07.10.2022 - Mission in Real Life

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Mission in Real Life

📷

Tools

We measure the mission of God by the tools in our hands.

The famous psychologist Abraham Maslow taught that “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” We go with what we know, because, when we start, that is all we have. What tools do you usually find in your hands? Do you carry a hammer often? Maybe it is your phone? It might even be a pen and paper.

Whatever it is, those tools we use are typically the first place we look to find ways to serve. If our tool is a rowboat, we know we can rescue people out along the shore, but we won’t even think about going after drowning sailors out in the open ocean.

If we go with our worldly mantras to “follow our hearts” and “do what we love” we will take the vast possibilities and opportunities to participate in the mission Jesus gives us and whittle it down to a handful of things that we feel confident and competent in doing. We will build little boxes around ourselves to hold shrines to God and hope people will come and visit so we can demonstrate those few tools in our hands. However, our mission comes from Jesus and it does not change based on the tools or abilities we have.

Instead, our mission is motivated by mercy.

📷

Mercy is our Mission

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

That's a strange question that the lawyer asked Jesus. We can inherit money and property. We can inherit physical characteristics and talents from our family. But life is a gift, and eternal life is out of our reach. What we have inherited is sin and death.

Yet the Old Testament teaches us that there is a way that leads to life and a way that leads to death, as if life cannot be bought but perhaps can be found. The lawyer recited the summation of the law as he knew it and Jesus congratulated him on knowing the truth. But the lawyer wasn't after the truth. He wanted to be justified. As Jesus pointed out, it is not just knowing the truth, it is obeying the truth that makes the difference. The lawyer wanted Jesus to tell him he had done enough and could expect a big reward.

“Who is my neighbor that I am supposed to love?”

So Jesus told them a story. An injured, dying man lay on one side of the road. A priest comes along, as well as a Levite, or leader from the temple. Both would be considered holy men and professional leaders in the community whose jobs centered on leading worship and teaching the community what is right and what is wrong. Both saw the dying man and chose to walk on the other side of the road.

Why? The people listening to Jesus knew that these were holy men who would be made ritually unclean if they touched a dead body or got blood on them. They were not doctors or paramedics. It was not their job. Literally, anyone else would have been more appropriate to do that job. Even a foreigner. Yes, the hero of this story is the foreign man who spoke with an accent, worshipped in the wrong place and in the wrong way (meaning he didn’t follow scripture, he followed man-made laws about worship), and whose people were constantly fighting with the Jews who had inherited the pure religion of God and not polluted it with the customs of pagans. He didn't have to worry about becoming ritually unclean because he was never allowed in the temple. His own blood made him permanently unclean. He had nothing to lose.

The Samaritan man picked up the dying Jew and carried him to shelter, bandaged his wounds, and provided for his care until he returned. Jesus turned the question back to the lawyer.

“Who was the one who acted as a neighbor here?”

(The lawyer couldn't bring himself to say it was a Samaritan.)

“It was the one who showed mercy.”

📷

Your Mercy and Your Life

Do you think, if the roles had been reversed, a Jew would have helped an injured Samaritan? The disciples were ready to pray for fire from the sky to consume the Samaritans when they got near Samaria. Many of the people back then would have looked at the person and said “good riddance, they probably had it coming.” Most would find themselves, like the priest and Levite, crossing over on the other side of the road, minding their own business.

This is a familiar passage with a familiar lesson for many of you. So let’s look at this in a slightly different light today. What is this passage about? Loving our neighbor? In part, but that is only the focus of the last half of the story. No, this passage is how Jesus answers the question, “How can we inherit eternal life?” But we know the answer to that question. We pray a prayer, make a promise, get baptized, join a church, and on, and on. Except, that was not the answer Jesus gave. He answered the question with a question.

“What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

Love God and love your neighbor.

And, here comes the answer to the question of eternal life: “Do this, and you will live.”

That’s it? Love God and love my neighbor and I’ll have eternal life? What about everything else? What about making sacrifices and going through rituals? What about making some kind of public statement to let people know I’m one of the good guys? And besides all that, what counts as loving my neighbor anyway? Staying out of their way? (They say good fences make good neighbors.) Taking them a plate of cookies when they move in? Remember to wave when you see them outside? No, the lawyer was not satisfied with the answer Jesus gave him, so he dug himself deeper, wanting more than the summary of the law. Question number 2: “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answered that question with a story that ended with a question. In fact, it ended with the same question the lawyer asked. “Who was the neighbor?” So the lawyer answered his own question again. “The one who showed mercy.” Perfect! “Go, and do likewise,” Jesus answered.

So mercy is not only the purpose and focus of our mission in serving God, Jesus shows that it is directly connected to our eternal life. Love God, and love your neighbor by showing mercy whenever you get the opportunity. Do this and you will live.

📷

Shaped Together

God does not expect us to grow from spiritual newborns to adults on our own. Like the loving parent He is, He gives us gifts to help us grow to be more like Him. They help us love and show mercy the way He loves and shows mercy. We always have our relationship with Jesus as our first and best example when we are trying to figure out the best way to love and show mercy to those around us.

God also put us into spiritual families to help us grow and serve together. You are not here by accident. In fact, some of the gifts God has given you cannot work to their full potential on their own. One person can work a rowboat, but it takes an entire crew of people to work an ocean liner or aircraft carrier. The bigger the mission opportunity, the more we need our gifts to work together in harmony. You may feel like your gift is like a piano, which sounds well enough on its own... but let me tell you, you’ve never heard a piano truly played until you’ve heard Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with the whole orchestra and Jazz band alongside it. Those other instruments bring out aspects of the instrument it could never do on its own.

To help us find our place in God’s mission, I’m asking you to take something called the SHAPE test. The word shape helps describe how we fit together like puzzle pieces, and it is also an acronym that stands for Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. In short, it is an attempt at trying to get a holistic view of who God created you to be by looking at where you are today in your relationship and service with God. There is a free version that you can take online, mentioned in the announcements and in your bulletin.

We want you to take this and send us your results so you can sit down with some of our leaders and some of your fellow church members and discern where God has designed you to serve. If you take this test honestly and especially if you allow yourself to think of ways you serve God both inside and outside the church, there is no way for you to fail this test. In fact, it may open up some new doors of growth and opportunity for you just by sharing it with others.

Some of you took the test at the beginning of the year, and if you sent it to us, we still have it. However, your experiences change with time and so will some of the results of your test. Taking it about once a year helps you discern the tools God has given you to serve, and sharing it with us helps us to align you with those whose gifts complement and enhance your own. It allows us to grow spiritually so that we can more faithfully extend the hand of Christ, the hand of mercy to those who need Him rather than being stuck making excuses about why we are too small or too limited to love our neighbors that way.

Each one of us could care for one neighbor, with God’s help. But if we use the gifts that God gives us, in the way that He calls us to serve together, we could reach an entire neighborhood, then the city, and as far as God desires to lead us from there. Our lives will open up to new experiences of God working in and through us, we will begin to experience the powerful truth that Jesus taught:

All of us working together with God, in His mission of mercy, is how we experience eternal life.

Related Media

Related Sermons