In Luke 10, a legal expert came up to Jesus.  He was an expert in Old Testament law, not civil law.  He asked Jesus a question to try and trap or embarrass Him.  He was trying to prove that Jesus was a fake and a blasphemer.  Take a look at Luke 10:25.

²⁵ And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

When the scripture says that the lawyer tried to “put him to the test,” it is deliberately pointing out the insincerity of this man.  The lawyer was not trying to learn from Jesus.  The lawyer was setting Jesus up in order to trap Him and expose Him as a fraud.  He was trying to back Jesus into a moral corner with no easy way out.

Despite the lawyer’s craftiness and impure motives, the question he asked is actually an important question.  In fact, it is the greatest question ever asked or answered.

The Greatest Question is, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” – Luke 10:26. Deut 6:4-5, Lev. 19:18

This question was frequently on the minds of those who gathered to hear Jesus teach.  In verse 26, Jesus answers the question with a question of His own.

²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

When He asked, “How do you read it?” he was probably referring to Keri’at Shema (key-re-at shea-MA), which was read daily by the religious leaders.  It is a recitation of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 which says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

We see in the next verse that the lawyer added the last half of Leviticus 19:18, which says, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  Putting those two together, he replied in verse 27, “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.”

Perfect Love for God and Perfect Love for our Neighbors is a Good Summary of the Law’s Impossible Demands – Luke 10:28

If we did these things perfectly, we would not need any other rules.  In fact, all other commandments in the scripture are simply explanations of what is involved to carry out these two over-arching principles in daily life. In verse 28, Jesus replied, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

You might be asking yourself, “What is going on here?  Why did Jesus preach law to this man and not the gospel?”  Jesus knew that the Law is a mirror that reveals our sin and our need for God’s mercy.

The Law is a Mirror that Reveals our Sin and our Need for God’s Mercy – Gal. 3:23-24

Paul said in Galatians 3:23-24, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”

By revealing to this lawyer his captivity to the law, Jesus would be able to demonstrate how he stood condemned by the Law.  Once he understood his condemned state, he might then realize his great need for a Savior.

If the man had been honest at that moment, he would have admitted to Jesus that he didn’t always love God perfectly and he often fell short in his love for his neighbors as well.  The message of the law at this point should have shaken the man and stirred up a deep conviction in his heart.

Instead, he tried to extinguish the fire of his conscience with his own self-righteousness.  He wanted to argue about and redefine the word “neighbor.”  Verse 29 continues

“²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

By redefining the word “neighbor,” the lawyer was trying to convince people that he was totally righteous before God when he wasn’t.  He was trying to maintain a religious façade, but Jesus saw right through it.

Jesus often criticized the religious leaders for putting on fake religious masks.  In Luke 18, he told the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  He described Pharisees as those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.”[2]

This particular legalist wanted to keep up a religious façade so he would look good in the eyes of his peers, but he didn’t seem to be too concerned with how God saw him.  Notice that the Lawyer skipped the first part of the Keri’at Shema (the part about loving God) and went directly to a technical discussion of the identity of the “neighbor.”

Leviticus 19:18 says, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and is was common for the rabbis at that time to add the phrase, “and you should hate your enemy.”  When they added the second line “and you should hate your enemy,” it stripped all the power out of the command.

According to their false teaching, the verse implies that you are free to love those whom you like and act with hatred toward those who don’t fit your definition of “neighbor.”  Under this false interpretation of the law, a person was under no obligation to show love to anyone they didn’t want to show love to.  (How convenient is that!)

At this point, Jesus could have dismissed the man as a false teacher.  The lawyer clearly knew the law and was distorting it to fit his own preferences.  But, Jesus chose to show compassion and mercy to this stubborn, self-righteous man.  Right from the start, Jesus is modelling the same principle of mercy that He is about to illustrate with the parable.

In the Very Telling of this Parable to a Self-Righteous Man, Jesus is Modelling Mercy – Luke 18:9, Matt. 5:44

Two weeks ago, we said defined Biblical mercy as “acting sacrificially to meet another person’s need – especially if they don’t deserve it.”  The principle is backed up by Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:44 where He says, “…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Jesus begins this simple story with soul-crushing power.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is not supposed to be a tale of good etiquette.  It is supposed to bring about conviction, expose our sinfulness, and drive us to God’s mercy.

It is not a story written to inspire kids to share their toys or for people to stop and help stranded motorists (though it may produce those results too).  It is a story written for religious non-believers in an evangelistic effort to bring them to a true sense of their sinfulness and expose their need for God’s mercy.

We Must Understand our Need for God’s Mercy Before we can Effectively Demonstrate it to Others– Luke 10

The story begins on a dangerous road.  Look at verse 30

“30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.”

This road is still there today.  From Jerusalem to Jericho is about a 4,000 foot drop in elevation over a 17-mile distance, similar to the drive from the top of Mingus to Cottonwood.  It ran alongside barren mountains and the terrain was very rough, especially before it was paved.

In places, there are steep cliffs and drop-offs.  Much of the road was lined with boulders and caves, making a good hideout for robbers.  It is still a dangerous road today.

In Jesus’ story, the predictable happens.  The traveler was attacked by a group of thieves.  These are particularly brutal thieves.  They didn’t just rob him.  They beat him as well.  The stripped him almost naked.  They took all his cash and left him for dead.  It could be said that he was in critical condition.  He was a dying man on a desolate, desert road.

There was no guarantee that anybody was going to find this guy.  At this dramatic point in the story, Jesus introduces a flash of hope.  Verse 31a says,

“³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down that road…”

Here comes a servant of the Lord.  Chances are, earlier that day the priest led the people in reciting Leviticus 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  In that same chapter, he would have known verse 33-34a which says, “³³ “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. ³⁴ You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself…”

The flash of hope was short-lived.  The priest would have known the right thing to do in his head, but when it came down to it, all that knowledge did him no good at all.

Knowing Scripture doesn’t matter Much if You Don’t Do What it Says – Lev 19:18, 33-34, Luke 10:31

“True faith is never seen as passive – it is always obedient.” – John MacArthur

“One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The rest of verse 31 says, “when he saw him he passed by on the other side.”  The Greek word for “other” means complete opposite.  It indicates that he deliberately and intentionally went out of his way to avoid the injured man

Jesus was beginning to turn the lawyer’s question around.  The term “neighbor” couldn’t be defined narrowly.  Jesus is expanding it to include anybody we come across who is suffering and in need of our help.  Biblical ‘mercy’ is acting sacrificially to meet another person’s need – especially if they don’t deserve it.

Loving our neighbor is not limited only to those who deserve our help, but to strangers, outsiders, and even our enemies.  At this point, we all fall short.  Who could possibly stop to help every single person they come across who is in need?  Needy people are everywhere!

This priest was probably not intended to incriminate all his fellow priests.  Certainly, some priests were truly selfless servants of God and would have stopped.  However, the priest in the story does represent anyone who is familiar with the scriptures and with the commands of God and willingly chooses not to do them.  In this way, the priest could easily represent any one of us who passes by a person in need.

We often work in our best interests instead of in the best interests of others.  Romans 8:7-8 says, “⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

The Parable is Intended to Undo our Self-Righteousness and Show us our Need for God – Romans 8:7-8, Luke 10:31-32

The next person who comes by on the road is a Levite.  (All priests were from the tribe of Levi, but not all Levites were priests.)  Some Levites served in the temple in other capacities, as the priests’ assistants, temple police, maintenance workers and so-on.  Their lives were devoted to religious service.  So, when a Levite came upon the man, what do you suppose he did?  Look at verse 32:

³² So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

The Levite did exactly the same thing as the priest!  These men represented the best educated and most highly esteemed religious dignitaries in the culture.  In both cases, they went out of their way to avoid the man in need.

They were religious hypocrites – telling others at the temple to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and then acting with total indifference toward a man who obviously needed help.  We are right to condemn them in their indifference, but in doing so, we also condemn ourselves.

The Attitudes of the Priest and Levite are a Perfect Reflection of the Human Heart – Romans 3:23

Naturally every person sees someone in needs and says, “I don’t want to get involved.  Not today.  Someone else should help them.  I’m in a hurry.”  In doing so, we must confess that we do not love other people perfectly.  We don’t stop and help every single time we see a needy person.  Before we condemn the imperfect neighborliness in others, we have to come to terms with our own lack of perfection.  Every one of us falls short of the command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and we need God’s grace!

Romans 3:23 says, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

The Samaritan is an unexpected twist in Jesus’ story. Samaritans were despised by the Jews, who saw them as half-breed, second-class citizens with bogus theology.  Jews saw Samaritans as religiously unclean because they had blended Judaism with various pagan beliefs and developed a religion that was neither.  Samaritan Judaism was to true Judaism what fundamentalist polygamy is to Biblical Christianity today.

The story implies that the robbery victim was a Jewish man because Gentiles rarely traveled on that particular road.  It would have been very strange to find a Samaritan traveling there; they avoided that road like the plague, only using it in a dire emergency.  It is implied that the Samaritan was not taking a leisurely stroll that day.  He was there for a purpose and he was probably in a hurry.

When the Samaritan come upon the man, he responded quite differently than the Jewish religious leaders.  Look at verse 33:

³³ But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

The Samaritan Embraced the Man’s Need as if it was His Own Need – Luke 10:33-34

He had compassion on the man and began to take action.  Verse 34:

³⁴ 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.

Remember that nearly everything of value had been taken from the injured man.  Whatever the Samaritan used to bandage the man would have come from his own provisions.  Perhaps he tore his own shirt to make bandages for this man’s wounds.

People in those days often traveled with wine for drinking and oil for cooking.  The Samaritan was a long way from home, he needed these provisions.  Nevertheless, he used his own wine to sanitize and seal the wounds and he used his cooking oil to sooth the pain of the injuries.

Verse 34 then says that he set him on his own animal.  Try to imagine this scene.  The injured Jew rode on his pack animal while the Samaritan walked along beside.  This was not minimal care!

The Samaritan Made one Extraordinary Sacrifice After Another – Luke 10:35

Verses 34-35 say that he brought him to an inn “the next day.”  These inns tended to be rough places, and the text implies that the Samaritan stayed with the man through the night, personally caring for him.  Let’s read the rest of verse 35:

³⁵ And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

An ancient sign has been found indicating that the price for a night’s stay in an inn was 1/32 of a denari.  Two denarii would have provided food and shelter for this man for maybe two months.  Then, in essence, he wrote a blank check to the inn keeper and said, “whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

The Samaritan gave up his own clothes, his supplies, his time, a night’s sleep, and a significant sum of cash all for a man whom he had never met and who would have considered him an enemy.  The Samaritan never stopped to ask, “who is my neighbor?”  He knew that his neighbor included anyone in need.

At this point, we have to be honest with ourselves.  If we encountered a similar situation in our lives, we would think the Samaritans generosity was a bit excessive.  We might see a person in need and give them a few dollars.  If we are feeling exceptionally generous we may even buy them a meal or some groceries.  But, do you always set aside everything to help a total stranger who is in need?

Have you ever single-handedly provided for all the needs of someone you don’t even know?  The Samaritan’s bandaged a stranger’s wounds, fed him, stayed with him through the night and paid for all his food, housing and medical care.  Have we even once loved a stranger in that way?

Do you know who we do show this kind of care and attention to?  Ourselves!  We care for ourselves in this way.  We sometimes care for family members and close friends sacrificially.  But this kind of care for a stranger is simply not often done – especially when that stranger is considered an enemy.

If loving my neighbor as myself is a requirement for heaven, then my good deeds fall desperately short of God’s standard of perfection here!  I’ve done a few generous things for a few people on a few occasions in my life, but all the time?  I can’t say that I show this kind of sacrificial love to other people very often.  Do you?  Probably not.

Jesus is Describing a Rare Kind of Love Here that Knows No Bounds and has No Limits – Luke 10:25-27

When the lawyer asked, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus replies, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

The lawyer responds with, “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.”

Jesus agrees by saying, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Jesus Tells This Parable so that We Might Begin to Understand the Impossibly High Standard the Law Set for Us. – Luke 10:30-37

It is a rebuke to the lawyer and to us.  We don’t love our neighbors like that – not even the ones we like!  The law demands perfection and every time we gaze into perfection, it causes us to come undone!  If salvation requires perfection then we are doomed!  We need a Savior.

Application

The preaching of the law is necessary for the preaching of the gospel because when we find ourselves sinful beyond measure, then we can finally see our need for the cross.  – John 5:24

The ultimate purpose for the law is to drive men and women to faith in Jesus Christ.  It is to show them that they could never be good enough in their own righteousness and they desperately need to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness.  Possibly the saddest part of the story is what’s not written between verses 37-38.  The gospel goes on to the next event and there is no mention of repentance in the heart of the lawyer.

If that lawyer had confessed his utter inability to do what the law demands, then Jesus would have been ready to offer him mercy, grace, forgiveness and true love.  If he had sensed his need for a savior, Jesus was right there willing to save.  John 5:24 Jesus says, “²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

Unfortunately, the typical proud, self-sufficient, religious person is content to bet everything on their good works in order to prove their worthiness of eternal life while rejecting their utter need for a savior.  These people refuse to believe what God’s law actually demands of them.

Utter perfection is impossible for us to attain.  That why we need to take on Christ’s righteousness – Romans 8:3-4

Those who read this parable simply as a call to humanitarianism are missing the point of the story.  It is noble to act in more perfect love towards our neighbors.  But that should not be your only take away from the story.

The main point of the story is that we are all sinful.  We all fall short of loving God and our neighbors perfectly.  Jesus is the only one who was able to perfectly fulfill what the law demanded of Him.

Romans 8:3-4 says, “³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

If I stand before God in my own righteousness, He’ll throw the book at me.  But…

If I stand before God clothed in Christ’s righteousness, then His perfection is more than enough.

This parable ends without the lawyer’s repentance.  That can’t be our response!

Today is the day that once and for all, you can stop trying to earn your way into heaven and surrender your life to Jesus instead.  If you are relying on anything other than Jesus for your eternal life then this morning is the time to confess your sins and trust in Jesus as Savior and King.

[1] Matt 23:27

[2] Luke 18:9