The Good Samaritan

May 10, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Well, as a child, I did not have a very healthy view of neighbors. Some of you are too young to remember Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers seemed like an awesome neighbor, right? He was great. Mr. Rogers loved children. The neighbors I grew up with, though, were a little different, right? I didn't grow up in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. I grew up with a bunch of neighbors who didn't love children very much. Now, to be fair, I don't want to blame them for that. I blame myself. You see, I, as a child, was often very, very annoying. I would do things all the time that I'm sure, no doubt, bothered my neighbors. So, for example, I remember when our next door neighbor one time got very upset because they ran over a brick with their lawnmower. They were really upset with me. Now there was a good reason for that because I was the one who threw the bricks in their lawn. I was a little kid. I don't know what game we were playing, but that's what kids do. You do little things like that, and the neighbor was not very happy with me. And that's I was really young at the time. One of the earliest memories I had of an interaction with my neighbor, it was not very good. That was the people that lived next door. A couple houses down, I had another bad interaction with a neighbor. So I remember in particular, this neighbor didn't like me either. Also, uh, I remember in particular one time being chased off the property. Now, again, there was a reason for this. I had been with some buddies and I was lighting off smoke bombs in his greenhouse, which he did not appreciate. Again, why kids do things like that? That's very, very unkind to your neighbor. He was mad, and so I he chased me off the property. I remember that. Again, I did not have a healthy view of neighbors growing up. That's mostly my fault from my experience. And I'm willing to bet if I were to ask you experiences, maybe as a child, maybe even today, about experiences with those who live around you, experiences with neighbors. I'm willing to bet that maybe, just maybe, there are some of you who have your own stories of some bad experiences. Maybe some of you have had challenges, right? Relationships like that can be challenging. At times, it can even be a little bit messy. But this morning I've got some good news for you. Today, as we open up the pages of Scripture, I believe that Jesus has a very healthy view of what it means to be a neighbor. In fact, I think that Jesus wants to teach us all about what it looks like to be a neighbor. And the way he does this, the means by which he communicates this, is through telling a story, through telling a parable. And so today, if you want to learn about this, if you want to see something that I believe all of us can learn about the relationships around us, then go ahead and open your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 10 this morning. Luke chapter 10 is where we're at. If you're a guest with us today, welcome. Again, happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Uh if you're here today and you brought your Bible, wonderful. Uh we open our Bible every single Sunday here, and so that's great. If you didn't bring a Bible, it's all all good. We got you covered. There should be a Bible in front of you. You're welcome to use that. If you don't own a physical Bible, take that Bible home. We'd love for that to be your gift today. And as you're turning to Luke chapter 10, if you're kind of looking for that book, it's three-quarters of the way in. You get to the New Testament. There's Matthew, Mark, then Luke. If you hit John, you went too far. And as you're turning there, I'm Joe. I'm the lead pastor here. Thankful that you're here today. Glad to be with you and to be preaching. We're continuing a series that we began last week, and it's called Once Upon a Time. And we've called it that because it's a series that focuses on the parables of Jesus. Now, if you're not familiar with what a parable is, a parable is a simple little story, it's a tale that's told that communicates a very, very deep and powerful message. And so Jesus loved to teach by speaking in parables. He used stories as a way of communicating profound truth to his listeners. If you were with us last week, Pastor Mark ended up kicking off the series. He did a great job looking at Luke chapter 15, and that was the story of the lost sons. Some of you know it is the story of the prodigal son. And he preached on that. Today we're also in Luke, as I mentioned, we're in chapter 10, but today we're going to hear another famous parable. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Now, I'm willing to bet that most of you in the room have heard about the Good Samaritan, even if you have no context that it's anything to do with the Bible. Obviously, it's a biblical story, that's where we're preaching on it, but maybe you've heard that used as an expression today, right? Maybe someone does something kind for someone else and you say, Oh, look at that, what a great person. You know, that's a good Samaritan. We've adopted this into our common vernacular. In fact, it's so prevalent that there are even laws in the state of Michigan called Good Samaritan laws. It just shows you how popular this parable is and how it permeates every aspect of our society. Now, here's the thing: just because it's popular doesn't mean we always understand it fully. So my goal today, my hope, my desire, my prayer has been that when we see this today, that we'll have some fresh eyes and that God will reveal some truths that we need to hear today. And so that's my hope and prayer. And so if you guys are ready, let's get ready to jump right in. We're in Luke chapter 10. We're gonna begin in verse 25, but before we actually start reading, can I just establish a little bit of context for us? So we're in the Gospel of Luke. Luke tells the story of Jesus, right? It's one of the four Gospels that tell the birth and life and death and burial and resurrection of Jesus. So Luke has already begun that section of talking about a number of things. And then the early chapters, Jesus has called his disciples, he's preached and taught and done miracles, he's been traveling all over the place doing this. And in Luke chapter 9, the previous chapter, there's a unique transition that takes place. In Luke chapter 9, we're told that at one point Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. That's actually in verse 51 of chapter 9. The idea here is that Jesus, and for the next several chapters, it's going to repeat this, it's a reminder that Jesus knows he came here for a mission. Jesus did not just come to earth to preach and to teach and to perform miracles. No, Jesus came to this earth to die on the cross and rise from the dead. That was his purpose, and he was resolute in that purpose. This is why he set his face toward Jerusalem. And so Jesus is on a journey toward the cross, beginning in chapter 9. And immediately after it says that, in the very next verse, it says that Jesus was going to make a pit stop on his way toward Jerusalem. And that first pit stop was to stop in the town of Samaria. In fact, what Jesus does is he sends a few of his messengers ahead and he has them go into the town to prepare for lodging there. And when they go there, they find out that the Samaritans have rejected Jesus and his disciples. They're unwilling to receive him. And there's a good reason for that. You see, the Jews and the Samaritans, they did not like one another. There's a long story behind that. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, just to give you a heads up. But originally, Jews and Samaritans were the same group of people. They all descended from Abraham. They were part of the same family. And at one point, they were all part of the same nation. They were a kingdom of people, and it was unified, but not very long because after a short period of time, that unified kingdom was divided in half. There was a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, and that's when all the problems really started. You see, there was conflict between the north and the south, and then eventually in the year 722 BC, the great Assyrian Empire rose to power and swept in, and they uprooted all the people in the north, and then they brought them into the empire, and then they spread them out. And over time, this displaced group of Israelites from the north, as they lived in the Assyrian Empire, they began little by little to intermingle with the nations around them throughout the empire. And so what we see happening is as they intermarried with these nations, there became this blending of not only ethnicity, but also of religion. It was syncretistic. And so these people in the north, they begin to intermingle with the other nations, and then finally they settle back into the land that they came from. But this time they're a totally different group of people, religiously, ethnically, and they settled in this area that was called Samaria, and so they were called the Samaritans. And so by the time Jesus showed up on the scene, that relationship was really strained. The people who were Israelites, they really disdained the people who were Samaritans. They were supposed to have this pure religion and this pure line of people. And now that they intermingle with the nations around them, the Jews despised them. And in turn, the Samaritans didn't like the Jews either. And so there were all sorts of issues back and forth. They didn't want anything to do with each other. So this is the reason why when Jesus and his disciples prepared to lodge there, the Samaritans were unwilling to accept them. And so what we see in Luke chapter 9 is immediately after this happens, James and John, two of the disciples of Jesus, they come to Jesus and they say, Jesus, will you call fire down from heaven and rain fire upon the city of Samaria and burn it to the ground? Clearly there's no love between these people. They've made themselves enemies. And so we need to keep that in mind as we look at our story today. And so with that context, now that we're in chapter 10, as we move into this section, Jesus begins teaching, and all of a sudden someone rises up and they ask Jesus a question. But it's more than just a question. There's an agenda here. The first section is what I'm calling number one, the test. So notice verse 25. It begins like this. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, put Jesus to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, as our passage opens up, it seems as if Jesus has been teaching. There's a group of people there, his disciples are there, but there's obviously other people who were there as well. And one person stands up and he asks this question. Luke doesn't tell us exactly who it is, he simply describes him as a lawyer. Now, if I talk about a lawyer in contemporary society today, I talk about this lawyer. We might have this idea of what a lawyer is in our mind and heart. We might have an understanding of what we think that particular type of profession would be. But the truth is, a lawyer in the ancient world in the first century Israel was very different than the kinds of lawyers that we have today. This lawyer was an expert in the Mosaic law, in the law of Moses. And so the law of Moses is found in the first five books of the Bible. It's called the Torah. So you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. This guy would have known those books like the back of his hand. In fact, he would have studied and trained and been able to interpret the law and apply the law in a variety of contexts. This guy would have been influential in society. He would have been highly esteemed and respected. That's who this guy is. He's an expert. And so the lawyer stands up and he asks a question, but notice how Luke gives us a hint that he's not actually asking a real question. It's not genuine here. No, this is nothing but a test. This is a test. This guy is putting Jesus on the spot. There are people around. He's putting Jesus on the spot. And there's no doubt that he's trying to trip Jesus up so that way he can swoop in and show everybody how smart he is. That's what this guy is doing. He's a one-upper. That's what I like to call it a one-upper. You familiar with that? Those people in life who often try to use situations, use you to make themselves look better. And so you might say something and they one-up you. You're familiar with that? You're not really responding. Maybe you are the one-upper. I don't know. Very quiet out there today. This guy's a one-upper. Trying to prove how smart he is. He tests Jesus. He puts him to the test. He asks the question. And here's the question Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, this is a good question. That's a very good question. And for a Jew in the first century who's living under the old covenant, who still lives under the law of Moses, it would be appropriate to take this guy to the law. In fact, that's what Jesus is going to do. He's going to respond to this lawyer by bringing him to the law of Moses. But if I can for a moment, I just want to remind you of something. We are a different people today. We live on the other side of the cross, right? We have the vantage point of looking back and seeing all the work that Jesus accomplished for us. We're people who live under this new covenant. And as we consider this very same question, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? I want you to know that when we consider this question, we don't need to look to the law of Moses because that law both points to and finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. As Christians, eternal life isn't about what you have to do, it's about what Jesus has already done. That's eternal life. It's about the work that Christ has done. Through his active obedience, Jesus kept the law fully in our place. And through his redemptive work, through his death, his burial, and his resurrection, the full requirements of the law as it relates to us, right? They're fully met in Jesus because our failures to keep the standard, Jesus fully atones for those things. He fully atones for our sin. So Jesus has already done the work. This is not about what you have to do to receive eternal life. It's about what Christ has already done. In fact, notice here how the lawyer, there's irony that's kind of baked into his question. If you really dissect the question for a moment, notice how he says, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Can I ask you a question this morning? What do you have to do to inherit something? Well, typically, nothing. You really typically don't earn an inheritance. It's given to you. It's a gift. That's the idea. Typically, an inheritance is given. And who is the inheritance given to? Well, it's given to somebody who is a child of somebody. So normally when someone passes away, the inheritance goes to their children. It's given to an heir, it's dispensed to a member of the family. Beloved, can I remind you this morning of the gospel? We don't have to do anything to inherit eternal life. That inheritance is dispensed. It is given freely to members of the family. And by God's grace, we've been born again. We've been born of the Spirit, and by God's grace and through faith in Jesus, we are then adopted into the family of God. Now, today in Christ, we are the beloved children of our Heavenly Father. We are all sons and daughters of the Most High God through our faith in Jesus. We're called heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ through faith. Eternal life is our inheritance. It's given to us freely. Isn't that good news? The most popular verse in America that many of you probably heard, even if you don't know the Bible, is John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, will not die, but they'll have eternal life. They'll be given, they'll inherit that eternal life. Eternal life is something that's given to us. That is good news. Amen. And so when we hear that question and we think about our situation on the other side of the cross, we think about this differently. But when this lawyer he asks this question, he begins number one with the test. And as I said, what Jesus is going to do is he's going to respond by turning the tables on this lawyer and taking him to the law. And so that's why the second section is what I'm calling number one, number two, the turn. Right? Jesus is being tested, and so he turns the tables, and now he's going to test this lawyer. Notice what he says in verse 26. He, Jesus, said to him, Well, what's written in the law? How do you read it? Now I mentioned earlier, Jesus responds to this lawyer by taking him to the law, and that is appropriate. This guy lived under the law of Moses. And in doing this, he's flipping the script, he's putting the lawyer to the test. Essentially, Jesus says, Hey, you're asking me a question about eternal life. Let me ask you the question. You're the expert. What does the law say? How do you interpret the law? Notice how the lawyer responds. The lawyer says this. And he answered, Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he, Jesus, said to him, You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. Now, this answer from the lawyer, according to Jesus, this is the correct answer. In fact, remember when Jesus was asked about what the greatest commandment is? What did Jesus say? He answered the exact same way. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, right? He says, All the law and the prophets hinge on these two things. These are the greatest commandments, the essence of the law. And so Jesus answered in a very similar fashion. So let's just take a moment to break this down a little bit. What is the lawyer saying? Well, first of all, he has a command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind. This is a verse, a command that comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6. And for the Jewish community, this was something they were very familiar with. In fact, this was central to them because this was incorporated into something called the Shema. Now, the Shema was a Jewish prayer. They would pray it every morning and every evening. In fact, Jews today will still pray the Shema, and so this is very familiar. This is incorporated in the beginning of the Shema, and this is something that's almost like our Pledge of Allegiance, but like times it by a million. The idea here is that this is a thing that they would regularly say, and it was also an expression of worship. They are pledging their love and loyalty to the God of Israel alone. That's what they're doing. And notice the extent of this love to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. That's to love God with every fiber of your being. That's what we see here. And so he begins with this the first and greatest commandment. But then notice how he also includes another command. He says, Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, this is a verse that comes from a different book, the book of Leviticus. In Leviticus chapter 18, we have this. This is the second greatest commandment. We're going to really focus on this aspect of the commands that he mentions here for the rest of the message. But when the lawyer answers this way, when he says these two things, notice how Jesus gives him credit. He says, You're right, but notice what else Jesus says. He says this. You've answered correctly, but notice Jesus says, do this and you shall live. Do this and you shall live. You know, knowing the truth and doing the truth, that's two different things. This lawyer knows all about the first five books of the law, but living them out, obeying them, doing them, that's not always so easy. You see, Jesus is taking this guy to the law because it's through the law that we develop a knowledge of sin, and that knowledge of sin reveals our desperate need of a savior. The law leads us to Christ. It is the guardian that was put in place to lead us to Jesus. It's the schoolmaster that brings us to Christ. And this lawyer, if you were able to see that truth in this moment, that he is wholly insufficient to keep the totality of the law. If you were to see that, he would humble himself, he would realize that the demands of the law are just too far beyond his reach. But that's not what happens. As we keep moving, notice what it says next in verse 29. But he, this lawyer, desiring to justify himself, to make himself look righteous, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? You see, in a self-righteous attempt to meet the demands of the law, this lawyer begins to evaluate the word neighbor. Now, just a heads up, at this era, the Jewish community and the leading Jewish religious leaders they defined neighbor in very narrow terms. So the idea of a neighbor for the Jewish community was somebody who was a fellow Jew, someone who was like you, your kinsman in the flesh. Those were your neighbors. And so this command was interpreted by most people to love a fellow Jew. That was the idea here. And so in the mind of this guy, hey, if this means that I'm to love my friends and to love the people that are like me and my my community, my my tribe, if that's what it means, well then boy, I think I'm pretty good. That's what the lawyer is doing here. Jesus is a different definition of neighbor. And the way he's going to answer this question, and who is my neighbor? The way he's going to answer this is through a story. It's through a parable. So that's going to lead us to our third section. Now that we've seen number one, the test. Number two, the turn. Jesus turns the tables in the sky. Number three, we're going to see the tale. Jesus is going to tell this story, this parable. Now, I'm going to borrow something from Pastor Mark last week. I thought this was pretty cool. I'm not going to put the verses on the screen. I want you just to listen. In fact, I want to let the story, the power of the story, do its work. And so if you'd like, you can close your eyes. If you'd like, you can read along, but uh, but just listen to the story. This is the story that Jesus tells. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two dinari and gave it to them, gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay when you come back, when I come back. Now, as our story unfolds here, we see there's a man who's traveling down a road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now, the text doesn't tell us what type of person this was, but we presume, based on his journey leaving Jerusalem, that this was a Jewish man. So Jesus is telling us a story about a Jewish man who's traveling down a very familiar road, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And notice how in the story Jesus says that they're going, this man's going down. But that's very literal. This road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a very steep descent. You would travel about 17 miles down this road. Over the course of that 17 miles, you would go well over 3,000 feet in descent. Now, in the first century, this road was used fairly often. But this was a road that actually traveled through very remote regions, right? So it went through the desert, went through the wilderness area. There were plenty of rocks and crags and various caves and things, valleys all around there for people to hide out in. And so over the course of this journey, which maybe would take six to eight hours, if it was starting to get dark, this would be the perfect place for robbers to hide out somewhere and attack someone who was not suspecting them, especially if they were walking alone. In fact, there are historical accounts of this being a very dangerous road, and this is the type of road where plenty of robbers robbed people. And so this is what happens in our story. That man is walking, and as he's walking out of nowhere, the robbers come, they attack the man, they beat him within an inch of his life, they take all his belongings, and he's left there on the road, helpless, hopeless. Now it just so happened that someone else was traveling down that road. And guess what? It was a priest. Phew, that's good news, right? Of all people to help this man, a priest would certainly be someone to help his fellow Jew, right? I mean, of all people, you'd expect the priest would be there and would stop, but here's the trouble, here's the challenge of the problem. This priest, as he's walking, he begins to notice this man, and perhaps things are going through his mind. Maybe he thinks, well, if I try to help him, what might someone do to me? Or maybe he thinks, boy, I'm in a hurry, I've got to be at a certain place by a certain time, or maybe it's getting dark, this is too much trouble. Or maybe even he looks at the man and assumes that maybe he's dead. And in Jewish culture, a faithful Jew was not supposed to associate with the dead because that would render them unclean. And so maybe he's thinking, for the sake of purity, I'm just gonna pass on by. We don't know why, but all we know is he passes on by. And he leaves the man there alone to die. Well, it's unfortunate, but thankfully, somebody else starts walking down the road. This time, it's a Levite. That's good news. Here's the thing: for context, a Levite was a group of people who were one of the 12 tribes of Israel. They're one of the 12 families that made up the people of Israel. And Levites were a very prominent tribe. So every priest came from the tribe of Levi, but not every Levite was a priest, if that makes sense. But either way, this guy would be considered as someone who was prominent and upstanding in their culture. Of all people, a Levite would certainly help their brother in need, right? Unfortunately not. Lo and behold, this doesn't happen. Once again, this man passes by on the other side of the road. And so now we have this guy who's laying there alone. He's desperate. He's dying. Laying there helpless, hopeless, as good as dead, and all of a sudden someone else approaches. This time it's a very unexpected traveler, not someone you would expect to be coming from Jerusalem and going to Jericho. It's not a fellow Jew, it's somebody totally different. This time it's a Samaritan. A Samaritan. That's not the kind of person that would help somebody like this. The Samaritan, this is the kind of guy that James and John wanted to turn into s'mores in the previous chapter, remember? They hated each other. A Samaritan is the last person that you would expect to help, right? He's the guy you would expect to pass on by, but shockingly, this Samaritan doesn't. He stops, he notices what's going on, he inspects the situation, and Jesus says he has compassion. This word compassion in Greek is one of my favorite Greek words. Normally I don't like to say the word in Greek, but this is a fun word to say. This is the word splonknizzomai, right? It's fun, isn't it? Splunkzomai. This word is derived in Greek from another word, splankna, which literally means bowels or intestines or guts. That's weird, isn't it? But in the ancient world, as strange as it sounds to us, this area of your body was viewed as this seat of emotion, right? It's the place where often affection would rise up. It was a very strong place of feeling. And so splankzomai gives the sense of being stirred up inwardly, right? You're being moved inwardly as you see something going on. It's a very visceral, this idea, something you feel deep down in your gut. Compassion is the feeling you have that leads you to a place of action, to respond. You feel compelled to move and to act when you're stirred up with compassion. It shouldn't be surprising to us that in the New Testament, this word compassion, it's most often, it's not used very often in the Bible, but it's most often used to describe Jesus. Many times before Jesus heals or helps someone, he has compassion first. This is the word that's used when Jesus sees the leper, right? And he has compassion and he reaches out and touches him and heals him. The Samaritan has compassion. What's the result of his compassion? Well, he ends up going over to help the guy. The text tells us that he binds up his wounds. He takes oil and wine and pours it on the guy. That would have been costly. Wine would have been used as an antiseptic in the ancient world. The oil would have been uh had properties that kind of were medicinal for healing, for comfort, to relieve pain. So he takes this guy, he begins to care for him and bandage him up. More than that, he takes him and he puts him on his horse. Now think about this. This is a long, difficult road. This guy brought a horse for himself to ride on, but instead now he takes this person and he places him on the horse so that way now this Samaritan is the one who's going to have to walk. He's the one that's going to have to be uncomfortable taking this horse along the road. More than that, when he gets finally to the place where his destination is, he stops at an inn and he takes care of the man at the inn. And the next morning, what he ends up doing is he ends up giving money to the innkeeper and says, Hey, take care of him. Now, this amount of money, there's some debate as to how much, how long this would provide care for this guy. Some commentators say that this is two months' worth of stay at an inn. Whatever it is, this is over and above. This is considerably generous. More than that, the guy says, Hey, I'm gonna leave, and when I come back, if you have to spend any more money to care for him, let me know. I want to pay you back. All I want is this guy to be taken care of. The way this guy helps this other guy is way beyond anything that we would see. The sacrifices he makes, it's incredible to help this person in need. The last person you'd ever expect to be a hero in the story is the Samaritan. But he is. And all that leads to our last point. Now that we've seen number one, this test, and we've seen Jesus, number two, do the turn. He turns the tables on this lawyer. And now that we've seen number three, the tale, the fourth and final section I want to look at, number four is the takeaway. The takeaway. As soon as Jesus finishes this parable, Luke tells us that he responds to the lawyer with another question. Notice the question that Jesus asks. He says, This Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? The lawyer said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise. Now, if you remember, this lawyer, he wanted to know what constituted neighbor. This lawyer, in an attempt to justify himself, he was drawing up boundaries, limits to his love, hoping that he would fulfill the law if that was how neighbor was defined. And so he asked the question Well, who is my neighbor? And in a roundabout way, Jesus answers this question, doesn't he? Your neighbor, according to Jesus, is anyone. It's anyone and everyone. There are no boundaries to divine neighbors, according to Jesus. If the Samaritan was the enemy of this man, then that means that loving your neighbor includes loving your enemies. So Jesus answers his question, but Jesus goes far further, doesn't he? He doesn't just define what neighbor is, he also shows what neighbor does. This good Samaritan is someone who made incredible sacrifices, immense sacrifices to help this desperate man. Despite the animosity between Jews and Samaritans, despite the fact that they're enemies, this Samaritan goes to great lengths to rescue him. You know, I mentioned at the beginning of the message that when I was young, I didn't have a very healthy view of neighbor. But Jesus brings real clarity here. Loving your neighbors includes loving your enemies. And at the very end of this, notice what Jesus says. Notice the command at the end. Jesus says, you go and do likewise. You see, this is the calling of Christ. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, and that includes everyone. There's no boundaries that we establish first. No, it's everyone. It's not the person next door, it's not your friends. That's easy to love your friends. We're called to love our neighbor as ourselves. Let me ask you a question. How does this land on you this morning? When you think about Jesus saying, you go and do likewise, how easy does that sound to you? The text doesn't tell us. I assume that the lawyer, after he heard this, I assume that he walked away with a heavy heart. Because he probably thought, who on earth, who on earth can live up to this standard? Who can live like a good Samaritan? Well, Jesus can. That's who can live like a good Samaritan. Jesus. Can I tell you this morning? When I was as good as dead, when I was helpless, when I was hopeless, when I had absolutely nothing, Jesus came and he saw me. Even though he had every reason to pass me by because I positioned myself to be his enemy, Jesus saw me and he looked on me with compassion. Despite my rebellion and sin out of love for his neighbor, Jesus paid a great price to rescue me. He gave it all. He sacrificed everything to rescue me, to save me. I think Jesus is the good Samaritan of this parable. I think that's what we're meant to see. He doesn't just tell us what neighbors do, he demonstrates it through his own life. He is a good neighbor to us. And more than that, I think he enables us to be good neighbors. Beloved, can I remind you of one more thing as we reflect on the gospel this morning? If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. Your old self was crucified with Christ. You've been raised to a new kind of life with Christ. You're no longer slaves to sin. You no longer need to yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness. We've been set free. Through Christ, we've been set free, we've been raised. And through the power of the Spirit, little by little we're being conformed more and more into the image of Jesus. And because of that, I believe that many of the characteristics that used to define us, things like anger, things like bitterness, things like resentment, animosity toward others, those things need to be set aside. Those things need to be cast off, and we should clothe ourselves with Christ. We're to put off those things because we now belong to a new way of life. Be the neighbor Jesus has been to you. Love your neighbor regardless of who they are or what they've done. Now I realize that's easier said than done. Some of you in the room right now, you've been wounded deeply. People have hurt you, people have mistreated you. You've been on the receiving end of who knows what. Easier said than done, Pastor Joe. But I want to remind you that when you and I were at our most unlovable, Jesus didn't pass us by. He didn't pass me by. And in compassion, he showed you mercy. We're called to reflect that same thing to the world around us, not through our own strength. This is not some do better, be better kind of message. It's not some moralistic thing that you just gotta pull up your bootstraps. No, God has rescued you from that life of sin. He wants to enable you little by little to live this life of Christ to the world around you. We're called to shine that light to the world around you. So place your faith in Jesus, trust in him, and seek to live the life that Christ has demonstrated. Seek to be the example that Christ was toward you. You go and do likewise. That's the calling this morning. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for today. I thank you for your word. I thank you that this morning, as we look at this parable of the Good Samaritan, we see that Jesus is the Good Samaritan for us. We often tend to seek to identify ourselves with the hero of most stories, but Lord, we know that the hero of the story is always Jesus. He's the one who rescued us. He's the one who gave it all to save us. And so, Lord, I just pray that we would just bask in that love that you have toward us this morning. And Father, that you would enable us to love others as well. I pray for the person in the room who has been wounded. I pray that you'd heal their heart. Lord, I pray for the person who's feeling bitter right now. Lord, I pray that you would remind them of the hope of the gospel, that you release this bitterness from their heart. Lord, for the person who's angry, Lord, I pray that you would just begin to heal them and enable them to love others the way that you love us. So Lord, just help us, we ask. Not just for the good of others, but for our good and for your glory. We ask and pray these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.