Sunday Jan 22nd. Join us in the book of Luke Chapter 10
First B Jackson
2023-01-22

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are you? It's good to see you today. Good to see you.

From Psalm 34, it says, glorify the Lord with me, and let's exalt his name together. What do you say we we start by doing just that? Singing Psalm 34, taste and see. Would you stand? We'll sing together.

Alright. I sought the Lord. Let's sing that. I sought

Amen. Y'all can have a seat, have a few announcements, and, I don't know, a little quirky something else. So, Monday nights at first b. What's happening, Carl?

06:00 tomorrow, a meal, music, message, two miracles of Jesus where he walks on water, he feeds the 5,000. And what we take away from that, join the gospel conversation tomorrow, 06:00 in that room down the hall.

Thanks, sir. That happens at the same time as Awana. Awana is happening in this room. At least it starts off in this room and then it spreads out all over the place. Connect hour is happening between services today and I saw them bringing the food in.

That is prepared and ready for you. If you would like to prepare and ready it for us in the future, please let us know. That or Monday night meals, you can help out with that. The word retreat. I have been told that there would be, somebody else to come up and announce something related to this.

But this men's retreat is February twenty three to twenty six. Matt, would you stand and Amy, would you come up? Here we go. This is not the quirky thing.

Okay. So I'm not going to the men's retreat. But I have been to the women's retreat twice in Washington state and it's an amazing event. And one way that we can be involved if we're not going, if men that are not or families that are not is one of the cool things about it is every meal they have people from the church whether it's your life group, your family, just a group of wives that want to get together and prepare a meal and take it and serve to the guys. So there are now, there are two lunches, a breakfast and a dinner still open.

And actually Hans is not here, he's the sign up guy for meals or you can talk to Matt. But I just really wanna encourage the ones that are not going, It's

such

a fun way to kind of peek in on what they're doing and get to encourage them and be a part.

Thank you. Matt, do you have something else? You're standing by your just supporting Amy and just really want to encourage you all to please consider attending. It is life changing. So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you. All right. There's a ladies fellowship, Thursday, six p. M. In the fellowship hall.

All ages are welcome. That's a it's a good thing. They get together and they eat together and they pray together and they study the word together. So that's a fun time. Sisters Saved by Grace down the hall, six p.

M. On Thursday evenings. There's a women's retreat. There are lot of retreats. We're retreating to advance.

March sixteen through nineteen, you can come for any or all of the days. That's at the same place, I believe, where the Word Retreat is happening, Moss Avery Lodge in Idaho. It's $150 and Bring a Dish to Share. You can sign up in the office or there is a table back there today. Nancy Tarasiano has some stuff out and you can sign up back there.

Student ascent, the climb is happening. This is on Thursday nights, 06:30PM. That's at Tribes Ministry Center. Was there anybody that needed to say anything about

Starts on the February 2.

Starts the February 2. Very good. Okay. There's a young adult Bible study that, is a moving target. It moves around to different people's houses on Sunday evenings.

Location changes, but Erin Anderson is the gal that's in charge of that. Six thirty in the evening, Sunday nights. If you would, contact her at (208) 200-3746. She'll give you more information about that if you're a young adult. I mentioned last week that the men's snowmobile retreat was happening this weekend and I said something about an adventure.

And then there's a women's ladies adventure day that's coming up. So that's Sunday, next Sunday, following the congregational meeting, I'll meet up in the church parking lot and gear up to skin up Snow King. So adventure. You can contact Laura McMillian, who's right here. Would you stand and wave?

Thank you very much. Or Natalie Yates for more details. And there's Natalie. Would you stand and wave? All right.

Perfect. There is a congregational meeting between the services next week in the sanctuary. And the quirky weirdness, is that the last one, Blake? Okay. Is this, I'm going to hand out a few, I'll just pass them down, cards to each row.

I've got a I'm pulling the audience. I read a barn. Would you all do that? Yes, thank you. Would you mind?

Spread them around. And there are golf pencils right here. If you need them, there should be one in the back of your queue chairs. Before we go too much further, I want you to list somebody that you ought to be able to trust. All right?

First, somebody you ought to be able to trust. You all are here at church, you can answer churchy if you want to. Alright? Somebody you ought to be able to trust is number one. Number two is wider circle than that, but somebody that has an expectation of responsibility or trust, you ought to be able to trust this person, alright.

So it's two of them in a row, one, two are somebody you ought to be able to trust, the next one is also somebody you ought to be able to trust. And then the third one is I don't do identity politics myself. I don't like that. I really don't like it. But I'm asking you to do it this morning for this little blurb.

The last one is the person or group that you feel like is most offensive to the advance of the gospel. Okay. I'm asking you to do it. I don't normally ask you to do it. I don't want to make distinctions normally, but I'm asking you to do it this morning.

So first is somebody you can trust. Second is a wider circle of somebody that you should be able to trust. And the third one is a group or a person that you think is offensive to the advance of the gospel. Are you with me? Y'all are looking like my goodness.

Carl, let's wake him up. Would you stand? You could just do that. I'll ask for him later. It's a Barna poll kind of thing.

Barna has come out with a poll of Christians and what they think and I don't know what you think. You know in the in the scriptures we see it says, and Jesus knew what was in their hearts. I gotta ask. So if you would answer those for me, I'd appreciate it.

And there's power. Of singing. Can I share a good word? You've heard this before, but I want you to hear it again. It's from Psalm 23.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley or the shadow of death, I will I will fear no evil. Why? For you are with me. Would you just hear that today that God is with you and he is the good shepherd? Your rod and your staff, you comfort me.

Thank you, Lord, for your comfort. Thank you for your strength. God, thank you for salvation that you offer us. You say, fear not, little flock. It gives your father great happiness to give you his kingdom.

God, thank you that that you are offering your kingdom freely, fully to us. What are we to do? To believe, to trust in you. You do the work later. The doing comes later, but first, tells, believe.

Trust me. Believe me. God, that we would trust and believe in you. Amen. And you can have a seat here for a moment.

This is the worship through giving part of this service, and I'll invite the ushers to come forward. And we're gonna sing a song of gratitude from Psalm 62. O my people just listen to this. O my people, trust him at all times and pour your heart out to him. Sometimes that's all we have, and we're gonna sing.

Sometimes all I have is a hallelujah. Pour your heart out to him. But before we sing, Ray, would you pray?

I will. And those cards, if you want to, you can drop them in these plates. The fells will get them to me eventually. So if you drop them in there, you've still got time if you want. I'll I'll call for them again.

God, thank you for for the privilege of gathering in your name, Lord. I pray that you would work in us to make us more like Christ today. That, Lord, you would be our sustaining strength. You would be a sanctifying presence in our life, that you would call to mind the things that we read and hear in your word at just the right moment. We ask and trust, Lord, the Holy Spirit to do what Jesus said that he would do, that he would comfort and console, that he'd convict of sin and of your righteousness, and that he would guide us into the truth, Lord.

And I pray that we would be instrumental in that process for someone else. Lord, would you advance your good gospel through the proclamation of your word, your will, Lord, down in your way among us, Lord, but also through us this morning and this week. In Jesus' name, we ask your blessing and your multiplication on this offering. Amen.

All my words fall short. I've got one response. I've got just one move. When my

Amen. And it's time for children's church. They're flooding the aisles. So anybody have the little cards? Anybody still have one of them in your hand?

Would you hand them to me? Would you mind? I'll go get them from the elders. Hey. Y'all talk amongst yourselves.

I'll be right back. Hey. Cards? Oh, new persons? Wouldn't it have been great at an old movie theater?

That's great. That's great. This could go any kind of direction here. Do you remember the show? Like before we left before we left for Mexico, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Right? You remember the show, you all are going, where is he going with this? He always sticks to the scripture. That's why I go to church here. Gracious.

Somebody actually said, I prefer liturgy this week. To me, he said, I prefer liturgy because I know where it's going. This thing you remember phone a friend? Phone a friend. Oh, that was so great.

They could phone somebody that they thought would know the answer that they didn't know. Right? And it was so great when the person did know the answer. Right? That's good.

And then there was fifty fifty. If you got four choices and then you eliminate two of them, why did it always eliminate the two that you knew it wasn't anyway? Right? But then pull the audience. Ask the audience.

Now it would have been great if I'd given you time last week and I assimilated all of the information that you sent in, but I did not do that. So I'm going to go with whatever these things say when we get to some blanks in the sermon this morning. Alright? That's what I'm hoping to do. I hope it makes a difference.

It might not, but we've all heard the sermon before. Anybody who's ever been in church before has probably heard this particular passage. It is in the gospels. We're doing a harmony of the gospel study, and this particular story is only found in Luke. So it's the next thing we come to after last week's.

If you read ahead in the text, you'd hit this this week anyway. I don't have but 22 slides and we're already through seven of them. Okay? So breathe with me. Let me calm down and you all try to calm down.

Here we are with the text. And behold, a lawyer stood up. I could have put one more blank in there for lawyer. Lawyer at the time is somebody who had studied Torah, who had studied the law. And that was somebody who had really paid attention to what the first five books of the Bible have to say.

And so a lawyer stood up. The fact that he stood up says that people were seated and Jesus is there probably teaching. He says, teacher. Right? Pay attention.

We're paying attention to what it says too. Behold a lawyer, somebody who ought to know what it says. They were the theologians, I guess, of their time. They quibbled over the details, put together all the scriptural evidence, and came up with a systematic theology, if you would. Lawyer stood up, put him to the test.

Okay. Put him to the test. Does that sound a little bit disingenuous? Maybe. He's putting Jesus to the test.

He wants to know if he agrees with him, or he wants to show off how much he knows. Right? He put him to the test. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? That's a question for the ages.

Right? What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Give me a target, and I will be able to aim better at the target. I wanna know what I need to do. Right?

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, what's written in the law? How does it read to you? You're a lawyer. You've studied this book.

You understand. You tell me your reading of it. What is your reading of it? Gracious, I'm seeing some of the answers already. I'll let you know the results next week too, after I have had some time.

I did a sermon a while back that was it's been, I don't know, seven years probably now. And I just asked for you to turn in next week. Your gospel in 10 words or less. What is the gospel in 10 words or less? And I I think about it occasionally, but when I was away in Georgia this last time, they asked me to preach on Friday night late.

And so I thought, that one's the one I haven't used but once. And I it was moving to me to see what you had to say. What is the gospel in 10 words or less? So I used that, and I read off some of them to my mostly my family at the church. And I thought crowdsourcing a sermon.

I hadn't thought of that since then, but maybe now this would be good. What is it? What is written in the law? Pay attention to what it says. It matters.

How does it read to you? What's your understanding of it? And he, this lawyer, answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. 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 said to him, you've answered correctly.

Do this and you will live. Now some people look at that and say, Jesus just affirmed works based religion. Well, do you think that's really what Jesus did? How many of us can love God with all of our heart and all of our mind and all of our strength? None of us.

So I think he repudiated a religion of works because he has given an impossible task as far as we're concerned on our own. He says, you have answered correctly. Just do this. Simple enough. Love God, love people.

That's it. Do this and you'll live. Our motto actually for the church way before I got here is, with all we are, loving God, loving people through Christ. Through Christ is very important in that sentence because that's the way that makes it possible. You've answered correctly.

Do this and you will live. And then there's a big hinge point here, but wanting or seeking to justify himself. He said to Jesus, and who's my neighbor? Oh, goodness. Loving God, I can do that.

No problem. He's God. Of course, I love him. I'm a lawyer. Of course, I love him.

I've studied his book. I pay attention to what it says. I I take the details and I put them all together in the hopper, and I come up with a theology, and then I devote myself to that. Is that loving God? Maybe.

Wanting to justify himself. Oh my goodness. Justification. My favorite way to describe justify, how many of you all use Word or Pages or anything like that, word processor? When you hit justify right, what does your cursor do?

Justify right, it goes this way, right? Is that right to you all? That is right to all. Justify right is over here. And if you hit justify left, the cursor bounces all the way over here.

It just says the margin, bam, this is it right here. If you hit justify center, that cursor is dead in the center and when you build the word, just builds out from the middle. Right? Justify. It is something that happens that needs to be an external source.

Justifying yourself, it's all relative. If you're just floating around in the ether, I'm a better guy than that guy according to my own opinion. Right? Do you understand what I'm saying? He was seeking to justify himself.

Now he studied the law. He knew the law, and he actually gave a good answer. And Jesus answered back to him and said, you're right. That's good. Yes.

Just do that. Not hard to understand. It's hard to do. And he was asking, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Going on from there though, I think the the big hinge point and hence one verse on the screen at a time is, but wanting to justify himself.

That was his goal. He wanted to be the one that was right, and everybody else had to fall in line with him to be justified. Wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied and said, man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now Jerusalem to Jericho on the road is about a 17 mile windy journey.

It's about the same elevation change as the top of the pass to Jackson. It's a little bit further because it was a windier road, if you can believe that. So a man was going down on foot from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, bad guys. And they stripped him, and they beat him, and then they went away leaving him half dead. Half dead.

Robbers, it doesn't say they robbed him, but they're robbers. That's what they do. They did strip him. Maybe they robbed him of his clothes. They beat him and they went away leaving him half dead.

It's hard to say what he was. Okay. And by coincidence, a mom. That's not good. Pastor.

Sunday school teacher. My family. I should have been more specific. I just didn't know exactly how to ask these questions. My heart was pounding so hard.

Spiritual leader. Pastor. Lot of duplicates with my mama. Parents. Oh gracious pastor Ray.

That's very specific. By coincidence though, a blank. The word priest is what is in the text, a priest, but it's not just the priest. It's it's not a priest. It's the priest.

It's the high priest that year, whoever that guy was in charge at that time. So, technically, it's in this church, I guess I'm that guy. I'm the one. Scary to think about that. By coincidence, a priest or a lead pastor was going down on the road, same distance, same sketchy journey, a good place for robbers to hide around every corner.

He was going down that road and when he saw this guy, he passed by on the other side. Now he's a high priest. He can't be bothered with such things. That's one way to look at it. Another way is he knows the law.

In Leviticus, it says if he touches a dead body, the man's half dead. He's knocked out unconscious. He doesn't know whether the guy's alive or dead. And if he touches a dead body, it keeps him from doing all of his priestly duties for a week at least. Okay?

So that is something to consider, right? He's thinking about his duties. And I don't know what he's thinking, but the it's a priest. Okay? That's all it says.

By coincidence, same time, a priest going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Okay. Let me pull out of this for just a second. How many of y'all have stopped at a red light and seen somebody with a sign?

Woah. And do you sit where the post of your car is right over the sun and right over their eyes so that you can kinda dodge and say, oh, lord, help them. He passed by on the other side. Likewise, a blank also, second one. Who's this?

Oh, that's a blank card. Oh, church member, policeman. Mom is first and dad is second in tons of them. That's great. Teachers, good friends, elders, deacons, policemen, the saints, the church, church member, the church.

There's this very specific name there too. Pastor Ray, pastor Carl. Likewise, a Levite. Now Levite is someone who is in the line of the priest, but he may not be serving as a priest at that very time. But he ought to know better because he's going to be called on at some point, maybe not to be the high priest, but to be a servant priest.

We we have elders here. I think elders is probably the closest thing that we have to this in our Protestant background. So lead pastor has already come by, and now an elder is coming by. They ought to be able to teach. They ought not be pugnacious, quarrelsome, all those list of elders.

Right? Likewise, an elder, a Levite is coming by. And when he came to the place and he saw him, he passed by on the other side. It might might have been ceremonial uncleanness, could have been, because if he was going to serve, that would be something to be concerned about. It could also have just been fear of being robbed, right?

That's a very common tactic. People use all kinds of tactics. I remember when we went to Italy, they said, Watch out for the Sconizzi. The Sconizzi were these street urchin types and they would come up and steal your purse. Watch out for the Sconizzi.

Maybe that's the third group for some of you all, I don't know. Probably not. And they said, if they come and they hand you a baby, they're trying to get your purse. I'm like, I'm still going to hold the baby. If they hand you something, if they throw you something, don't catch it.

They're trying to take your goods. I'm like, oh, that's that's that's a fear mongering proposition right there. Likewise, a Levite also. When he came by came to the place and he saw him pass by on the other side. Now with this being kind of priest and Levite or lead pastor elder, what would you think would be the next one?

It's most responsibility, lesser official responsibility. Next one should be church member, fellow Israelite, shouldn't That that would probably stand to reason if it's going from the the greater to the lesser, and it's gonna be an anti clerical sermon. Right? It's anti establishment because Jesus is this hippie preacher. Right?

And he's not a priest in their view, although he was. He's not what they would consider a lit religious official even though he is a rabbi. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw it, he passed by on the other side. Ignore him. But oh, I love extra large adversative conjunctions, and I cannot lie.

But a blank who was on the journey, a blank. It would be the day that I don't bring my glasses in here. Hollywood movie star. Someone from the woke culture. Wow.

Activist, political, pagan with gender ideology. My heart is beating out of my chest. I really should have done this last week. C I n o. I've heard of r I n o, Republicans in name only.

That one said Christian in name only. A big question mark, Hollywood and the culture it promotes. Dead church. Media, social media, LGBTQ. Abortionists.

Corporate America, those who prioritize political stance above the truth of the gospel. Christian nationalists. Like I said, Jesus knew their heart, and he knew what to ask based on that. I don't know your hearts. I don't know.

So I have to ask. But, the Samaritan, who was on the journey? We hear Samaritan. We immediately think good Samaritan. Right?

How many times have you heard the sermon? You know he's gonna and you know he's gonna help him. So when you see Samaritan, you're like, thank goodness. Our mission here in town is called the good Samaritan mission. Like, our most common hearing of the word Samaritan is this.

But if you took your own idea, and that's what I was trying to do, your idea of what is the most aggravating that makes you just wanna spit on the ground when you think about it. That group, put that in that blank. Okay? A Samaritan who was on a journey came upon the same guy. And when he saw him, he felt compassion.

And he came to him, he bandaged up his wounds. Do you think he had a first aid jump kit with him? Probably not. I don't know if he was an EMT, but it's probably not. He probably had to rip his own clothing to bind this guy up.

I don't know that, but he came to him and he bandaged up his wounds. He was pouring oil and wine on them. Things provisions he'd taken for the journey. He was expending his own resources, pouring oil and wine on them, and he put him on his own animal. So he was riding, it looks like, And now he's walking and tending to this guy, and he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him.

Didn't just drop him off. He brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the next day, spent the night taking care of him. On the next day, he took out 2 denarii and he gave them to the innkeeper and he said 2 denarii is two days wages, by the way. He took out 2 denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said and we think that and go, 2 days wages?

Two days wages? How much would how many hotel rooms would that get? How long would it get? According to Polybius, that was enough for thirty two days in the hotel, in the inn, taking care of room and board for two months. That is not Jackson Hole Wyoming.

Toutaneria was enough to be and some people are less optimistic and say twenty four days, but twenty four to thirty two days. And he said, take care of him, innkeeper, and whatever more you spend when I return, I will repay you. I'm willing to take care of this guy. Take care of him. Do the best you can.

Luke, the physician wrote this down. Now which of these three, Jesus said, do you think proved to be a neighbor? So the guy's question was, who is my neighbor? And what Jesus answered him with really was, to whom can I be a neighbor? Right?

He he turn he always turns the question. Right? He always turns around on us. But which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And then the lawyer himself said, well, now the lawyer would have counted neighbor as fellow Israelite.

That's he knew it was the people of God, chosen people of God. I I think a lot of us think, should I care for? Well, it needs to begin with the house of God. I'll take care of my church first. Me, my family, my church first.

Yes. I I understand you're thinking on that. You've got some scriptures, so did this guy. You know? But when he's faced with that story and he has to look and say, it doesn't matter how religious those first two guys were.

If it were based on how they treated the man, he'd probably be more than half dead. He'd probably be dead. And then the lawyer was put in the position of having to say, well, I guess the one who showed compassion to him. And Jesus said to him, go and do the same. Go and do likewise.

Whoever it is that is your enemy, pray for opportunity to express the compassion and love of Christ to them. Whoever it is, whoever it is, don't worry so much about politics and how nasty they are towards advance of the gospel. These half breed Samaritans were really looked down upon. They had the same five books about well, had a version of the same five books of the Bible. They didn't have the prophets.

They didn't have anything after the Pentateuch. They had some very different religious, the Israelites just hated them. And if you've been keeping up with this harmony of the gospel, Jesus has been through Samaria multiple times, and he sent his disciples into Samaria multiple times. And he never says this is a parable. He says it's a story.

Go and do the same. Take whatever it is in your idea of the people that you are so opposed to, and then consider, does God love these people? He does. And how is he going to show them that? Amen.

Would you all stand? And Carl, would you come on up and 22 slides lasted just as long as 80. We're gonna sing the gospel basically. It's not 10 words or less, but we are gonna sing the gospel. Amen.

Our benediction is from Luke six thirty five and thirty six. It says, but love your enemies and do good and lend and expect nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Are there any other kind? Be merciful just as your father is merciful.

Amen.