25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, 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 And he answered, “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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.35 And the next day he took out two denarii1 and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, 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 And he answered, “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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.35 And the next day he took out two denarii1 and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
You to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 10. We're continuing our series on doctrines, that we hold dearly. And once again, this is not an exhaustive list of all the doctrines we hold dearly. There's a number of doctrines we're not going to look at, but these are some things I wanted to make sure that we discuss before we hit our next series and which wanna go through Luke and Acts, which will likely take us between 2 or 3 years thinking minimum, to get through that. And so we wanted to go ahead and hit a few things that I think characterize us as a church or at least who we hope to be.
Joel Brooks:
We've already looked at one of the doctrines we hold dearly is preaching the word of God. We've also looked at the sovereignty and the supremacy of Christ. We see Jesus as supreme in all things. We wanna hold him up highly. A couple weeks ago, we looked at mercy ministry to the poor, and how that's God's heart is to the poor, and we're gonna pick up on that tonight by looking a little bit further into that in Luke chapter 10.
Joel Brooks:
So if you'll begin reading with me, begin in verse 25. And behold a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying, teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he said, 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.
Joel Brooks:
And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a priest was going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Joel Brooks:
So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed came to where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out 2 denarii and gave to the innkeeper saying, take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.
Joel Brooks:
Which of these 3 do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, we ask that through your spirit, your word would become alive to us. It would penetrate even into the darkest and the hardest of hearts. Give us more than just understanding. Give us a truth that changes our lives. Lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:
But Lord, let your words remain, and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Paul Johnson's a historian who wrote a book called, Intellectuals, in which he gives all these biographies of different intellectuals who helped shape the world, with their theories. And in this book he made a interesting observation.
Joel Brooks:
He noticed that all of these intellectuals actually had a terrible time living out the principles that they had outlined. For instance, they might love the idea that man should love one another, but a lot of them had a really hard time actually loving one another, and many of them confessed that they actually had an intense hatred towards certain people. Karl Marx, he was one of the people that Johnson wrote about, and Marx was a self proclaimed defender of the working class. Yet, if you were to study Marx's life, he never had a single friendship with somebody from the working class. He never stepped foot into a mill, or a factory, or a mine, or any kind of industrious place his entire life.
Joel Brooks:
For the last 10 years of his life, he never had less than 2 servants at any time. And so, Karl Marx, he actually failed his own intellectual standards for what he thought life should be like, and we do the same. I can remember sitting at Beeson Divinity School about probably about 12 years ago, and one of my professors asked if we had hearts for the poor, if we love the poor. Now who in the world's gonna raise their hand and say, I don't love the poor. No.
Joel Brooks:
And so, you know, we all raise our hands. Of course we love the poor because he wanted us to to raise our hands and and he said, that's great. You know, that's great. Somebody, somebody share. You know, maybe it was something that they've done for the poor this past week.
Joel Brooks:
There was silence. It's like, did did anybody here do anything for the poor this past week? Nobody raised their hand. Because, well okay, that's perhaps that's unfair. This past month, for those of you who love the poor, somebody get up and share what they've done for the poor this past month.
Joel Brooks:
Nobody. This is divinity school students. Mercifully, he stopped there. Mercifully, he stopped. But but he then asked, he goes, well, tell me exactly how is it that you love the poor?
Joel Brooks:
We love the idea of loving the poor, but we didn't actually love the poor. I I took a survey in one of the past churches I used to work in, and in this survey I had a category about, you know, ministry to the poor is something I'm very interested in. I had over 90% of the people mark that. Of about 300 people who took the survey, over 90% marked ministry to the poor as something that they would be very interested in. And so after a month of promoting this one event for the poor, we had exactly 2 people sign up.
Joel Brooks:
2. And what I should have said is, I have a heart for having a heart, you know, for ministry of the poor. I really like the idea, but really when it comes to it, don't count on me. You know, in all Christians, we love the idea of mercy ministry. We love the idea of helping the poor and oppressed, but for most people that stays an idea.
Joel Brooks:
And I don't want to be too harsh because I do think if I were to ask most of you guys, you know, what have you done for the poor? If you've given to this church, if you've given tithe and offerings to this church, you have given to the poor because a lot of that money, it does go out. So I don't wanna be too harsh. We we we do send money that way, but I think the Lord wants us to do more than that. And that's why this is a doctrine we do hold dearly because God has a special heart for the poor.
Joel Brooks:
Let's look at the story that Jesus told here concerning our neighbor. We don't really know the story setting, it's it's not important. Perhaps it's right when the 70 returned and maybe they just finished a meal or something like that, But this lawyer, he stands up and he asked Jesus a question. Now a lawyer at this time is not one who's you know familiar with a secular Roman law. This was a lawyer who was familiar with the scriptures.
Joel Brooks:
He can interpret the scriptures. He knew his Old Testament, what we would call the Old Testament, backwards and forwards. And the fact that he stood up to ask Jesus a question was a sign of respect. It'd be similar to raising your hand and and you're you are yielding to this teacher to call on you. And so he had at least an outward sign of respect when he stood up and he asked this question.
Joel Brooks:
And he asked Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Today, we would ask the question, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? And of course, Jesus says, well you have to accept me into your heart, and then it's all done. You know, that's what we think now, which is not anywhere in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:
Look up all through the times of scripture. Anytime somebody goes to Jesus and ask him, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Look it up. It'll make you feel a little uncomfortable. But he but he asked Jesus this question, or Jesus asked him a question right after this.
Joel Brooks:
He says, what is written in the law? How does it read to you? Now for a person, for a lawyer who has studied scripture their whole life, this is a softball question. This is toss it up, go ahead, hit it right out because this man, I'm sure, just like that said, well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. He cites the Shema, which is something that, the Jews they would recite 2 times a day, Deuteronomy 2:5.
Joel Brooks:
Twice a day, they would pray this. This is a, you know, this is just a lob that he could hit out of the park. And then he has Leviticus 19 to it, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. It's a great answer. It's a really good answer.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus himself gave that answer when he was asked what was the most important commandment. He gave those 2. And I don't know if you remember last year when we looked at the 10 Commandments. The Ten Commandments and all the Jewish law, the the Pentateuch was revolutionary for its time. You had a number of religions that, you know, the the gods supposedly gave laws, and these laws were very vertical.
Joel Brooks:
It was always how man can relate to their God. Now in Judeo Christianity and the Pentateuch, we have first time ever laws that went horizontal. Yes, they went vertical. They went, you know, that you shall have no other gods before me. You shouldn't make idols.
Joel Brooks:
You know, you shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain. It went vertical, but then it went horizontal. You you shouldn't commit murder. You shouldn't steal. You need to honor your father and mother, And it's utterly unique to Judeo Christianity that that we have this law that's both vertical and horizontal.
Joel Brooks:
That we need how we relate to our neighbor matters. It matters. Now I'm sure for those of you been to our church for a while that you also recognize the answer that this lawyer gave as something very similar to our purpose statement, very similar, which I'm sure all of you could recite by heart. That we are a community being transformed by the gospel through the Holy Spirit to love God and to love people. To love God and to love people, which is why this is a doctrine we hold dearly.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus, he commends this lawyer for his good answer. He He says, alright, you've answered correctly. Now all you have to do is do it. Do it, and you'll live. And and and it's here that the story gets a little interesting because the the lawyer realizes, wow, that's a pretty broad commandment.
Joel Brooks:
That's that's pretty wide, and he wants to try to narrow it a little bit. And so he wants Jesus to put some edges on it, to minimize this law a little bit, and maybe if it's minimized enough then perhaps he can fulfill this. And so it says he wanting to justify himself, or wanting to show that he's on the right track, wanting to show that he is obeying this, he asked Jesus, put parameters on it. Who exactly is my neighbor? Is it my immediate family?
Joel Brooks:
Because if it's my immediate family, I can do that. I could take care of my immediate family, my my good friends. Absolutely, I do that. Just put the parameters and I will show you Jesus how I'm doing it. And then notice that Jesus answers him by not answering his question.
Joel Brooks:
And this is absolutely crucial if you wanna understand the meaning of the story. Jesus does not answer his question. The story that Jesus tells reveals to the lawyer he's actually asking the wrong question concerning the law. Look at verse 36, at the end of the story, when Jesus says, which one of these 3 do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And so Jesus, he changes the question from who is my neighbor to how do I become a neighbor?
Joel Brooks:
How do I become neighborly? Not who is my neighbor, he makes it an issue of the heart. Let's look at this story, a familiar story. A man is traveling this 17 mile kind of steep stretch in which the elevation it drops or rises and it drops about 3000 feet. There's lots of caves.
Joel Brooks:
It's a good place for robbers to hide out. It's a dangerous road, still is today. And this man, he's attacked, he's robbed, he's left for dead. Verse 31 says, by chance a priest is coming, which which seems to be really good news. A priest is going down this road, and now likely, this is a priest either going or returning from his priestly duties in Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:
A lot of the priests, they would live in Jericho and they would make that 17 mile journey, and they would work, they would do their temple duties, which was a 2 week stint, and they would do their 2 week service, and then they would return. So Jericho was full of priests, so likely he's either going or he's coming back from his priestly duties. Now priests in this day, they're they're very well paid. They're well respected. This man's probably riding on on a mule or a donkey because he would have had the money to do so, and he sees this man on the road and it says, he quickly turns and he goes to the other side.
Joel Brooks:
And a lot of reasons, I mean you could go through all these commentaries, and all of these reasons have been given why this priest goes to the other side. Know, maybe he feared another attack. Maybe he didn't want to get ritually unclean. I mean, if a preach if a priest touched this dead body, he'd be defiled. And then he's gotta go through all of these things, all these rituals, all these rules, all these washings for over a week, just to get pure.
Joel Brooks:
If he touches this person, he's gonna have to miss work for over a week, likely 2 weeks. He's gonna have to wash all of his clothes. For him to touch this person, he's gonna have to get deeply involved. It's gonna throw his schedule completely off for the next couple of weeks. And so I know we're usually pretty hard on him, but actually we've looked the other way for a lot less reasons.
Joel Brooks:
You know, it's raining outside, I'm not getting out of my car. You know, see somebody who needs some help, we're like, like I said 20, I don't want to make change. You know, we give all these little reasons. This guy seems to have a pretty legitimate one. But it's interesting that Jesus does not go into this man's thought process, and Luke doesn't expound on it either.
Joel Brooks:
There's no details why he didn't, because he wants you to know it's irrelevant. The point is the priest doesn't help. The equivalent of us going by in this situation, a dangerous situation, us going by. We're in the city of Birmingham. We see somebody beaten, laying down in a dark alley, and us walking by.
Joel Brooks:
Can we relate? Absolutely. But Jesus says it's wrong. Next person. The next person comes up as a lawyer, and, or he's a Levite, which means he he's not a son of Aaron, because otherwise he'd be a priest.
Joel Brooks:
And when it says he's a Levite, it means he's likely an assistant to the priest. He's likely a lawyer, like the man who's asking the question of Jesus. And for some reason, we don't know why, maybe he's walking because he doesn't quite have the money that a priest would have. He walks, he sees them, and he walks to the other side. We don't know why.
Joel Brooks:
Once again, maybe he says, oh I I can't get involved. I don't have the money. I don't have the resources to help him. I don't know, but he moves over to the other side. All these excuses, and the reason I think Jesus picks these two people out, especially the priest, is He wants to say, you can be ritually pure.
Joel Brooks:
You can have great morals. You can obey the law, and you can neglect the law at the same time. Because that priest could say, I'm keeping the law. I don't wanna defile myself. I must have all my my personal moral purity, but at the same time, he's neglecting the heart of the law.
Joel Brooks:
And if over and over again, if you if you read through the gospels, you'll see how that ticks Jesus off when he sees that. He rails against people like that. Very actually, in the very next chapter, Jesus rails against the Pharisee who says, Jesus, why didn't you ritually wash your hands before dinner? And he he he just gives it to me. He goes, you wash the outside of the cup, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness.
Joel Brooks:
Give alms to the poor. Give alms to the poor, then what you do will be clean. Get to the heart of the matter. I think this priest and this lawyer are a lot like the person we looked at in Isaiah 58, the people who are so concerned with their outward appearance. And they are seeking, they are praying, but yet they have neglected helping the poor, and they have neglected justice.
Joel Brooks:
Finally, Jesus gets to the 3rd person in the story, and he's telling the story in a very traditional rabbinic way in which the third and to them, anyone listening because it was a Samaritan. And you know, we have we use the phrase Good Samaritan for everything. I mean, it's just a common term for us. Oh, he's a Good Samaritan, but for them there was not anything as a Good Samaritan. The Samaritan was, that was a man, those were half breeds, the Samaritans.
Joel Brooks:
Actually in the midrash it said, if you if you had dinner with a Samaritan it was the equivalent of eating pork. They would have no associations with them. The these Samaritans, I mean, they didn't even go to Jerusalem to worship in the temple. They had their own temple site. And so they really looked down on these these half breeds.
Joel Brooks:
And yet, Jesus says, this is the hero of the story here. And look at what the Samaritan does. First, he puts aside his schedule. He puts aside his prejudices, he puts aside his fears, and he goes and he helps this man. Says that he bandaged his wounds.
Joel Brooks:
Now I'm sure this man didn't carry like, you know, a pocket full of gauze around with him. So what he's using, he's either using his clothes and ripping them, or he's using some kind of blanket and he's ripping it. He is using whatever he has to actually act as some kind of gauze or bandage. Then he pours oil and wine on the wounds to clean them out, to provide some relief, and then he picks up this man, which is not an easy task. Have you ever just tried picking up a man?
Joel Brooks:
He picks up this man, and he puts him on his animal and so now he is gonna walk the rest of the way while this man rides. And then he goes and he pays this innkeeper enough money, it says 2 dinari, which doesn't mean much to us, but that is enough money to feed and to house this person for 1 month. At least, some commentary say maybe up to 2 months. Can you imagine picking up a stranger off the street and say, I will pay all of your food and I will give you housing and whatever more it takes for at least a month. A total stranger.
Joel Brooks:
And so the Samaritan overcomes his own fears, his prejudices, and he provides transportation. He provides health care. He provides food, physical and an emotional support to a man he doesn't know, and a man who if he was well, would not even have eaten with him. That is over the top love. And notice when Jesus, when the story is over, he asked this lawyer, says, now which of these 3 proved to be his neighbor?
Joel Brooks:
Not who is my neighbor, which one acted neighborly, and the lawyer can't even bring himself to say the Samaritan. He says, well it's the one the one who showed mercy. To which Jesus said go and do likewise. Now this is an especially relevant topic now with the economy turning downward. I'm just gonna give you a few stats.
Joel Brooks:
I know stats are pretty boring, but let me just give you a few, and these are a few years old, and I'm sure that in the last 6 months, they have changed drastically. 23% of the children in America grow up in poverty. Let me define poverty. So basically, a quarter grow up in poverty. Poverty is a family of 4 that makes less than 14,800 a year, a quarter of the families in America, or a quarter of the children.
Joel Brooks:
We don't know how we it's impossible to track the homeless. You can't track we don't know how many homeless there are, but you can pull the homeless and find out why they're homeless. 35% of the homeless are women, of the homeless women are homeless because they're fleeing abuse. 25% of the homeless adults have mental problems. 22% are addicts.
Joel Brooks:
Here's a number that I think is surely skyrocketing. 40% of the American homeless are families with children. Typically, I don't know if in my mind, I always think it, you know, it's the one bum who lives under the bridge. No, 40% have families, they have kids. And most of these children are under the age of 6.
Joel Brooks:
And this strikes home with me because I have a 6 year old. And a 6 year old, you know, for this homeless family, nobody even knows that 6 year old exists. That 6 year old can't vote. It's they can't work, they can't go to school at this point. And when I look at a 6 year old like that compared to my 6 year old, it's, wow, just kinda hits home.
Joel Brooks:
You know, the biblical word for that is injustice, injustice. And we looked at this this past summer when we studied Amos, this injustice. You know, you you conservatives can look at that situation and they can blame, okay, you know, it's lack of work ethic, you know, it's, they're lazy. There's opportunity there. Liberals could say, oh, no, it's not that, we don't have enough funding.
Joel Brooks:
There's not enough after school programs. The the schools are terrible, and they can all point fingers at each other, but no group, whether you're liberal or conservative, is gonna look at the 6 year old child and say, it's your fault. You're poor. It's your fault that you're in this situation. Nobody does that.
Joel Brooks:
And the Bible says that as long as there is somebody in that position, the word for it is called injustice. And the fact that you could go a half mile that way and a 6 year old there lives in a completely different world than my little Caroline, who has every opportunity in the world open to her, who has never missed a meal, who has a great education, who she has a room full of books, the fact that they could be so different is unjust. Unjust. And as we looked at last week, we are called not just to give a handout as a church, but to break the yoke of oppression. Break the yoke.
Joel Brooks:
Get involved in school systems. Bring business business to areas that are dying. Get involved. I want you to think of this church, any church should be this, it's the model neighborhood. The model neighborhood.
Joel Brooks:
You know back when they used to build neighborhoods, you know, a couple years ago, What they would do is they would, they would build this shiny new home, and that's the home people could look at, they could walk in, they could see everything about it, and they could see, okay, this is what the rest of the houses are going to be like, and then they would invest in. The church is to be the model home. This church is to be the model of home. The kingdom of God is coming. And when people look at this church, they need to see what it's going to be like.
Joel Brooks:
How the poor are valued. How justice is valued and upheld. They need to see mercy. They need to see that money doesn't have any value to us. They need to see the model home and maybe they will be so moved that they will want to buy in.
Joel Brooks:
That's that that's what I hope happens to this church. That they get a glimpse as to what is coming. And we're certainly gonna fail at this often, because you cannot possibly live to the standard that Jesus just gave. And the reason you can't is because you are broken, you are poor, you are sick. Christ is the one who has come, who has carried us, who has healed us.
Joel Brooks:
He is the one who has done all that. And it's only when we are so moved by that love, we have such an understanding of the gospel that the love from him can begin to flow to others. So then we can can serve the poor. And when we serve the poor, I mean, I don't oh gosh, I do not want you guys to go out there and think, man, alright, let's go. Let's sign up.
Joel Brooks:
You know, there's the the Woodlawn homeless shelter sign ups out there. We're all gonna sign up so we could pat ourselves on the back, and you know, yes, we've done our good deed. Don't do that. You don't serve the poor for serving the poor's sake. This is out of love, and it's out of adoration, and it's out of worship.
Joel Brooks:
And and a great passage that that Jeff and I were talking about that brings clarity to that is, when that woman broke the alabaster jar of perfume. Remember that? And she poured it on Jesus, and Judas and actually says, a number of the other says, what a waste. Jesus, that bottle could have been sold and given to the poor. You could have given it to the poor.
Joel Brooks:
That's what I would have said. That's what I would have said. Somebody wastes $300 or something like that on a bottle of perfume, pours it on Jesus. Jesus responds. She has done a beautiful thing.
Joel Brooks:
Leave her alone. You always have the poor with you. And you can do good to them whenever you want, but you will not always have me. And what Jesus is saying here, and he said several other places in scripture, is when I am physically present, lavish it on me. Lavish it on me.
Joel Brooks:
That's a beautiful thing. When I'm gone, who can you lavish it on? The poor. And as we wait for Jesus' return, if we truly want to lavish on him, we lavish on the poor. Abundantly, we let our goods, we let our money, we let our time go to those who are poor and oppressed as a way of adoring Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Lord, we thank you that you found us on the side of the road, and we were dead, dead in our trespasses and sin. Our spirits were broken. We had no hope. Everybody had passed us by.
Joel Brooks:
But you saved us. Lord, may that love change us. May that love absolutely consume us. We have a unique opportunity this this week, Lord. We can give you some clothes.
Joel Brooks:
We can give you some food. We can spend time with you, actually in a pretty physical way. When we go and we do that to our neighbor, when we serve the poor. So change our hearts, And shining for you. May we be the model home.