited for it.

But one of the best ways that you can share the generosity is by simply, uh,

inviting people to experience what you're already experiencing,

the hope of the gospel.

And one of the ways you can do that is through our church gatherings.

And so we gather every single week somewhere at Hope Community Church.

We have multiple campuses and we're thankful for that.

And those gatherings are amazing.

They're ways to be encouraged and grow in the Lord.

And we have one of those coming up on Easter and we expect a lot of people to

show up. Praise God. We expect that to happen. Amen. Amen.

And not so that we can have big numbers,

but so that God can be glorified through our time of worship together.

And we would love for you to be a part of that.

And we would love for you to invite others to do that.

And so we would ask that as we prepare for this new Sears that we're calling the

way that you would go to get hope.net/easter, uh,

and that you would let us know that you're coming so we can make sure we have

enough space for everybody. Uh,

you'll see all of our campuses there and the times that we're gonna have

services on Easter Sunday. In addition,

if you are at one of our physical campuses, you can grab one of these cards.

And that's a great opportunity to you to share the hope of Jesus with somebody

Who do you need to share this with?

That's on the side of the road waiting to know that there's hope in Jesus

Christ. It's a great way to do that. Guys, we love you.

This has been a wonderful time of worship and we hope to see you back here next

week. God bless you.