Scripture referenced 2 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Luke 10:25-37 the main passage for the sermon, the story of the Good Samaritan
25 Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “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.”
28 He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion,
34 came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’
36 Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”
37 He said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
Luke 6:35-36
read as a benediction about loving enemies and being merciful
35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.
36 “Therefore be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Before the sermon, Pastor Mark handed out cards asking the congregation to write down three things: a trustworthy individual, a trustworthy group, and the group they considered most harmful to the gospel. Those answers shaped the whole message, which walked through the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 and pressed the congregation to reckon honestly with who they see as neighbor and who they see as enemy.
What was said
A lawyer stands up in the crowd while Jesus is teaching, and from the beginning his posture is telling. He wants to test Jesus, and when Jesus turns the question back on him, he answers correctly: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells him that is exactly right, and that doing it will bring life. The catch, which Pastor Mark named plainly, is that no one does it. Loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is not something any of us accomplish on our own.
So the lawyer, wanting to justify himself, presses further. He asks who counts as a neighbor, which is really a question about minimums. How tight can I draw the circle? For a Jewish lawyer, the expected answer would have been fellow Israelites. He wanted a target he could hit.
Jesus answers with a story. A man is beaten, stripped, and left half dead on the Jerusalem-to-Jericho road. The high priest comes by and crosses to the other side. A Levite does the same. Pastor Mark held those two figures up against the first two things the congregation wrote on their cards: the trusted pastor, the trusted elder. He noted that the crowd listening to Jesus expected a third Jewish figure to complete the pattern, a fellow Israelite who would finally do the right thing.
Instead, Jesus makes the hero a Samaritan. Pastor Mark read through the congregation's answers for the third card, which included antifa, the media, radical Muslims, woke culture, Christian fundamentalists, hypocritical Christians, Democrats, extreme right wingers, and others. That, he said, is roughly the category. The Samaritans were half-breeds in Jewish eyes, religiously suspect, politically opposite. They were the group nobody listening to Jesus would have expected to admire.
The Samaritan in the story does not cross to the other side. He feels compassion, bandages the man's wounds by tearing up his own clothing, uses his own oil and wine, puts the man on his own animal, brings him to an inn, spends the night caring for him, and leaves what would amount to roughly a month's lodging with the innkeeper, with a promise to cover anything beyond that on his return. He was on a journey with things to do, just like the priest and the Levite.
Pastor Mark pointed out that Jesus quietly flips the lawyer's question. The lawyer asked who is my neighbor. Jesus ends by asking which of the three proved to be a neighbor. The direction of the question changes everything. It is not about defining a group you owe something to. It is about whether you are willing to cross toward someone in need, even someone you consider the furthest thing from an ally.
Pastor Mark closed with a prayer for the congregation to find opportunities to look with compassion on whoever they wrote in that third slot, to bind up wounds across political and socioeconomic lines, and he pointed to Saul becoming Paul as the kind of dramatic transformation that happens when the gospel reaches the people we consider most opposed to it.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- The lawyer asked Jesus 'what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' and already knew the right answer. What does it tell us about ourselves that knowing the right answer and actually doing it are so different?
- Pastor Mark pointed out that the priest and the Levite both had understandable reasons for passing by. What are some of the 'understandable reasons' that we use to avoid getting involved in someone else's messy situation?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 6,057 words
Speaker 1Good morning. Did it come on that time? It did. You can hear me now. Welcome.
Would you stand with me? And we're gonna sing wonderful grace of Jesus and sing it sing it like Judy's gonna play it with a little enthusiasm. How about that? Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Speaker 2Wonderful grace of Jesus. Greater than all my sin. How shall my peace describe it where shall its praise begin taking away my burden setting my spirit free for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the mount, frightened like a fountain, all sufficient grace for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions, sing it greater far than all my sin and shame. Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Speaker 1Amen. Wow. Y'all did sing that with enthusiasm. Thank you. How about amazing grace?
We're going to sing good old ham. Have a seat. Thank you. Oh, what a song. John Newton, former slave trader.
Once was lost. Using a pentatonic scale, five notes, basically, in the song. Different registers, wow. Powerful. The announcements this morning.
Monday nights are happening at 1st B. Monday nights at 1st B. Tomorrow night, 6PM, Carl will be preaching a message from Mark down in the fellowship hall. We'll have meal, music, and a message pretty much every Monday night. You can get that down the hall.
Monday nights at first b. Awana is happening in this room at the same time. They start off here, and then they spread out into their different groups, Sparkies and Cubbies and Truth and Training. And they push the word of God into the kids' minds, or they work at getting the word into their minds so that they can reach their hearts. Monday nights at first be down the hall, and I wanna start now here at 06:00.
Connect hour happens between services, but also Monday night, kitchen volunteers are needed. So if you wanna do either of those things, whether Sunday works better for you or Monday works better for you, if you'll let us know, we would love to have you sign up. And there are some clipboards hanging up in the fellowship hall to do that. The Word Retreat. Word Retreat is a men's retreat coming up February 23 through the twenty sixth.
It's gonna be over in Ryee, Idaho. It's $200. Scholarships are available. Don't let money keep you from going. But if you wanna go, you can register online at firstbjackson.org, or you can contact Matt Litzman.
He's kinda putting it together. He's one of our elders, here at the church. And his wife spoke up during the first service and said, there were two or three slots available. If you wanted to, one of the ways that the church can bless that group is by taking a meal over. I know it's from here to Ryee, Idaho.
But if you make the plan to do it, there were there was a breakfast and a lunch available if someone wanted to do that. February twenty third to twenty sixth. Nancy Traziano. Or Matt could pick the VLO. Okay.
You could prepare it and bring it here, and then somebody else will take it from here to there. That's a good idea. There is a ladies fellowship that happens on Thursday evening, 06:00 down in the fellowship halls. It's a Thursday night. They get together and they also eat.
There's a theme here. They eat and they study the Bible together and they pray together. It's a good good time. It's all ages are welcome. It's a homegrown ladies Bible fellowship.
There is another women's retreat. It's going be at the same place where the word retreat is, the Moss Avery Lodge in Ryeury, Idaho. It's a $150. So, hey, that's cheaper than the men's. Bring a dish to share.
If you would, you could sign up in the office. Or Nancy T, who just spoke up, would you wave your hand and let them see you? That's Nancy Tirasiano. The student ascent, that is the Thursday night youth group. That's a combined youth group, not just First B, but First B and tribe and other youth groups from around town.
That is Thursday nights at 06:30. It'll be getting going again on the February 2. And there's a young adult Bible study. This one is a moving target. This one they don't meet in the same place every week, but they do meet at the same time each week, 06:30 at somebody's house.
If you wanna know more information about that, you're a young adult and wanna be involved. Erin Anderson is the contact, and there's her information up there. Anything else? Yes. Ladies Adventure Day.
So this weekend was the the adventure weekend for guys up at Old Faithful Christian Ranch. There was a group that went up to ride snowmobiles and cross country ski and snow shoeing and all that sort of stuff. But ladies adventure day is next Sunday following the congregational meeting that's between services. So at about eleven ish, they'll be heading from the church parking lot to skin up Snow King. Oh my goodness.
I'm glad that that is a ladies' adventure day and that I'm working at that time. But Laura McMillion or Natalie Yates are the contacts for that. And you can get in touch with us, and we'll give you more information. But skinning up Snow King is sounds like an adventure. There is a congregational meeting next week between services.
If you're a member, you're welcome to come and vote. If you're not a member, you're welcome to come and listen. But that's between services right here in the sanctuary. So if you're an eleven o'clocker and you want to be involved, you need to come at ten next week. And I think that's the last of the announcement.
I do have something else, though. I'm going enlist a couple of people to help me. If you would, would you mind Steven, would you mind handing those out to everybody? Bob, would you? Yes.
Here's the fair. Would you all just take one of those? I'm going to ask you three questions. So actually, not questions so much as the other questions, I guess. So I'm asking for you to it's doing it again.
My heart is racing. So if you would, I've been reading Barna research studies recently. Barna does lots of research and particularly among Christians and Christian groups. And they ask questions about, you know, spiritual openness or, are you more or less spiritually open now than you were before the pandemic? That sort of thing.
They ask a lot of those questions. I'm asking you three questions. One of them is, who is somebody that should be trustworthy? I could just say, who is someone that you trust? And you could give a name if you want to, but I'm more looking for the office, right, than than that.
I'm trying not to be really specific, but somebody you should be able to trust. That's number one. Number two is broader than that. So number one is more like office but an individual. And then number two is a wider group than that.
Y'all haven't ever done Mad Libs in church, have you? This is like that. So a wider group that should be trustworthy. And then the third one the third one is the group I'm not an identity politics guy, so I don't usually think of people in these terms. But in your opinion, the group that is the most antithetical to the gospel.
What inhibits the gospel? What group most harms the advance of the gospel? Are you with me? Mhmm. Okay.
So one two three. Trustworthy, trustworthy, and then absolutely not trustworthy. Are you with me? Y'all The first one an individual or also
Speaker 2a group?
Speaker 1It's an individual or it can be a group. It doesn't really matter. I'm getting at the third one, really. But the first one, is a specific version of the second group. How about that?
Trustworthy person, office, individual. Second one is trustworthy. And then the third one is not trustworthy. In fact, very harmful to the advance of the gospel. And that's it.
Would you stand up? And y'all can sing. You can think on it a little bit. I'll call for them. I've got some, seeds up here already from the first service.
So here we go.
Speaker 2Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come and long for heaven and home when Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is is me. His eyes on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. I sing because I'm happy.
Speaker 1Hallelujah. What a savior. So good. This one's written by the same guy who wrote a little town of Bethlehem. He's a preacher more than a songwriter.
But if you had to had two songs that you wrote, that'd be two good ones, wouldn't Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite the ushers to come forward. God almighty, it's great to gather in your name this morning, lord, to sing your praises. Hallelujah.
What a savior. God, may we be exhibiting who you are to the crowd that is here with us today. May we love one another well, but, Lord, may we be exhibiting who you are to those around us in this neighborhood, to those around us in this state, this country, this world. Would you, Lord, show who you are through your humble and obedient people? Allow us, Lord, the privilege of bringing someone to this wonderful savior.
In Jesus' name, we ask that you would be moving amongst us, Lord, that you would be accomplishing your will in your way here. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Judy.
So, this morning, those cards, I forgot to say put them in the offering plate. So if you would, just pass them down towards the center aisle if you would, and I'll come get them. How about that? Anybody have theirs? I'm not paying any attention to what individuals wrote, but I do want to know.
Here we go. And normally, I have 80 slides. I have 22 today, okay? So don't worry about the time I'm taking right now. It won't put you late for lunch, okay?
I think that the sometimes sermons that are easiest to understand are the hardest to apply and do. Thank you. Thank you very much. Here they are. Alrighty.
Thank you. So I'm gonna add these to the first service, and I probably should have done this last week. Do you all remember some of you remember because some of you were here seven years ago. I did a sermon about seven years ago that was called the gospel in 10 words or less. And so I asked you the week before to be thinking about it all week and then text me or email me your version of the gospel in 10 words or less.
And it's probably in the top five sermons of my favorites since I've been here because it was crowdsourced and y'all did all the work. But today, I I I took that idea. I've been reading these surveys about spiritual openness. 70 something percent of people say that they do believe in God in some form. They don't really know that much about him.
But of all the people, 70 something percent believe that there is something out there that can be known, and 50% of them are open to spiritual growth in the direction that God would have. Right? Higher power would have. And then slightly lesser percentage of that says that they are much more open now than they were before the pandemic. And I don't know.
I was just thinking about polls, and I also was thinking about this. So do you all remember this? Who wants to be a millionaire? Do do do do. Do you remember the music?
Yeah. It was so dramatic. And they would ask the question and then they give you four possible answers. And if you knew the answer, of course, you say yes, and then you say, this is the answer. You'd say, is that your final answer?
And yes, that's my final answer. Okay. Yes, you're right, you move on. Or you don't know the answer, and so you have these lifelines. And one of them is phoning a friend.
Isn't that great? If I was wondering about music theory, who would I call? I've got a few. But you decide who it is, you call that person. Hopefully, they know the answer, and you could say it with confidence, yes, final answer.
But if you phone the friend and you think, I'm not so certain. They're not so certain. Maybe you take a fiftyfifty. Right? So there are four answers, and fiftyfifty eliminates two of them.
They're always the two that you knew it wasn't. Right? And then there's ask the audience. So polling the audience is a way of seeing what it is that you're thinking. It also in the show, most of the time the audience is right.
In in that show it was. At least you're right about your opinion. That's what I asked you for this morning. Right? You know your opinion.
Most of you do. And so that's what I wanted to do with these. And I'm gonna plug them in here in a few minutes, Asking the audience, it's not a great way to lead. You know? It's really not.
There are always naysayers. There's always gonna be naysayers. But asking the audience to see where their heart is is a a good idea, I think, from time to time. And Jesus knew their hearts. How many times have we read so far in our Harmony of the Gospels study where Jesus says it says, and knowing what was in their hearts, Jesus asked a question.
So in this case, there's gonna be somebody that comes to him and asks a question. And I wanted to ask y'all this before I got to the story. This is Luke ten twenty five through 37. Luke ten twenty five to 37 comes immediately after what we did last week. We made it up to verse 24.
This story is only in the Gospel of Luke, so we don't have Mark and Matthew to to chase after this week. It's only these 13 verses. And this is the way it starts. And behold, look at this, a lawyer. A lawyer at the time was someone who studied the law.
It's a Jewish lawyer studying the Jewish law, which is Torah, first five books of the Bible. Concerned with Leviticus and Deuteronomy and his interpretation. He was a lawyer, someone that was introduced that way. I could have put a fourth line. This would have been the first one in that case, but I didn't really know how to ask this question.
Probably theologian, seminarian, theologian, somebody who has studied the Bible extensively and has come up with their own systematic theology after working through the whole of the law in this case, or in our case, the whole Bible. So behold, a lawyer, somebody who ought to know, stood up. Stood up means everybody was sitting down. Since he calls Jesus teacher, Jesus was probably teaching a group seated, and the lawyer stood up to ask a question and put him to the test. Always.
Somebody said always. That is what they're it seems like they're always doing. And we see later on in the text what this guy's doing, but putting him to the either is to say, does he agree with me? Because I know what I think about this. I'm putting him to the test.
If he agrees with me, he's right. If he doesn't agree with me, obviously, he's wrong. So he puts Jesus to the test. It may also be that he wanted to he's standing up in the crowd. He wanted to be seen for being a real smart guy.
I'm the only one standing up right now. Sorry. That's not why I'm up here, though. Behold, Eloyah stood up and put him to the test saying, teacher, sign of respect, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Oh, the focus is on doing.
Man. Doing follows being, I should say. Doing follows being. It doesn't work the other way around. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said to him, what's written in the law, lawyer? You ought to know. Right? You're you're the you're a you've studied this book. He's putting him to the test.
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? What's your understanding of it? Might be a translation in your Bible.
You've considered this question. This is not first time you've asked it. What's written in the law and how does it read to you? It's appropriate that Jesus would take the lawyer back to the law. Right?
In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, it says in both places a lot of different things, but this guy answered. He had the answer. Call me. Call me. Call me, Jesus.
He answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Oh, wow.
What shall I do? And Jesus said, do this and you will live. Does that mean that Jesus believes in works based righteousness? No. What did he say he had to do?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all of your mind. Can anybody do that perfectly? Jesus. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, your strength, and your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, yep.
That's it. Just do that. You'll be fine. That's comical. How many of us do that?
None of us do that. But this guy goes on from there this way. So he got the answer, and he answered correctly. He got what he wanted, it sounds like. But wanting to justify himself.
Oh, self justification. That's what he was looking for. Self justification. But wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, who's my neighbor? And who is my neighbor?
Now the question and even the Hebrew term here kinda presupposes an answer that the lawyer would have known that it's his fellow Israelites. That's the extent of who's my neighbor. Not just me, projimo in Spanish, my next door neighbor, the one that's the closest to me. It's typically, most people translate that, who's my neighbor? They would they would see that as being a fellow Israelite.
But who who what's the extent? What's the least I can get away with, Jesus? Who's my neighbor? I I love God perfectly with all my mind, soul, soul, and strength, but how far does this have to go among humanity? Who is my neighbor?
Seeking to justify himself. One of my Justification as far as the the term justification. I like word processor programs. You know the little thing that has the lines all over on this side, justify left? If you hit justify left, boom, all the words come over here and they line up with this margin.
And if you hit justify right, man, all the words jump over here and the end of the words line up with this margin. And if you hit justify center, boom, right here. It's an external. You're the person that's deciding how to justify the text. And so when you hit justify center, it centers it.
The more you type, spreads from the middle. Right? So that's justifying in our word processors. He's seeking to justify himself. How
Speaker 2do
Speaker 1you justify yourself? He's wanting to justify himself. If you give me a target, I can hit it. That's not true. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Without Jesus' help, that's impossible. Whoo. Wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who exactly is my neighbor? And Jesus replied and said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now that is the road there goes in the Wadi Kilt.
It's kind of an old eroded passageway for water. It's in the desert. But Jesus replied and said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. So imagine that desert land, Jerusalem is like being at the top of the pass. Jericho is like being right down here in the valley.
It's 17 miles because it's a super windy road. It's about the same distance actually on a map. It's about the same as the top of the pass to first b. Jericho's right on the Jordan River, and it's a treacherous journey through desert curves. Around every curve, there could be somebody, and there are caves even beyond that to hide in.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers. Good place for him. And they stripped him and beat him. It doesn't say specifically that they robbed him, but, apparently, they took his clothes. They stripped him and they beat him, and they went away leaving him half dead.
That's a terrible situation. Stripped, beaten, half dead. Unconscious is what that connotes. And by coincidence, a blank was going down on that road. Let's see what y'all wrote.
Pastor. Ray, specifically. Great. Minister. A trustworthy person.
My pastors. My pastor. Gracious. Y'all understood the assignment. This makes being me hard.
Church clergy. My wife. Florine, Judy Johnson. Not Davonte, but, hey, that's what they wrote. Local law enforcement.
The president. Somebody just left a blank. I don't know anybody that's trustworthy. That's great. Minister.
Yeah. So specifically, it it's like lead pastor. Actually, the word Jesus uses is priest, but it's not just a priest. It's the high priest. It's the word for this is the high priest for that year.
So they serve for a term, and they're the ones in charge. Now, for that guy, ritual cleanness is really important. Ceremonial cleanliness is really, really important. And if by coincidence, the high priest was going down that Road, and when he saw that guy beaten, stripped I mean, he's naked. That's one thing, avert your eyes.
But he's also half dead, unconscious. He doesn't know whether he's dead or alive. If he's dead and he touches him, he's ceremonial and clean and cannot fulfill his role as the priest for at least seven days. If he wants to help him, he's gotta touch him to know whether he's alive or dead. So he's in a position like we might be at a red light.
When you pull up and there's someone with a cardboard sign and you try to position your car so that the post or the rearview mirror is right between you and the sign, so you don't have to engage that situation. Right? If I don't see what they need, I might not it might be alright if I just pass them along. They might also he might also have thought, this is a dangerous road. I don't know whether this guy's really unconscious.
He could be one of the bad guys laying out here, beaten, appears to be beaten, little bit of fake blood. He's right there. He might be drawing me into a trap. He could have thought that. By coincidence, a priest was going down that road, senior pastor was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
I've got plenty of important things to do, and I don't need to deal with that right now. Right? Likewise. A blank. What's the second one?
Church member. Elder. Blank. I I really should have taken a week to assimilate all this information. I'm not exactly George Barna, though.
The congregation, church member, my spouse somebody was more trustworthy than their spouse, but that's alright. It wasn't Judy Johnson on that case. Elders, group of deacons. First b. Sweet.
Friend, church congregant. I think that our as far as priest is their term, it's really high priest. And then the second term is a Levite. The high priest would have been a Levite. So that's would have been like church pastor is a church member.
Right? We are both. But the second one down, the Levite was probably if we had to, I think elder would probably be the closest thing. In this church, elder would be closest to the parallel. Likewise, a Levite also.
This is someone who was qualified by birth and by not being disqualified to be a priest, perhaps even the high priest, but just was not operating in that office at this time. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. So both of them went out of their way to go out of their way. You know, they stepped away from the guy. And it could have been ritual uncleanness for the Levite.
It could have been. It could have been fear. Similar situation to what I described before. Getting engaged in life, in someone else's life who is in need, is messy. It just is.
Don't really want to be bothered by that. I don't want to be unclean. And who knows? They might rob me. And it's a long journey down there.
I don't have anything I can do anyway. I hope somebody else will help him. Maybe I'll pray for him. But but oh, here's a big one. This is this is strong.
So my first two, trustworthy and then trustworthy. And then who is someone who's absolutely not trustworthy is the next story. If you follow the logic, the lead pastor to elder, next would be what? Congregation. Priest, Levite, fellow Israelite.
That's the norm. That's what everybody under the sound of his voice was expecting. But Jesus said a blank. Oh, boy. I'm gonna take my glasses out for this one.
Antifa. Liberal non believer. Christian fundamentalist. Evangelical politician, the media, the Christian church, the government, woke culture, wolves in sheep's clothing, false prophets, Extreme right wingers. I did not put these in any order.
Extreme left wingers. Hypocritical, so called Christians, and especially emphatically legalistic ones. Democrats, I did not write them. Woke school system, radical Muslims, leftists, Christians that don't walk the walk. I'm not sure what that says.
Wow. Okay. Samaritans. Samaritan by the time this story has gotten to us, Samaritan, we don't have the same association with Samaritan that the people here in this story, that that lawyer. So that lawyer is an expert on the first five books of the law and would have also believed the prophets because he's a Jewish guy.
The Samaritans were half breeds. When the Assyrians came in seven hundred and something years before and took away many of Israel's best and brightest, they left behind some of the others. And those others, not the best and brightest, stayed behind and intermarried with Assyrians, and they became half breeds. They still had the first five books of the Bible, but they did not have all of the prophets nor did they believe them even though they had some exposure to them. Okay?
So as far as religiosity goes, Samaritans had the first five, but they had the Samaritan Pentateuch. It was slightly different. There was a Greek version of it at the time. And Samaritans believed that you should work a Shemot in Gerizim instead of in Jerusalem. And they had others that are pointed out by the Samaritan woman at the well.
But since our experience with Samaria is from the New Testament, we see Samaria as a place that is ripe for the gospel. Because when Jesus met the woman at the well, she believed, dropped her water pot, told everybody that Jesus told everything about her life, and she was happy about it. And they had a great revival in this little town in Samaria. Peter, by the way, stood there for three days. Apparently, didn't eat anything because he was so upset about things.
Samaritans, for us, we get the good Samaritan story, and we get the Samaritan woman at the well. So we think of them as good guys. That's not what they thought of. If you're an extreme right winger, the extreme left winger is what they thought. If you're an extreme left winger, the extreme right winger is what they thought.
It was the opposite of somebody they saw to be good and trustworthy. And Jesus turns it on their head with that, but a Samaritan who was on a journey. He had things to do. He was on a journey. He had things to do just like the other guys did.
When he came upon him and when he saw him, he didn't go to the other side of the road. When he saw him, he felt compassion. And he came to him, half dead, didn't know whether he was dead or alive. He came to him and he bandaged up his wounds. Do you think it was an EMT?
It doesn't mention that. But he bandaged it up his wounds. He probably had to rip his own clothing to be able to bandage up his wounds. He had supplies for the journey. He had oil with him.
He had wine with him. And he poured out the oil and the wine onto this guy's wounds. He was on a journey, and he had his own animal. And whether he had been riding it or just hauling his stuff with it, he put this guy on his own animal. From the text also, the man was Jewish.
It was pretty obvious that man was Jewish. Came to him, bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on him, and he put him on his own animal. And he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him. I'm so glad that guy got help. Isn't it great that he did?
On the next day so he spent the night taking care of him. And on the next day, he took out 2 denarii. We typically think of a denarius as one day's wages. And if I were to say, took out two days' wages and gave them to the innkeeper, how long could you stay in a hotel in Jackson for two days' wages? Not long.
Right, this is not Jackson though. To denarii at this time in this type of an inn would have been, conservative estimate, twenty four days. Long term estimate, thirty two days. That's the range. Polybius says that it's thirty two days' worth.
So he put down a month's worth of housing for the guy And then said to the innkeeper, take care of him. Take care of him. Whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you. He put him up for a month, and he says, anything else, I'll take care of it. Wow.
Now which of these three, Jesus says, do you think prove to be a neighbor? The man's question was, who is my neighbor? I wanna know how little I can get away with here. I want my circle to be pretty tight because it's easier to hit that target than everybody. But Jesus really turned the question around and instead of who is my neighbor, Jesus turned it around and said, to whom can I be a neighbor?
Right? Which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? Well, it's obvious. Right? I mean, no doubt about it.
And the lawyer then says, well, he was right on that first question. Right? I guess the one who showed compassion to him. Yep. He said, the one who showed compassion to him.
And then Jesus said, now go and do the same. His original question is what should I do? And Jesus, when he ends this, he says, you go and you do like that. Even though that was your enemy that I was discussing being the good guy in the story. That is neighborly.
That is the way to be a neighbor. Think is that the last slide, Blake? That's it, 22 slides. Took me just about as long as 80 usually does. I think that we get into a mindset, an us and them mindset of we are the ones who are trustworthy and all of the other are not.
There are there are in fact, Jesus doesn't this is not a parable. Jesus doesn't say it's a parable. It might be a parable, but it says Jesus told this story about this man. It's probably a true story. It is possible that a Samaritan can have compassion.
It is possible. In fact, it's pretty likely if anybody's got an extreme political view, it's motivated by something deep in. Right? The devil twists our deep motivations, and he puts pride, attaches pride to them. It drives us further and further away from the central truth of the gospel of do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Right? So whoever you wrote down in that third slot, would you pray with me right now? Whoever, Lord, we put in that third slot, I pray that you would give us opportunity, Lord, that when we are ready, you would give us an opportunity to look upon them with compassion, to be able to serve them in a way that's meaningful, that honors you and honors them. We were all, Lord, made in your likeness. I pray, Lord, that you would use us to reach across our political lines, our socioeconomic lines, that you would use us, Lord, to to touch people.
I I pray, Lord, that you'd use us to bind up the wounds of the hurt and the brokenhearted. I pray that you would allow us the grace, Lord, to be able to look upon people with compassion and mercy. And I pray, Lord, that you would help them. Now I know, Lord, that this church helps with lots and lots of local benevolence, and they help through the staff and through the folks. But I pray, Lord, you give us each individually opportunities that we can meet the needs of someone that's very different from us.
In Jesus' name, I pray that you'd be doing a work in each of us individually, Lord, but that collectively, we would be helping to establish your church even among those that we consider antithetical to the Christian gospel going forward. Lord, those are the most dramatic transformations, Saul to Paul. In Jesus' name, Lord, would you allow us a place in this work? Amen. Would you stand?
We're gonna sing a sing a song. I just used y'all's answers. I didn't seed any of the first services. That was just straight up from this service. I'll let you know as I go through them this week.
Maybe I'll let you know next week how that really went. This is what we're looking for right here, though. O master, let me walk with thee. Amen. And as a benediction, we've got something from earlier in Luke.
Luke six thirty five and thirty six. This is a New Living translation, I believe. But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high for he himself, think about this, is kind and ungrateful to evil men. Be merciful just as your father is merciful. Amen.
Amen.
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