The Good Samaritan
Notes
Transcript
Luke 10:25-37
Introduction:
Introduction:
Introduce Myself:
Name.
I was a student at Hampton all my life. Do we have any Hampton Talbots in the room?
I have gone to APC since I was in Kindergarten.
I went through Crosstown, which is what it was called before Kids Zone.
I also sat in your seats not too long ago. It was called 220 back then, and I always remember thinking that the speakers were pretty lame old people, but I guess that’s me now since I’m up here talking to you.
I went to Impact and WKND as a student, and my life was definitely changed during those retreats. I just want to make a public announcement now that while I was a student during Impact and WKND I was definitely, 100% not a part of any pranks, and I never did anything wrong while I was a student. I definitely did not help come up with the idea to raid the Middle Schoolers four years ago during Impact, and I certainly would never have helped plan it.
I am also the Young Adult Intern for APC’s Young Adult ministry this summer.
But in a couple weeks, I will be going back to school at Grove City College. I am majoring in Biblical and Religious Studies, which is basically just a fancy way of saying that I study the Bible.
I am so glad that I get to spend some time with you, and I am very excited for what we get to talk about this morning.
Since we have been in this parable series, you are probably familiar with what a parable is by now. In case you don’t know or forgot, a parable is an illustration or story used by Jesus to illustrate truths about the Kingdom of God. These are not things that actually happened, but it is a way that Jesus communicated in order to make complicated ideas simple.
These things that Jesus taught were not just for the people he was teaching back then, but they all apply to us today! There are many things that we can learn from these parables such as changing the way we think about others, how we live, and changing our understanding of who God is.
The parable we are going to talk about today is one of Jesus’ most famous parables. It is one that even people who are not Christians are familiar with.
Transition:
Transition:
It is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Even though many people may know the story of the Good Samaritan, a lot of those people don’t know the context of Jesus teaching this parable.
In Luke chapter ten, an expert in the law began to test Jesus. He wanted to ask Jesus a question, not so that he could learn, but so that he could challenge Jesus and make him prove himself.
“Teacher,” the expert in the law asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus responded with two questions, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
Since the man challenging Jesus was an expert in the law, the answer to what the law says would have been very obvious.
This would be like me challenging Tom Brady on how to throw a football, or challenging Taylor Swift on how to sing. Obviously they would know the answer, but Jesus asked the expert in the law anyway.
In response to Jesus, the expert in the law says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The expert answered Jesus’ question correctly! But this wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to challenge Jesus even more. And so he asked, “And who is my neighbor?”
The expert knew that his neighbor meant more than just the person that lives next door to him. But what he didn’t know was that Jesus was about to teach him a very difficult lesson. To this question, Jesus teaches the parable of the Good Samaritan.
This is found in Luke 10:30-35.
Here’s what it says:
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.”
We’re going to take a quick pause here, because it’s important to know that the Priest and Levite that passed by this guy on the road were the religious leaders during that day. These were the guys that worked in the temple, they were the pastors and spiritual leaders of the Jewish people, and both of them decided to ignore the man on the road that was almost dead! They not only ignored him, but they went all the way to the other side of the road to make sure that they could avoid him. That sounds pretty messed up to me. Now we can keep reading:
“But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’”
Ok so there was this guy who got beaten up and almost killed. He was lying on the side of the road, and two of his own people, the Priest and Levite, the religious leaders of that day, walked right around him. But thankfully, the Samaritan was walking by and decided to help the man.
Transition:
Transition:
With this in mind, there are many important things that we can learn from this parable. We are going to go through three main takeaways that apply to us today!
First, we should love everyone, even those who appear to be our enemies.
There is some important history that will really illuminate how awesome this Samaritan guy is. Back in Jesus’ day, there was a large conflict between Jews and Samaritans. This was more than just a “I don’t really like hanging out with these people because they’re kind of annoying” or “They’re culture is kinda weird so I’d rather not deal with these people.” I mean this was an all out hatred for a different group of people.
The Jews and the Samaritans were complete enemies during that day. But the Samaritan stopped and helped someone who needed it, demonstrating an act of love. It didn’t matter that they were a part of two different groups that hated each other. He still helped this guy.
For us today, this could look like a lot of different things. At home, you may be in conflict with your siblings all the time. Or at school, there may be a different group of students that you really don’t like. Or in sports, maybe some of your teammates are always mean to you.
Based upon what the Samaritan did, we are called to help the people that appear to be our enemies. That may look like helping your brother or sister clean up a mess that they made. Or it might be helping that one classmate that you don’t like clean up their books if they dropped them in the hallway. Or if that mean teammate forgot some of their equipment, it might mean you need to lend them your extra stuff for that practice.
Each of these examples are an act of love. It could look like a million different things, but loving our enemies is a lesson that the Samaritan teaches us.
The second one is that when we love these people, we need to do more than just the minimum. The Good Samaritan did so much more than just the bare minimum for the guy in need. He could have just thrown a little bit of money at the guy and kept walking. He could have even just given a shirt or cleaned his wounds a little bit.
But instead, he did so much more! He cleaned his wounds, used his own donkey to transport the man, paid for him to stay at an inn, and gave the innkeeper money to pay for his room. The passage says that the Samaritan gave the innkeeper two denarii, which is estimated to have been able to pay for the man to stay at the inn for two months. That’s a lot of money!
The Samaritan did so much more than the minimum for this guy. He spent a lot of time, money, and energy to make sure that this guy was taken care of.
For us today, this could apply in a lot of different areas. If we see that our parents need help cleaning the kitchen, we could offer to unload the dishwasher, clean the counters, and vacuum the floor. It’s more than just the minimum!
If a teammate gets hurt while playing sports, we could help them up, walk them over to the nurse, and make sure they get taken care of!
It doesn’t matter what the example is, it is just very important to learn from the Samaritan that when someone is in need, we should do more than just the bare minimum to help them.
And this brings us to my last point, and it is definitely the most difficult to do. Sometimes you need to be ok with being inconvenienced.
There’s no doubt that the Samaritan was traveling somewhere. The Samaritan probably was not walking down that road looking for someone in need. Most people don’t do that. He could have been going to work, going to visit family, hang out with a friend, or maybe even going to church. We don’t know where he was going, but he stopped on his journey, went out of his way and helped the man in need. He was inconvenienced by helping this guy! He had to use his oil and wine to clean the wounds, he had to go out of way on his journey to take the man to an inn, and he spent his own hard-earned money to make sure everything was ok.
This is called sacrificial love, because he sacrificed many things to love somebody else. Now I understand that this is difficult to do sometimes. We can get caught up in doing the things that we enjoy, or maybe even the things that we don’t like homework or chores. But just like the Samaritan demonstrated, being inconvenienced is important when helping those in need.
I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes here, but this might look like pressing pause on the video game to help your parents with what they need. You might need to wake up a little bit earlier to help your siblings. If you’re in band or chorus, you may need to stay a little bit later to help someone that is struggling with what they need to play or sing.
Again, whatever that looks like for you, accepting an inconvenience is necessary and important when helping those around you.
I’ll be honest with you all, I struggle to do this one. While I was writing this sermon about how you need to be inconvenienced sometimes, a situation arose that was a big inconvenience to my time and money. I was going to have to drive a far distance to help my brother, which was going to cost me a lot of time and gas money. I got a bad attitude and became frustrated, literally while I was writing a sermon on how that is the wrong thing to do!
So believe me, I understand that this is difficult and uncomfortable to do sometimes. But this brings me to the main point of my message. Each of these three points flow from the idea that we need to love like Jesus loves us. If you remember one thing, this is what I want you to remember.
Jesus is the perfect example of someone who helped everyone, including his enemies. While he was about to be led to his death, Jesus healed the ear of one of the men who was arresting him. Jesus is someone who did much more than the bare minimum, and he is also someone who accepted being inconvenienced.
Jesus didn’t just declare that our sins are forgiven, he gave up his life on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. In this case, Jesus did the maximum because he willingly was mocked, beaten, and murdered on the cross so that our sins would be wiped away.
And talk about being inconvenienced! It would have been convenient for Jesus to keep living his life, to keep hanging with his disciples, healing the sick, and casting out demons. But he stopped all of that and offered himself up for us! Now that is an act of sacrificial love!
Since Jesus did that for us, we should offer that same type of love to other people! In 1 John 4:9-11 it reads:
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
This is a perfect example of why we should love like Jesus loves us. Since Jesus was sent as a sacrifice for our sins and demonstrated his love for us by doing that, we should share that love to other people!
After Jesus told this parable to the man challenging him, he ended by saying, “Go and do likewise.” Why do you think that is?
When we love others in this way, in the way that Jesus loves us, it allows us to share the love of Jesus to those around us. We can be a light in our schools, in our families, on the sports fields, or wherever else we go throughout the week.
And this is also something that you can pray all the time. When you wake up in the morning, you can ask God, “Lord, please help me to love those around me today like you love me. Even those that are hard to love sometimes, help me to love them like you love them.” That’s something you can pray all the time.
Keep praying for this, and you will get better at it. And whenever you are faced with a choice to help someone, just think to yourself, am I loving this person like Jesus loves me?
When we go to our small groups today, I want all of you to think about situations in the last couple of weeks that you did a good job of loving someone like Jesus loves you, but also think of ways that you did a bad job of that, and maybe some up with some solutions on how you can do that better.
Thank you all, and if you have any questions or thoughts please come find me afterwards!