Luke 10:25-37
Let us hear God’s word together.
This is Luke’s Gospel, chapter 10, beginning at verse 25. And
behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying,
Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him,
What is written in the law? How do you read it? And 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. And Jesus said to
him, You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But
he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, And who is my
neighbor? Jesus replied, A man who is going
down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And he fell among robbers who
stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw
him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when
he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed,
came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.
He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal.
and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next
day he took out two denarii, he gave them to the innkeeper
saying, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I will
repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think
proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers? He
said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him,
you go and do likewise. Let us pray together. Our great
God and heavenly father, we pray that your word and your spirit
would open our eyes, would penetrate our hearts and shape our lives
so that we will make known to the world that we truly do love
God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength by showing
that love as we love our neighbor as ourselves. Hear us as we pray
in Jesus name. Amen. Some of you struggled through
literature class in high school and college, as I probably did
as well. There was a wonderful little
tool that we had in those days. They were called Cliffs Notes.
They were these little yellow books. I have a stack of them
in the attic. They helped me get through high
school and college literature courses. One particular course
which I took some time ago at the end of college was a course
on Shakespeare and performance. I wanted to graduate college
in four years, and so the summer before my senior year of college,
I took this class on Shakespeare and performance. I did this for
two reasons. One, my parents said four years, that’s it. You
know how it is. Many people say college is the
best six years of their lives. Well, not so in my household.
We were given four years. That’s it. Get it done. Knock
it out. The second reason is I wanted to get married after
graduation. And so the next year, anticipating
a wedding, I wanted to be graduated from college. And so I took this
course in Shakespeare and performance. I was not interested in Shakespeare
or performing Shakespeare, but I was very interested in graduating
and moving on in marriage. And so I took this course with
five or six other people, and they were interested in both
Shakespeare and in the performance of Shakespeare. In order to survive
the class, I bought a stack of these CliffsNotes. They helped
me get through Romeo and Juliet. They helped me through King Lear.
They helped me understand. You read these books, they give
wonderful summaries, wonderful summaries of the plot, wonderful
summaries of the cast of characters, wonderful summaries of themes
and interesting points of fact that we should look out for as
we make our way through the story. And so after reading the Cliffs
Notes, you could sit down and read the whole play and you could
understand what Shakespeare was doing. These summaries helped
me greatly. In a sense today, When we see
the summary of the law as given by this teacher of the law when
questioned by Jesus, we have a eclipse notes on the whole
of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. You’ve
read Genesis with great interest. You’ve read Exodus with great
interest, the story of God’s people and bringing them up into
Egypt and out of Egypt and into the wilderness. I’m sure you’ve
not read Leviticus and all of its tedious laws with great interest.
and Numbers and Deuteronomy, lots and lots of laws. But if
you have read them, you understand what this man is saying when
Jesus says to him, what does the law say? How do you read
it? And the man summarizes the law
in this way, love God and love neighbor. That’s an oversimplification
of all that God requires of his people, but it’s what this man
states and Jesus says, you have answered correctly. I want us
to take a look at this passage from three perspectives today. Some of you will remember that
we made our way through the story of the Good Samaritan about four
years ago. Our topic for that particular
Sunday in a series on the church, we were looking at worship, discipleship,
community, mercy, and stewardship as five key themes to life in
the church. And we considered this passage
under the subject, under the heading of mercy, And so there
is a treatment of this passage in the archives of our sermons
from about four years ago, maybe August 2015. So today I want
us to look at this passage from a different perspective, maybe
from a perspective you haven’t considered before. Maybe less
emphasis on the story and more emphasis on the great themes
of this passage. And so the first theme, the first
thing we want to think about in this passage is ultimate questions. This teacher of the law questions
Jesus. He asked an ultimate question.
Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? We know what ultimate
questions are. What shall I do to inherit eternal
life? What happens to a person at death? What is the meaning
of life? How did this world which we see
all around us, how did it come into existence? These are ultimate
questions. Some of you have different ultimate
questions. Will school ever get out for
summer? Will I have enough money? Will
I have enough funds in my retirement account to live the rest of my
life? Some of you have ultimate questions.
Will the preacher ever end this sermon? But you see, ultimate
questions are really ultimate. They are the nitty gritty of
life. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? This is the ultimate of ultimate
questions, wouldn’t you say? It questions where you will spend
eternity and how you will achieve that eternal state. And most
people answer the question this way, if I’m a good person, I’ll
spend eternity in heaven, for all good people go to heaven.”
For sure that’s what this lawyer was thinking. He was thinking,
if I’ve kept enough of the Old Testament law, if I’ve loved
God as best I can, and if I love my neighbor as best I can, I’ll
certainly go to heaven. Now, of course, a teacher of
the law would have had limits. He would love God on his terms.
He would love neighbors on his terms, not God’s. And Jesus here
is exposing his heart in this exchange about ultimate questions. How does the world around us
answer ultimate questions? Well, there has been a study
in recent years, maybe back as far as 2004, 2005, 2006, a study
done mainly by secular scholars from a local university studied religion in America. And this study of religion in
America covers, yes, Christianity, yes, evangelical Christianity
in America. It covers Protestantism, it covers
Roman Catholicism, but it really touches on what many in America
believe across various religious spectrums. And this study determined
that religion in America boils down to this, moralistic, therapeutic
deism. What does moralistic, therapeutic
deism mean? Well, it simply means this, be
good, feel good, and God is there if you need him. Be good, that’s
how you get to heaven. Feel good, because God, after
all, wants you to be happy. And the key to life, success
in life, is equivalent to happiness. And God is there. He’s not sovereign.
He’s not in control. But if you pull up the red phone,
if you make the emergency call, God is there to straighten out
the significant messes in your life that you can’t seem to figure
out on your own. Moralistic therapeutic deism. It’s what’s preached across this
land in many pulpits, in many churches, and it’s a syncretism
of many religions from around the world, and it has landed
in the lives of many in America. You probably have believed, you
probably have heard, you probably have been affected by yourself
or someone you know and love by moralistic, therapeutic deism. And so, teacher, this ultimate
question the lawyer asked, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life, was not asked for how can this man be happy forever in
the presence of Almighty God, He was trying to trick Jesus. And we, dear friends, have been
tricked by this moralistic, therapeutic deism that we find in our culture
and in our society. And most of the world around
us, some of us even, would say to this ultimate question, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life, is be good enough. Let
your good outweigh the bad in your life, and you will end up
with eternal life forever in God’s heaven. This is an ultimate
question. What must I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus leads this teacher.
He leads us today to the ultimate answer. Jesus asked the teacher,
what is written in the law? How do you read it? Verse 26. The man summarizes the law of
God, the first five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy by simply saying this, Man’s duty is to
love God and love neighbor. Man’s duty is to love God with
heart, mind, soul, and strength. From Deuteronomy chapter six.
And he’s to love his neighbor as he would love his own self. That from Leviticus chapter 19.
Love God, love neighbor. There you have it, the CliffsNotes
summary answer to the law of Almighty God. And Jesus commends
him for his answer. It’s a right answer, but Jesus
is going to probe the man’s heart. He’s gonna probe our hearts and
see if we truly do love God by how we truly or not so truly
love our neighbors. The summary of the five books
of Moses, the summary of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy, teaches us, it teaches us as Jesus points this man to
the scriptures, he points us to the scriptures, that apart
from the scriptures, we find no ultimate answers to our ultimate
questions. We must go to the scriptures.
We must go to the Bible. All scripture is breathed out
by God and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting so
that the man of righteousness may be fully equipped, fully
furnished to live in a way that’s pleasing to almighty God. We
can’t love God. We can’t love neighbor unless
we do it according to the standards of the scriptures. And so Jesus
is teaching us that there are ultimate questions in the world,
yes, but there’s only one source, one answer, one place to find
answers, and that is the Holy Scriptures. And what answer do
we find in the Holy Scriptures? How can we inherit eternal life? Can we keep God’s law perfectly?
Absolutely not. Can we obey God’s law perfectly
and get eternal life? No, we cannot. Why? Because we’re
born with original sin. We’re born with Adam’s corruption.
And from that original sin proceed actual sins. And so God, from
our conception, is angry at us because we are sinners. We are born in sin and we continue
to sin. And thanks be to God, Jesus is
the second Adam, the greater son, and he comes and obeys God
perfectly. He goes to the cross, and as
a prophet, as a priest, and as a king, he does all that is necessary
that Adam failed to do, that we have failed to do, in order
to bring about righteousness. And so by faith, we trust in
Jesus. And when we are justified, God
sees us as if we’ve never sinned. He sees us as if we have always
obeyed. And the only way to inherit eternal
life is to put our faith, our trust, our hope in the one who
loved God with all his heart, all his mind, all his soul, all
his strength. He loved God perfectly. He loved
his will. He loved his plan of salvation.
He loved the way of righteousness. He meditated on it day and night.
He lived a perfect obedient life before God, and he went to the
cross. He loved his neighbor so much
so that he stretched out his arms on the cross and he gave
up his life. as a ransom for us who are lawbreakers,
who hate God and hate our neighbor. We love ourselves and we love
our own self-interest. And so this teacher asked an
ultimate question. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? Jesus points him to the ultimate
answer. What is written in the law? How do you read it? What
is in the scriptures? What does the Bible say? And
so Jesus leads us in this passage from an ultimate question to
an ultimate answer, finally to an ultimatum. He tells this lawyer
a story. He tells him a story about a
man who was on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. He falls into the
hands of thieves. He’s beat up, he’s robbed, he’s
left for dead, stripped naked. A priest walks by and does not
help. A Levite walks by and does not
help. But a Samaritan, a hated man,
an ethnically charged character in this story, one whom the Jews
would have hated and they would not have expected to be the hero
in this story, he stops and helps this person. He’s been beat up. He’s been passed by by the religious
leaders. They’re too busy. They don’t
want to become ceremonially unclean. They’re on their way home. They
don’t want to be late for supper. The wife’s fussing about the
dry cleaning bill, and they certainly don’t want to come home with
a bloody tunic. And so they pass by, but this Samaritan, he stops. He gives the man everything he
needs. And Jesus says to the teacher, the neighbor in this story. Who
showed mercy? And Jesus says, or the man says,
it’s the one who stopped and cared. It’s the one who gave
care. It’s the one who sacrificed. It’s the one who stopped to help.
And Jesus issues an ultimatum. You go and do likewise. Love God, yes, but love neighbor. even when it hurts, even when
it’s costly, even when it’s messy, even when it’s unplanned. We
love God with our minds, do we not? We love to have right theology. We love our catechisms. We love
our creeds. We love our systematic theology.
We love our scriptures. We love to talk about theology
round and round. We feel like we’re better than
others. Other people are wrong. People
who serve others with their hands. Oh, they are social gospel people. But is it in your heart to serve
others? Does this story not expose what’s
in your heart and what’s in mine? The story shows the attitude
of the world. It exposes our attitudes. What’s yours is mine. That’s the theology of the thieves.
What’s yours is mine and I’ll take it. Here’s the theology
of the priest and the Levite. What’s mine is mine, and I’ll
keep it. What’s mine is mine, and you’ll
never have it. But the attitude of the Levite,
or of the Samaritan, rather, the attitude of the Samaritan
is this. What God has given me in Christ is for all who are
in need. I love God. put my faith in Jesus
and out of gratitude to Christ for being that great Samaritan,
that perfect Samaritan who loved me when I was injured, when I
was down, when I was beaten and dead in my sins and trespasses,
causes me to show love of God tangibly as I love my neighbor. There’s an ultimatum. You go
and do likewise. But if you’re a law keeper, if
you’re a servant, if you’re a slave, You’ll do and do and do, and
you’ll try to be good. You’ll try to inherit eternal
life, but it cannot be done. But if you receive Jesus as he
is freely offered in the gospel, if you receive his forgiveness,
if you receive his grace, if you receive his mercy, if you
receive his love, and forgiveness, out of gratitude for God’s salvation
in Christ, out of a changed heart, out of a changed life as a new
creation in Jesus, you’ll say no longer what’s yours is mine
and I’ll take it. You’ll say no longer what’s mine
is mine and I’ll keep it. But you’ll say what God has given
me in Christ is for all who need it. And yes, you’ll love God.
Yes, you’ll have a rich theological mind. but you’ll also love neighbor,
even at a great cost, even if it’s messy, even if it’s time
consuming, even if it’s unplanned. Teacher, what shall I do? This
man asked. When Jesus says what, which man
in the story proved to be a neighbor? The one who showed mercy. And
Jesus says to him, you go and do likewise. Let us pray together. Almighty and everlasting God,
we give you thanks this day that you teach us by your word and
through your Holy Spirit how we are to love God and how we
are to love neighbor. Forgive us, for we have the attitude,
what’s yours is mine and I’ll take it. We have the attitude,
what’s mine is mine and I’ll keep it. But we need the attitude
of Christ. What has been given to me in
love and mercy and grace is for all who need it. Change our hearts
this day so that we truly love God but we truly and tangibly
love our neighbors as we would ourselves. Hear us as we pray
in Jesus name, amen.