The Good Samaritan | Luke 10 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] from luke chapter 10 through the end of the book of luke the last 15 chapters of his book luke writes things that are unique to his gospel the majority of the last 15 chapters of luke the things that he records are not found in matthew mark or john one of those unique stories that luke writes about here is found in chapter 10 and it's the story of the good samaritan now the good samaritan uh is a popular parable that is probably the most familiar of all the parables that jesus taught it is so familiar that even many people in the world who aren't you know schooled in the bible are familiar with this parable secular sociologists will even refer to the story of the good samaritan as a way to motivate people to do good deeds and to help the poor even some christians lean on this story to advocate for social justice and and while this story does contain elements about you know good deeds and helping people who are in need it's not about that not primarily it's not about that not primarily you know it's it's like to use a football illustration because the nfl season has begun again but to to say that you know football is about seven men dressed in uh white and black striped shirts with whistles and yellow flags who run up and down the field that's not football i mean that's an element of it but that's not football so a lot of times people read the story of the good samaritan and they see it as well it's basically the story about how to show random acts of kindness to people and and social justice no no it's not and if you think it is you're gonna miss it there's an element of compassion obviously in this story but there's a deeper meaning to all of this and we'll see the deeper meaning when you examine the question that is asked of jesus so i'm going to read the story with you it's luke 10 starting at verse 25 down through verse 37. and so here we go luke luke 10 verse 25 and behold a certain lawyer stood up and tested him that's jesus saying teacher what shall i do to inherit eternal life there's the question that sets the tone for what is about to transpire in the rest of this passage the question is about eternal things eternal life salvation that's what this is about and so jesus said to him verse 26 what what is written in the law what is your reading of it and so he answered and said 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 and he said to him you have answered rightly do this and you will live but he the lawyer wanting to justify himself said to jesus and who is my neighbor and then jesus answered and said a certain man went down from jerusalem to jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing wounded him and departed leaving him half dead now by chance a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him he passed by on the other side likewise a levite when he arrived at the place came and looked and passed by on the other side but a certain samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had compassion and so he went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine and he set him on his own animal brought him to an inn and took care of him on the next day when he departed he took out to daenery gave them to the innkeeper and said to him take care of him and whatever you spend when i come again i will repay you so jesus asks which of these three do you think was neighbored to him who fell among the thieves and he said he who showed mercy on him and then jesus said to him go and do likewise let's pause and pray lord we thank you for this time in your word we ask always that you would open the eyes and ears of our heart that we might hear what you would say to us today thank you for this story that you've given us that you've preserved in your word teach us now in jesus name and everyone said amen there's actually a law in our country called the good samaritan law and it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but basically the good samaritan law is to protect you in the event that you render aid or assistance to a stranger in need why would you need that kind of protection well let's just say for example you're out at dinner and you notice the lady at the table next to you is choking on her food she can't even breathe she's she's choking completely so she's she's taking a bite out of her steak and it's a piece of meat is lodged in her throat she can't breathe you spring up into action run over to the lady perform the heimlich maneuver on her pop that meat out save her life but in the process of trying to do a good deed you broke a few of her ribs you were performing the heimlich a little too violently broke a couple of her ribs now under the good samaritan law she can't sue you she can't sue you for damages or injury for for harming her because the good samaritan law protects people who are rendering aid or assistance in a time of crisis when somebody needs help there's also in eight states in the united states a law by the same name with a different meaning there is the good samaritan law duty to rescue in eight different states you are required to give aid to someone who needs help and if you don't this good samaritan law could hold you criminally liable for not rendering aid and so in of these eight states three of them florida ohio and washington state you have to at least call 9-1-1 or you'll be criminally liable if you see somebody in need in these other the other six states massachusetts rhode island minnesota vermont wisconsin that's five one two three okay it's five and three three states you have to at least call 9-1-1 and then three states you have to call them at least 9-1-1 five states massachusetts rhode island minnesota vermont wisconsin you have to personally administer aid or assistance to somebody in need and if you don't you're criminally liable now virginia's not on that list so apparently you don't have to give a rip about somebody i don't know but as a christian you should you should but the good samaritan law duty to rescue doesn't apply in the commonwealth of virginia now our story here is about the good samaritan it is often called a parable the parable of the good samaritan although interestingly the word parable is nowhere around this to describe it as such 17 times luke uses the word parable whenever jesus teaches one this time he didn't use the word it's possible that jesus is actually telling a story that actually transpired and he isn't just making it up as an illustration because a parable normally would illustrate a deeper spiritual truth by using an example from everyday life so it's likely this actually might have transpired and jesus is referring to it as a real life event either way whether it was a real life event or just a parable he's trying to teach this good lawyer something and it is something we can learn as well and so let me explain the story and then we'll glean three particular points from this so it tells us in the previous chapter in luke 9 that jesus and his disciples are making their way to jerusalem and along the way they have an encounter with this unnamed lawyer now although in our bibles it says that he's a lawyer don't think of him like a lawyer today it's not like a trial attorney this is not you know like a a a prosecutor like today this is a lawyer who's an expert in the mosaic law so he's probably a scribe but he is an expert in the bible in the old testament scriptures particularly the first five books of the bible and so he's that kind of a lawyer and this lawyer approaches jesus with a question and his question then that we saw already in verse 25 is what must i do to inherit eternal life that's the question all right as much as this story has great elements and we'll touch on it about compassion and helping this guy who's in need the question that precipitates the parable if in fact it was a parable at all is is what must i do to inherit eternal life now notice by the way this is the approach that a lot of people take what must i do what must i do i have to perform somehow i have to do something every world religion is about doing something except christianity what christianity teaches is that it was done for you that jesus dies on a cross for your sins it's by grace to be saved through faith in what jesus did you don't have to do this do that do this do that that's a bunch of doodoo you know what i'm saying to you but this guy is wired this way because that's the way the rest of the world population is really wired what must i do to inherit eternal life so the question is about eternity eternal life and salvation jesus answers him with a question it's that kind of typical socratic method right you answer question with the question in fact jesus asks him two questions in verse 26 he says to him what is written in the law what is your reading of it so the guy says what must i do to inherit eternal life and jesus basically says well you're the lawyer you tell me you've studied the scriptures you should know the law what does the law say and the guy answers and when he answers he combines a verse from deuteronomy 6 5 and a verse from leviticus 19 18. and he and he molds these two together for his answer and here it is in verse 27 he answered and said to jesus you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength with all your mind that's deuteronomy 6 5. and he adds inferred love you must love your neighbor as yourself that's leviticus 19 18. it takes two of these verses puts them together he says this is my answer how do i gain eternal life how do i inherit eternal life you gotta love god supremely you gotta love people supremely and jesus answers as he does here in verse 28 you have answered rightly do this and you will live now that's an interesting response because the guy's asking about eternal life he ends up saying i think the way i inherit eternal life is if i love god and love people and jesus says right answer do this and you will live and you just kind of want to pump the brakes and say wait a minute jesus hold on what about the four spiritual laws here why are you telling this guy that he can just love god and love people and get saved what about confess repent believe receive what are you doing jesus because it almost looks at first glance as if jesus here is making allowance for a works based salvation just do this and do that love god and love people and you're good to go well we know that jesus didn't mean that because that would be contrary to everything else in the gospel then why did he say it here's why he said it jesus said what he did to get the guy to realize that while loving god and loving people should always be the ambition of our hearts that the reality is that if eternal life because that's the guy's question if eternal life hinges on how perfectly you love god with every fiber in your being mind soul you know and strength and heart and if eternal life hinges on loving people as you love yourself i mean if if that's what eternal life hinges upon perfectly loving god and perfectly loving people we're all doomed every single one of us is doomed i mean ask yourself the question do you really love god with every fiber of your being heart soul mind strength really i mean think about it is it even possible to separate the human mind heart and soul from the other affections of this world and of this life to be able to say oh no i perfectly supremely entirely with every fiber of my being i love god heart soul mind and strength i don't think so and likewise are you really able to say in all honesty that you love people as you love yourself and don't think about lovely people lovely people are easy to love think about the unlovely people think about people you don't like think about the people you some of the people you work with i mean i don't i hope there's nobody in the same row but look down the row i don't know do you really love people like you love yourself no you want me to prove it okay go with me for a second if i were to take up my phone and take a panoramic picture of the whole congregation here just one snapshot and then i projected it on the back wall who's the first person you'd look for yourself that's who you'd look for yourself why because you love yourself more than anybody else that's the wicked sinful hearts that we have we love ourselves and by the way loving god and loving people go together first john 4 20 says if someone says i love god and hates his brother he's a liar for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen how can he love god whom he has not seen he said well i don't really hate the person yeah but you love yourself more than you do them and so when jesus says what he does here in verse 28 you have answered rightly do this and you will live you have to imagine him saying that with a twinkle in his eye because what jesus is really saying here is okay all right i hear you love god love people that sounds really good can you do that go ahead give that a try because if you can do that you have eternal life see what it does it exposes his heart to make him aware of the fact he can't live up to the standard of the commandments he just quoted love god perfectly loved people perfectly now his next question should have been how do i do that but instead it wasn't why wasn't it because it tells us they're in verse 29 that he sought to justify himself so instead of humbling himself and saying how do i do that because then that would have led to a different discussion where jesus could have taught talk to him about grace instead he says how can i it tells us that he's thinking how can i justify myself so the second question he asks is a technical question like a good lawyer you know finding a loophole and so he's asking now well i know i'm supposed to love god perfectly i'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself but who's my neighbor who's my neighbor you know in the neighborhood who's really is my neighbor neighbor you know this is what he's asking it's a technicality i find it interesting that he didn't even wonder about the first verse like why isn't he wondering how much he could or should love god he skips right past that one and says well who's really my neighbor let's define this let's get down to you know brass tacks here technically speaking jesus who's my neighbor now in those days jews thought that they were only socially materially physically obligated to help fellow jews that was their idea of who a neighbor was my fellow jew and jesus is about to blow that out of the water and so jesus then gets to the heart of this parable and he he talks about a man who was coming down the road from jerusalem to jericho now i've been on this road many times those of you have gone with me to israel it's the same road we take when we go from jericho up to jerusalem and and vice versa it is a 17 mile road from jerusalem to jericho it descends 3 000 feet so this guy's walking all downhill from jerusalem he may have been a worshiper in jerusalem returning home to jericho likely he's a jew he gets attacked it's a very dangerous road along the side of this road is a valley called the valley of the shadow of death that's what is referenced in psalm 23 because people would commonly thieves and robbers would commonly stake out this road to attack pilgrims as they would make pilgrimage up to jerusalem or going home so it's a very dangerous road it's the reason why many people who would go to jerusalem to worship and to return home would travel in large groups as caravans because it was greater protection safety in numbers on this occasion it appears this guy was traveling all by himself and he gets robbed and he gets beaten his clothing is stolen he's left naked on the side of the road and he has beaten within an inch of his life and he's left to die and jesus says and then three people come along and the first one jesus talks about is a priest he said a priest comes along but he says in verse 31 that he passed by on the other side he saw the guy lying in the ditch and he went to the other side of the road didn't even offer help now a priest was responsible for performing religious duties in the temple and it is likely that he thought to himself i'll become ceremonially unclean if i touch this guy because he might be dead and you're not supposed to touch a dead body or at the very least he's he's bleeding from being beaten up and i can't get my hands dirty with blood and so he ceremonially thinks to himself i'm going to become unclean i'm going to go to the other side of the road you know by the way just a side note sometimes we have to get our hands dirty to help people he goes to the other side of the road then jesus as a levite comes along now a levite was also of the priestly order every priest was a levite not every levite was a priest but levites were assistants to the priests and they would help out in the temple area they would clean the temple they would help with sacrifices and the levites were responsible for the worship in the temple of god same response verse 32 the levite went to the other side of the road when he saw the guy in need so the lawyer is standing here listening to these two examples okay the two religious guys who should have exemplified god best didn't exemplify god at all they weren't compassionate loving didn't help the guy went to the other side of the road jesus then says and then the third guy comes along he's a samaritan now you have to know the lawyer at this moment bristled inside why because there was long-standing hostility animosity and prejudice between jews and samaritans let me explain in 723 bc when the assyrians came and besieged israel they took thousands of israelites captive back to assyria and then they brought some assyrians into the land of israel it was their way of re-patriotizing the land we will take your people captive most of them and we will introduce our people to re-patriotize the land our way when the assyrians came into israel in 723 bc [Music] they intermarried with the the jews and then they settled in the area of samaria their children were then known as samaritans and the jews always saw them and referred to them as a derogatory term but this is the way they saw them as half breeds samaritans are half breeds you're neither jew nor assyrian you're a mixture of those two and we don't want to associate with you you're not really one of us and so the samaritan people had long-standing hostility with jews and jews with them the samaritans they were an odd mixture in terms of again they were not jewish but neither were they assyrian and yet they still honored and believed in the first five books of the old testament the books of moses the torah the pentateuch they also celebrated jewish feasts but they worshiped at shechem on mount gerizim not in jerusalem so they had their whole different kind of practices and whole different observance of observances but yet they still identified primarily with the jews though they weren't in jesus day there were a million samaritans living in israel today there are still samaritans believe it or not but that number has dwindled to just 800. very close-knit community and very interesting the samaritans today live in palestinian territories of the west bank but they are not palestinian and yet they speak arabic except when they go into a synagogue yes they worship in a synagogue and then they speak hebrew there the old testament uh language and again they still celebrate the jewish feasts so they are considered today the smallest religious minority in israel and in jesus day long-standing prejudice and animosity and jesus is going to use a samaritan as the example of the good guy in this story and he says the samaritan comes along and he has compassion on this guy on the side of the road and he pours wine on his wounds because wine with the alcohol was an antiseptic and he pours oil on his wounds because oil would then help to relieve pain and he puts the guy up on his animal and he takes him to the inn and he nurses him back to health and the next day he gives the innkeeper to daenery and he says spend it to take care of this guy and if you spend more than this when i come back i'll repay you and then jesus asks his second question to the lawyer in verse 36 so which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves now did you notice that jesus turned it upside down the guy wanted to know who really is my neighbor what defines a neighbor and jesus turns it around did you hear it in his question and he said who was the one who was neighborly to the guy he took it and he turned it upside down the guy was wanting to know who is my neighbor and jesus was saying to him are you being neighborly do you look out for the next person who needs mercy and so when he asks the guy the question which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves the guy answered in verse 37 he who showed mercy on him notice he couldn't even bring himself to say the samaritan he couldn't even utter that off his lips that's how much animosity they had toward samaritans so he said well the guy who showed him the most mercy and jesus said go and do likewise now this is where it ends up where people think well this is just a story about you know random acts of kindness no this this is about eternity so i got three quick points to share with you because our time has already escaped this i'm going to run through these right quickly if you're taking notes number one if we could love perfectly we would be perfect since we can't we aren't and therefore we need a savior for eternal life see he was exposing the inadequacy of this guy's heart to really love god perfectly and love your fellow man perfectly and the reason why is because you don't know perfect love because you need a savior that's the answer to eternal life we are fixated on what we can do to inherit eternal life again i'll restate it jesus already did it for you he dies on the cross for your sins what he wants from us is to surrender to what he's done for us in response to how he first loved us we love him because he first loved us god is the initiator we're just the responders and what christ did on the cross by dying for our sins was demonstrating his love for us and that while we were still sinners christ died for us that's what the bible says and so if we really want to love like jesus we have to love jesus if you really want to learn what does it mean to love other people you have to love jesus because this is important to understand that's where true love will flow from is a personal relationship with jesus which leads me to point number two loving your neighbor as yourself has been elevated to the higher command to love one another as christ has loved you that's john 13 34. if you thought it was hard enough to love other people as much as you love yourself check this out jesus comes along in john 13 34 and he says a new commandment i give you a new commandment that you love one another as i have loved you so you must love one another now why does he say it's a new commandment because leviticus 19 up to that point was the highest form of love that man could understand loving self that's why in leviticus 19 18 god says all right since this is the highest love that you can know is the love of self love other people like you love yourself jesus comes along and says i've got a higher commandment for you i want you to love one another as i have loved you and how are we able to do that because you can love like jesus when you love jesus because when you have jesus in your life and in your heart he gives you the ability and capacity to love people yes even the unlovely yes even the people that you normally wouldn't get along with it's a supernatural love that comes from god's heart himself you see but we have to be careful to examine our own hearts for anything that is unloving jesus challenged this guy about his own personal prejudice a samaritan was used as an example of someone who did what was right i want you to think for a moment in your life about someone that you don't particularly like and maybe if you're honest you even have prejudice towards someone and think if god used that person if jesus used that person as the elevated individual in this story what would it teach you we gotta examine our hearts to make sure there's no prejudice there's no bitterness there's no unforgiveness paul said in galatians 3 28 there is neither jew nor greek slave nor free male nor female for we are all one in christ and the only way you're going to love other people properly is if you love jesus first and then he'll give you the ability to love one another as he has loved you last point be that neighbor who shows mercy to those who need mercy in order to obtain mercy yourself jesus said in matthew 5 7 in the sermon on the mount blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy we need to look at every person as our neighbor because anybody who needs mercy is our neighbor and the beautiful thing is if we will extend mercy we'll obtain mercy if we realize that we are just as much in need of mercy as the next person when we extend mercy we obtain mercy this is the way that god administers his mercy to us so may we have an eye for people who really need god's mercy because when jesus asked this guy the question which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves and the guy said he who showed mercy on him jesus said you go and do likewise this is a parable with eternal significance but with practical application too go and do likewise let's pray father thank you for your word and for the story of the good samaritan to remind us that eternal life comes because of what you've done not because of what we do and the only way we can love you supremely and love other people supremely is if we love you is if we turn to you and have relationship with you and then you give us the capacity to supernaturally love people in ways that we just couldn't and so we thank you for that we pray that you would give us an eye for those who need mercy because that person is our neighbor may we show them mercy in the same way we want to obtain mercy all of us lord want mercy but are we as quick to dispense it to be merciful help us lord to live out your love in that way and only are we able to live out your love when we know your love thank you that you demonstrated your love for us on a cross 2000 years ago to save us from our sins deliver us lord save us and use us for your glory in a hurting world that needs mercy in jesus name we pray and all god's people said amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers

Id: nxd557W4Fg4

Length: 30min 49sec (1849 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021