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The Good Samaritan Twist Most People Miss | Mondo Gonzales · Prophecy Watchers

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  Speaker 1: We're going to be in Luke chapter 10. This is
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  Speaker 1: the parable of the Good Samaritan. You're like, oh, I've
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: heard that, really? Well, we're going to have a different
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  Speaker 1: angle on it today. Still staying scriptural. But I want
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  Speaker 1: you to right now, as Christians, we love everybody all
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  Speaker 1: the time, right? With no limits, right? Did anybody live
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  Speaker 1: up to that all the time?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we wish, right? Yes, all of us. So I
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  Speaker 2: want you to think of somebody right now that.
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  Speaker 1: Annoys you, somebody that you don't like, somebody that you
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  Speaker 1: prefer not to see maybe ever again in your life.
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  Speaker 2: We all have those people.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting because in Romans chapter 12, Paul is writing
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  Speaker 1: to the church and he says, if possible, if possible,
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  Speaker 1: as far as depends on you, be at peace with everybody. right?
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  Speaker 1: But I'm glad he put on there, if possible, because
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  Speaker 1: he realizes that sometimes it's not possible.
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  Speaker 2: I've seen that as a pastor for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And not only between people in the church, but also myself,
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm trying everything I can, but whatever the
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  Speaker 1: person is, or we don't connect, or we don't click,
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  Speaker 1: whatever it is.
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  Speaker 2: But I want you to think about this.
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  Speaker 1: So imagine you are driving down the road late at night,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe it's a dangerous road, and you go off
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  Speaker 1: the road. And then you go off, you're down into
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  Speaker 1: a ditch, your windshield's broken, you're hurt, it's dark, it's raining,
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  Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm in trouble.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in trouble now.
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  Speaker 1: And then you're there and you look up and you
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  Speaker 1: see lights coming. And you're like, oh, awesome. This is good.
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  Speaker 1: And the lights and they just continue to go by.
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  Speaker 1: And then you see you're there for a little while
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  Speaker 1: and then you see another car come. And same thing,
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  Speaker 1: the car comes and you get excited. You get a
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  Speaker 1: little bit perked up. Oh, I have somebody here to
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  Speaker 1: help me. And they come and they stop and they
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  Speaker 1: look and they're like, don't have time for this.
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  Speaker 2: And then they keep going. So at this moment, you're
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  Speaker 2: feeling a little bit desperate, right? Because you're hurt and
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  Speaker 2: you need help.
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  Speaker 1: And then another car shows up and this one comes
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  Speaker 1: and it stops and you see kind of a figure
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  Speaker 1: getting out of the car and you're like, oh, this
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  Speaker 1: is great. Someone's here to help me. And when that
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  Speaker 1: person shows up, here's the question.
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  Speaker 2: Do you say, well, wait a minute.
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  Speaker 1: I want to know if they're Republican or Democrat. I
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  Speaker 1: want to know if they like Trump or like Obama.
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  Speaker 1: I want to know if they're rich or if they're poor.
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  Speaker 1: I want to know if they're Muslim or Seventh-day Adventist
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  Speaker 1: or Buddhist. Do we even think that way? What we
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  Speaker 1: think is in that moment when we're in the ditch,
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  Speaker 1: we don't care who they are. We're just in need
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  Speaker 1: of help. And I want you to imagine that put
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  Speaker 1: the person that I asked you to think about before,
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  Speaker 1: that you despise or that you never want to see.
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  Speaker 2: Again, and that's them showing up. Would you accept the help?
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  Speaker 1: See, it's interesting because in this parable, Jesus turns the
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  Speaker 1: tables on this lawyer, which we're going to see.
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  Speaker 2: And so.
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  Speaker 1: Through the years, of course, you know, we teach this
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  Speaker 1: in Sunday school, you know, you teach us over and over.
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  Speaker 1: And through the years, I've always kind of felt that, man,
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  Speaker 1: there's something There's something missing in the parable, and it
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  Speaker 1: didn't really click for me. And you have different ideas,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll get to them. But let's jump in here.
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  Speaker 1: I forgot I got to do this too.
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  Speaker 2: What's kind of the big idea here?
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  Speaker 1: Just, you know, before we miss on anything, is Jesus
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  Speaker 1: exposes a tendency to limit love by making the person
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  Speaker 1: we would rather exclude the very person who becomes a
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  Speaker 1: neighbor in this story. and then commands us to show
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  Speaker 1: and act like that person. I find it pretty fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: So let's jump in and just read this. And so
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  Speaker 1: here we are. It says, behold, a lawyer stood up
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  Speaker 1: to put him to the test. Now, all right out
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  Speaker 1: of the gate, you have a lawyer that is basically
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  Speaker 1: an expert in the Mosaic law, not like a lawyer
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  Speaker 1: we have today, right? So these are an expert on
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  Speaker 1: the religious law. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit
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  Speaker 1: eternal life? Now, what you're gonna see here is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you study the text, you always look for words
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  Speaker 1: that reappear over and over, because Jesus is like saying,
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  Speaker 1: paying attention, you know, we're gonna see this through repetition.
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  Speaker 2: And it's the word do.
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  Speaker 1: And so he's asking right out of the gate, what
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  Speaker 1: do I do? What do I do? How can I
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  Speaker 1: inherit into our life? And Jesus said to him, what
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  Speaker 1: is written in the law?
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  Speaker 2: How do you read it?
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  Speaker 1: So you're a lawyer, you tell me. Look at the text,
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  Speaker 1: look at the scripture. What is your understanding? of the
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  Speaker 1: text that you are an expert in. And he answered, well,
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  Speaker 1: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
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  Speaker 1: with all your soul, and with all your strength, and
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  Speaker 1: with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. So
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  Speaker 1: he brings up the first commandment, Deuteronomy 6, in the Shema,
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  Speaker 1: and then he also brings up Leviticus 19.18 about loving
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  Speaker 1: your neighbor as yourself. Okay? Okay?
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  Speaker 2: And he said to him, Jesus says to him, you
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  Speaker 2: have answered correctly. Do this.
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  Speaker 1: So there again is the word do. Do this and
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  Speaker 1: you'll live. But he, the lawyer, desiring to justify himself,
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  Speaker 1: said to Jesus, who is my neighbor?
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Now that, I'm glad that Luke tells us here what's
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  Speaker 1: happening because I don't read hearts. I don't know what's
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  Speaker 1: in a person's heart. I don't know what their motives are,
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  Speaker 1: but Luke by the Holy Spirit is revealing that to us.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus replied with this story. He says, so this is
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  Speaker 1: the question. Well, who's my neighbor? And Jesus says, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to tell you a story in order to address
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  Speaker 1: what is happening in your heart. Now, what we're going
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  Speaker 1: to see here is, here's the question.
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  Speaker 2: Who is my neighbor?
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  Speaker 1: And what's interesting about it is, again, through the years,
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  Speaker 1: scholars and commentaries will be like, well, Jesus really didn't
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  Speaker 1: answer that question. But when we get to the end
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  Speaker 1: of this, you'll see what Jesus did because Jesus, of course,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus is brilliant. And Jesus has a way of having
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  Speaker 1: us realize things about ourselves that we need to address.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, Jesus loves us. But, and I think
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  Speaker 1: he loved this guy and said, well, let's start with
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  Speaker 1: what you think you know. And of course we see.
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  Speaker 1: So Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem
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  Speaker 1: to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him
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  Speaker 1: and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now
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  Speaker 1: by chance, a priest was going down that road and
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  Speaker 1: when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
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  Speaker 1: So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place
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  Speaker 1: and saw him, passed by on the other side. But
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  Speaker 1: a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was
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  Speaker 1: And when he saw him, he had compassion. He went
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  Speaker 1: to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil
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  Speaker 1: and wine. Then he set him on his own animal
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  Speaker 1: and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
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  Speaker 1: And the next day he took out two denarii and
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  Speaker 1: gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him
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  Speaker 1: and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when
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  Speaker 1: I come back. Which of the three, so that's the story.
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  Speaker 1: And then Jesus says this, which of the three, which
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  Speaker 1: of these three do you think became a neighbor to
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  Speaker 1: the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the
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  Speaker 1: lawyer said, well, the one who did mercy with him.
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  Speaker 1: And Jesus said, you go and do likewise. So let's
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  Speaker 1: jump in here for a minute because I want you
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  Speaker 1: to show you some things. So Jesus, this is a
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  Speaker 1: normal road that goes from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
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  Speaker 2: It's, it's about.
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  Speaker 1: 1800 feet drop. And, uh, it's, it's actually, I'll show
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  Speaker 1: you some pictures here. Um, it's a, it's a pretty
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  Speaker 1: desolate place. And, uh, you can see up on the
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  Speaker 1: top Jerusalem, this is in the Judean Hills. And when
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  Speaker 1: you come down this road, there's this wadi kilts, um,
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  Speaker 1: This is what you see as well.
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  Speaker 2: This is one of the ancient Roman roads that was
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  Speaker 2: part of the original road. It's still there. It's kind
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  Speaker 2: of cool.
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  Speaker 1: And you can see some of this. And so this
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  Speaker 1: is a picture that I took when I was there.
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  Speaker 1: And you can see that this is a pretty isolated place.
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  Speaker 1: So kind of like falling off with your car into
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  Speaker 1: the ditch. If you get hurt here or accosted here,
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  Speaker 1: you might not see anybody for several days. Um, because
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  Speaker 1: of the way that this is again, very, very isolated. No,
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  Speaker 1: the background here is it's interesting that in Judaism, even today, um,
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  Speaker 1: w as Christians, we often say, um, not what must
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  Speaker 1: I do to be saved?
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  Speaker 2: We say, what must I believe to be saved?
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And we say, well, you got to believe in the
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  Speaker 2: Lord Jesus. You got to have faith.
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  Speaker 1: You got to have trust in him and what he
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  Speaker 1: did on the cross. But Jews don't really think that way.
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  Speaker 1: They think in terms of, they'll say this throughout history. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you Christians believe in creed, what your doctrinal statement is,
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  Speaker 1: but we Jews believe in deed. And this is why
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  Speaker 1: when the lawyer gets up, what must I do? How
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  Speaker 1: do I show my, even though they have faith and
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  Speaker 1: they have beliefs, I'm not saying that, but they're more
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  Speaker 1: interested in me living out my faith, my own professions. Well,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes as Christians, we can be pretty comfortable like, well, hey,
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  Speaker 1: I believe in Jesus. Then, therefore, I'm covered. I got
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  Speaker 1: my fire insurance, right? I'm covered for the rest of
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  Speaker 1: my life. But in reality, as we know, the Bible
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  Speaker 1: is very clear. Like, we'll see that Jesus does desire
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  Speaker 1: us to live up to our own profession. In the
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  Speaker 1: sense that Jesus told him a parable. Again, no surprise here.
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  Speaker 1: Just parables are meant.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Parables are meant to help believers see the truth, but
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  Speaker 1: to others, Jesus said, it was meant to conceal the truth.
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  Speaker 1: So it's really interesting in Matthew 13, because they said,
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  Speaker 1: why are you talking parables? And Jesus says, well, to you,
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  Speaker 1: it's been given to know, but to them, I'm hiding it,
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  Speaker 1: which is very interesting. And the word literal means parallel,
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  Speaker 1: it means to throw alongside. Now, so Jesus brings up
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  Speaker 1: some characters here. Let's analyze them for a moment. He
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  Speaker 1: talks about a priest, a priest of the family of Aaron.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, they would offer sacrifices and incense to God.
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  Speaker 1: But politically, this is important, they were part of the Sadducees.
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  Speaker 1: And the Sadducees only really believed in the first five
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  Speaker 1: books of Moses. But they were also, we're gonna unpack
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  Speaker 1: this a little bit. The priestly family in Leviticus 21,
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  Speaker 1: you were not allowed to be near a dead body.
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  Speaker 1: Even for the high priest, if your mom or dad died,
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  Speaker 1: you are not allowed to mourn and to touch them.
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  Speaker 1: Because especially if you were a part of the official
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  Speaker 1: ceremonies going on, it's like, sorry, because that would make
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  Speaker 1: you unclean. And so the priests were very, very serious
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  Speaker 1: about touching dead bodies and about their own purities. And
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  Speaker 1: so we'll see this. So in the same way, you
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  Speaker 1: have the Levite. The Levites were the broader group that
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  Speaker 1: were meant to help. You have a lawyer.
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  Speaker 2: Lawyer was of a Pharisee.
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  Speaker 1: Who believed in a less literal interpretation of the books,
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  Speaker 1: but at least they believed in the rest of the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: And then you have this Samaritan guy. So Jesus, again,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus is trying to reach the heart of this religious guy.
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  Speaker 1: So in the same way, I think Jesus would come
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  Speaker 1: to us and say, okay, many of you, you might ask, well,
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  Speaker 1: what do I need to do to show that I'm
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  Speaker 1: truly following Jesus? And Jesus says, okay, that's a good question.
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  Speaker 1: But let's, let's, I'm going to reach into your heart today.
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  Speaker 1: That that's what Jesus is after in this way. And
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  Speaker 1: so in Jesus picking this story, he brings up these
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  Speaker 1: two religious people, but then he brings up a Samaritan.
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  Speaker 2: Now, the Samaritans, if you know their history, after.
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  Speaker 1: Basically the deportation of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC,
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  Speaker 1: the Assyrians came in and they took all of the
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  Speaker 1: Northern Kingdom and they basically removed them from the land. But,
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  Speaker 1: and then what Assyria did is they would, when they
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  Speaker 1: would do this, they would bring back in other people
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  Speaker 1: from different parts of their, of their empire and they
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  Speaker 1: would fill them in and they'd say, well, we're getting
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  Speaker 1: rid of you, but we're going to put foreigners into
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  Speaker 1: your land. And then these foreigners came in and they
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  Speaker 1: started for any of the Jews that were remaining, they started,
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  Speaker 1: you know, having relationships. And so you had what is
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  Speaker 1: known as the Samaritans who are basically half, half Jewish. Well,
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  Speaker 1: When later, after the Babylonian captivity, when they returned, you
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  Speaker 1: have the southern kingdom of Judah coming back. And now
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  Speaker 1: you have all of these Samaritans living there. And the
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  Speaker 1: people were like, these guys are a bunch of half-breed Jews.
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  Speaker 2: They're not real. So we don't accept them. And the Samaritans, they.
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  Speaker 1: What they did is instead of worshiping at Jerusalem, as
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  Speaker 1: you can see, they went to Mount Gerizim. They created
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  Speaker 1: their own system. They created their own priests. So you
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  Speaker 1: can imagine the Jews going, you aren't even real. You
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  Speaker 1: guys are a bunch of pretenders. And so we see
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  Speaker 1: in the New Testament that in John 4, remember the
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  Speaker 1: woman at the well? Remember her in John 4? She's
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  Speaker 1: a Samaritan.
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  Speaker 2: Jesus says, I got to go here. I got to
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  Speaker 2: talk to her.
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  Speaker 1: Later in John 8, the worst insult you could do
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  Speaker 1: is call somebody a Samaritan. They said, Jesus said, well,
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  Speaker 1: besides maybe being demon possessed. So you're demon possessed and
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  Speaker 1: you're a Samaritan. And so that was a very much
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  Speaker 1: of an insult. So what Jesus does here is he's
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  Speaker 1: talking to a lawyer. He's talking to a religious guy
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  Speaker 1: and he brings up these three characters. So let's jump
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  Speaker 1: in here for a moment because what do we learn? Well,
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  Speaker 1: what Jesus is doing is ultimately the religious guy was
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  Speaker 1: looking for a loophole. Now, as a Christian, how many
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  Speaker 1: of us have ever said, well, what do I have
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  Speaker 1: to do in order to honor the Lord? What's my line?
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  Speaker 1: You know, what's my limit? You know, and you see
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  Speaker 1: this a lot, especially, well, again, it doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: But as a.
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  Speaker 1: Youth pastor, the teens would always say, how far can
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  Speaker 1: I go? Before, what's God's law?
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  Speaker 2: Or what's the rule? What's the commandment? And how far
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  Speaker 2: can I go?
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  Speaker 1: How close can I get to that rule? And so
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  Speaker 1: what you're looking for is kind of a way to
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  Speaker 1: maybe get a loophole around it.
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  Speaker 2: And as adults, do we do that? Of course we do, right?
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  Speaker 1: And so what Jesus begins to do is, what Luke
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  Speaker 1: reveals is that this lawyer was saying, I just admitted
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  Speaker 1: that I'm required to show that I have a relationship
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  Speaker 1: with God.
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  Speaker 2: Eternal life. What must I do to inherit eternal life?
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  Speaker 1: I just admitted to this guy, Jesus, that I said
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  Speaker 1: that I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind,
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  Speaker 1: and strength. And I have to love my neighbor as myself.
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  Speaker 1: And Jesus is like, good answer. Go do that.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, oh man, okay, okay. Well, that was easy.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I just got affirmed by the master. But let
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  Speaker 1: me clarify that because in my mind, I have my
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  Speaker 1: own definition of a neighbor. What does Leviticus 19 mean?
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  Speaker 1: Because in Judaism, in fact, it defined a neighbor as
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  Speaker 1: a Jew. And so he's thinking, oh, so just to
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  Speaker 1: be clear, Jesus, who is my neighbor? I want you
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  Speaker 1: to affirm for me what I already think so that
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  Speaker 1: I can walk away with my own justification and be
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  Speaker 1: happy about it. Because now Jesus, the Messiah, the Son
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  Speaker 1: of God, just affirmed for me the limits of how
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  Speaker 1: far I need to love.
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  Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be great?
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  Speaker 1: You don't need to love the guy that I asked
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  Speaker 1: you to think about or the woman I asked you
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  Speaker 1: to think about at the beginning. No, no, no, they're
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  Speaker 1: too far gone. They rejected God, whatever it is, whatever
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  Speaker 1: label we put on them. And so what's interesting here is,
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  Speaker 1: Just as an application, we often assume that biblical maturity
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  Speaker 1: is measured primarily by how much scripture we know. But
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  Speaker 1: it's not about what we know necessarily. It's about do
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  Speaker 1: you live up to what you know? That's why through
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  Speaker 1: the years, and we can all say this, myself included,
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  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I'm going to go, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: go have a Bobby study, or I read the Bible
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  Speaker 1: every single day. And I read five chapters. I read
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  Speaker 1: 10 chapters a day. And there's been many times I've
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  Speaker 1: been in a situation. I said, listen, you don't read
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  Speaker 1: and you don't need to read another word of scripture.
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  Speaker 1: You need to live up to what you've already read
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  Speaker 1: because you certainly are not. So don't deceive yourself. because
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  Speaker 1: you're involved with all these Bible studies and you're this, this, this,
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  Speaker 1: and this, and yet you're not obeying what you already
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  Speaker 1: claim to have read.
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  Speaker 2: And this is what Jesus is doing.
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  Speaker 1: He's talking to a lawyer here, an expert. And this
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: is where, for us, we can have the right theology
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in our head, but we're also looking, I mean, think
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: about this. What are my limits, Lord, to who I'm
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: supposed to love as my neighbor? That just reveals so
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: much of the heart. And so, again, we might be thinking, well,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that person is different than us. Or, well, how are
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: we supposed to act to, you know, a Muslim or
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a transgender or LGBTQ? Fill in the blank of whatever
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: might make us uncomfortable. And what am I supposed to do?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Are they my neighbor? And Jesus says, we're going to
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: see what's inside you here. Because what was happening was
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the lawyer was looking out to define what a neighbor was.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And Jesus says, no, we're going to look inside your
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: heart and to see why you are doing that. So
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: very clearly he wanted to justify himself. What does love require?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that self-righteousness does not usually deny the command
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: of love.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: It simply looks for a way to limit.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And we all have our ways in the sense of, well,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: that person I've tried and I've tried and I've tried.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: They've been mean to me for years. I'm done. I've done.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I've done everything I can to them. And then what happens?
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: The Lord gives you another opportunity. And you're like, but
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I thought I was done. He goes, am I done
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: with you? Right?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: This is what Jesus is doing.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He's, he's, he's turning. He's going to turn the tables here.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So when he says, who is my neighbor? Who can
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I exclude? That's what he really means, right? Isn't that
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the fact?
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Who could I leave out? He wasn't looking, oh, Jesus,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: who's my neighbor?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Because I want to add a whole bunch of people
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that are different than me into my definition of a neighbor.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That is not what he's doing.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: He's asking for Jesus to give him justification for, again,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: where does my obligation end? And I want to draw
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: this very nice line so that I can keep people
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: out of it rather than looking to see who I
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: can bring in to the line that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: God would have.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So this is what, again, what Jesus does. So typically,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: let's go here, is this is the typical, I'll probably
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: get into a little bit more, but the typical thing
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of this parable is, okay, Jesus is telling us about
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: three different types of people. You have this priest who's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: walking down, he sees this, he very, whatever his motive is,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't tell us what his motive was for passing
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: by this guy.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: You get a guy that's half dead.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: So some scholars will say, well, was the priest worried
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: about ruining his own religious purity? That's kind of a spin, right?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Is really the reason that the priest didn't help is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: because he really wanted to honor God by, and because
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: God did say, if you're a priest, don't touch any
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: dead bodies.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Well, that guy could be dead. So in my honor
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: to the Lord, I'm going to not help this guy. Well,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: that's a great spin.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. And, and, Not that there wasn't a reality there.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So again, scholars are going back and forth was, was
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: it because he's pure? Well, the Levite, the same way,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, well, if I, if I go
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: here and I touch him, I'm going to become defiled.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And therefore my priestly duties, because most of the priests
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and the Levites lived down in Jericho. Jericho is actually
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: really nice. When you're in the middle of the desert,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it's got lots of springs there, lots of water. It's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: like an away, it is, it's an oasis. And so
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of the priests would live down there. So
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they would make this road, this travel, this trip coming down.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And So.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: The typical thing is, well, no matter what, they didn't help.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: But then there's this Samaritan that came along, this hated
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: half-breed guy. And he comes and he does help. He
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: goes out of his way. He takes the cost. He
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: bandages him.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: He gets down there. He touches the guy. He gets dirty.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: He gets bloody. He does everything he can to help.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And then he takes him to the inn.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And says, not only did I fix him, here, if
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: there's anything else, here's some money, a denarii, two denariis,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: two days wages. So you think, you know, you make
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: 200 bucks a day, 400 bucks, here's some cash, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: anything else, let me know, I'll be back to care
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: for him. And so we think, oh, yeah, see, I
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: want to be the good Samaritan. I'm not going to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: be like that priest, and I'm not going to be
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: like that Levite, but we come in, The typical story
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is that we come in and that we are the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: hero of the story by being the good Samaritan. I'm
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: going to be like that guy. And Jesus says, that's
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: not what I'm saying at all. That's not what I'm saying.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: You're looking at it from the Samaritan looking down at
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the guy in the ditch. And you're thinking in my goodness,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in my hero-ness, I'm going to help this guy in need.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And Jesus says, you're the guy in the ditch. You're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: not the Samaritan. You're the guy in the ditch that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: needs help. And I want you to see it that way.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And you'll see why. And this is what happens. So again,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: what Jesus does to the lawyer is, again, he's trying
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to reveal his heart. But if we take ourselves from
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: being the Samaritan in the story to being the person
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in the ditch, your whole world is different. Because now
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you're in a state of helplessness. You're in a state
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of need. You're in a state of needing mercy. The
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: ditch has a way of stripping us of the categories
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: we use to separate ourselves from other people. And these
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: are the moments in life when all we want is
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: for someone, anyone, to stop and help. So, let's get
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: ourselves here for a moment because this is what Jesus
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: really is after. And this is where I was going
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to study this. And I was like, again, the way
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that Jesus twists the question helps us to see that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: what he was really after here. We also see that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: suffering is not the same as showing mercy.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: So I find this interesting too. So The priest and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the Levite, again, these are us. These are the religious
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: people right here. These are the ones that claim to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: have all the right theology, claim to have a relationship
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: with God. They're walking around with their priestly clothes, their garments.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: They stand out.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that are seen as being religious and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: in relationship with God and ones that claim, I mean,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you're a priest, you're a teacher of the law.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Same thing with the Levite. So you're the one that's
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: going around saying how Christian you are.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And how much you follow God. And we know that
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: whether it's at family, neighbors, work, whatever, people know who
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: are Christian and who are not generally, right? Especially because
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I think in terms of when you're around family or
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: whatever or work and they begin to go, I remember
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes people would say, I've never heard you cuss. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I go, okay, am I supposed to, you know, kind of,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you kind of play a little, have a little fun
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And they go, no.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And they go, I'm just curious why. And I go, well,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I try, I try my best. I'm a follower of Jesus.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Colossians three, eight says, put all filthy.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Language out of your mouth. You try to follow that.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Right. And, and then it's interesting that I remember one
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: time I was doing a video. Um, I do a
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: lot of videos as you guys know, and I, I
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: said something really, really fast.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I'm a fast talker.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And it sounded like I dropped the F-bomb. So we
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: got all these like comments and emails. Mondo needs to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: have more control of his mouth. I can't believe that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: he would drop the.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: F-bomb in there. And I was like, what?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Now, granted, when I was a teenager, I had a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: very bad mouth, but I got saved at 18, and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: then I'm reading the Bible in Colossians 3.8, Ephesians 4.29,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you know, let your lips be seasoned with salt and grace, right?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So you start learning. I've got to clean this up,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: because if you go out and start telling people about Jesus.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And you're dropping language, they're going to go, I see
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: an inconsistency here, right? Rightfully so. That's not a condemning thing.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: It's more just like, you know, be wise. So I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: was like, what in the world? So I ended up
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: listening to it, and I was like, If you slow
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: it down to 0.25, you'll see that's.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Not what I said.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: But nevertheless, the religious people come and they walk by.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Their problem was not that they failed to notice. Their
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: problem was that what they saw never turned into putting
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: love into action. Now, this is an interesting thing, and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you, that if you go after today and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: you say, you know, Lord, I want to respond to
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: your word.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I want to respond to the message. That's what we're
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: supposed to do. And you say, Lord, I don't want
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to be that.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be a priest or a Levite
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: that is religious and claims to follow you. And I'm
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: unaware of the needs around me. Will you help me
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to see where I haven't been seeing the needs around me?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: You think Jesus will answer that? But be careful because
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: if he shows you and then you still don't move
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to action to whom much is given, more is required. Now, again,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that's like, oh, I guess I'm not going to ask. Well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: that's not the point, right? The point is to say, Lord,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: help me to see what's going on. You know, help
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: me to respond. The opposite of mercy in this story, again,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: is not blindness, right?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's distance.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Now, how often is the case, and there's wisdom, right,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that we are not to be conformed to this world, right?
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: We're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you know, Romans 12. But I just came, you know,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: came up with some things. We see loneliness in the church.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: We see a person struggling at work, maybe a broken
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: family member, and.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: We go, I just don't have time. I just don't
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: have time.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Or, you know, that person's really annoying. Or we often say, well,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you know what? That person created their own mess. They
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: made their own bed. You know, now we don't want
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to be, and see, this is the justification sometimes is,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and yet this is wisdom, okay?
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: This is wisdom.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: The wisdom of the spiritual life is, I don't, don't
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: believe for one moment that God wants us to become enablers, right?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: We know those situations.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I've seen it over and over and over,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's a mom or dad or parent,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: they enable the child when they're 25, not to get
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: off their butt and get moving in life, right? But
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: there's this balance, but oftentimes we'll say, well, I don't
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: want to be an enabler. And then, but then that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: makes us callous to seeing what we need to see.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But yet at other times, yes, we need to not enable.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: But this is where we ask the Lord about it.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: What suffering have I learned to see without allowing it
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to interrupt me? And then often we say, well, with
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the time I have, I do help people. I help
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: people within my circle. And this is about what's outside
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: of your circle. That's what Jesus is doing. The lawyer's saying,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I do help all of these people here.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I can show you all the people that help. And
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Jesus says, that's not who we're after here. I want you, lawyer.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I want you, Christian.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I want you to look in your heart and see
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: what circles you've created. Now, this is, when you get
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: down this, I'll show you something here. So this is,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a little bit hard to see, but
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: here's the path right here. This is a wadi, sometimes
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: there's water in here. So this is a picture I
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: took in this walking up this road that we saw
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: on the map. This is the road that comes from
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Jerusalem down to Jericho and back up. So here I
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: am on the ground, all right? I was like, I
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: wanna illustrate what this story is. And it was hot
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that day. And I'm like, my buddy I was with,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you got to take this fast, man. Because
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: when I lay down, I'm burning up. And so think
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: about this. Okay, here I am beating up.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: And Jesus says, passed by on the other side.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Now, oftentimes you might think this is like 77, passed
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: by on the other side.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I'm like 150 feet away. There's a guy over there.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going way over here.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: In some of the areas of this, Jesus is, it's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: kind of actually kind of humorous. In some of the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: ways when you're walking here to pass by another side,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: you would have to step over the body.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Of the person. You can't not see what's happening here.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And this is, this is what brings it up a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: notch is the priest and the Levites walking Practically had
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to step over the guy in order not to help.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: And it's just like, it's like a zinger in the
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: heart of the lawyer here.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: And that's why, what I really wanted to title this
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: was the parable of the good Nazi.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Because I was thinking, well, you know, what do we have?
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: We don't, A Samaritan for a Jew, a Jew could
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: say that too. For a Jewish person, a Samaritan or
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a Nazi, they would have a similar ring to it.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: But I was thinking, who do we really hate in
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: our culture? It's kind of a little bit challenging. And
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, what's the worst thing we could think
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of or somebody that I would just despise? And I think, well,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: maybe a Nazi, but maybe not for us specifically. We
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: just think of somebody really evil. And Jesus said, that's
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the guy I want to talk about right there. Lawyer,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I want to get you into understanding. And this is
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the twist on the story. So normally in that culture,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: imagine the hearers too. The lawyer gets up, he's trying
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to justify himself. And he says, I'm going to tell
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you a story.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Again, it goes on. There's a priest and then he
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: walked by. There's a Levite. Yeah, he walked by.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: The next person that you would imagine, if you were
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to fill in the blank, oh, I know where Jesus
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is going to say. He's going to say, then an
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Israelite walked by. But he twists and says, he brings
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: up the villain. A Samaritan walks in. Not a Samaritan.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And they're probably thinking, this is what they're thinking. Oh,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the Samaritan's probably going to rob them again. Because that's
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: what they do. They're a bunch of half-breeds.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: They're wicked. They're evil.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I have no place for them. But then the Samaritan
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: did exactly what the two religious people didn't.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: At great cost.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And it You can imagine that the lawyers sitting here going,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I'm uncomfortable now. And all the Jews that were listening
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: were uncomfortable because nowhere would they ever want to imply
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: or suggest that a Samaritan, the wicked guy, would do
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: something better than the religious priest or the religious Levite. Again,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the shock. But what Jesus does here is, again, don't
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: imagine yourself as the Samaritan coming along and being the hero.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Jesus is saying, I want you to recognize that you're
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: in the position of needing help and you're in the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: position of being desperate. Like I said at the beginning,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: if you were in the car crash, you're not going
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to say, hey, look, again, who are you?
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I don't want your help. It could be anybody that
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: showed up.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And that's the desperation that we don't care what description
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: they would have. We are willing to accept their help.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting here, again, if we go to this,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: look at verse 36.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: So this is Jesus's question.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: The question of the lawyer was, who is my neighbor?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And Jesus doesn't say, your neighbor is. Again, Jesus is
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: brilliant here. What he says is, he asks the guy,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: and this is pretty typical, I'm going to have, I'm
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: going to tell this story and I'm going to make
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the lawyer check his own heart and answer my question.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Which of these three, obviously the priest, the Levite, or
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the villain, the Samaritan, do you think became a neighbor?
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: It's a Greek word to become. This is what always
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: kind of confused me through all the years. And again,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to get to the bottom of this.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Why did Jesus change the question? It wasn't about defining something.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It was about action. And the lawyer's like, Jesus, which
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of these became a neighbor to the man who fell
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: among the robbers? So this also switches the perspective because
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is, who cares what the
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: lawyer thinks? The lawyer is maybe observing this incident. The
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: guy gets robbed, three people come along, the lawyer's up
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: here going, well, I guess the guy, The one who
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: did mercy with him is literally what it says in
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the Greek. The one who did, the one who acted,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the word do, remember the word do is appearing over
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and over.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: The one who did mercy with him. Who's the best
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: one to answer the question of who became a neighbor?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Who's the best one? The guy in the ditch. That
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: guy is going to have the real answer.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Who, I don't care who they were, And you can
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: imagine him waking up after getting beat.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, he's at the inn. He doesn't know anything.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: The guy's gone. He wakes up and he's talking to
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the innkeeper. How did I get here? Well, you got robbed.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: You got mugged. You got beat up. You got left
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: to be half dead. And he said, well, how did
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I get here? Ultimately, who was a neighbor to me?
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: who became a neighbor to me? He says, well, I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: hate to tell you this, it was a Samaritan. God
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: bless that Samaritan. This is what Jesus is after here.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: And this is to me, again, was the first time
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I ever saw it, like this phrase right here, who
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: became a neighbor to the guy?
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Because that's us.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: And what Jesus is saying, and this is where the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: lawyer's like, I don't even want to admit it. I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: don't even want to say it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: And he didn't.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: He did not say it out loud. The Samaritan, the
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: guy who did mercy.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: And Jesus says to him, you.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Go and do likewise. And no doubt that obviously the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Samaritan was a good person in the story. But what
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Jesus is doing here is he's saying, when you're in
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a moment of desperation.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And you want to know, I need a neighbor. I
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: need somebody.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: You're not going to put lines out there or definitions
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: or say qualifications. For me to get help, I only
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: want this type of neighbor.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Do you see what Jesus did here? Brilliant.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: He turned it around where the guy, he says, you
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: got it all wrong. You're asking for the qualification. But
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: in fact, if that's you, you will not qualify anything.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Don't go out and say, I have these limits, these circles.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: But when we're the hero of the story, we have the, well,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to help, you know, so-and-so.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Who am I going to help? Who am I going
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: to love? I got my limits.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Jesus turned it right around and said, in reality, those
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: people out there need a neighbor, right? and they're desperate,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and you represent God, you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself, why
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: are you unwilling then to be a neighbor to somebody
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: who's desperately in need? If that was you, this is
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: like the golden rule. Love others as you want them
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: to love you. And we see that in the gospel
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of Luke. And he says, Remember, what was the first
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: question that the lawyer asked? What must I do to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: inherit eternal life? And he said, well, you got the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: right Bible knowledge, but you're not even living up to
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: what it truly means because you're looking to find ways
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: of what not to do.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: That's really what you're after. But I want you to
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: turn around.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting about this, if you look at the
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: broader picture, In order to come to a place of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: salvation or in a relationship with the Lord through Jesus Christ,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: we are desperate in our state of sinfulness and on
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: our state of condemnation. Jesus said that in John 3, 18,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the world is already condemned. The son of man didn't
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: come into the world to condemn the world because the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: world is already in a state of condemnation. That's why
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I think, well, you know, well, you're condemning me now
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that Jesus said it's already there. So we are in
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: a desperate spot. where we need any help. And of course,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: for us, we have the good shepherd to come and
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: die for us. But the key here is, remember, get
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: out of your place of security here in seeking to
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: qualify or define who your neighbor is and realize that
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: there are those out there that are in this situation
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that are helpless.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: And if you were there, you wouldn't care. Go be that.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And think about if that was you, you would want
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: anybody to help you.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: That's the definition of truly loving God. What Jesus does
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: here is he reverses it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Again, I just think this is so amazing and beautiful
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: in what Jesus is saying. The lawyer is asking who
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: qualifies and Jesus is asking who acted. The lawyer wanted
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a definition, but Jesus gave him a direction that was
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: rooted in action.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here we go.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Now, the Samaritan becomes the neighbor not because of ethnicity, geography,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: religious agreement, social similarity. He becomes a neighbor. And again,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: how does he become a neighbor? Again, the guy that
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: wakes up from his basically concussion says, He's going to say, who,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: what happened?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Who acted?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And he saw he was moved. He approached and he
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: actually did something about it in that way. And so
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: let me go here for a minute. This is just
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: kind of what we talked about here. To whom is
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Jesus calling me to become a neighbor? You ever have
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: any difficult people in your life? Okay. You know, It's
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: interesting through the years that, especially as.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: A pastor, you have people that are interested in your time. Oh, fine,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: you know. You love everybody.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: And yet you have some people who are a drain
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: on your time. And there are drains on you.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: As a person. And they will suck you all the
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: way to the end. What does God say? Love them.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Love them.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes people have, you know, maybe sometimes people
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: have some social awkwardness or whatever, but nevertheless, if we say, well,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I'm only going to do this and no more.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, granted. See, here's the thing is Satan's crafty.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: You got to have boundaries. Yeah, we do have to
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: have boundaries. I'm not saying no boundaries.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: But Jesus is saying, look in your heart to see
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: which boundaries are superficial and the ones that are selfish
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and the ones that are meant because you simply just
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: don't want to get out of your comfort zone for this.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: And again, every single one of us can look around
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and go, yeah, I need to call this person. Yeah,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want to call that person. God says, yeah,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I understand. But you've made a little circle here. But
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: where are they at?
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Would they appreciate your phone call? Would they appreciate you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: coming by? Would they appreciate your act of kindness to them? Yes.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: What if you were there? Would you appreciate that? You know, Lord,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I know I would. Okay.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Go and do likewise. If you would appreciate it, then
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: go and do it. Again, this does not mean truth
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: no longer matters. It does not mean tolerating abuse, abandoning wisdom,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: or pretending the good and evil are indistinguishable. it means
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I will not use disagreement as an excuse to withhold mercy.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And as we look here, this is kind of the,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: this is the insight for me as I'm reading through this.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And I thought, the common reading, woohoo, I'm the Samaritan.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: That's me.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Come in, saving the day. And Jesus says, no, no, no,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: you're the guy, you're the wounded guy. And you're asking me,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Who am I willing to have be my neighbor to
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: help me in my desperate situation? And we would say, anyone.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: A neighbor is anyone. And if we don't see ourself
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: as the wounded man, we're going to miss the whole
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: point of this parable.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: What do we take away here? Again, I think it's
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: pretty straightforward.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Jesus takes the neighbor we would prefer to exclude or avoid,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: puts us in a position where we desperately need their mercy,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: and then tells us to go show that same mercy
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: to others. To me, again, I've studied the Bible a
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: long time, and I think, man, more and more and more,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I'm amazed at the brilliance of Jesus.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: These little things... that are there. Again, maybe some of
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: you are like, oh, I knew this already.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I didn't know this and I've been saying this
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: a long time, but I'm like, this unlocks, I think,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: what he's after. And obviously it helps me to relate
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit better is that, again, in our pride,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: we want to be, oh, I want to be that guy. No,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Jesus tells us to be like the Samaritan, okay? Those
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: are the right things to do. Those actions are good.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: But in reality, it helps us to say.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Hmm, who's my neighbor? Anybody?
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Everybody?
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: See what Jesus did there? The lawyer?
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: You're trying to put limits. No, you're missing it. And
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: yet you're the one that claims to be a lawyer
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and religious. And you just said you loved God and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: you loved your neighbor.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: With all your heart. Go out and do likewise. Let's pray.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Shall we father in heaven? Again, we thank you for
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the word that we have here. Thank you for this, this, this, again,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: this brilliant story that reveals often what is in our hearts.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: I pray, Father, that you would help us to see
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: that person right now. That we really just, we've been
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: avoiding them. We've been, you know, they get on our nerves.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: But yet, you've been putting them on our heart. And
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: maybe we've, again, tried to put it away or hide
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: it or whatever. But I pray, Lord, that you would
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: help us to, again, to make the action to reach
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: out to that person. Again, like the golden rule, thinking
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: what would we be like on that other side? We
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: would take help from anybody. And so I pray, Lord,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that you would equip us afresh. Fill us with your
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. Because we know, Lord, that many times that
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: it takes you to love.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Them through us. We can't manufacture it. And honestly, Lord,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: we know that that's true.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Help us to love them as you would love them
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: through us and through our willingness to truly go out
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: and as your followers to say that we love you
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: that we truly are loving our neighbor as herself. And
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: that person, that word has no limits.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: And we just thank you, Lord, and pray this in
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Jesus' name. Amen.