“Being Mighty Neighborly”
(Luke 10:25-37)
Series: It’s Your Serve! (3/3)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD and Rev. Rich Stratton
First Baptist Church Henderson, KY
4-29-07 (AM)
Words in Black: Rev. Todd Linn
Words in Red: Rev. Rich Stratton
- Take your Bibles and open to Luke, chapter 10.
We are looking at the third of four messages in our series: “It’s Your Serve!” If you’re visiting with us, we’ve been highlighting the biblical call to serve others in our special four-week emphasis from April 15 to May 6. This past week many of our folks were involved in wonderful, servant-evangelism projects, serving others by volunteering at last Sunday’s jump-rope competition, washing cars for free, bagging groceries for free, and other things, too. We’ve got another video clip to share with you as we celebrate the joy of serving others.
**VIDEO CLIP [90 seconds]
Praise God for First Baptist volunteers serving others for the glory of God. This morning we turn to another passage of Scripture where Jesus teaches about serving others. It’s found in Luke, chapter 10. Rich and I are “Team-Preaching” again. Remember, we’re just doing this for the four Sundays of our special emphasis! Last week we did the “Tag-Team” approach. Today, we return to “Stereo Preaching.”
- Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s word; just the first few verses to get started:
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
27 So he answered and said, ” ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
- Pray.
Introduction:
In the Sunday school Discussion Guide that Rich put together (Rich holds up guide) today’s discussion questions are introduced with a trip down memory lane for many of us. He mentions a television program that many of us grew up: “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.” In my mind I can still see Mr. Rogers coming home from work and putting on his sweater singing the words, “Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?” Won’t you please? Won’t you please? Please won’t you be my neighbor?”
The call to being neighborly is as old as the Bible. The Apostle Paul says all of the Old Testament law can be summed up in this way. He says in Galatians 5:14, “all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
We all know what it means to be on the receiving end of neighborly kindness. When someone in our community blesses us by serving us in some way, we often respond, “Hey, that’s mighty neighborly of you!” Well, in this passage of Scripture, Jesus really “raises the bar” on what it means to be, “Mighty Neighborly” to those around us. Let’s take a closer look at this passage as we learn some actions required in being “Mighty Neighborly.” First:
I. We Must Love our Neighbor [25-28]
The passage begins in verse 25 with a lawyer asking a question of Jesus. Now this lawyer is not a lawyer in the sense we think of today. He was not a secular lawyer, but an expert in Jewish law, in the rules and regulations of the Old Testament. I was planning on doing a few lawyer jokes this morning, but my lawyer is with us in worship today so I decided against it!
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus and the others are sitting down and here is this man boldly standing up to “test” Jesus. He already knows the answer to the question he asks. That’s indicated by Jesus’ reply to him:
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
27 So he answered and said, ” ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
The Jewish lawyer quotes from two Old Testament passages, first from what is called the Shema in Deuteronomy, chapter six. In Deuteronomy 6:5, God says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” The Shema was recited by every Jew once in the morning and again in the evening. Everyone knew it. Then the lawyer also quotes from Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Just as a coin has two sides so does biblical love have two sides: on one side is love for God and on the other side is love for others. You also see these two aspects of love in the way God framed the 10 Commandments. The first part of the 10 Commandments, commandments number 1-4 deal with love for God. The second part of the 10 Commandments, commandments number 5-10 deal with love for others.
So the Bible teaches that love for neighbor goes hand-in-hand with love for God. The two cannot be separated. This is similar to what John has in mind in 1 John 4:20, where he writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.’” Love for God is part and parcel of love for others. It is really just one love with two main aspects, like one coin with two sides.
Therefore, both our service to others and to God is driven by our love. We should find ourselves willing to do things out of our love that we would never do for any amount of money. I am reminded of a missionary in Africa who was asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was one that could only be given in the spirit of someone who truly loves his neighbor. He said, “Do I like this work? No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse. But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We love these people and we love Christ. Love constrains us.”
So before we go any further, let me ask you to seriously consider whether you really love your neighbor. Now, we’re going to see in a moment that Jesus defines our neighbor very broadly so as to include anyone and everyone. But right now, let me just ask you to consider whether you really love other people. It’s easy to talk about our love for God, but we may feel challenged loving others. How good are you at loving the guy who pulls his car out in front of you on Highway 41? How good are you at loving the waiter who really messed up your order at the restaurant? How good are you at loving the kid at school who mocks you? Or the family member who hurt you and the church member who offended you? Truth is, if I don’t love others as I should, you have every right to question my love for God. And if you don’t love others as you should, I have every right to question your love for God. We must love our neighbor.
Now this love for our neighbor is closely connected to the next action step. If we’re going to love our neighbor, we need to know who our neighbor is so, secondly:
II. We Must Look for our Neighbor [29-35]
Our eyes must be opened to the people around us so that we can see how to show God’s love in practical ways. We must look for our neighbor.
The lawyer in this parable has just asked Jesus a question to which he already knows the answer. He asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says, “What’s your reading of the law?” The lawyer says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “You’ve answered rightly. Do this and you will live.” Jesus is not teaching that we can be saved by our works. We are saved by God’s grace through faith, a faith that manifests itself in true love for God and for others.
Now it appears that this lawyer, this expert in Jewish law, has been a bit embarrassed by Jesus. Here is this bold lawyer standing before everyone, loudly and proudly spouting off Scripture and then Jesus says, “Good answer—now go do it—Do this and you will live.” It’s like Jesus is saying, “You know, you’ve just asked me a question before everyone here and then you answered it yourself! So just go do it.” The man’s left just standing there with everyone looking at him. So, a bit embarrassed by the ball being slammed back to his side of the court, he takes another swing, but this time he shows everyone that he really had a point to his first question:
29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
The way the man asks that question indicates that he wants to know just exactly how much he has to do. How little can I do for others and still be okay? This guy was seeking to insure his eternity with as little sacrifice as possible, by merely adhering to the letter of the law. If there had been cars in those days he would have gotten his insurance at Safe Auto, because he was obviously interested in staying “legal for less.” But we are all like that by nature aren’t we? We have a tendency to look out for ourselves and a penchant for doing as little as possible. It is part of our fallen human nature. So it’s as though the man here in the parable is saying, “Look, Jesus. I don’t want to waste my time loving people who aren’t my neighbor you know, so tell me: just who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor and who is not my neighbor?”
See, in Jesus’ day, the Jews generally regarded only fellow Jews as their neighbors. Because the law merely said to “love your neighbor as yourself,” they chose to define the word “neighbor” very narrowly. That’s what their experts in the law taught. A neighbor was a fellow Jew. So you didn’t have to “be neighborly” to the Gentiles, to non-Jews.
All eyes are on Jesus now to see if this Teacher from Nazareth has the same interpretation of Scripture as the Jewish legal experts. Jesus answers the question with a story. And it’s in this story we see that love for our neighbor leads to looking for our neighbor, intentionally looking for people whom we can serve and bless with the love of God. Look at verse 30:
30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Now that was not unusual in Jesus’ day. People making the downward path from Jerusalem to Jericho were often accosted by thieves who were hiding near the sides of the road. So here is a man who is severely beaten, robbed, stripped of his clothing, and left naked and half dead. Now look at verse 31:
31 “Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Here was a priest, a big-time clergyman. He’s making his way down the road and the Bible says when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. The sense is that he quickly hurried over to the other side so as to avoid the man. He was very concerned about staying pure and clean. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees taught that even if one’s shadow came in contact with a dead corpse, then it would defile the person himself, so this priest isn’t going to take any chances. He’s not looking for his neighbor. He’s looking out for himself. He doesn’t love this man as he loves himself. He loves himself much more. Look at the next guy who comes by:
32 “Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.
The Levite is a pretty big clergyperson, too, not quite as high as the priest on the spiritual ladder, but probably the next rung down. He seems to get a little closer to the beaten-up man. He “came and looked,” but he too quickly hurries over to the other side.
Both these guys, the priest and the Levite, are not looking for their neighbor as Christ teaches. They are looking out only for themselves. So they don’t “love their neighbor as themselves,” they just love themselves. They look, but then they avoid. They don’t want to get involved.
When I was small I remember my childhood friends and I acting-out scenes from “The Three Stooges.” A favorite scene was where something bad happens to Shemp and he worriedly says to Moe, “Hey, Moe, Hey Moe, I can’t see, I can’t see!” Moe says, “Why not?” Then Shemp says, “’Cause I’ve got my eyes closed!” (We were easily amused). But that’s how the priest and the Levite are acting. They come up to the man and they “can’t see” because “they’ve got their eyes closed.” They’re not looking for their neighbor; they’re looking out only for themselves.
They don’t want to interrupt their busy schedule, they don’t want to get their hands dirty, they selfishly don’t want to share any of their own resources. They don’t want to be burdened by someone else’s misfortune and in spite of both of these men reciting the Shema in the morning, talking to God about their love for Him, they walk right past this poor man and will go home and recite the Shema again just before going to sleep.
Now this is the point in the story where the plot thickens. The crowd has heard Jesus talk about a priest and a Levite passing by, a big-time clergyman and then another pretty big clergyman. They both avoided the man who was left half-dead. Maybe the crowd is thinking that Jesus will say, “And then just a regular Jewish guy like you and I came by who did the right thing,” but it must have gotten awfully quiet when Jesus said in verse 33:
“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.”
A Samaritan! Jews and Samaritans absolutely hated one another. We don’t have time to talk about the origin of the hatred, but you read your Bible and you see this hatred time and again. You may remember reading in John 8:48 where the Jews insulted Jesus by calling him a Samaritan. They said, “You are a Samaritan and you have a demon!” Or John 4:9 where the woman at the well says to Jesus, “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” And other sources teach us that the Jews cursed the Samaritans publicly in the synagogues and even prayed that they would not have eternal life. That’s pretty big-time hatred!
So imagine the shock when Jesus uses the Samaritan as a good example. But here’s his point: the first two “real spiritual people” were looking out only for themselves. This Samaritan, the “real bad person” loves more than himself. He loves others as he loves himself. So when he comes by and sees the man who was beaten and left half dead, he doesn’t pass by to the other side, he gets involved. Jesus wants us to look around with our eyes opened, seeing our neighbor and getting involved. When we do this we’ll find there are a couple of things involved with looking for our neighbor. First, looking for our neighbor involves compassion.
(1) It involves Compassion (33-34)
33 “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion.
34 “So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Being mighty neighborly means we love our neighbor and we look for our neighbor, intentionally looking out for our neighbor with our eyes open, seeing if there’s any way we can share the love of God in a practical way. When we do this we find God’s compassion welling up within us. It is as A. W. Tozer said, “No one can long worship God in spirit and in truth before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist.” Good quote! Say that again. “No one can long worship God in spirit and in truth before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist.” When we really love God we can’t resist the “urge to serve.” We become like the Samaritan. He saw the man and “came where he was.” He had compassion and then went into action. He didn’t just shake his head and walk away praying a prayer. He got involved. Looking for our neighbor involves compassion. But not only does it involve compassion,
(2) It involves a Cost (35)
35 “On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’
There is nearly always a cost involved in being mighty neighborly and if we love our neighbor as ourselves we won’t mind paying the cost. Here’s a Samaritan who has already given of his time, of his bandages, and of his oil and of his wine to treat the man’s wounds. He has placed the man on his own donkey, and he checks him into a Five-Star hotel—alright we don’t know if it was a five-star hotel—but the point is that he is paying the cost of being mighty neighborly. The next day when he gets ready to leave he gives the owner of the hotel a couple of denarii for future expenses.
One denarius equaled a day’s wages. So he gives the innkeeper two denarii, the equivalent of two days wages; enough money to cover the man’s meal ticket for nearly a month. That’s a lot of money. Furthermore, he says, “and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.” In other words, “Just keep a tab of whatever further expenses you incur and I’ll settle-up with you later.” I don’t know about you, but the word “love” comes to my mind.
You think about some of the servant-evangelism projects our church has been doing in recent weeks and you see how the words “compassion” and “cost” factor-in. It takes a compassionate church member to share God’s love with others in practical ways, intentionally looking for others, thinking about ways to bless others by compassionately serving them. But there’s a cost involved, too; not just giving of our time, but giving of our money. That’s why monies are budgeted for our servant-evangelism projects, because it costs money to do these things. We must resist our nature to too quickly criticize the giving away of free things. We must remember that service that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. Another good quote! Say that again, too. We must remember that service that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. We don’t won’t to become as Judas in John 12:1-6 who criticized the free giving away of something because he was really more concerned about himself.
We must love our neighbor. We must look for our neighbor. So, thirdly:
III. We Must Live for our Neighbor [36-37]
36 “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
“Go and do likewise.” The verb tense there connotes the idea of an habitual lifestyle. The sense is, “Make it a habit of doing as this Samaritan. Make a habit of being mighty neighborly wherever you go. Live for your neighbor.”
It’s really interesting to me that Jesus never actually answers the lawyer’s question the way the lawyer expected. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” and his concern is, “Identify precisely who is my neighbor.” Instead, Jesus tells a story so that the man himself has to identify his neighbor with the Samaritan.
In fact, Jesus asks, “Which of the three was neighbor?” Rather than explicitly saying “who is” our neighbor, Jesus asks, who “was neighbor.” He seems far less concerned with our knowing our neighbor than He is with our being a neighbor. It’s as if he’s saying, “Don’t get all caught up with trying to identify your neighbor. Just be one.” Be mighty neighborly to everyone. After all Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:40 that when we are neighborly to those around us we are actually being neighborly to Him as well, “in as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me.” So make “being mighty neighborly” a habit. Make it a lifestyle. Live for your neighbor.
Conclusion:
We must love our neighbor, look for our neighbor, and live for our neighbor. While our neighbor can be found anywhere, the folks living near our homes, in our “neighborhood,” are often the easiest to reach and bless by serving. Most of you received a letter in the mail this past week challenging you to be mighty neighborly to someone in your immediate neighborhood. In case you didn’t receive that letter, it simply challenges you to look for someone to serve and then serve them. Take an hour or two of your time to cut their grass, pull weeds, or bless them by having them over and serve them a meal. That’s the ultimate application of our message this week. Before next Sunday, intentionally reach out to someone and bless them by serving them. Love your neighbor, look for your neighbor, and live for your neighbor.
- Stand for prayer.
Being neighborly does not earn you a home in heaven. Being neighborly is merely the natural expression of a changed heart, of a Christian who loves God entirely. If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, you will be neighborly this week only by His grace.
Some of you are here this morning and you’ve never been saved. Because of sin we’re spiritually a bit like the man left half-dead on the side of the road. We can do nothing to improve our condition. We need some outside help, someone who will come to where we are and have compassion on us, to love us, take care of us, forgive us, and save us. In His compassion, Jesus comes to us. And it cost Him. He gave His life that you might live. He paid the price for your sins and failures when He died for you. He comes to you but you must receive His help. The Bible says in John 1:12, “As many as received Him, to them God gave the right to become children of God.” Jesus loves you. Receive Him this morning as your Lord and Savior.
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