Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple, Spotify, and those of you enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe on YouTube for regular content ongoing, right to your inbox and notifications for when we drop new videos every single week. And if you haven't ever dropped us a review on Apple, we'd appreciate that. Always helpful when you encourage others to listen. And if the content has been blessing you, we'd love for you to share that with others. On today's episode, we're on our eighth parable. It's our ninth episode in the series on the parables. And based on your reviews, your comments, a lot of the DMs we've actually been getting to our ministry, I'm told that this series has been very edifying and encouraging for people. And so for that, I praise God and I'm excited to keep going with you. If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to Luke chapter 10. And we'll start in the verses prior, but the core of this parable is verses 30 to 37 of Luke chapter 10. As with each week in this series, if you want to hit pause, grab your Bible, do that. Or if you're on a run, if you're at the gym, or if you're just on the fly and you're wanting to listen, I'll walk you through it all. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, we are putting the text on the screen so you can follow along, take your notes, and dig right in. The context here is found in the verses prior, as I was mentioning, the core of the parable, verses 30 to 37, but just before, something very interesting happens. Now, this isn't unusual in the sense that the parables in the Gospels have, uh, I would say, some tentacles that go into different verses. For example, uh, we talked about that one parable recently where a man stands up and says this, that, and the other to Jesus. He answers them about his brother, the inheritance. Other times there's a situation going on right before the parable that leads in. This one is usual in that sense, where Jesus, being the best teacher, is linking lessons, he's expanding the application, and he's illustrating so people could understand. In this particular situation, a lawyer has stood up in the middle of him teaching his disciples. And just kind of a funny tangent here. This is the second parable. We've seen that again, the brother who stands up and says, Tell my brother to give me my inheritance. This presents a unique situation that is great for small groups. I think of applications today, classes, things like that. But I sometimes chuckle when I see these things and wonder, would I be as calm as Jesus if somebody just stood up in the middle of Sunday morning and asked me one of those kind of fiery questions that some of these guys do? Let's look at it together. This lawyer who stands up. Luke chapter 10, verses 25 to 28 is where we'll see this situation begin to unfold. And a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, What is written in the law? How does it read to you? So that's Jesus responding to him. And he answered, This is the lawyer. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. So he's quoting the law from the Old Testament. He knows. And Jesus says to him then, You've answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Do this and you'll live. Now I want to stop there. I don't want to read verse 29 just yet, but I will in a second. We've got this preview here of the parable, and we're not really told what kind of test this is per se, but I'd say the evidence around the text and in other situations contextually would suggest the question is rooted in sinister motives. The lawyer isn't really testing in a good way to see if his teachers were reliable or genuinely wanting to know, like, how do I get eternal life? I want to be saved, I want to be redeemed. I believe, and I'm of the mind that he's trying to ensnare Jesus, as many of the Jewish hypocritical law lovers and the Pharisees did at that time. Now, by standing up the way he did, it was his goal to try to embarrass Jesus publicly and kind of show him up. So that was the motive. With grace and truth, Jesus responds, and that could have been that, right? He says, Okay, what what do you think? What does it read? What's in the law? He knows the lawyer knows. The lawyer says it, he goes, That you're correct. Do this and you'll live. That could have been it. The question he asked is attached to eternal life. The answer Jesus gives is supposed to cause the man to think and reveal his knowledge of the law. He does. Jesus commends him. Hey, you've answered correctly. Great job. Do this and you will live as an orcs-based salvation or earning eternal life, but rather he's just pushing back against the spiritual pride of the man. He's holding up the mirror of the law to him. One theologian says it this way if the lawyer were an honest man, he ought to have acknowledged that he did not love God as he should. He didn't even love his neighbor as he should. This man steeped in the study of God's law should have been broken by the law's message. He should have felt deep conviction. His follow-up question should have been I know from bitter experience that I cannot fulfill even the most basic commandments of the law. Jesus, where can I find redemption? In that sense, Jesus, really gracious, putting up the law as a mirror in front of the man. This is a great opportunity. The whole ordeal could have ended right there, but the lawyer's heart comes back to the surface with his retort back to Jesus. Luke explains where it comes from. Now I want to read verse 29. But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now, we got to stop there and really understand this loaded question. Who is my neighbor? The lawyers miss the whole point. He's got a hardened heart. He only wants to debate who his neighbor is. He knows very well what Jesus is referring to. He knows what the law is talking about. He's looking to slice and dice. He's looking to nitpick rather than submit to God or admit that he can't keep the law. And so, in response to the question that Jesus has proposed, what does the law say? He says it. And then, of course, Jesus says, you answered correctly, do this and you'll live. Another question from the man, okay, well, who is my neighbor? Very important that you understand why Jesus tell the parable about the Good Samaritan, or maybe a better way to phrase that is what's the question he's answering with the parable of the Good Samaritan? It's not how do I inherit eternal life or how can I be saved? It's not that actually. You may think that. That's the original question, but it's actually the question in verse 29 that triggers Jesus' response with the parable. He says, Who is my neighbor? So the parable is not about how to be saved in that sense, how to get eternal life. The parable is the answer to the question, Who is my neighbor? So now let's read it. Jesus replied and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. Key point there. Don't forget that phrase, half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by the other side. But a Samaritan who was on a journey came up, came upon him, and when he saw him he felt compassion. And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, and he put him on his own beast, that's he loaded him up on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two deneri and he gave them to the innkeeper and said, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I return. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And he said, This is the man, the one who showed mercy toward him. And Jesus said to him, Go and do the same. A powerful parable about what it looks like to love neighbor. And what a transformation we would see in the church today if Christians would pause on their own quest for life and on their own quest for purpose and what they want to do and the way they want to do it and ask these two questions, which are both attached to the context of this parable. Do I love God and do I love others? And what does it really look like to love my neighbor? I think it'd be so healthy for you and I to expose our own self-love with answers to those questions, much like the lawyer should have. No, Lord, I don't keep the law. No, I actually don't love the way I should. And from that place of deep confession and even hopefully contrition, we could cultivate genuine love. In the parable, a priest happens to walk by, and instead of helping, what does he do? He goes to the other side. Now, of all people, shouldn't the priest have helped? Is he not the law knowing, law keeping, law teaching, law enforcing, law advocating leader of the people and representative of God? Of course he is. Now, what you may not know, and I want you to know if you know this already, it's a great reminder, but that priests followed closely the ceremonial law at that time, which would consider touching something dead unclean. You weren't allowed. It would be a breaking of the ceremonial law. Not okay to touch something that's dead. Since the man looked half dead, that's why I said, Don't forget that phrase when I was reading the parable, he looked half dead. The priest wasn't really sure, and he would have had to break the law, quote unquote, to help the man, or at the very least, risk the uncertainty of knowing if he was in fact dead. I mean, maybe if he would have just nudged him or even gone near him and risked saying, Are you alive? And the man wasn't, he would have broken the law. And so he chooses to retain this ceremonial purity, but he fails the spiritual test and leaves a man in need half dead. The Levite then followed, same response. And at this point, the people listening to the story might have assumed that Jesus was going to follow up with a regular Jew. Why do I say that? Well, think about it. He's telling this to an audience, the lawyer stood up, he's a law guy. So generally, you're thinking like a Jew. And you've got the priest and you've got the Levite, and they fail. So, so maybe like not a priest, not a Levite, but a regular Jew. You know, the regular guy helped him, and it'd be, you know, an indictment on Jewish leaders for their legalism. It's a very expected lesson. It's not something that's foreign in the gospels. And so if you're a thinking person, you're asking these questions, you got coming after this, the Pharisees blasphemy, you've got things happening earlier, the test of greatness, the 70 or sent out. I mean, it's not crazy to think that Jesus is just gonna indict Jewish leaders by having the third guy be a humble Jew, making the Levite and the priest look bad. But he hits them with a blind side. It's a lesson they least expect. It's not just a regular Jew, it's not even a Jew, it's a Samaritan. I mean, you could probably just go into the mind of the audience at that time, even the lawyer, and just think of him saying, No, not a Samaritan. I mean, of all the people you're gonna use in the illustration, one of them, a Samaritan outloved and outdid, not just the Jewish brethren, but the Jewish leaders, are you kidding me? And when this Samaritan comes upon the man, even though Samaritans and Jews are mortal enemies, they had vicious vitriol towards one another. The Bible says this particular Samaritan, quote, had compassion on the beaten man. It's in verse 33. He felt compassion. He's got this deep-seated emotion and feeling that results in what? Oh man, that stinks. Man, poor guy over there. Hope somebody helps him. No. He does something about it. He bound up the man's wounds, he cared for him. Then he pays for his recovery, covers the whole thing, says, Hey, if there's anything else that you've got to do or pay or incur by way of cost in order to take care of him, just let me know. Give me the invoice, okay? Give me the bill. Jesus tells everyone who were there that day, including the lawyer, that they are to go and do the same to others. There's not really a lot of nuance here. You, you go and do likewise. What was his point? His point was that his followers were called to both love God and love others. If you want to fulfill your calling as a Christian, if you want to walk in the will of God, if you want to please the Lord, then walk in love for God and love towards your neighbor. And the question should be asked by you and I. Who is our neighbor? And the answer is everyone. Most certainly an enemy. You say, Come on, that seems like a stretch. I don't know. Are you sure? You know, let me uh grab a commentary and let me translate some Greek words and let me just kind of do some exegetical slice and dice kind of scalpel work. No, no, no, listen. Jesus said it elsewhere. You might as well just go to Matthew chapter five and start the Sermon on the Mount. You're gonna see time and time again things that you're gonna wish you could find commentaries to tell you you don't have to, but you won't if they're biblical ones. Jesus says, Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. What does the man do in the parable? The Samaritan loves his enemy. And then Jesus says, hey, sometimes, you know, if it's like somebody who's a little tolerable, no, he says, you do likewise. You love the person who's annoying. You love the person who's frustrating, you love the person who has slandered you, you love the person who's done things that makes you want to have a lot of distance. And I'm not saying you can't have healthy boundaries, but here's the deal. If it were someone you couldn't stand and you had the opportunity to show them love to help, would you? The Samaritan is a convicting picture. John chapter 10, verses 34 to 35 records Jesus teaching his disciples, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So love for who? Our neighbors, that's everyone. Love for enemies, but also then let's dial this up for the believers. You know, maybe for you, it's actually easier to love the world because who, who, who has a hard time with that? I mean, in a general sense, you can kind of sinners are gonna sin. It's not as frustrating because you're going, yeah, it's kind of what they do, but believers maybe get on your nerves. Why? Because oh well, they should know that they should be beyond this by now. It gets harder and harder to love the brethren. Jesus says they'll know you're my disciples by how you love one another. I don't know about you, but I talk to people all the time. I want to be guarding against this in my own life, but sometimes we're hardest on the people who are closest to us. Is that true with you? Maybe it is. It's a reminder. Love them well. It's a sign of being a believer in the pursuit of great things. You and I are to pursue the greatest thing, which is to love God and love others. In fact, one of the telltale signs that you've experienced salvation and you're walking in the will of God is that you walk in love with others. And that's going to mean being led by what you know more than how you feel. I love this from Elizabeth Elliott. She offers some strong and helpful words on our emotions. She exhorts it is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. That's super helpful because our feelings will tell us, like, no, forget that person. We're done. We will know him, she continues, by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. And love means following the commands of God. Do you love me? Jesus asked Peter. Feed my lambs. He was not asking, how do you feel about me, Peter? For love is not a feeling. He was asking for action. I mean, who better to talk about trusting what you know versus what you feel than Elizabeth Elliot, who lost her husband Jim when he was killed trying to reach the Alka? I mean, what we know is what our Lord, who loves us so much, would have us do. We're to love. And that's going to mean for you and I, being forgiving, being tender, being sacrificial, being kind, being patient, being peacemakers, and a host of other actions that come from the kind of heart that has been won over by the love of God. Love always leads to action. First John 3, 16 to 17 reminds us by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against them, how does God's love abide in him? John says, Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth. He's saying, Don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk. This means loving with sacrifice, with selflessness, with service and submission to God and that love flowing through you to others. This week I want to encourage you, maybe write down two to three names of people that are hard for you to love and start by praying for them. I heard a quote once it's hard to hate someone you're praying for. And then write down one to two acts of love that you can do to show them love. And maybe that begins by a simple one that you do within your own heart and between you and the Lord, you choose to forgive. Maybe you go the extra mile and reach out to that person, but at the very least, you give it to the Lord and you let it go. Whatever your situation, this parable reminds us that even in our most difficult moments with difficult people and even with our most despised enemy, we should show love and we should show love because that ultimately reflects the kind of love that we have for God, but that He has first had and shown to us. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, and thanks for your support of our ministry here at For the Gospel. I pray that these resources are an encouragement to you or your small group or your church, your family. And so from our team to you, thank you. We look so forward to all that God has according to his will, and we're gonna keep going for your benefit and ultimately his glory and the gospel. For more information or to partner with us, you can go to forthegospel.org and look at everything there. And be sure to subscribe on YouTube for free video teachings every week. And follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter or X for encouraging resources every single day. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.