The Importance of Costly Cultivation

Sermon Transcript

Well, imagine with me if you would the countless well-meaning parents have sought to make their young child’s birthday party as fun and festive as possible by hiring a clown. Maybe you’ve had that experience. Often that decision to enhance the party has not been received as well by the children. That is pretty common.

It seems this clown phobia—they call it clown phobia—is the fear, the irrational fear as it’s defined in the dictionary, of clowns. Irrational because, I suppose, some cheerfully dressed man with a permanently etched smile on his face—I mean, what’s there not to love? And they irrationally have so many kids just run crying with tears away from these figures.

Now, so common is this fear of clowns, there’s an entire industry of clown horror, thrash metal bands, and all these films and all these things, which of course I trust you’re not imbibing in, but those images are very common and a lot of people just have a natural revulsion to clowns.

Now, I can’t say that I ran crying from clowns when I was a kid, although the town clown on Captain Kangaroo was not my favorite, or Bozo the Clown—never really got into that show—was not a fan. I know those shows aren’t around anymore, and that dates me, but not into clowns. Although I recognize there is a clown that’s done quite well in our culture: Ronald McDonald. He is a clown. You know, even I was thinking about that, “Oh, yeah, I guess he is a clown.” He’s a clown that presents you with very tasty french fries and cheeseburgers. And I suppose that’s one of the reasons he doesn’t seem as creepy as the other clowns when I was growing up, because, you know, he’s coming, he’s bearing gifts. And that’s kind of nice.

Now, as strange as this opening illustration is, there is a reason for it. And I would like you to keep those images in view, if they don’t scare you too badly, to juxtapose two realities that we find in our passage this morning in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 37.

There are two juxtaposed realities I’d like to hold in our minds that we not only see in this passage, but that you and I experience when we attempt to share the message of the gospel with non-Christians in our lives. Our experience in evangelism has these two elements involved.

And if you’ll bear with me and indulge in this illustration, number one would be that we’re presenting a person to people that is designed, and it should be from God’s perspective, a person that people embrace. I mean, it makes perfect sense that people would embrace the person of Christ, the King of kings, the one who seeks to forgive us of our sins, the one who’s going to offer us eternal life. I mean, what’s not to love? That ought to be someone people run to and say, “Fantastic. That’s great news.”

And yet, like so many kids running from clowns, it seems to be that there are a lot of people with a natural aversion to the person of Christ and the message of the gospel—at least when it’s presented biblically. They run away in horror, “I want nothing to do with that.”

Secondly, if you really want to indulge me in this illustration, there are some spiritual burgers and fries, if you will, that God has designed in the economy of evangelism that do something to change people’s initial perception of the message that we bring. It is something that allows people to give this a second thought: “Well, let me think about this festively dressed person that you called the Christ.” There is something that we find in this text that plays that role, and we will see it throughout the New Testament in a few passages I’ll reference for you this morning.

Now, with that in view, let’s read our text this morning. It’s Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 37, not forgetting the context is Jesus, in this chapter, transitions from a northern ministry, going around and doing all that he’s been doing in the first 10 chapters of this book—nine chapters at least—ministering in the Galilean area, and all the towns and villages and even some in the Decapolis, if you go out east, and you have all of the ministry done there, for the most part, except for his earthly ministry and the trips to the temple.

And he’s moving now through Samaria, which is in the middle of Israel, to the southern region in and around Jerusalem, the area of Judea, we call it, and he sent the 72 in before he comes down to do the teaching and all the things that he’s calling people to do. Those 72 were to go and prepare those people for the coming of Christ. In their case, the first coming of Christ. In our case, we’re doing the same thing as the 72, preparing people’s hearts for the second coming. Their message, of course, is the same as ours, which is to repent—Christ is coming, receive the King, repent of your sins, acknowledge your problem, and embrace the Savior. That picture, just in shorthand, is what they were doing, is what we’re doing, and it’s what we’ve been learning about in the 10th chapter of Luke.

Well, in the middle of all of this, we see this story that we know of as the Good Samaritan. But many people forget the context or give no note to the context. But notice the context in verses 25 through 29. It says, “Behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test. ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’”

I should say “lawyer,” by the way, is not like your attorney that you hired to get you out of a jam in the courtroom. It is the teacher of the law, the student of the law, the PhD of the law of Moses. We’re not talking about civil law. We’re talking about the law of the Old Testament. And here’s the guy that’s expert in it. And he comes with this statement, which we think is not fully sincere, saying, “Hey, teacher, Rabbi.” Now, of course, he’s the one carrying all the credentials, but Jesus is there and he asks him a question—puts him to the test. So this is not just an honest inquiry, but he says, “Hey, tell us now, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”

Verse 26, he said, “Ask me into your heart.” No, he didn’t say that. I’m sorry. He says, “Join my team.” No, he didn’t say that. He says, “Just embrace my love.” No, he didn’t say it. He says, “Just trust in me for salvation.” No. He says something that seems out of the box. He says to the man, “What is written in the Law”—you see the capital “L” there? Clearly, we’re talking about what does the Law, the Old Testament, say? What does Moses command? What are all the things that God requires of human beings as depicted in the Scriptures? “How do you read it?”

And the lawyer answered him—the teacher of the Law—verse 27. And he does so with a great summary statement about all of our obligation to the God who created us. It’s a statement that’s found in Deuteronomy chapter 6, which all the Jews recited from the time they were kids. And it’s a great summary of all the requirements that God requires of us, which is that you shall love him—the Lord your God—with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.

And that’s not a key to us figuring out the, you know, hard-and-fast distinctions of humanity. This is not about anthropology here. This is about our theology, in studying God. We are to love him with the entirety of our being, with all that you are—loving completely, ardently, supremely. And now he quotes Leviticus 19: “And your neighbor”—you would love your neighbor (supply the verb)—“as yourself,” which is a great summary of all the horizontal laws that we have in dealing with each other. Deal with God: love him with all your heart. Deal with each other: love the people around you as you would want to be loved, treat them the way you would want to be treated. I mean, here’s the quote-unquote “Golden Rule”: treat other people in that way—love your neighbor.

So he’s quoting now Deuteronomy 6, Leviticus 19. He’s doing a great job summarizing the laws of the Old Testament in two big laws—in the vertical commitment I have to God and the horizontal commitment I have to people. And Jesus has used the same summary method. And so he says, as we would expect, verse 28, “Hey, you’ve answered correctly. That’s what the Law says. That’s what it requires of people. Do this, and you will live.”

Now, if you’re thinking he must have failed Personal Evangelism 101—“That’s not how you share the gospel with people. It’s about mercy. It’s about grace. It’s about a free gift of salvation. What’s with this?”—here Jesus knows that this man needs exactly what your non-Christian neighbors and friends and coworkers need. They need to come to grips with the problem of sin. And the way to do that is to get the standards of God—the Law of God, the holy requirements of God—put them before people and say, “Hey, this is all you have to do. Do that.”

He recognizes that, he feels that pain, he realizes that there might even be people listening to him asking the Rabbi this question—who knows? “Well, that guy doesn’t love everyone like he loves himself. That guy didn’t treat everybody the way he wants to be treated.” And so it says, verse 29, desiring to justify himself—he now wants to get himself off the hook, because he’s feeling a hook in this—“Oh, well, I’ve answered correctly. I know that. Do that. Well, I’ve done most of it. I do it better than most people.” Desiring to justify himself, he says to Jesus, “Well, who’s my neighbor? I mean, come on. You can’t expect me to love everybody that way. I mean, ‘neighbor’ has got to be limited by something. Give me some parameters on that.”

And Jesus replies with a story—the story that you know, the story of the Good Samaritan. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” That’s a 17-mile road. If you’ve ever been to Israel with me, we’ve done the tours, and depending on the hostilities in the West Bank, sometimes we take you from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s a 17-mile trip on a very windy road. It drops 3,000 feet in terms of its differential. It makes the windiness of the road—makes the trip to Big Bear seem like nothing. This is nothing. This two-lane road twisting against the sides of the rock. Go to YouTube. You’ll see pictures of this kind of treacherous road where the end of your bus is hanging off the end of the cliff. And if you look to the right you’ll see all these caves and cracks in the rock as you move from Jerusalem and you go down to Jericho. And it was a great place for robbers to hang out and hide and to ambush you on the road. It’s a very dangerous—notoriously dangerous—road.

And sure enough, everyone identified with, “Oh yeah, that’s a place—very dangerous.” “Oh, and this man—he fell among the robbers.” What did the robbers do? Well, they stripped him, they beat him, and they departed, leaving him half dead. So they took all his stuff, took his money, probably took his animals—he was on a donkey or a horse—and he’s left there to die, beaten up.

“Now by chance,” it just so happens—verse 31—that a priest was going down that road. Okay, now priest, of course—that’s a very important guy. Holy guy—hangs out in Jerusalem, does stuff in the temple. He’s very revered in the nation. I mean, anybody’s going to be a compassionate person—you’d think it’d be the holy man, the clergy here. But he sees this man, it says—verse 31—and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. It didn’t tell us why. A lot of commentators and preachers like to tell you why, but it didn’t tell us why—other than the fact he was not going to get involved. And he didn’t.

“So likewise, a Levite.” Now if that rings a bell, you think, “Well, wait a minute, I thought the priests were Levites.” Well, you’re right. The priests are Levites, but not every Levite is a priest. That sounds like a sad statement, but you get what I’m saying there, right? You can be a priest only if you’re a Levite. But if you’re a Levite, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to be a priest. But if you are a Levite, you’re in a special tribe in Israel, and you’ve got a lot of responsibilities—many of them in assisting the priests and doing some kind of temple work in Jerusalem. And so they’re kind of holy too, I guess. It may be that they preach, but they work at the church. And that’s the kind of idea there. And in that kind of hierarchy in people’s moral thinking about people, this guy—well, maybe he’ll stop and help.

The Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by—verse 32—on the other side. Not interested.

“But a Samaritan.” And remember, as they cruise through the center part of Israel, through Samaria, they didn’t like the Samaritans. And why didn’t the Jews like the Samaritans? If you’re now in the southern part of Israel, in Judea, near Jerusalem, and there’s a teacher of the Law who stands up at the heart of Israel, you even look at the people that are Jews in the north, in Galilee, and you think, “Well, they’re, you know, whatever. They’re kind of detached. They’re not like us. They’re not really in the core of Israel.” And then you talk about the people in between—“We don’t like those people at all.” Because of the Samaritans: when they fell, in the eighth century BC, the ten northern tribes of Israel to the nation of Assyria, they basically compromised their identity and intermarried with the Assyrians. And so the Jews consider them to be the half-breeds of Israel. And it’s worse than a Gentile—for you to give up that pure bloodline of Abraham and start intermarrying with Assyrians—so they hated the Samaritans.

But here’s a guy that everybody hated, if you’re a Jew, and he stops. He sees the man. As he journeyed, he came to the place where this man was. He saw him—look at this now—he had compassion. He felt something those other two guys didn’t feel. And if they did feel it, it didn’t prompt them to action. And he springs into action.

Verse 34, he went up to this man, he bound up his wounds. He poured oil and wine on them. The wine was their antiseptic with the alcohol in it, of course, and the oil was the salve or something—it would be like, you know, your bacitracin and your antibiotic cream—that was the equivalent in the ancient arsenal or doctor’s bag. And he set him on his own animal. He brought him to an inn. So he brought him to the inn—didn’t just drop him off. He got there and spent the night there. He was going to truck on, I’m sure, past that, but he takes care of him for the night.

Verse 35, on the next day, he took out two denarii. A denarius is one day’s wage—I don’t know, rough and dirty, a couple hundred bucks. He pulls it out of his wallet, and he gives it to the innkeeper. Now he doesn’t know this guy. The Jews hate the Samaritans. But this outsider here is caring for this Jewish guy with a couple hundred bucks out of his wallet, and he tells the innkeeper, “Take care of him. And whatever more you spend—if you need more to convalesce this guy back to health—I will repay you when I come back.” Wow. Talk about unexpected, extraordinary sacrifice for this guy. That Samaritan did it.

Then he asked the question, popping out of the illustration—verse 36: “Which of these, Mr. Teacher of the Law, do you think proved to be a neighbor”—quote unquote—“to the man who fell among the robbers?” Because the standard of Leviticus 19 is: you treat others as you would want to be treated. You love them like you’d love yourself. If you’re lying there dead on a road and people are passing by, wouldn’t you want someone to stop and help you and get you to help and care for your needs? Yes, you would. You’d want that. “Well, I guess clearly it was the Samaritan.” But this guy—I don’t know, let’s make the argument from silence—he didn’t want to use the word “Samaritan.” He just says, “Yeah, that last guy, the one who showed him mercy and didn’t leave him to die there on the road—that one, I guess, proved to be his neighbor.” And Jesus said to him, bottom of verse 37, “You go, and do likewise.”

That’s what it means to love your neighbor—not just the people that love you. Not just doing good to those that’ll do good in return. Not lending to those you expect to get back from. This is Jesus’s standard discussion about our horizontal relationships with human beings. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And this Samaritan did it.

Alright, a lot going on here. Let’s take a look at verses 25 through 29 and break this down. If you’ve found your worksheet, pull that out. And let’s think through what Jesus is doing as it relates to the question that you and I want every non-Christian in our lives, if we care for them, to ask us: “What do I do to get saved?” And Jesus responds with: “What does the Law say?”

Number one on your outline, let’s follow that pattern in our evangelism. Exactly what should be going on in our relationships with non-Christians? We ought to—number one—we ought to highlight God’s perfect standards. We ought to put those up for people to see: “Here is what God requires of human beings. Here’s what people should do.” That is the job of the evangelist.

Now, if that sounds foreign to what you’ve learned or heard, then I’m thinking you must be living in Southern California in the 21st century. Because that’s exactly what people do in modern evangelism. It’s an extracted element within the gospel to say, “I don’t talk about the Law. I don’t want to talk about people, you know, having to do righteous things, because that makes them feel like they’re not righteous—makes them feel bad. I don’t talk about sin. I don’t talk about guilt. I certainly don’t want to talk about what comes from a holy God if you don’t live up to those standards. I don’t want to talk about punishment or retribution or hell.” If you now think, “Well, I’d just much rather tell people ‘Jesus loves you and so do I.’ Why won’t that work?” Or, you know, “Let’s just have Jesus added to your team—ask him into your heart.”

See, if you present a gospel that does not present God’s holy standard for the purpose of—what?—a guy, verse 29, that wanted to justify himself, to think that he was okay: “Don’t tell me God would expect me to do this, that, and the other that I haven’t done—haven’t done enough.” They present the Law to reveal the problem in his life—the problem of sin. See, because if people do not embrace Christ as the Savior of a problem they admit that they have, then you’re just letting people add Christ to their arsenal of friends, or counselors, or advisors, or gurus. But that has nothing to do with the biblical gospel.

We don’t just want people to love Christ. We don’t want them just to embrace Christ. We don’t just want them to say, “Yeah, I want Christ in my life.” It has to begin with the authority of a God who has the right to make the rules, and the rules being so clearly presented to people that they realize that they do not measure up.

Jot these references down. First of all, I’d like you to jot down Romans chapter 3. And you can write down next to that the very clear statement that the Bible says that the rules of God—one of the reasons for the rules of God—is to show people that they don’t live up to the rules of God. The standard of God—as what he expects of the people that he makes—needs to be clearly heard in people’s ears so that they understand they fall short.

Now, the problem with this lawyer is the same problem that a lot of your friends have when you present the gospel to them. They do not feel like they are sinners. They do not expect you to tell them they don’t measure up. But that is the reason they don’t want to hear any more from you. “Can I hear from another ‘Christian’ that won’t tell me all of that stuff?” You do realize you present the biblical gospel, and you present it in the way that it is presented to us in the Bible—that there is a standard that we fall short of—which, by the way, is also found there in Romans chapter 3: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If they don’t get that message in our evangelism, they’re not getting the gospel. But if they get the gospel from you, it’s one of the reasons they say, “I want to talk to you anymore. I’m not interested in that.”

Here is a person designed to be their Savior that they should embrace, and because of what he comes and reveals and represents, they run from him in horror. And that’s the problem. And if you want to change that, then you’ve just really exchanged the gospel for something else. And as Galatians chapter 1 says, if you want to tweak the gospel—tweak the gospel and mess with it like that—you’ve got no gospel at all.

So the good news, as I often say, has to be preceded with the bad news. I cannot have the good news of forgiveness if I don’t have the bad news that I’m a sinner. I can’t possibly have the good news that I’m going to enter the kingdom of God unless I recognize the bad news that I do not measure up or qualify to enter the kingdom of God.

It is the work that the Spirit was sent into the world to do through us. We use that passage all the time in 2 Corinthians 5—that God is making his appeal through us: “Be reconciled to God.” When Jesus spoke of the Spirit coming, what did he say? “The Spirit is going to be sent if I go away, and it’ll be sent into the world,” and the first thing on the list is to convict the world of sin. And that, I know, we’d like to avoid, but that’s the reality of the gospel. It starts with that. And we have to present that.

Now, one thing Romans 3 says—and I’ll bring you back to that in the discussion questions, and you can do this on your own and pour through every section of that part of Romans 3 that I want you to carefully analyze and look at—but it will say very clearly that no one makes it into the kingdom because they’ve kept the rules perfectly, because that’s what God requires. No one gets there by keeping the Law. No one. It’s impossible. The Law, it says, is to reveal to us that we don’t measure up.

I just happen to run across a picture on my little screensaver on my computer that has a picture of my middle child—which I think I took a picture of all of them when they finally measured up to ride Montezuma’s Revenge at Knott’s Berry Farm—and they’re just beaming with joy. They cannot be happier than the day their little head—their pointy little crown—actually crossed that line, that orange line, and they were now—what is it?—48 inches. And they’re thrilled.

Now, I must admit, like most parents, there were trips to Knott’s Berry Farm where we tried to get them in before they actually measured up to the line. And sometimes you don’t just want to—you don’t want anyone to really look down there—that they’re actually on their toes or, you know, stretching and have their heels against the post. You, you know, you’re going to think, “Well, I think they’re tall enough.” And so you get in the line, and you spend all that time in line, and then you get up to the pimply-faced 17-year-old with a bow tie and the striped shirt, who says, “Your kid—you’re not tall enough,” because he brings out the stick that’s just like the stick that you had at the beginning of the line. “Your kid does not measure up.” And that doesn’t make you happy, and it doesn’t make Junior happy, and it makes for a really bad waste of an hour in line. That’s what happens in Knott’s Berry Farm, or Disneyland, or Magic Mountain, or wherever you go. That’s a bummer.

So it’s better for you to know that you don’t measure up before you get in the line and get to the front of the line and realize you don’t measure up.

You do realize that unless we bring out the standard and show people, “You don’t have to be 48 inches; you have to be 248 inches to enter the kingdom of God.” It’s called perfection. This is where God expects human beings to be. “Well, God is going to be gracious. God is going to be kind.” Listen, God will never dispense his grace on people who do not recognize that they need his grace. That’s how the equation works. “Confess your sins.” What does that mean? Agree with God that you are a sinner. Agree that you’ve sinned. And then he’s faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Is that not just the equation of the Bible all over the place?

So we have to be 248 inches to ride this ride. And the bad thing would be—to be like those parents who sit there and say, “Well, Junior is taller than his little brother, and Junior should be riding the ride because he wants to, and so we’re just going to get up there, and hopefully the guy with the bow tie at the front—he’s going to let us on and it’ll all be fine.” How many people think that—that you speak to about the gospel? “Are you going to go to heaven when you die?” “Well, I hope so.” “Are you a sinner?” “Well, I’m not really a sinner. No.” “Do you ever lie? Do you ever cheat? Do you ever steal?” “Well, yeah, but I mean, come on, it’s not that bad.” We then realize in one part of their thinking, “Well, of course I don’t measure up. But you know what, I’m sure I’m tall enough.”

Now picture this: here’s the standard at the front of the line—to get to the kingdom, you’ve got to be 248 inches to ride. Nobody in the room measures up. Then it says, “For those that don’t measure up—right—you get into Line B; for those that think they measure up—you stay in Line A.” And of course most people in this world, as the Bible says, are on the wide road with the wide gate saying, “I’m sure I’m fine with God.” But it’s those that are willing to look at the measuring stick of God’s righteousness and say, “I don’t measure up,” that get into Line B.

And where does Line B go? Into a surgery center. “Oh, gross.” Yeah, well, there you get this attachment, and God puts these supernatural legs on you and you become 249 inches tall. And then you continue on the path. “Well, I don’t want to go to the surgery center. I don’t want to think I need help. I want to think I’m okay the way I am.” You see where the silly illustration is going. This is what the problem is with people. They don’t want to see the measuring stick. They don’t want to look at the fact that they don’t measure up. They want to, like indulgent Orange County parents, say, “Well, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Won’t the guy just let us on when we get to the front?”

You have to present the Law of God. And though people don’t know the Law like this expert of the Law, and they can’t summarize the Law, their conscience screams the Law to them in every area of their life. And we have to point out the disparity between their behavior, their actions, their words, and their thoughts, and what God expects from human beings.

“Well, God knows no one’s perfect.” I understand that. But until you admit that you are a sinful, imperfect person and cry out for his grace, you don’t have the gospel. Jesus calls him to examine the Law. And when he says, “Well, yeah, but…” and he justifies himself by saying, “You can’t expect me to do that to everybody,” Jesus says, “Yes, I do expect that from everyone.” Now, will you admit that that’s not you? That’s the problem with the man here, much like the rich young ruler in Matthew chapter 19. The Law becomes a critical element in the presentation of the gospel to show the self-righteous people—which is just about everybody on planet Earth—that they are not righteous before God and they fall short of the glory of God.

Now, quick sidebar on this. To recognize that, which is orthodox theology for most people in the room, I hope—and you can, in your heart (we’re very non-demonstrative here), you can cheer that on, “Amen, right on, that’s awesome, that’s the gospel. That’s the gospel I believe in. That’s what it’s all about.” You need to realize that when it comes to the Law of God, though it is to reveal our sin, there’s also a very important usage of the Law in the Bible that we dare not neglect.

Jot this reference down, please: Romans chapter 13. I stay in Romans, though I could have gone to a number of New Testament passages. But as you go and study—and it’s in the first question of our discussion questions on the back of your worksheet—you need to look at how Paul uses the Law to show people how they need a Savior, and then he speaks to people in chapter 13 who have a Savior, Jesus Christ, and then he brings up the Law again. And you know what he says about the Law there? Same thing Christ says in verse number 37 of Luke 10, “Hey, you go and do the same—go and do likewise. Do what the Law says.”

Now the Law becomes, in that passage in Romans 13, the very thing that is for us a roadmap to how I’m supposed to live. It helps us understand what God expects of his people. So if you don’t make a very clear distinction between the use of the Law in what we call justification—how someone is saved, how one gets saved—and the use of the Law in sanctification—how one knows how to live the Christian life—then you’ll miss entirely the very distinct uses of the Law in the New Testament.

Now there’s one more thing I should point out. And if you flip the worksheet over, you’ll see one book you may need—I don’t know, maybe you can trust me on this, or maybe you know this already—but Ross’s book, in the alphabetical order there—Ross’s book—the subtitle, he talks about the three divisions of the Law. Now this should go without saying, if you’ve been well-versed in the Bible. But you do understand that the Law in the Old Testament—people want to say—has no role in the Christian life, because they read passages in either the book of Romans, or in the book of Galatians, that deal with ceremonial law, that deal with things like circumcision; or the book of Hebrews—the priesthood, the temple services—and they say, “Well, you know what, God’s gotten rid of all that. So look, don’t start quoting the Law to me in terms of my Christian life, because I’m saved by grace. There is no Law.” This is what we call the error of antinomianism.

And the only way you’re going to avoid the error of antinomianism is to know that the Law that we speak of that is for us to be guided in the Christian life is a Law that is moral, not ceremonial, and not civil. That’s very important. There’s the threefold division of the Law. The Law in the Bible—the Old Testament—is clearly divided, just by common sense: the Law that relates to the ethics and morals of living before God and man; and the things that I do in the ceremonies that relate to worship on the Temple Mount; and the rules that are related to the jurisprudence of the nation of Israel that is not an organization that works within the international community of the world like it does in the New Testament, but it is designed to be a nation among nations—civil, ceremonial, and moral.

And when I speak about the Law’s second use—when I speak of the use of the Law as it relates to the Christian life—like Jesus giving him, not in verse 37, “Hey, you might want to think about maybe doing this as optional.” No, the Law is “go and do what the Law says.” Leviticus 19 is binding on us today, if you’re a Christian. It is binding on you. Why? For salvation? No. No one’s going to be justified by the works of the Law. But it is required of you as a Christian to love your neighbor as yourself, which is a summation of the Law of the Old Testament. And so the usage of the Law—we need to understand the distinction there.

Theologians have also talked about a third use of the Law that I won’t get into—that we preached about in Romans chapter 13—which is the use of the Law for just civilizations and just nations being able to set up some kind of rewarding of good and the punishment of bad. And that would round out what theologians have often called the three uses of the Law. But we won’t get into the third use, as I’ve numbered them, at least today.

Alright, enough said on that. I’ve preached on that before—can hardly overemphasize the importance of that—and yet, we don’t have time to explore that any further.

Let’s drop down to where we stopped. When I say that, I don’t mean verse 30. I mean when I recently quoted verse 37—speaks of Jesus turning to him and saying, “Hey, go and do this.” Take those two verses there at the end, and let’s cover those next—verses 36 and 37. He asked the question after telling a clear story that says, “Here’s a man that loves someone that was not expected to be loved, and he did it anyway. He’s the real neighbor.” Jesus says, “Hey, which one’s the neighbor to the man that fell among the robbers that had a real need?” “Well, the guy who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said, “You go and do likewise.”

Now let’s think about this. As I’ve numbered it, the second use of the Law—knowing that God wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves—and the illustration here that’s given for us is an illustration of an outsider loving someone who no one would expect them to love. And let’s say that’s a binding command on us. And let’s look at that and our responsibility to that and say, “We need to do that.”

Number two on your outline—let’s put it down that way: we need to be a really good neighbor. Be a really good neighbor. And when I say “neighbor,” I don’t mean just geographically who you’re living next door to, although that’d be a good place to start. I mean your coworkers, the people in the office next to you, the cubicle next to you, the people that you sit next to at the soccer game when you’re sitting there and your kids are playing soccer, the people that you have in your family that aren’t saved—the non-Christian, quote unquote, outsiders.

I want us to resolve today to be that quote unquote “Good Samaritan,” love the people like a good neighbor, and watch what that does. It does something much like cheeseburgers and french fries do to help kids look at a clown and not be freaked out by him. It gives them an opportunity to give a second look at the person of Christ, because they see the kindness of the people that bring the message. They see that someone who says, “You need to respond to Christ and the message of the gospel because you fell short of the glory of God,” and they recognize the kindness of the messenger. And they say, “Wow, let me look at that again.” They earn a hearing.

Let’s put it this way. If this Samaritan in the story—and I know this is all theoretical and hypothetical—but let’s just say Jesus has in mind that the Samaritan in the story is someone responding to that second use of the Law as I’ve numbered it, and he’s doing what Christ said: to love the outsider. And he’s one of the Samaritans that was won to Christ in John chapter 4, whom the woman at the well went across that valley to Sychar. And remember that whole story about the harvest there, and the disciples were supposed to enter into the harvest. And when these people come up to the Messiah, they repent of their sins.

So you’re picturing now this Samaritan as a regenerate follower of Jesus—let’s just say that theoretically. And he now sees this Jew, and he’s thinking, “Now, you know what Christ would want me to love the outsider. I’m supposed to fulfill Leviticus 19, and anyone in need around me is my neighbor. I’m going to love my neighbor.” And so this Samaritan reaches out and does exactly what we read about there in the parable—the story, the illustration.

And then the guy—the Jewish man—who’s given back his life, who’s saved and plucked from death, so to speak, and now he’s nursed back to health. That Samaritan comes back in verse 35 and pays the final bill for this guy’s convalescing. And in that, he says, “Now I want to tell you about the reason that I was willing to reach out and sacrifice for you. Because I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who’s the Messiah not only of the Jew first, but also to the Samaritan and the Greek and the Barbarian, the Scythian, and the slave and the free man. I want to tell you about my relationship with Christ. Would you listen to me?”

Do you think that Jewish man might just listen to this Samaritan who’d bent over backwards to save this guy’s life? I think he might have an opening. He might have earned a right to be heard. That principle, if you look forward throughout the Scripture, is almost everywhere.

Let me show you a couple of examples from Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. If you turn there, I want to show you this great text that I know is familiar to you in verses 43 through 45. It speaks of God’s love which, if you want to think about the ultimate act of loving outsiders, you’ve got to think about Jesus, who is willing to love the unlovable—Romans 5. He’s willing to lay down his life for his enemy. The illustration is given: would someone die for a righteous man—pay the ultimate price for someone that is really righteous? For a really good man—well, suppose maybe they would. But who would die for their enemy? That’s exactly what Christ does. That’s exactly what God does. He sacrifices his Son for his enemies.

Now, here’s the equation—the paradigm that’s set up for us in verse 43. He said, “You guys have heard it said”—this is common thinking in your culture—“You shall love your neighbor”—quoting now Leviticus 19—“yeah, that’s a good thing God would want us to”—“and hate your enemy.” There’s the limit of how I love. I treat people the way I would want to be treated—except for those that I hate. I can hate my enemies because they’re my enemies. I can hate the outsider; love the insider.

“But I say to you,” Jesus says, “love your enemies.” What does that mean? Not necessarily a feeling, but it’s a response. It’s doing good to them. It’s being benevolent, it’s being virtuous, it’s being kind. It’s sacrificing for their needs and their good. “And pray for those who persecute you.”

Pray for those who—now, I’ve said this before (and pardon my redundancy if you’ve heard me preach on this passage before), but how am I supposed to pray for my enemy? We hear the news today—some more Ethiopians that claim Christ being killed by ISIS. How are they—how’s the Ethiopian church today—supposed to be praying for ISIS? Is it, “Well, I hope their guns never, you know, misfire. I hope they have a great day today. I hope they’re just—I hope their kids obey them. I hope they have no debt. I hope they, in whatever home they’re in, it’s very satisfying.” No, not at all.

How would any righteous person be praying for someone who’s persecuting righteous people? The only way to pray is to pray that they would stop. “I want them to no longer persecute me. I don’t want them to persecute Christians. I don’t want anybody doing those kind of violent things toward people. I’m going to pray that they stop.” And there’s two ways that people can stop persecuting and doing evil: they need to be judged (those are the imprecatory Psalms, as we call them—those are sometimes the visceral reaction, “God, I just need this to end”). Now, I don’t think that’s what God has in mind here, as Romans would tell us in the discussion about our enemies. We need to be letting God deal with all of that. What we need to be praying for is the kind of thing that is more redemptive: “I’d like them to stop doing that because they have repented of that, and they change. I want my enemy to stop being my enemy because he becomes my ally. I want the enemy and the hostile force to become one who joins us. I want my kindness”—that’s the first phrase, verse 44—“I want to love them so that those kind acts might lead them (and my prayers—I’m certainly praying this) to not do that anymore because they have repented.”

Is that a biblical paradigm? Romans chapter 2: God’s kindness is intended to lead people to repentance. That’s the paradigm in the Bible. And in this passage, that’s what I want to do, because verse 45, that’s what God does, “so you may be” quote unquote “sons of your Father who is in heaven.” How does that work? Well, he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good. He sends his rain on the just and the unjust. Now, what’s the motive for the just and the good? Well, he wants to give them the gifts—all these good things have been created for those who believe and know the truth. He loves to give good things to his kids. Now, why is he giving those things to his enemies? The Bible says because he wants his kindness toward them to lead them to repentance—to lead them to a place where they recognize the giver of all these good gifts, and they become those who worship him and glorify him. He wants that kindness to be used as a redemptive act to see them changed.

So I need to do the same with my non-Christian friends, my outsiders, those that wouldn’t expect me to be kind to them. I want to be that really good neighbor so I can see the spiritual interest that I have—that the 72 had. I want to see people saved. I want to be that good neighbor because it does something to open up a door for the gospel.

Look up at verse 14 to the same passage, same sermon—Sermon on the Mount—Matthew chapter 5, verse 14, 15, and 16. Let’s read these real quick—familiar verses; you know them. Jesus says to these followers of his, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people put a light, a lamp, and put it under a basket.” No, they don’t do that. They put it on the stand so that that light can give light to everyone who’s in the house. “In the same way, let your light shine before others”—we’re all in this metaphor of light. What is the light we’re talking about? Bottom of verse 16—it’s very clear here—“so that they may see your good works.”

Now look at this: verse 14, you are the light. We’re the ones that do good things in this world. We are like a city set on a hill. And we want people to see the good works. We’d like them to be recipients of the good works. We’d like to give light to everyone around us. We’d like to be a good neighbor to all the people that we come in contact with. We want them to see it; we want them to experience it; we want them to be recipients of it—“so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who’s in heaven.”

Now, there’s a big, big chasm, it seems, between them seeing our good works and giving glory to our Father in heaven. There’s a big… You don’t go this week and do something very kind and loving as a good neighbor to a non-Christian in your office, and that night they come home, throw the keys on the dresser, and say, “Praise the Lord for Jim. He is such a godly man. God, I just want to thank you for…” Why? Because he’s lost. He’s a non-Christian. But that’s the hope, isn’t it? Just like it’ll say later in this passage in verse 44, I want to love my enemy and pray for them. I want to see them go from being an enemy who doesn’t love me or love God. I want them to see my good works and end up glorifying God in heaven.

So a lot of verses like this in Jesus’s teaching, there’s a lot between the thing that we’re called to do and the effect, and they’re jammed right together in one sentence. And we have to recognize, “Hey, there’s a lot between that and this.” Because people who see my good works that are not people of the light—they’re people of the darkness, if you want to use that metaphor—don’t immediately praise God. But that’s the hope. I want them to be saved because they see what a good neighbor I am.

And that seems too utilitarian—“You’re just loving people so that they’ll hear the gospel.” Let me add this addendum real quick. You need to understand, we love people in part just because they’re made in the image of God. We’re chided in the book of James that we’re not to disparage people simply because they’re made in the likeness of God. So I love people. I love people and I’ll do good to those people and I’ll be a good neighbor to people, even if I never, ever get an opportunity to share the gospel. Why? Because they’re made in the image of God and God tells me to do that.

But practically speaking—and I should make you look at this and go to Colossians chapter 4 real quick—Colossians chapter 4—practically speaking, what it does for us is gives us an opportunity to be heard. It is the french fries and burgers, if you will—sorry, nutritionists and healthy eaters. It is the good, tasty food that they can clearly and immediately identify as good that helps them to say, “Well, let me give a second thought to this festively dressed man that they’re talking about. Let me just maybe look at this again.” As the man who was killed—convalesced back to health and cared for by the Samaritan—maybe that Jewish man would listen to that Samaritan if he had to talk to him about Christ. Well, that’s what I want.

Colossians chapter 4—look at verse number 3. Paul speaks of his own evangelism. He says, “Hey, pray for us, guys. Pray that God may open to us a door for the word.” He’s an evangelist—he wants people saved. “Give us opportunity for that—to do what?—to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I’m in prison.” I’m in prison because I’ve been sharing Christ. “But pray that I can get more opportunities to share Christ, that I can make it clear—which is how I ought to speak. Every time I share the gospel, I should be really clear,” which, by the way, includes the totality of the message—the good news and the bad news; not just “Jesus loves you, you should love him back,” but “We have a problem. He’s the Savior. We need redemption because we’re sinners.” “So I want to make it really clear.”

“And then he turns this on them. I know you guys should be evangelists too. And you should walk in wisdom toward outsiders”—there’s our idea. “I want to be very careful and thoughtful and strategic in how I act toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” There’s the word, by the way. And there’s a distinction in the Greek language between just the clicks on the clock and the opportunities that arise in a given day or a given week. Here’s the idea: when you have opportunity, make the most of those opportunities. If there happens to be someone that has a need here, be very thoughtful and gracious about that, in his benefit.

He goes on to say all of our words ought to be gracious—verse 6. And of course there’s nothing in the Bible that says you should be gracious with your words and not your actions. Clearly, I want to be gracious. I want to act graciously. I want to season all that I do with something tasty, something delicious—something that they would say, “Hey, that’s great.” Seasoned, as it were, with salt, “so that you may know how you ought to answer or respond to each person.” What’s the goal? “I want the door for the word to be open”—verse 3. I want to get the message out like Paul does. Here is the picture and here is a clear description of how I am to, thoughtfully, lovingly, graciously—in an attractive way (that’s the idea of salt, taste)—be able to give people an opportunity to listen to me about Christ because I’ve been so kind. I’ve been such a good neighbor.

One other reference, and I think I put this on the discussion questions, but it’s at least worth writing down at this point in your notes: Titus chapter 2, verse 10. Titus 2:10 uses a great little phrase, as it’s translated in the ESV, that the good that we do will “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” Adorn the doctrine of God. Doctrine is the teaching of God our Savior. He’s the Savior. I’ve got teaching—I’m going to teach you about the Savior. My behavior adorns that. It’s the entrée. It’s the thing that gets people interested—at least earns a hearing for me. There’s the strategy.

Now let’s get specific about the details—verses 33–35. Real quickly. I know you know the story. We don’t need to spend long here. But let me give you four things under this category. Just like the Samaritan was a sacrificial helper, I want to be—number three—sacrificially helpful.

Let’s tease out four distinctions on that to say, “Okay, now let me think. I’ve got non-Christians in my life. I want to be a really good neighbor. What does that look like?” Four things.

Let’s start with this one—verses 30 through 33. We’ve got the paradigm of the priest who didn’t give a rip—apparently didn’t care. You’ve got a Levite who didn’t seem to care. And then you’ve got the unexpected outsider who cares. This is a guy no one would expect to help him. So I want to think about the non-Christians in my life. I’ve got people I’m praying for that aren’t saved. I want to say, “I want to be a really good neighbor.” And that means I’m going to sacrifice for them just like Christ sacrificed for me. And I want to be like that Samaritan where I am—letter A—unexpectedly helpful. Unexpectedly helpful. Here’s a guy I wouldn’t expect to step up and help me—and they are.

You’re talking about a physical neighbor. Maybe you have a neighbor and there’s a need, and they would not expect you to get out of your living room and walk over to their house and roll up your sleeves and get involved. They wouldn’t expect that. They would expect that maybe, you know, because you’re a Christian, maybe you’d say you pray for them or something, but they don’t expect you to come over and help. Maybe there’s someone in the office that’s got an issue, and you learn about it and you know it and you say, “Well, I know you’d think maybe a family member that might help you, or someone you’d pay for that would come and figure that out. I want to step in, and I’d like to be helpful here.”

That kind of unexpected helpfulness. I’ve seen it in so many situations where Christians obediently and lovingly have stepped into a situation and the people that were the recipients of that help—those non-Christians—say, “I can’t believe that that person would do that for us. I can’t even get my siblings to do that, or my family members to do that. Why would you do that?” Well, that’s great—much like the Samaritan—that unexpected help will open up an opportunity to speak about the most important topic in the world.

Verse 33—let’s look at the last three words of that verse. That Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to the place where this man was. He saw him—underline these—he had compassion. Compassion. Number two, or letter B, if you would: we need to sincerely help. Sincerely help. There are those that will do this just out of duty, perhaps, and they go home, “I guess I should step in. That’s what the Bible says—love them, love your neighbor as yourself. They’ve got a problem, they’ve got… I guess I’ll do it.” This man felt it. I often talk about the word that translates “compassion,” the Greek word splagchnizomai—that idea of feeling it in my gut.

Now, I hate to put a subpoint on a subpoint, but here I go. The only way to have compassion for the needs of your non-Christian coworker or your non-Christian neighbor is for you to be praying for them. I don’t know any other way for you really to develop compassion for them than for you to regularly be praying for those non-Christians—not just for the ultimate prayer request, as Romans 9 and 10 says. You want them saved—I get that; that’s the primary, ultimate thing. But I want to pray for their lives in such a way that when there is a need, or their kid does something crazy, or the problem with their house takes place—now I really care. I feel it. Because I have compassion for you, I’m sincerely going to step in and help—not just out of duty, but with real compassion for them. I’m going to allow myself to feel moved for non-Christians’ needs and problems.

And then verse 34—think about how involved he was. He stepped up off of his horse, off of his donkey, whatever he was riding here. He bound up the guy’s wounds. He took his own oil and his own wine. And he sat there and administered those to his injuries. He set him on his animal. He brought him to an inn. And he didn’t just keep going and drop him; he took the night there and cared for him. I mean, that’s it, and he wants this guy to care for him. That idea of taking care of this guy personally and personally being involved—I just want to put it that way—letter C: personally be helpful. Be personally helpful.

And I mean that, and I said it earlier, but so many Christians will see a non-Christian in their life and they’ll say something difficult has happened, or there’s some need, or there’s some crisis, and they’ll say, “Well, I’ll pray for you.” Nothing wrong with praying for people, and I hope that you would. But you see, real prayer for people’s needs will give you compassion for those needs. And I hope that compassion will drive you to action. You need to roll up your own sleeves and get involved. You need to travel to the hospital and make that visit. You need to get involved and sit in their front room and hear the story and deal with the issue and say, “I want to be personally connected here. I’ll roll up my sleeves and be involved in your need.”

Unexpectedly helpful. Sincerely helpful. Personally helpful.

Lastly—and here’s the one that speaks the loudest in our day—verse 35. He took out his wallet and took out 200 bucks, gave it to the innkeeper, and said, “You take care of him. Now I’m moving on. But whatever else you spend on him, I’ll come back and I’ll repay you; I’ll give you the money.” Think about that. Nothing speaks louder to non-Christians than for you to show that you care about them more than you care about the balance in your checkbook. That’s a big, big statement. I’ll just put it simply: financially helpful.

You need to look and realize that, if you can, and to the extent that you can, if there is a financial need, that you do what you can to say, “I’m not here counting pennies. I’m not here to split the check or the tip. I want to do what I can—logically and reasonably. I can’t spend money I don’t have. But I want to be able to say I want to be able to help in this.” And that may mean—just be—that just may mean contributing, and saying, “I want to show that I care about you more than I care about money.”

And if you don’t know the passage, you should jot it down—Luke chapter 16—that parable of the shrewd servant, which I trust we’ll get to in time. The end of that, the punch line in verse 9, is, “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of money—unrighteous wealth (mammon)—so that”—now notice this—“when it fails,” and it will—there will be a time when you can’t spend your money on anybody—it’ll fail—“then they will accept you or welcome you into eternal dwellings.”

Now, the only eternal dwellings I’m going to be able to visit when I die in eternity are the dwellings in the New Jerusalem. I will not be visiting anybody in hell—lake of fire. You want to call for me? I’m not available. If you’re in the New Jerusalem, I can come and see you. I want to make friends by means of my money. Here’s another one of those lines where you see the distance between “good works—loving them—seeing my deeds” and “glorifying God.” There’s a long way between me being generous with my money toward a non-Christian so that one day they can say, “Hey, Mike, good to have you over here in my digs in the New Jerusalem—come on in.” That means that there is a redemptive use of my money to where then—I just imagine—I got it, I have a hearing. I’m sharing the message of redemption and the gospel.

Unexpectedly helpful. Sincerely helpful. Personally helpful. Financially helpful. Few things will speak louder to your non-Christian coworkers, friends, neighbors than that—to the extent that you can.

Oftentimes I’ll try to tear apart a passage like this. And I’ll do that and I’ll get these subpoints, and I’ll look at the first letter to see if I’ve spelled anything: U—S—P—F. And I thought, “Well, that sounds like something. So we got to stand for something.” So I looked it up, and it does. United States Powerlifting Federation—that’s what it stands for. That’s the number one hit for USPF. So I went to the website, just to check it out. And on their website—you can check it out on your iPad there—and the guy on the front, he’s—it’s powerful. It’s like these huge guys with veins everywhere just picking like incredible, stupid amounts of weight off the ground. Powerlifting.

I don’t know if this will help you remember this list—unexpected, sincere, personal, and financial—but when I thought about the call for us to love the outsider, I thought to myself how Jesus often makes the connection that this is an unnatural expression of our concern. He says, “If you give to those who give back to you, what difference are you than the pagan? If you’re willing to lend to those you’re going to get back from, you’re willing to be good to those who’ve been good to you, you’re willing to love those who love you—no problem. What big deal is that?” Here’s the hard thing. The hard thing is for you to love those you expect nothing back from—the people that are not your best friends, the people that will not reciprocate. That’s the hard work. And it may not be light, but it’s going to feel like that. It’s going to feel like, “This is not like picking a case of Kirkland waters out of the back of my wife’s van. This is really hard.”

And if you’re under the impression, by the way, that you come to church to have the pastor pat you on the head for stuff you already believe, slap you on the back and say, “I’m glad you’re doing all the stuff you’re doing. Isn’t it great to be a Christian?” Church is about you coming to church, opening the words of life, seeing in the Word what is—what God calls you to do and be—to be more like Christ. And sometimes those things are hard. And to say, “You know what, you’re right. I need to be sacrificially helpful to non-Christians when they don’t expect it—unexpected. And it’s the kind of sincere, compassion-driven help. It’s the kind of help that personally involves me. And it’s the kind of help that is—even—I’m ready to open up my wallet.” It is what Christ is calling us to do in so many passages of the Bible, as it relates to not only Christians but non-Christians. It is, as I often speak of Christians, it’s the kind of “staying the extra hour, spending the extra dollar, and going the extra mile.” You’ve heard me say that. It’s the kind of attitude of saying, “I’m going to do that with the non-Christians in my life.” Not just so they’ll give me a hearing for the gospel—because they’re made in the image of God, and that’s worth doing it just for that—but ultimately I see in the Scripture that it opens up doors for the word.

So this week is a great week to join a home fellowship group if you’re not in one. Because I did this sermon, I thought, “You know what, what would be great is to sit there in a living room with Christian brothers and sisters and say, ‘How can we do this? I’ve got three or four non-Christians in my life. How can I do something unexpected, sincere, personal, and even—if it costs me some money from my wallet—going the extra mile, staying the extra hour, and spending the extra dollar, so that we might, like the Good Samaritan, be loving our neighbor in a way that really will give us an opportunity to share some of the news of Christ that’s not all that easy to swallow without that kind of cultivation that comes from real, sincere love?’”

Let’s pray. God, help us. Very hard for us to think about sharing the message of the gospel in an uncompromised way. Like so much of the Christian community today, at least that calls themselves Christians, they’ve really gone in and surgically extracted parts of the gospel that they think aren’t going to be well received, and they present some emaciated, some anemic gospel—that’s no gospel at all. But we’re called to tell people they need a Savior because we’re sinners, and sinners deserve God’s punishment. And that’s the kind of message that includes the Law and includes God’s holy standard. And we know it’s going to be hard to swallow—was hard for us to swallow. May it be preceded by and accompanied with a lifestyle of Christians going the extra mile, staying the extra hour, spending the extra dollar to express our love for people that are not in our group. They’re outsiders; they’re not insiders.

And God, I pray that those few people in our minds that have even visually popped up in our thinking as we hear discussions about non-Christians—may we look to see this week, as we have opportunity, how we can be that kind Good Samaritan to them. God, we know none of us measure up—hearing that we don’t, it’s tough. But God, how great it is to have people who will give us an opportunity simply because they’ve seen the love, the sacrificial love of Christ, in real tangible ways as we’ve related to them. So make that a reality for us and glorify yourself through it. In Jesus’ name, amen.