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How Can I Love My Neighbor?
Luke 10:25-37
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - Feb. 26, 2012
*Some years ago, I was blessed to be part of a mission team in South Asia.
It was about nine months after a major earthquake in the region.
Over 100,000 people were killed, many more were injured, and countless homes were destroyed.
We were there to help with disaster relief.
For example, we gave much needed blankets to the families in one of the isolated villages.
We also shared the gospel by giving our testimonies.
*I saw the story of the Good Samaritan come to life that summer in South Asia.
A young mother had been told by a village doctor that she had tuberculosis.
He was not trained, and she was afraid to take the medicine he gave her.
That’s why she asked our team leader, Mike, if he could get an appointment for her at one of the two Christian hospitals in that part of the world.
*Mike called the doctor and set up the appointment.
Then he wrote a letter for the lady to take with her.
But he had terrible penmanship, and noticing that I could print, he asked me to make a legible copy.
*This lady was very poor, and told Mike that she was afraid she didn’t have the money to pay for her care.
Mike explained this in the letter.
He also sent some money with her, and closed by saying: "If this is not enough to cover the cost, I will pay you when I see you again."
I thought, "Wow! -- This is just like the story of the Good Samaritan."
*The amazing truth is that WE can be the people God uses to help hurting people!
-- You can be a Good Samaritan for someone, and you don’t have to go to Asia to do it.
You can be a Good Samaritan right here in Caldwell Parish.
You can be a Good Samaritan at work or school, and maybe in your own home.
*You can be like the good neighbor we see in this story.
Let’s look into the Word of God and see how.
1. First: You must settle the question of your salvation.
*That’s why Jesus told this story in the first place.
It was a question of eternal life.
We see this starting in vs. 25, when the lawyer asked Jesus, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
*Owen Bourgaize tells us that the lawyer’s question reveals how much he misunderstood about eternal life: "What shall I DO to INHERIT eternal life?" Didn’t he see a contradiction in his own words?
An inheritance is not something you achieve by some action you’ve done.
And inheritance is something you receive because you have a relationship with someone.
*The lawyer misunderstood how eternal life is received.
Like so many other people, often well-meaning and decent-living people, this man thought of eternal life as something earned by your good works, rather than freely given by God’s grace.
(1)
*That’s what Jesus was trying to get the lawyer to see in vs. 26, where the Lord asked: "What is written in the law?
What is your reading of it?"
In vs. 27, the lawyer 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."
And in vs. 28, Jesus replied: "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live."
Uh oh.
-- The lawyer knew he had a problem.
So in vs. 29, wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"
*Yeah -- He had a problem.
"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."
He had a problem, and so do we.
*You may say, "I DO love God with all my heart."
Really?
-- Have you done it 24/7 for even the last week?
How about the last decade?
How about your whole life?
There is no way you can ever earn eternal life, because all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
*What we all deserve is a place in hell, because the wages of sin is death.
So eternal life is never about self-justification.
It’s about the Savior, Jesus Christ!
Eternal life comes from the Son of God and the sacrifice He made when He died on the cross for our sins.
*And eternal life comes through simple, childlike faith in Jesus Christ.
That’s what the Lord was talking about back up in vs. 21, when He said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes."
When we turn to God and put our trust in Him, our sins are forgiven!
We are born again into the family of God, and eternal life becomes our inheritance.
*This is the starting point for truly loving our neighbor, so King Duncan asks: "Why have Christians been historically so charitable and caring?
-- It is because once WE were lying beside the road broken and bleeding.
And nail-scarred hands reached down to help us in our need."
(2)
*Before you can begin to really love your neighbor, you must settle the question of salvation.
2. Then strive to overcome your selfishness.
*You will never love your neighbor until you overcome your own selfishness.
So in answer to the Lawyer’s question, the Lord highlighted the selfish life.
Listen to the Lord Jesus in vs. 29-32:
29.
But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?''
30.
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.
31.
Now by chance a certain priest came down that road.
And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32.
Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.
*Selfishness: We can certainly see it in the robbers who attacked the man on the road to Jericho.
They couldn’t have cared less about that poor man.
On top of robbing him, they stripped him, beat him and left him half dead.
*James Merritt tells us that the 17-mile-long Jericho road was a narrow road bordered by steep cliffs on one side, and barren hills on the other.
The Jericho road was so dangerous in those days it was called "the way of blood."
Scholars estimate that there were at least 12,000 thieves in the wilderness around Jerusalem.
They roamed the countryside like packs of wild dogs attacking innocent victims.
*Those thieves lived with a completely selfish point of view.
But Jesus wants us to see that the religious people in His story were also selfish.
The priest and the Levite were part of the religious establishment.
If anybody would have stopped to help that poor beaten man, you would have thought it would have been them.
But they were selfish too.
(3)
*It’s a good thing we’re Christians, so we don’t have to worry about being selfish.
-- Just kidding.
*James Merritt told of a little boy who heard about the Good Samaritan in Sunday School one day.
Mom asked him about it on the way home.
And her little boy replied, "It was about two preachers who saw a man down in a ditch.
But they didn't stop, because he had already been robbed."
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*The truth is that we Christians can be just as selfish as anybody else.
And sometimes we are.
We are all born with a selfish streak.
It’s a big part of our sin nature, and we have to overcome your selfishness.
*How can I love my neighbor?
-- We must strive to overcome our selfishness.
3.
But also follow the example of Christ’s compassion.
*We need the same kind of Christ-like compassion we see in 33-35.
There Jesus said:
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