My neighbor is who?
Luke 10:25-37
Prayer-
Introduction-
This morning if I were asked what your responsibility is as a Christian, what would you answer me?
Would you answer that you have to be kind?
You have to give money to good causes?
Be in church often?
Tell everyone about Jesus?
Live a morally pure life?
All of these are principals and actions that should be found in a believer, but here are the words from Jesus Himself on what our responsibility is to be called a Christian or “Christ follower”
Luke 10:25-27 Read form Bible
“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “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 love your neighbor as yourself.”
To have eternity with Christ, we have to be a Christ follower, a believer of what Christ did for us. “Christian.”
The responsibility in Jesus own words… Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your strength and all your mind; and Love your neighbor as yourself.
How we doing? (wait a moment)
Loving God with every part of us?
Loving people around us as much as we love ourselves and do for ourselves?
This expert (lawyer) so to speak in the law, the one who was trying to trick and cause Jesus to stumble is not impressed with Jesus identification of a believer.
This self proclaimed expert who was trying to justify himself asked Jesus not about loving God with all his being, but challenges him on who is my neighbor- who do I have to love as much as myself?
Jesus who is never phrased by the so called experts- tells him the story of the Good Samaritan-
Luke chapter 10:30-37 Read from the Bible
An Unnamed man is traveling down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho (which is narrow and known for robbery) is attacked and robbed. He is beaten and left for dead.
(3) Recorded People approached this beaten man
(1)Priest- (Holy man) he went on the other side of the road.
(2)Levite-(Temple worker) he went on the other side of the road.
(3)Samaritan- He went to him, bandaged him, carried him on his donkey, gave money to an innkeeper and promised more when he returned if the man needed it.
Which of these were neighbors? Compassionate? kind? Sensitive to people’s needs?
Even the expert had to admit it was the one who had mercy and showed love and compassion to the man.
Jesus says “Do likewise”
It is easier to love and care for those that look like you, act like you, or are your friends…it Is not normal to expand that love and mercy to people we only have an acquaintance with. Even family and friends can have trouble loving others like they love themselves because there are some people who love themselves too much and others not so much.
Where am I going with this morning?
You have to be intentional on treating others right
You have to be prayed up and ready to intervene for others even if it means to be inconvenienced in your busy day.
That Samaritan did not leave his house thinking he would help save a man’s life but when it came to push and shove he was willing the risk to do it.
Priest could not touch that man- If he was dead, he would have defiled himself by touching a dead man and would not have been clean to enter the temple- (Church)
He was more unclean in God’s eyes by not helping that man than by maybe touching a man who could have been dead.
Levite- worker of the Temple did not want to get involved- so many today have decided a head of time to not get involved and we are seeing people who need help and we are not willing to take the time to help.
Samaritan- This man went to him- then saw that it was a Jewish man and Samaritan’s are hated by the Jews for being half breeds- marrying outside of being a pure Jew. He did not care it was a Jewish man, he saw a man in need and decided to do what he was able to do.
We have to ask ourselves the right questions
# 1 What does Jesus tell us to do?
# 2 What would you want someone to do if you were in that situation?
Rude people should bother us.
Racist people should bother us.
Becoming blind to people’s needs and too busy to get involved should bother us too.
Compassion does something! (True Compassion is not idle)
To pretend that something did not happen, to walk away when someone is in need is wrong!
The priest and the Levite who are religious people walked away and even went as far as to walk on the other side of the road, choose to do nothing… to walk away.
We (you and I) have to be willing to take a risk
The proof of transformation is in doing something!
Jesus did not save us so we could live in this safe bubble of a life until He takes us home.
The Good Samaritan story has two bad examples and one good one, shows us that most will walk to the other side of the road to avoid getting involved.
Priest is a pillar of the community
Priest is a person that teaches others how to live
Priest sees the need and would not get involved because it would cost him something.
How many people pray to be used of God and when it is in front of us, we turn and let that job for someone else?
Some will say because of the danger- he was robbed and beaten and left for dead- the danger was long gone- what was left was a person just like you and I who was looking for someone to help.
For him everyday life caught up to him and beat him down.
Definition of compassion is “fellow sufferer”
He was just looking for someone to fellow suffer and offer up some help.
Scared, money, time… that is our excuse most of the time.
We cannot give what we do not have and Jesus doesn’t expect us to do the impossible…just the possible and leave the impossible to him.
It is sad to say but most of us would be the two that crossed the street. Those who would not want to get involved.
The secret to being a good neighbor-
Getting involved, helping others and not moving away from them.
It is asking the homeless man his name and then making him feel like a human being and not turning away and pretending that you did not see him/her.
I have said it before, if you do not know or hang around unbelievers, you are missing opportunity to be used by the Lord to impact people.
If you are not asking unbelievers to come to church with you, you are missing opportunities.
We have to stop being comfortable with the comfortable and be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
Each one of us is called to step out of our comfort zones and into society.
Each and every one of us is called to get our hands dirty… it is not for some it is for all who call Christ Lord because that is what He did.
We need to have the attitude of God.
To decide I can fix this instead of labeling the system broken and burying our head in the sand.
It is not about being fearless- we have to do things with fear because we know it is the right thing to do.
We do it because we know that not doing anything would be wrong.
Being comfortable is over rated. Because out of the ordinary, out of our comfortzone is where we find God wanting to do extra-ordinary things.
It is in the uncomfortable that we find our purpose lived out.
One writer put it this way- “in a world that wants us to whisper, sometimes you have to yell.”
In a world today, where people are willing to walk by those in need and those that are different, God is calling us (Christians) to go and make an impact on them.
Illustration-
Sometimes you have to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. (Repeat)
So that jerkface expert of the law that tried to trick Jesus with the question of who is your neighbor…
You are my neighbor
People on Ann St in Middletown are our neighbors
Derry St Harrisburg are my neighbors
Even Beverly Hill 90210 with all their money are my neighbors
Any third world country that we have opportunity to be a part of becomes our neighbors
Your neighbor has no boundary- it has no color, it has no age, it has no political party-
Close,
You see if we get the first part of Jesus definition of a Christian right, we do a better job with the second part-
“Love God with all you heart, mind, soul and body”- How are we doing with that church?
We have to be sensitive to others and include others in our busy lives.
We have to reveal what matters
We have to reinforce what matters
The term “Samaritan” has lost its original meaning.
Today it simply means someone who helps his neighbor. Indeed it is from Jesus’ story that “The Samaritans” take their name.
Billy Graham Samaritan Purse Foundation-
Rosedale Good Samaritan Fund that helps others.
Due to the distance of time, we miss just how shocking this story would have been to Jesus’ original audience.
Samaritans were considered by the Jews to be traitors and half breeds. (The NIV Application Commentary)
The Jews certainly did not consider Samaritans neighbors.
They looked down on them – perhaps much like we would a mass murderer.
The story would have been very shocking to Jesus’ hearers because the hero of the story was a Samaritan not an Orthodox Jew.
Gauges help us navigate- tell us when we have something wrong- low fuel, breakdown coming.
What do your internal gauges tell you about yourself?
What needs to be brought to the table in your life?
We are all called to more than ourselves- Everyone of us.
Becoming uncomfortable on purpose
CS Lewis had this to say about Christianity:
I have an elderly acquaintance of about eighty, who has lived a life of unbroken selfishness and self-admiration from the earliest years, and is, more or less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I know.
From the moral point of view it is very difficult! As you perhaps know, I haven’t always been a Christian.
C.S. Lewis was a converted atheist.
He goes on to say…
I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Wine would do that.
If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
(C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock, Essays on Theology and Ethics,"
You see the Gospel challenges us. Not to be comfortable but to be more Christ-like.
People like causes, things that they can sink their teeth into- show them that sharing Christ is a good cause.
Jesus mingled with the outcasts of his society – the tax collectors (like the apostle Matthew) and the sinners (like Mary Magdalene – a prostitute) – and called them his friends.
We know the story of the Good Samaritan so well, that there is a real danger that it will lose its flavor.
Let us resolve - this morning - to allow Jesus to show us who is that neighbor that is in need.
And it doesn’t just have to be financial – it could be someone who is hurting.
For by being a caring neighbor, we can show Christ to them– in what we both say and do for them.
Amen.
Prayer-
