Just Us: Love Mercy | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

We're in a series called Just Us.

Just Us.

We kicked it off last week.

And the title comes from a quote that I heard when Dr.

Ephraim Smith was teaching a few years ago.

And in his sermon, he said this when Jesus returns, there will be ultimate justice.

That one day Jesus will return and restore and make all things right.

He will wipe away evil.

There will be no more sorrow.

No more pain.

Until then.

It's just us.

Until then.

It's just us.

That his church, follower of Jesus, we are to be his hands and feet to a hurting and broken world.

That we would call and cry out the prayer that Jesus called us to, that his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in our lives as it is in heaven, in our church as it is in heaven, in our city as it is in heaven.

And that we partner with him, the Holy Spirit, empowering us to accomplish this.

And so as we begin a new year, and I know many of you have got new goals and new dreams and new plans and all those things, we want to ask what I think is just the most important question for us this year.

What does God desire for you in 2022?

Have you thought about that?

Like, what does God desire and long for you this year?

And then even a little bit better than that.

I don't know, better, bigger than that.

What does God desire for us in 2022?

What does he desire for his church in 2022?

What a joy that we can gather in person and online.

And I think we should be challenged with like the last few years of how church is and kind of the reckoning in some ways of like, Jesus, what do you want your church to be?

And would you make it true of us?

Would you make it true of us?

You know, you don't have to search very far in the scriptures to understand what he desires of us, what he uh wants and longs for you and for me.

In fact, uh, one of the clearest, most concise statements of his desire for your life and mine can be found in Micah chapter 6, verse 8.

Micah 6:8

It's a very familiar passage if you've been around church uh at all.

And uh Micah is this prophet, and he's laying out literally God's case.

This is God, like almost like a lawyer laying it out.

If here's my case against Israel, that is his people that have wandered from his ways, that are doing incredible injustice.

And through this, we see this incredible line of clarity.

Micah 6:8, the prophet writes this he has shown you, he's revealed it, he's not hidden.

Micah 6:8

Oh man, or oh mortal, or humanity, what is good or of moral excellence?

And God gets to define what's good, by the way.

And what does the Lord require of you?

See, it's even bigger than what do you desire, what does God desire?

It's actually even what He requires.

Have you thought of that?

What does God require of you?

What does he require of me?

But to do justice or to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

It's as simple and as difficult as that.

And here's what we said last week.

We began 2022 with the convicting truth.

And the convicting truth is simply this.

And I say it's convicting because it's convicting for me.

God's will for your life is clear.

God's will for your life is clear.

We tend to complicate it so we don't have to obey it.

We tend to kind of go, well, I'm not really sure what God's will for my life is.

I don't know.

And oh, that he would show me, I'm gonna pray really hard, or you know, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.

And the reality is 99% of God's will for your life, for my life, is revealed in his word.

He he's shown us, he hasn't hidden it.

And if I'm honest, I can tend to complicate it.

Because if I complicate it, I don't have to obey it, I don't have to feel as convicted about it.

And so we've been talking about what does it look like to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

Last week we unpacked what does it look like for us to be a church that does justice together?

And if you missed it, please go back and listen to that on our podcast or online.

Today we want to talk about what does it look like?

How do we become a church?

Think about this.

How do we become a church that loves mercy?

I mean, as we think about those three things, uh wouldn't it be amazing if people described you and people describe me, and there's all sorts of things they could say, yeah, he's a great dad, she's an awesome mom.

Wow, they're a fantastic worker, what an excellent student.

And those are fantastic.

But wouldn't you want someone who thinks about you and instead of describing what you do, they describe your character because it so shines through?

And they go, wow, this person, they act justly.

There's just a winsomeness and a way that they treat every single person that just has an integrity and a care and a leaning in for those who don't have a voice.

Man, they love mercy.

Man, they love mercy.

There's a tenderness, there's a genuineness of their heart for people to believe through.

Don't you want to be, don't I, don't we want to be that kind of people?

Wouldn't it be amazing if people described awakening that way?

So, how do we become a people that love mercy?

How do we become a church that loves mercy?

Let's take a look at that in our time together.

Well, what is mercy?

Mercy, this word mercy here is actually the Hebrew word chesed.

And you gotta have the in there uh to say it right.

So uh go ahead with me.

Can you say chesed?

There you go, very good.

Uh and this word chesed is actually pretty difficult for us to translate into English.

Um, and your script your Bible, it's translated in different words.

Sometimes it's mercy, sometimes it's steadfast love, sometimes it's loving kindness.

At other times, uh it uses two words, sometimes it's love and faithfulness to interpret and translate one word, this one word hasid.

Here's what it is: it's this loyal love.

It's a faithful, covenant-keeping love that expresses itself in uh actions of kindness, mercy, and compassion.

This is not just a feeling, it always entails practical action.

Of the 246 times that you find Hesed in the Old Testament, most often it is referring to God and his response to his people.

When Moses, Exodus 34, when Moses asked God, show me your glory, show me the real you, is what he's saying.

I want to really know you.

God says, I'll let all my goodness pass by you.

And then in that moment, he declares, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

That love and faithfulness, chesed.

In Psalm 136, speaking of God, 26 times, it says, His steadfast love never fails.

It's this covenant-keeping love.

Now, when uh the Jewish scholars in the ancient day were translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek so that uh so many people were able to read it back then.

They were wrestling with what word do they use to uh translate chesed.

And if you've been around church world, you would think the word that they would use is the Greek word agape for love.

And it's like, okay, maybe it's this agape.

And they actually chose the word eleleo, mercy, because this Greek word has such a richness and connected to the idea of chesed.

It's a person who shows compassion and forgiveness, especially towards someone who has offended them.

It literally is compassion in action.

How do we become a church?

That's defined by loving mercy, compassion in action.

I think there's no more like poignant and powerful place to unpack this idea for us as a church than uh in the teachings of Jesus, and in particular, uh the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And many of you are familiar with the Good Samaritan, but there is such a richness of unpacking this Hesed love and what does it mean for us today, and how we become that kind of person and people.

And so, if you got your Bibles, would you open them up to Luke chapter 10, verse 25?

Luke 10:25

Now, the parable of the good Samaritan actually begins before the parable with the great commandments.

And the great commandment uh is as you know, love God, love others.

Uh, and it's actually in this context, um, well, you'll see.

Luke 10, verse 25.

Luke 10:25

On one occasion, an expert of the law, a lawyer, uh, and the expert of the Hebrew law, that is the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, stood up to test Jesus.

Okay, so this is antagonistic.

This isn't just like, hey, we're having a conversation.

Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And this was a common question that, you know, rabbis and scholars love to kind of talk about and kick around.

How do you read the law and some of these sort of things?

And um, you know, I love Jesus.

Is his response, by the way, wasn't let me give you an answer.

He responds with a question.

And Jesus follows, oh, we would do so much good if instead of always trying to respond with an answer, we just led with a question.

And Jesus, the great teacher, asked him, What is written in the law?

You're an expert.

You should know this.

How do you read it?

And he answers what was actually a common understanding of the summing up of the entire law.

Jesus had taught on this many times, and perhaps he had even heard Jesus teach on this, and this is the reason he brought it up, because he had a bone to pick with him.

He says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind.

Love God with all that you are, and the second command is like it or connected to it, that you can't actually love God well if you're not loving others well.

Your love for God is revealed or demonstrated in how you love others, is what the point is.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

This sums up the ten commandments, the entirety of the law.

And so Jesus says, You've answered correctly.

Good job.

And I don't know if he did this, but he might have started a slow clap.

Jesus, I don't think, would do that, but I might in sarcastic mode right there.

You've answered correctly.

Do this and you'll live.

But wanting to justify himself, and here we get to the heart of the expert here.

He asked Jesus, and who's my neighbor?

Because we live in a world that separates the in from the out crowd, the right people and the wrong people.

And how you answer this, Jesus, is either going to turn off everybody who's listening, and this is what he's trying to get at.

He's like, I got you.

I got you.

Now notice this.

In reply, Jesus tells what we all know as the parable of the Great Samaritan.

And so, following the great commandment, then Jesus brings about the great clarification of who is my neighbor and what Hesed love really looks like.

He begins this way.

In reply, Jesus said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Now, that journey, it's about a 17-mile journey.

It's a day's journey.

Uh Jerusalem to Jericho is about 3,300 mile uh descent.

It's pretty steep, it's narrow, there's zigzag past high, rocky cliff and boulder terrain.

It was incredibly dangerous in their day.

Bandits and robbers often hit out.

Uh it was so dangerous that the nickname for the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was known as the Blood Way.

Like, hello, no, thank you.

I don't think so.

I don't want to go that way there.

This is the path when this man was he was attacked by robbers.

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

And so we can understand and see there's a man on the side of the road.

He's completely naked, he's bloody bruised, and he's laying there.

We don't know if he's motionless or if he's somehow writhing in pain, but he's on the side of the road, and then a priest.

Uh translated into our modern day, a pastor.

Happened to be going down the same road, leaving Jerusalem, going to Jericho, having probably just performed his rituals in the temple and going home for a long weekend.

When he saw the man, he passed by onto the other side.

And then so too a Levite, and if we translated it into our day, it would be, you know, like someone who's uh really involved in their church, a leader, when he came to the place and saw him, pass by on the other side.

Now, when Jesus is telling this story, he's actually following a very familiar rabbinic way of teaching and style of storytelling that the people are following, and they have a set of expectation about who's gonna come next.

You know, he's not telling a joke.

So there was a priest and a Levite and a, you know, that that wasn't his deal.

In fact, uh, what often happened was they would this the rabbinic style of teaching was you would take kind of the religious and the lead, and then you would eventually make the common Jewish person the hero of the story.

And so you can just imagine when the people were listening as they're taking this in, they're expecting, and then there was, you know, Joe the carpenter.

Then there was so-and-so.

This is what they're thinking and waiting for, and then Jesus flips the script and he says, But a Samaritan.

Jews and Samaritan had such hostility and vitriol.

It went back over 500 years before that.

After Israel was actually conquered and taken away into captivity, uh, the Samaritans of the, they were Jewish people, they began to intermix with other people in the land, intermarry, and so there was this racial divide.

Jews called them half-breeds.

They began to worship, you know, in their own way, and they actually built their own temple.

They said, Great, you have the temple in Jerusalem, we're gonna build a temple in Samaria, and so we're gonna worship in our own way.

And they only held to the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, and so there's this religious divide, there's this social divide, there's this political divide, there's such animosity.

There was a literally war broken out through the history of Jews and Samaritans, but a Samaritan, most likely the audience had a visceral response.

They probably booed, hissed when they heard Samaritan.

So let's try it.

But a Samaritan.

Well, that was weak.

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

When he saw him, he took pity on him.

The wrong person in the wrong place, the wrong hero.

It says he took pity on him.

Circle that word pity.

It's the Greek word spogizomai or compassion.

It literally means this um gut-wrenching feeling.

It's not just a thought, it is like a physical, visceral, gut-wrenching, like pain.

It's actually used of Jesus most often when he sees the crowd.

It said that Jesus, when he saw the crowd and that they were harassed and helpless, he had splegisomai, he had compassion and pity.

So you can read it through the New Testament.

Every time he saw the crowd, he had this compassion that was visceral that hurt his heart into the very gut.

It's actually used of the father of the prodigal son.

And fathers and parents, you can understand if you have a wayward child who's been gone and you're not sure if they'll ever come back.

And the text says that as he saw his son a long way off, he has spogizomai.

This gut-wrenching feeling that caused him, and this is what a father would never do lift up his robe and run.

A patriarch would never demote himself in that society that way, but because of his great compassion for his lost son, the Samaritan.

He sees what two others pass by on the other side.

Man that's naked, beaten, bloody, bruised, to left, to die, and he couldn't pass by.

It affected him to his core.

He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine, then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day he took out two dinari, gave them to the innkeeper.

He said, Look after him, he said.

And when I return, I'll reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have.

I want to draw out just a few thoughts for us.

As Jesus brings about the great clarification of what chesed love, loyal love, loving mercy practically really looks like.

See, you notice chesed love, loyal love, actually loves despite the inconvenience.

What an inconvenience.

Think about it.

These three men, they're on their way, they're headed somewhere.

The priest and the Levite, you just gotta assume, you know, they just finished a tough, you know, week of work, maybe perhaps.

They're tired, they're ready to get home, they they've been missing their family, they've been on a you know a work trip.

Trip and they're on their way home and they can't wait to get there.

There's a plan, they're headed there, and and all of a sudden there's an interruption, a deviation.

Something that didn't go according to plan.

The Samaritan, most likely a businessman, doing business in Jerusalem, going to Jericho on his way.

It was inconvenient.

It was a hassle.

It wasn't what he had planned his day to look like.

See, Kessel love loves despite the inconvenience, the interruption, the times when you go like, you know what, I had my plans, and now, especially for you, like really, you know, type A and really neat people that have everything figured out, dialed in, and the day planner, everything's like packed on top of one another.

It's like all of a sudden, any type of interruption is like, whoa, I can't handle it.

And it says, Hasid love loves despite the inconvenience.

And it loves, by the way, at great personal cost.

You know, the Samaritan.

He stops.

He bandages his wounds with oil and wine.

That's kind of like the ancient day, you know, uh med kit that you'd keep on hand.

Takes his own, most likely, clothing and robe to cut it off, to bandage his wound, to clothe him, puts him on his own donkey, takes him to an inn, pays the denarii, and then he writes a blank check.

He says, whatever extra expenses, I'll come back and pay him.

Now we don't know why the Levite and the priest step to the other side.

A lot of times we think about it and maybe think, well, if they touched, you know, a dead body, they'd become ceremonially unclean and they wouldn't be able to serve in the temple.

But that's a bad excuse no matter what, and we get that, but it's especially a bad excuse because what direction were they headed?

Down.

They were leaving Jerusalem, not heading to Jerusalem.

They weren't on their way to perform something.

They were headed down.

They had already accomplished it.

It didn't matter, frankly.

And I think the reason they passed by on the other side, so far, by the way, was actually the Pharisees had this thought that even if their shadow touched something that was dead would make them unclean.

And so they didn't even want their shadow to touch the guy.

They walked all the way around.

I think maybe the reason they didn't stop is because they were afraid they might suffer the same fate.

It's a tough road, the blood way.

Stopping to help this person would expose you and make you vulnerable.

Self-preservation.

Love's a great personal cost, whether it's time, whether it's energy, whether it's resources or money.

And where we go, okay, it's not about my self-preservation, but it's about engaging and giving of what I have, realizing someone else has no protection.

In our world, let's be honest, let's just call it.

We live in the scarcity mindset.

The whole stinking, you know, hoarding junk that goes on is the scarcity mindset of I gotta get mine, I gotta get mine, I gotta get mine, instead of going like, how can I care for you?

Tested love, loves despite the inconvenience, that great personal cost.

And did you notice this?

Do you see this?

Because I think we wrestle with like, okay, Ryan, thank you very much, but I I haven't come across a whole lot of half-dead people lately.

Right?

I mean you just haven't.

I I don't think, I don't know.

Hasid Love simply loves those along their path.

He just simply loves those along their path.

They're going about their day, they're going to Jericho, and they encounter a man in need.

I like how my friend Tim Lundy says it.

He's a pastor in town at Venture.

He says, God determines your engagement, uh, encounters.

We get to determine our engagement.

Have you thought about that?

Like Hesed love is just having an attunedness and awareness to those that God puts along your path, and then having the awareness of saying, you know what, God, you determine this encounter, but I actually get to determine how engaged I'm gonna be, how responsive I'm gonna be.

There was this interesting study, I think it was 1970.

Uh Princeton, uh, some psychologists did this at Princeton, and they actually uh leveraged uh Princeton seminary students.

This the study was called From Jerusalem to Jericho was the study.

You can go look it up.

Fascinating.

Uh, and these two psychologists wanted to know um exactly what happened, you know, what they called the hurry condition, because they had this idea that people in a hurry aren't willing to help as much.

Is it kind of like situational, are goodwill, are willing to give to others, or is it just the disposition that we have?

So they took seminary students and they, you know, brought them on one side of the campus, did this whole kind of interview, some of these sort of things, and then they told them, hey, um, we want you to go share like a little mini talk on the Good Samaritan, and it's on the other side of campus.

And what they didn't know is then they placed a person in need in the middle on the way there.

It was a man sitting on the ground that was heaved over, that was coughing and wheezing, and and the the you know, the test was to see would seminary students preaching on the Good Samaritan stop and help this man.

Now they had three different uh kind of options or three different directions.

Uh, the one was they told a person, hey, you have plenty of time.

But why don't you go ahead?

You might sit and wait for a little bit, but you have plenty of time, go.

The second was, hey, you're right on time, but you need to leave now.

And the third was you're late.

You're you're already late.

You need to hustle across campus.

It was interesting.

The group that had plenty of time, 63% of them stopped to help this man.

The group that was right on time, 45% stopped to help this man.

And the group that was late, only 10% stop.

Of the total amount of people, only 40% stopped to help this man.

Why 60% did not stop preaching on the Good Samaritan?

They called it the hurry condition.

I gotta be honest, this is way too convicting for me.

We live in the Silicon Valley.

Hustle, hurry, next, and it keeps us from seeing, from stopping, and being present to the people that God has put along our path to hesit them, to love them.

Hesed love, despite the inconvenience, a great personal cost, simply loving those along their path.

And then Hesed love actually transcends all prejudice.

In this story, Jesus so masterfully pulls it out, and that we see a racial prejudice, we see a religious prejudice, we see a social prejudice, we see a political prejudice right here.

And he's saying, think about this.

The Samaritan man leans in to love a person that he knows would not do the same for him.

It's interesting about Jesus, right?

Think about Jesus.

In the ancient day, uh ancient Judaism, they kind of had these circles of acceptance.

And so the most acceptable group was um the religious elite, the really righteous, so priests, Pharisees, and really orthodox believers.

And then the next rung out was just kind of the everyday Jewish person.

You know, they may not follow everything, but man, they were, you know, a good woman, a good guy type mentality.

The next rung out, and each rung out you looked down upon and would associate less with was what were the tax collectors and sinners.

And these were Jewish people who had abandoned their Jewishness, if you will, and they were tax collectors and sinners, and you looked down upon them, you despise them, you wouldn't invite them into your home.

You certainly wouldn't eat with them.

And then there were the next wrong Samaritans, they were enemies.

And then the final was Gentiles or Romans, and there's these eccentric circles out of acceptance or lack thereof.

And then you think about Jesus.

And he was known for what?

Eating with tax collectors and sinners.

Something that the inner two circles would not do.

Why?

Because when you ate with a tax collector or a sinner, the minute a sharing a meal of what that meant in that day meant I accept you.

I accept you.

Here's what's fascinating in our day and in that day is we say we have to agree with you first before we can accept you.

I have to agree with your political views first before I can accept you.

I have to agree with you socially and your social media post before I can accept you.

Jesus' foundation was I accept you.

I accept you.

And there's a big difference between accepting and agreeing.

He didn't agree with a tax collector and a sinner and where they're at, but he's saying the foundation of transformation, and you are an image bearer of the God most high, and I love you, and I'm gonna sit with you, and you're gonna experience my love.

Think about this.

It loves where others failed to love.

Now, in the story, Jesus doesn't tell us, we don't know like where they were at, like how far the distance was, you know.

We don't know if there was a um, you know, like maybe they were 20 yards apart, 50 yards apart, or even if they could see each other.

But but in my mind, I kind of think about this like like even the pace of which he tells the story, that it wasn't like if some time later that perhaps they could see each other.

Think about it.

The priest comes, sees the body, depths to the other side.

The Levite seeing the priest, and the priests, well, he's the priest, so I should follow his example, right?

And so I come there, and certainly he must know something I don't know, so then I step to the other side.

How often do we simply see how others are responding to people, and then in turn give or withhold our love because of how they are responding?

The Samaritan, he loves where others failed, where others passed by, where others stepped aside, he leaned in.

The great commandment, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is translated then in how we love our neighbor, love those around us as ourselves.

The great clarification, Jesus says, This is what it means.

At great personal cost, those along our path, rising above prejudice and where others have failed.

And then he ends, as only the master teacher can, with the great conviction.

And he began with a question and he closes with a question.

He says, Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?

Remember, the expert said, trying to justify himself, who's my neighbor?

And he turns it around on him.

Which do you think was the neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

And the expert in the law replied, the one who had a leo on him.

The one who had Hasid on him.

He couldn't even bring himself to say Samaritan.

And then Jesus said, Go and do likewise.

The Greek word for neighbor just simply means one who is near.

What if loving mercy is as simple as loving our neighbors?

The early church didn't just hear Jesus' words, they took him at his word.

In fact, John Ortberg in his book Who is This Man, great book, highly recommended, writes this.

Sociologist Rodney Stark argued that one of the primary reasons for the spread of Jesus movement was the way his followers responded to six people, sick people.

During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, around A.D.

165, an epidemic of what may have been smallpox killed somewhere between a third and a fourth of the population, including Marcus Aurelius himself.

A little less than a century later came a second epidemic, in which at its height, 5,000 people were reported to dying daily in the city of Rome alone.

Not knew what we're going through.

For the most part, people responded in panic.

There was no guidance in the writings of Homer, no commands from the Greek god Zeus to care for dying people you do not know while putting your own life at risk.

Greek historian Thucydus wrote about how people in Athens responded during an earlier plague.

They died with no one to look after them.

Indeed, there were many houses in which all the inhabitants perished through lack of any intention for care.

The bodies of the dying were heaped up, one on top of the other.

No fear of God or law of man had a restraining influence.

Now, what had happened in Greece was happening in Rome.

At the very first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead, and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to advert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease.

But there was in that world a community that remembered they followed a man who would touch lepers while they were unclean, who told his disciples to go heal the sick, who got in arguments at dinners that embarrassed whole tables.

Dionysius, a third century bishop of Alexander, wrote about their actions during the plagues.

Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need, and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy.

For they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors, and cheerfully accepting their pain.

Read now what might be familiar words.

I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in.

I needed clothes and you clothed me.

I was sick and you looked after me.

True, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

The idea that the least of these were to be treasured, that somehow that Jesus that they followed was present in despised suffering, was essentially a Copernican revolution of humanity.

It created a new vision of the human being, the people, the church actually took Jesus at his word.

What if loving mercy is as simple as loving our neighbors?

And what if it's our heritage, our foundation, our calling?

Stand with me and we're going to continue in worship.

And as we do, I want to remind you that we don't sing to a God who somehow demands you to love people, but one who demonstrates his love for us.

And then invites us to do likewise.

But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved.

And you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for you, his hassan for you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.