Won't You Be The Neighbor?

Brandt Lyon

Long Story Short • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Luke 10:25–37

Good Samaritan

Brotherly Love

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Introduction

Scarlett Hope - Rachelle Starr

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sharing-dinner-and-jesus-with-strippers/

Scarlet Hope has helped 600 women transition into new careers, and hundreds have accepted Christ. More than 300 volunteers and 21 staff now minister to between 300 and 400 sex workers, and Starr has started a conference to help others do the same in other cities.

Love the Neighbor

LOVE IS INTENTIONAL

Love doesn’t need justification - The man questioning Jesus is looking for justification out of loving neighbor. He wants to to know which neighbors he has to love in order to be justified

1. Often times we do the same thing because there are so many that we find it hard to love

2. We often want to compare ourselves to the love that others have shown us

3. Often we feel like we love more people than most do, therefore, we are justified in having loved enough

4. But, if the standard is Jesus, who hung on the cross for all who would place their faith in Him, none of us measure up to that

5. The only way to love like Jesus and show love to all people is to find our justification in him

6. We will never be justified by our love because it doesn’t match Jesus’

7. But, He places his love within us so we can love like He does

8. Active love doesn’t look for justification; it looks to reach out to others like Jesus does for us

Love sees no distinctions -

The Priest and the Levite are country men - They are also supposedly men of God, yet they did not care enough to help

You would think that this man would be able to call upon the equivalent of a pastor, but instead they pass to the other side of the street with no concern for the man

Too busy?

Do not want to be made unclean?

Do not care?

The Samaritan

Hated by the Jews

Thought of as half-breed people Israel/idolatrous Gentiles

Unclean people

Yet, this Samaritan stops to help because He chooses to love - There is no other reason for him to do so

The Samaritan isn’t worried about whether he is made unclean - The others are. When we are too religious, we won’t help those in sin, but the heart captivated by Christ knows that is what loving the neighbor is all about.

Serve the Neighbor

Would you characterize it as love when in your darkest hour someone passed by and decided to help?

What is really in the heart of most men is exactly what was done by the Levite and the Priest – to walk on by

These were the men who should have helped – they were Jews, they were religious men.

But, it would have taken time to help, it would have taken effort, and it would have taken resources

It was easier to pass on by, after all, who would notice

A man’s true character is best seen when no one is looking

The road that the man was on was obviously a treacherous one – it is a twelve-mile stretch out of Jerusalem that was known for being a place where people were often beaten and robbed

The man is putting himself at risk for the sake of the hurt man

The man decided to put his own priorities aside to help the man in need

Loving the neighbor will cost you something

1. Two people who should have cared did not want to invest themselves in the one in need

2. The Samaritan was the one whom no one would have expected to care

3. The Samaritan has nothing to gain from helping

4. Yet he invests himself in the man in need

a) He had compassion

b) He stopped

c) He bound up his wounds

d) He poured oil and wine - medicine

e) Set him on his animal

f) He brought him to an inn and made provisions for him

g) He paid for him

h) He checked on him later

5. Loving someone will always cost you something – there is no love without a cost

6. The problem with most today is they love those from whom they receive something

7. Jesus loved those who had nothing to give

a) The woman at the well

b) The adulterous woman

c) Even the rich young ruler – He had nothing to give to Jesus that Jesus needed, yet Jesus extended salvation to him

Application

There is an old saying that love is a verb

If we want to live in a world of love, it begins with our own actions

If we want to serve our neighbor we have to begin to serve

Be the Neighbor

A. Exegesis

1. The lawyer wants to know what to "do" to inherit eternal life. The emphasis is on doing. Jesus shows him that it is being that matters

The neighbor doesn’t care who his neighbor is. He is just being the neighbor

2. We are very quick to think of our own self-worth but not the neighbor

a) IF you found out that you were very sick today and could die, what price is too high to save your own life?

b) What if you found out your neighbor was terminally ill? What would be too high a cost for them?

c) The Samaritan takes care of the man as though it were himself – He doesn’t hold back

d) Jesus is saying that as a neighbor this is the way we are to serve others

3. Jesus ultimately asks the Jewish Lawyer which proved to be the neighbor

a) The Man cannot bring himself to saying “the Samaritan” because the thought of saying they were good was more than he could take

b) It certainly was not the Priest and the Levite

4. And then Jesus says that he should go and do likewise – Jesus asks him to be like the Samaritan

5. This Samaritan man has acted with selflessness and helped one who was in need, but also one who there was no reason to help

6. The Samaritan wasn’t looking for a neighbor, but being one

B. Application

1. If you want to be the neighbor, serve others

2. We have to stop looking for opportunities to be served and find opportunities to serve others

3. Serving others is an intentional act that will never happen until we choose to be the neighbor

Conclusion

We're All One Step from Being 'Those People'

Sociologist Brene Brown's TED talk "The Power of Vulnerability" has garnered over 10 million hits (as of August 2013). For good reason: we are hungry for the freedom to admit our vulnerability. Brown pushes us to embrace our own brokenness, with the reality that we are not alone in it, that we are—or easily could be—just one step away from the broken people all around us. Brown says:

We are "those people." The truth is … we are the "others." Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug- addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being "those people"—the ones we don't trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don't let our children play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don't want living next door.