The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 1: Who is My Neighbor?

Episode Date: September 24, 2017

Who is my neighbor? is the wrong question. It limits love. Be neighborly to whomever God puts in your path.

Amen, church. How we doing? Doing all right? Everybody's looking good. If you got your Bibles, I hope you do, grab them. Go to Luke chapter 10, Luke chapter 10. And as you're looking that up, I want to introduce you to my good friend here, Pastor John Barringer. Everybody say, hey, Pastor John? And as that saying, it's Beringer. That sounds very like, like he should be a spy or something. But he's not. He's a pastor. And he is, the reason I'm introducing you to him is because he is the new campus pastor of our brand new campus that launches in Arlington. at the beginning of the next year. Amen. Amen. Amen. And so, you see, we made a philosophical, strategic decision years ago that at the church of 1122, because God has been growing us like crazy

and drawing a whole bunch of men and women and students unto himself, then instead of building, like, one big megaplex six flags over Jesus right here at Beach and San Pablo, and asking all of northeast Florida and South Georgia to come here, that we would take the gospel and move into the neighborhood. As you heard just a few minutes ago by Pastor Bitt here and our campus pastors at our campuses, as you heard that our vision is to love your neighbor. And a part of the way that we love our neighbors is that we are moving into the neighborhood and we want you to attend the campus that's in your neighborhood. And so how many of you by show of hands that all of our locations live in the Arlington area?

If you live in there, raise them high. Come on, be proud. You should be paying attention to this. Well, congratulations. You're going to be going to church with Pastor John in the New Year. And that also includes you in Bay Meadows, some of you drive there. And some of you, if you're in Mandarin, you're lost. So you should just stay in Arlington, okay?

And that's what we're doing. And so be praying for us as a team. Be praying for Pastor John and his wife, Danny and their children, London. Very cool name right now. And Eden, all right. And there's a picture of them loving it at the beach. And we are going to pray for them. And we're also going to pray for our new campus in Arlington.

By the way, it is, it's in the old H.H. Greg. know, not so good for them, great for the kingdom. They didn't do good, and we got their building. And so, but it's also beside Lowe's and Cracker Barrel. For some of you, the spirit is just spoken, and that's where you're going to go. All right, and so be praying for that because the official services will begin in the beginning of the year, but our first service there hopefully will be on Christmas Eve. Amen?

And so please reach your hands forward at all of our locations, and let's pray for Pastor John and his family. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for. bringing Pastor John and his family to us like a year ago to be a part of our staff and our team. And thank you that you have molded him and shaped him and called him to be one of the many pastors here at 1122 as we all seek to care for and feed and love the flock of Jesus Christ. And God, we pray specifically for our Arlington campus that will launch in January. And God, I pray for the men and the women and the students that are around that area in those neighborhoods right now. And they woke up this morning and they are bored to death on the merry-go round of normality.

And little do they know that just in the next few months they will stumble into an old appliance store that now is a gospel-centered church and you will change their lives forever. And God, we give you the glory because you're the only one that deserves it. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. One more time for Pastor John. Thank you very much, buddy. All right. Hopefully you've found Luke 10, and as you are going there, I wanted to say this, happy anniversary

church. Yesterday, the church of 1122 celebrated its five-year anniversary. Amen? Praise God. And what a great day. What a great day. I don't know if yesterday was a great day for you and your football extravaganza. It was for me, not for everybody.

And, by the way, just so you know, I know many of you, by God's grace of judgment. DVR are going to watch the game later. And I just want you to know the Bible does say this, that a raven does not fall and die without God knowing. That's what the Bible says, which leads me to believe God loves to kill ravens. Amen? All right, so you'll think through that as you watch the game later on. And so God has been doing amazing things to glorify himself over the last five years through

the Church of 1122, and it has really been remarkable, which means five years ago today, or two days ago, I was really freaking out. before this whole thing opened. And I'm still freaking out, but now it's for very good reasons. You need to know this. You know, now we have three locations. We'll be launching four in January. Here's just a couple of things that God has done to glorify himself through you, through our church.

Did you know that we have rescued 7,447 children from poverty in Jesus' name through Compassion International? Since we launched the church of 1122, and maybe my favorite thing is this, 4,847 people have surrender their life to the Lordship of Christ in the last five years. And when people ask us, how do you do it? I go, you should read the Bible. We don't do it, man. We just sing and talk like everybody else. But for whatever reason, man, when you make much of Jesus, he will draw people unto himself.

And all we've ever set out to do is to be a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus. And all we ever wanted to do, particularly when we gather together, is just glorify God and worship and word. And so I felt like, especially during several, saturated this last few days, man. We really did. It's all we did. We just put Jesus on display for his glory and his renown. And over 15,400 people showed up for our saturated events on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And through our Gospel Awakening series, there were 57

salvations during that series. And last Sunday, at all of our locations, we baptized 108 people on one Sunday morning. All right. Glory to God. Glory to God. And the reason that we're doing this series, this Love Your Neighbor series is not in response to Irma, but God ordained this thing last year before we ever knew hurricanes were coming. You see, because we knew we were going to be in this gospel awakening series, that we were going to pray and we were going to fast, and we were going to beg God to revive us. That's what revival is.

And we said that the ingredients to revival are a desire for God and prayer and a pursuit of holiest, and the Holy Spirit comes. And when the Holy Spirit comes, like on the day of Pentecost, this is what we did last week, that Pentecost was an event that was over. It was the event that started something. And what it started was the church acting like the church. And any time there's a move of God, there are always two results. If you've been around Bible study a long time, you'll recognize these two results as the great commandment. But the two results of true spirit-filled revival, not just a bunch of events at church, are this, that you will love God and that you will love people.

And so in reverse order, those are our two series over the next, like, eight or nine weeks. Then over the next five weeks, we're going to talk about what does it look like to love our neighbor as ourselves? And then the series following that, we're going to talk about smashing idols, to try to kill the things in our life that are trying to kill our relationship with the Lord. So that is where we're going. What does it look like for us to love our neighbor? So in Luke chapter 10, Jesus specifically is going to answer what it means to love our neighbor. in a very, very famous parable that many of you have heard,

but I want to give you the context of the whole parable. Luke, chapter 10, verse 25, says this. And behold, a lawyer. And when it says lawyer, it doesn't mean like attorney. He's not running commercials on TV about car crashes, all right? A lawyer means that he was an expert in the law of Moses or the law of God. So he was really like a theologian, a religious guy. Like, he knew this book super, super good.

And so this lawyer, he stood up to put Jesus to the test, which, first of all, how do you think it's going to go for that guy? Because Jesus knows the thoughts of every man before they even come out of his mouth, okay? All throughout the Gospels, people would think something in their mind, and Jesus would answer the questions that they thought in their mind. All right, do, do, do, do, do. That's weird stuff. So if you get around Jesus, you just sing Jesus loves me this, I know, in your mind the whole time,

because he knows what's going on in here. In other words, you can't Jesus juke Jesus. He knows. And so this guy is a picture of religion. And here's why I say this. Because in the first century, if you're going to ask a rabbi a question, you would stand before him and call him rabbi, which he does. And this is a great sign of respect.

And so what you have here is you have the outward of appearance of respect to Jesus so that you will look respectable to all the other people around. And yet, in his heart, he is really all about himself. This is a picture of religion. This is what religion does. It puffs us up with a religious activity that is just trying to impress God and impress people. when in actuality deep in our souls we are really just trying to prove how impressive we are. And so this man in a very hypocritical way stands up and he says,

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, this is simultaneously a great question that every human being on the planet should ask, how do I get to heaven, all right? If hell had taught in forever's a long time, I should figure this out, all right? What do I got to do? And yet the construct of the question is faulty in and of itself. because you can't do anything to get an inheritance. To receive an inheritance, you receive it, you don't earn it,

and you either are born into a family or a reborn or you're adopted into a family, and you receive the gift of an inheritance. And so he says, you can see here that the question that he is asking, he thinks that him getting to heaven is based on his activity, which, by the way, is the most common worldview in the entire world. It is the most common worldview. Because here's the thing that every human being agrees with. Regardless of who you voted for, regardless of where you grew up, everybody believes this.

Something went wrong. I mean, every world religion says something went wrong. Even America's pastor, Oprah herself, would agree this is not the picture of perfection that we are looking for in our society. And yet, every world religion and every major worldview has the same answer, but some of the details are different. They agree. something has gone wrong. Now Christians call that sin that we have a broken relationship with God, but every world religion says something has gone wrong. And to make that thing right, I have to do something.

And depending on the religion you grew up in, it could be I have to obey the law, I have to align my chakra, I have to meditate until I float off into nirvana, I get a bunch of different chances until I finally get it right. I have to make a trip to Mecca, I have to obey the five pillars. Or there are some Christless versions of Christianity that even teach this. Here's what you have to do to be a good Christian. There is no such thing as a good Christian, by the way. There's alive or there's dead. And I told you this is kind of the system I grew up in.

We were taught, very succinctly, to be a good Christian. Good Christians don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do. So we were, it was impossible in Dylan. The prom queen was like, and if you know what this is, you're my people. All right. So, don't tell Gretchen. All right. So what he's saying is, based on my effort, what must I do?

Now, the gospel answer is unique in the entire world. It's not about what we do. It's about what has been done for us. And so this guy says, okay, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And then Jesus says to him, have you ever noticed Jesus never answers a direct question with a direct answer? He never, what must I do? Push-ups. Never, ever, ever does you just tell him to do something.

He always, by the way, this is just a free leadership lesson from Jesus, who was a great leader. Over the long term, short term is really messy. Over the long term, the most efficient way to lead people is to self-actualization. To let them find out the answers to their own questions. So he questions the questions with questions. That's what Jesus does. And so he says, to a lawyer who was an expert in the book, he says, so what's written in the law? how do you read it? And the lawyer answers this way. You shall love the Lord of your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Now, a little conjecture on my part. Okay, the Bible's over here. I'm not reading out of it. He quotes Deuteronomy 6, that's called the Shema, and he quotes Leviticus 19. And the lawyer puts those two verses together and says, that's it. That's what it takes. Now, the only other place I can find in the New Testament where those two verses put together is when Jesus, Jesus himself answers another lawyer's question in a different context where the guy says, what's the greatest of all the commandments? And Jesus quotes the two same verses and puts them together. So I think this lawyer must have been following Jesus around and heard him teach in some other place.

And so he rightly answers, here's what I must do to inherit eternal life. I've got to love the Lord of my God with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength and all my mind. And then Jesus says to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Now, what you don't understand here is kind of like a text. It's hard to read tone in text. This is why you should never text anything that is serious or sensitive, but that's a different sermon. Okay. And so I think Jesus is being super sarcastic right here.

At least I hope so. Because if Jesus isn't cool with sarcasm, I got a lot to answer to. Okay? And so what Jesus is saying is, yep, bro, you nailed it. You nailed it. That's it. Now just do that, and you will inherit eternal life. Do what?

Love the Lord of your God with all. of your heart, 100% all of your heart, and never anything less than all of your heart for all the time you've had a heart. And love the Lord of your God with all your mind, so never, ever once ever have one rogue thought, one rogue thought that goes to any other direction except for loving God. And love the Lord of your God with all of your strength. Every time you've done anything with your body, ever, ever, ever, it was always to the glory of God. And love the Lord of your God with all of your being, with all of your soul. Even before you were born, you're loving God with all of that. And you go, uh-oh, I don't think I can do that.

You see, because that's impossible. Because what Jesus is saying is, all right, here's how you inherit eternal life. 100% of the time, you have to be perfect, perfectly 100% of the time. Anything less than that is imperfect, and you've got to be perfect. Not only perfect with God, but perfect with people. And let's just, you want to run through them? Has there ever been a part of the time where you didn't love God with all of your heart? Because think about this, even if from this day forward you love God with all of your heart,

God with all of your heart. What do you do about the time before this day when you didn't love God with all of your heart? Therefore, by definition, there's a part of the all that you didn't love him with. Or what about your mind? I mean, how long does it take you for you to get these thoughts in your mind that don't love God and love people? Confession. Takes me about three minutes on JTB. That's it. And I'm done. I'm out of heaven. All right? If it is up to me, and I, let me tell you what never happens to me. I never get behind somebody going slow in the left lane on JTP and go, you know what, just bless their heart. And this medium pace at which they live their life, I could probably have a lesson to learn here. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think about that person

as being somebody that Jesus died for. I think about that person stirring up some evidence in me that I needed Jesus to die for me. Amen? Or I can love God with, like, some of my mind, until about two hours with my kids this afternoon. And then there are parts of me that just remind me once again that with my tone of voice, with my attitude, listen, the reason I call us wretched, blackhearted sinners all the time is because we are. The problem is us. The heart of the problem is we have a heart problem.

And I'm not even talking about not being able to fulfill the perfect will of God. I'm talking about you and I can't even fulfill our own. own will. Nobody's lied to you more than you. Nobody's broken more promises to you than you. Think about this. Forget the Ten Commandments. You can't keep your own commandments. How many of you have ever promised you would never do that thing again more than once? Or how many of you have parents, parents of young kids? How many of you promised to God and your parents and all of your friends that there are some things that your parents did to you that you would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do to your children? And yet, in a moment, I can walk into my kids' rooms, and the spirit of Joseph Perry Martin, Jr.

Possesses me like a demon. And I say things. Did I promise it? I remember how much it jacked me up, and I'm just screwing my kids up right there. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? You are wrong with you. That is it. We are our own worst enemies.

And so when this dude says, all right, here's all right, here's all you got to do. Love God, all your heart and all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. Basically, every bit of everything that you have and who you are. Love God and in the same way love people. And Jesus goes, nailed it. So that's all you got to do. And then you take the exam and you go, uh-oh, this is a pass fail and anything below 100% is a fail. There's a problem here.

And then you've got to answer the question. So what do I do? I mean, what do I do when I take the exam and, I fail it because if I get another chance, I just fail it again and again and again and again. Well, then the answer to what you do is I need somebody else who has loved God with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind and all his strength and has loved his neighbor as himself every time perfectly, I need to get his score on my test. I need him to take the exam for me. That is what salvation is. The theologians called like John Calvin and some of those guys,

they call it the great exchange that at the cross of Jesus Christ, when we put our faith in Jesus, he takes responsibility for our failing grade and we get credit for his A-plus. That God made Him who was without sin to be sin for us, that we would be made the righteousness of God. You see, and the reason I want to start with the gospel before we talk about, how do you love your neighbor? It's because apart from the love of God, indwelling you through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will never be able to love your neighbor. You'll be able to do some loving things sometimes for a little while, but that is an exhaustible resource that runs out very, very quickly, especially depending on how much sleep and food you've had.

But the inexhaustible resource of the Holy Spirit, who is love, and when the Spirit of God is in you as a believer in Jesus Christ, and you abide in Christ, you get close to Jesus and he gets close to you, he begins to produce in you from the inside out what is called the fruit of the spirit. And guess who bats lead off in the fruit of the spirit? love is the first one. You see, it starts with the gospel. Before we get out serving everybody, it starts with understanding that you, first and foremost,

were loved by God. You see, verse 29, what we find out here is that the lawyer, though he knows a lot of information, he has no idea what Jesus is talking about. Because he says this, verse 29, but he, that's the lawyer, desiring to justify himself.

So this is how we know he's bogus. To justify his. himself. That word justify, that's a theological term. Justification. All right. Justify means the easiest way to remember it is this, is that when we're justified, it's justified never sin. Now, you have sinned, but when you have the imputed righteousness of Christ, in other words, when you get credit for his perfect life, when you believe in him, then when God looks at you, it's just if you never sin. And there are two types of justification. This guy wants to self-justify. He wants to say, I am justified based on what I have done.

I declare myself righteous because of my good deeds. By definition, that would be called self-righteousness. The other option is when God justifies you. When you're not justified because of what you have done, but when you are justified because of what God has done on your behalf. And so this religious man, desiring to justify himself, says to Jesus, And who's my neighbor? Here's how we know that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

See, it's obvious that the lawyer doesn't get Jesus's answer because in his follow-up question, he is trying to limit the love of God down to the minimum requirement that I have to participate in to earn my way in. He's trying to make God's love smaller and smaller and smaller. He says, here's what it takes. Love God with everything I'm made of and love my neighbor as myself.

And Jesus goes, yep, do that, and you will live. me. It's like, all right, well, so I don't have to love those people, do I? And those people? Can I just love these people right here that are just like me? And you see, it's evidence that he doesn't understand what Jesus is talking about, because if he did understand what Jesus was talking about, the true question to ask is not who is my neighbor or who are the people I don't have to love. The true question is, how do I love God with everything I'm made of? Because I don't think I'm doing that very good. And in that moment of humility, and in that moment of self-denial instead of self-justification, That's where Jesus steps in and says,

hey, I got good news. I can do for you what you can't do for you. I'll rip out that heart of stone that has you in the middle of your life and I will give you a new heart. I'll give you my heart. And with my heart, you will be in that right relationship with God and that will put you in right relationships with one another.

But instead, this man says, so who is my neighbor? And so Jesus shares a parable like he always does. It's story time. He never just answers questions. tell stories and stuff. I'm going to read the whole parable. It's familiar to you, and then we're going to go back in unpack it. Verse 30. Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among the robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, wink, wink, it doesn't say wink wink in the Bible, but Jesus doesn't believe in chance,

okay, he's sovereign lord of the universe. But by chance, a priest was going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite. He came, to the place and he saw him and he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, he came to where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion. And he went to him and he bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And then he set him on his own animal and he brought him to an end and he took care of him. And the next day he took out two denari. And he gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him. And whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. That's the end of the story. Verse 36.

which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And he said, the one who showed mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Now, part of the reason I want to make sure that we unpack the Good Samaritan, beginning with the gospel, is because it's probably the most misunderstood parable of all the parables. The point here is not, now go be a Good Samaritan, and then you can get into the kingdom of heaven. It's actually the exact opposite of that. It's not if you get the right activity, then God will change your identity.

It's if God changes your identity in a relationship with him, then that changes your activity. Or in other words, if we love God deeply because he first loves us, then our lives are transformed greatly. And the love of God towards us, then flows through us like a conduit in the way that we love our neighbor. And so let's unpack it. Verse 30. Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Here's what's important. So it is actually a road that goes down.

Jerusalem is about 3,000 feet above sea level from where Jericho is. And on this 17-mile trek, you go downhill. And here's the thing, though. This is just a regular road. This is just a normal road. This is 95 north. It's just what it is. If you live in Jericho and you go to Jerusalem, this is the road you take.

It's not a special road. It's not the Roman road. It's not the yellow brick road. It's just the road. Which makes me think about this. What normal travel patterns are you and I taking every single day? Just the normal roads. Like the restaurants we eat in, the office we work in, the places that we go, just every single day.

And we don't have eyes to see the God ordained divine appointments that he has placed before us. Because we just get used to them. Because let me tell you when I love my neighbor like a boss. You ready? When I sign up for a mission trip. Because I've got like my Samaritan glasses on. Like I'm juiced up for it, right? I pray differently before I get on an airplane.

I pack differently. I'm walking through the airport. Like, anybody need Jesus? I got some Jesus. Anybody need it? Because I'm just ready. Wherever we go, I'm looking for some need to help. And yet, I don't know about you, but in my normal everyday life, not so much on Sunday mornings

and when I'm in disciple group, but the rest of my life. I believe that I can just be walking down the roads that I walk down or driving down the roads that I drive down. And my spiritual sensitivity deadens, kind of like your nose does with a smell in the car. You ever get in the car, especially if you've got a teenage and you're like, oh, my kid's been in the car. What's that smell? But after a few minutes, you don't, it's just the smell. I don't know what happens. It just magically goes away. And then somebody new gets in the car and like, what's that smell? And you're like, what smell? Right? I think that's what happens to our eyes as to what

God has given us an opportunity to do. That sometimes we can just go through like spiritual cruise control. I don't know if this happens to you. It happens to me all the time. You ever, at the end of the day, you've been working all day or whatever, and at the end of the day, you pull up in your drive, driveway and you go, how do I get here? Like, I mean, I know I drove home, but I don't remember like turning and stopping and signaling and doing things. I just got in my car and then, I don't know if it's my age or if this is a common thing, okay? But do you ever do that? You just kind of go on cruise control because you go down these roads so often, and I wonder if our spiritual sensitivity is deadened in the most common places of our world. And yet those are the places that God has

most precisely placed you as a missionary on mission in your neighborhood, in your school, in your office. Like the first day you walked in your office and you sat down in your cubicle next to this lady and she started sharing her story with you. Your number one thought was not, yeah, I work here because I'm going to sell a bunch of watch of college. You begin to think, maybe God placed me here to minister to this girl. But yet on the first day and the second day and the third day, you were like, well, I don't

know what to say and I'm at work. And then eventually you do not see her. her as a person in need and God has placed you there on purpose like a city on a hill, you just see Carol. And you quit praying for her and you quit thinking about it and you just go to work and you come home and you do it again. There's nothing magical about this road. It's just an ordinary average everyday road that the brother's walking down and he gets beat up.

And he says this. And he fell among the robbers who stripped him, because clothes were worth a lot of money, and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, now again, this is a big wink-wink. Jesus is before all things. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. That was Jesus, okay? He knows everything's going on.

He knows there's a purpose and a plan for everything. There are no coincidences. Coincidence is when God does something and just remains anonymous, all right? God is in charge of all things. Now by chance, a priest is going down the road. And if you were hearing this sermon as a first century Jew, and you heard the word priest come and you were like, dun-da-na, here comes the hero, the holy man of God.

We know he's going to do what's right, and here's what Jesus says. And the priest was going down the road, and when he saw him, the man beat up, he passed by on the other side. Now, here's what we know about this parable. Is that the lawyer asked the question to justify himself. Therefore, I bet if you could get into the mind of the priest, there's a whole bunch of self-justification in the mind of the priest as to why he is okay with himself and before God to not walk over and do something about this

situation that he has an opportunity to do something about. You see, I bet the priest is thinking, hey, listen, man, I know there's a knee, but that's not my fault. Like, I didn't tell this guy to go walking down the street. I got enough to deal with myself. And in fact, maybe the reason this man's beat up on the side of the street, maybe it's a result of his own life choices. Now, let me tell you, Christian, what every single one of us do, we, we, have a tendency to see other people in need and honestly it's but by God's grace that we're not beat

up left for dead too and yet in that moment we can say well if you would have made the kind of choices I would have made with my life you wouldn't be the situation that you are in fact maybe that's god's justice on you and you're justifying yourself me too and maybe he says and you know what what about my own safety I mean look at the guy he's beat up he still smells like beat up if I get over there I get some beat up on me okay there might be some people waiting I don't know what their plan is. They might jump out on me. And so, look, I got to take care of me before I can take care of anybody else. And I don't even know if this guy's here legally. I mean, and maybe I'm just too busy. Sound familiar? You see, here's what's true. I don't, I had a lot of people after

every service ask me who they are to and not to help, okay? I don't think there are any tried and true hard and fast rules about who to help and not to help. Okay, I get it. I get it. I get it. I do think you will be held accountable for what you know, but I'll tell you this. you know when you're justifying yourself and when you're obeying the Spirit of God. Here's what you do. You ask God and you do what he says. And if you don't know what he says, you pray, you guess, you go.

And then you ask God, was that you or did I just make it up? I'm telling you, because here's what I don't want to do. I don't want to stand before God one day and he'd be like, why didn't you help that guy? And you'd be like, well, I thought it was supposed to. And I know if it was me or you were the pizza I ate last night. I'm not sure. But I think I'm okay if I stand before the Lord one day and he's like, I didn't even tell you to help that guy.

And I was like, well, I was just guessing, and I went with what I thought you would say. And so the priest maybe justified himself. And the reality is, you can't lie to you. You know, and I know, deep in here, when the Spirit of God says go, and you say no. And you just got to deal with God on that. You pray and you guess and you go. And so the priest justifies himself. verse 33 and so likewise a levite now a levite's like a jv priest i don't know how much old testament

stuff you know in this but the priests were from the line of aaron they were like the varsity they got to do the big boy work and then the the the levites were from the line of levi and they were like kind of the custodians of the temple they helped with the priest but in order for them to do their job both the priest and the levites the jv priest they had to be ceremonially clean and so i think jesus is implying as they are coming back from Jerusalem down to Jericho that they were probably in Jerusalem going through the ceremonial cleansing that was required so that when they got back to work in their synagogue in Jericho they could receive the ties they could make the sacrifices they could do all the things so that they would be clean before people in God and I bet I bet in the minds of both the

priest and the Levite they begin to think hold on now you see God called me to go be to go do this work down in Jericho and if I if I if I I detour here and touch this man that's half dead, because I don't know if you've seen somebody half dead, it looks all dead. And if a priest touches a dead guy, then he's unclean. And if he gets blood on him, he's unclean. And if he's a part of a mess, he's unclean. And then, and I bet they're thinking, and if I go down here and do this, all right, if I mess with this mess, then I'm going to be unclean, I'm going to have to walk all the way back to Jerusalem. It's 17 miles uphill the whole way. And then, not only that, when I get there, you can read it for yourself, like in Leviticus.

I've got to find a red heifer. You know how hard it finds. is to find a red heifer these days. It's like a waterballer during Irma. You know what I mean? Everybody got them. They ain't nowhere. And so I got to find a red heifer and I got to kill it. And I got to go burn it and all its fatty portions. And that takes like seven days. I got to wash all my clothes. It's like a 12 to 14 day process that I've got to go through to go get clean again just so that I can do my job. And I bet in their mind, they had justified themselves. And I think a part of what Jesus is saying to us here is this, is that if you're a religion, is an excuse for not loving people that Jesus died for, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong.

For God so love the world that he did not pass by on the other side. He had compassion, and he did something at great expense to himself. So then you get the third character in this story, but a Samaritan. Now, here's the problem. In the first century, when they heard Samaritan, they gasped. They're, uh-uh, Samaritan. No way. I mean, they hated Samaritans for religious reasons, for social reasons, for national reasons, and a whole lot for racial reasons. I mean, you think it's bad now, and it is bad now. It was as bad if not worse as then. And Jesus is going to make this Samaritan, this hated person from another race, another culture, somebody that has even twisted their understanding of the Bible, and he is about to be the hero.

A Samaritan. Now, the problem is, when we hear Samaritan, we think good Samaritan. And somebody calls you a Samaritan, it's a real compliment. Because on the news at night, they're like, good Samaritan saves a kitten from a tree. Now, a good Samaritan would not save a kitten. You know why? Because it grows up to be a demon. All right, so, you don't do that.

But I'm telling you, these people thought, what? I mean, the Jews and the Samaritans did not get along. To the point where when Jews were traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee, and instead of going through Samaria, they would walk all the way around it and add multiple dangerous days to their journey just so as to not pass through the town with those people that they look down on. Which, by the way, I think a part of the reason that Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero, I think one of the big, big reasons here is because Jesus was on his way to a cross to die for all people. And you cannot, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you cannot look down your nose at a group of people that Jesus,

that Jesus looked down from the cross on to save. You cannot simultaneously look up at Jesus on the cross and say, Lord, save me, and then look down your nose at a group of people that are not like you and say, how dare you? Because Jesus would say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And Jesus came to die for all people, every tribe, every tongue, every nation. And that is why 1122, from its inception, has been a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ.

And so this Samaritan, it says, as he journeyed, he came to where he was and he saw him and he had compassion. That word compassion in the Greek is spligitsomai. Say splagetzo my. All right, if you're not like puking up some breakfast, you're not saying it right, all right? That is, it legitimately means from the guts or from the bowels, sphigizumai. Here's what this means. this isn't a head thing this isn't just a like oh I signed up for a Saturday thing

and I need to go to it this is the Samaritan and he sees this guy and something from down in here begins to stir him with compassion or just something has to be done about that and listen

when that happens to you by the grace of God because honest to goodness listen some of you Some of you, the person that's beaten up on the side of the road is like your brother or your cousin or a family member or a co-worker and you know who I'm talking about. And you have been justifying in your mind why God is not talking to you right now about this. The problem is your guts are about to come up with your sausage biscuit from this morning because you know he is stirring something in you to do something. But you know it's going to be a mess and you know what's going to cost you a bunch.

Right. And yet this Samaritan, he looks and he's. and he's moved. And then verse 34. It's a couple of very simple words, but the Lord showed me something here that I've never seen before. And I've got to tell you,

I read the Bible a lot. I've got degrees in this. I've taught on this text a bunch of times. I taught it on her Compassion Sunday just a few months ago. And here's what I need you to know. Don't you love it, by the way, if you're like a Bible-reading,

Christian person, been doing this? Don't you love it when you read a familiar passage and the Lord just lets you see this new thing that you've never seen before? Do you know why that happens? Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is the teacher. Man, last week, we had some great preachers here. We had some of the greatest preachers on the planet and me. And then here's the truth, though, there's only one real teacher here at 1122. It's the Holy Spirit of God. I can't teach you anything.

I can expose you to the Scriptures, but only the Spirit of God can expose the Scriptures to you. And so every single time God just like lets me see a new little thing in His Word, man, I'm telling you, It is His grace upon me. He does not owe it to me, and it flips me all out. It makes me worship. And so I'm sitting in my office, and he goes, okay, look at these words. Here's what the guy did. He went to him.

He went to him, like toward him. This is where it starts. This is where it starts. It starts with one step. It starts with one step. The other two guys are justifying to themselves why they don't have to do something, and they take a step away. And what the Samaritan does is he sees.

this thing and splogitts him happens on the inside and he's stirred by God to do something and then he's got a choice you can either step toward it or you can step away from it and everything's downhill from there and I think sometimes like right now man you have an opportunity to serve some people on your street in your work your family and probably the mess of the situation then that's what God is calling you to and the problem is is we begin to then question ourselves because listen the Good Samaritan has no idea what he's going to walk into. Do you get this? Like when he steps toward it, all he sees is a man left for dead. And I'm telling you, half dead looks like all dead. And he's half naked. Depending on the half, that might rule me out right there, okay? And it's just a big ball of mess is what this guy is. And he has no idea. And you know what he could do? He could say, but I don't know what to do. I'm not a medic. I'm not a, I don't drive me to anybody. surely somebody else is coming down the road that can do more than I can do. I mean the parables are going on 90 seconds. I'm already the third guy. Surely somebody, some doctor's coming.

Or what can I do for this person? But you know what? Instead of that, instead of that, here's what he does. He just moves toward him, having no idea what the situation is going to be when he gets there. And let me tell you, when you move towards something that God is calling you to move towards, I guarantee you, you will find yourselves in places where you were so over your head and out of your league. You know what that's called? That's called ministry. But here's what I promise you. The word of God says, his divine power has given us everything we need for life and Godliness. What that means is is God will always equip you for everything you need to accomplish everything he has called you to accomplish, period. And sometimes, sometimes it's not medical expertise, it's not money,

because you don't have either of those. You know what sometimes it is? Let me tell you what I have done on numerous occasions where I am in positions where I am way out of my league. I mean, I'm in hospital rooms with dying people and their families. I'm helping parents bury kids. I'm in funeral parlors with very tough questions. And I've got some theological answers, but in that moment, you know what you bring? Here, you can write this down. Don't tell anybody. This is what I do, but this is what I do. When I don't know what to say, here's what I always say. I just look at them in the face and say, I am so sorry, I love you. I love you. Because the Bible, says that love bears all things, that love hopes all things, that love endures all things, that love

never fails. So sometimes when the only thing that you were bringing to the situation is love, you are not bringing nothing. You're actually bringing the most powerful force on this planet. The Bible says that God is love. And sometimes when people cry out to God, dear God, help me, he goes, okay, and he sends you to come walking in. Say, I don't know if I can fix your problems, that you don't have to do this alone, I love you. And so instead of saying, how can I help and somebody else could do more and I don't know what I could do, God says, no way. God placed you in the right place at the right time, so just walk towards the situation.

And again, some of you know exactly what I'm talking about right now, because there is a situation that is close enough for you that you need to start walking towards. And so stop self-justifying and start loving. And so he goes to him. And he bound up his wounds and he poured on oil and wine. In other words, it's a mess and it costs him something, but love always costs. And he literally is pouring on love to this man. And he set him on his own animal and he brought him to an end and he took care of him.

And the next day he took out two denary, two days wages, which would book like two weeks worth of a room in this end. And he gave it to the innkeeper saying, take care of him. And whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. The reason he said this is because if the man incurred a debt that he couldn't pay back, the man would become a slave to the innkeeper. So what this man is doing, what the Good Samaritan is doing, is not only is he healing and not only is he paying for his debt, but he's also freeing him from potential slavery.

That's what he's doing. See, you love costs. If you're going to be a follower of Jesus, listen, nobody ever said this was easy. It's simple. Follow Jesus as simple as ABC. Admit your sinner, believe in Christ. Confess him as Lord. Ding, ding, ding, winner, you're in.

From that moment on, nobody promised easy. And so this man pays the bills, promises that he would pay any debt that he's incurred, verse 35. And then Jesus' story time's over, now he's back to the lawyer. He goes, which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? So what Jesus is saying is this. Jesus is saying is, you ask the wrong question. Your question is, who is my neighbor? Let me narrow the love of God.

The wrong question is, who is my neighbor? Or who do I have to love? And Jesus says, no, no, no, no. What you ought to ask is, where can I serve and where's an opportunity to love? In other words, quit narrowing the scope of God's love, and you need to expand the scope of God's love by being neighborly wherever you are. Verse 37, and the man replies, the one who showed him mercy. Notice he can't even say Samaritan.

This is a man. full of hate, particularly racially. Now listen, we live in a polarized society. I am not telling you anything new. And it seems like it's getting worse by the day, not better. And I'm going to tell you, with tweets and CNN and Fox News and a new group every other weekend, rioting and marching,

I'll tell you this, our hope will not be found in debates. Our hope will not be found in news or fake news. our hope will not be found in the political system. It will not be. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And maybe the awful condition in which we find our current culture in America, maybe it is the grandest platform at all for the church to be the church. If the church actually is the expert in our culture of loving our neighbor like ourselves,

especially people that don't look like you and vote like you and talk like you and believe like you, if we actually demonstrate the love of Jesus to our neighbors, then love is the greatest apologetic for the reality of Jesus. And not only that, I believe because Jesus makes the Samaritan, the hero, he is deconstructing our idea of homogeneous socio-economic and racial neighborhoods, where we only love people that look like us, which is this weird form of self-love and pride, and he is reconstructing a neighborhood in the kingdom of God that is a movement for all people to bow down to the sovereign king of the universe.

You see, the cure is love. Because God is love and he sent his son so that we might know love. And here's the big warning. This is not a pep talk for you to go and be the Good Samaritan. because in this parable, look, bro, you're not the good Samaritan. You know why I say that? Because you're not that good. Do you know how I know that?

Because I'm not either. Because we could get ourselves all pepped up to do good things for many hours, right? Until somebody cut you off in our parking lot at church and you lose your mind on them. I know, man, I know. God bless our parking team. There's a special place in heaven for those. servants. You see, the reality of the parable of the Good Samaritan is this, is that if we're anybody in the story, we're the beat-up broken, left-for-dead guy on the side of the road.

With, by our own choices, or maybe life just happened to us, we are beating up, stripped naked, embarrassed, and left-for-dead. And if somebody doesn't do something for us, then the grave is the answer for us. And yet, somebody who's like us, but not exactly like a us from a different place shows up, is moved by compassion, heals us, rescues us from the dead, pays our debt, and prevents us from going into the debt of slavery. You see, Jesus is the greater Samaritan. And because Christ did whatever it took to love us, therefore we love our neighbors. And so Jesus says to the guy, so go and do likewise. And we never hear from this larger again. You see, the point is, who's my neighbor? Wrong question.

because it limits the love of God, but be neighborly to whoever God puts in your path. And it doesn't stop here. It doesn't stop with, if you're on your way home today and you see a person, then help that person. Then if you keep reading your Bible, which is very dangerous to do because it'll jack up your whole life, Jesus will even say things like this. And love your enemies, which honestly, if you live in an HOA or most of the time your neighbors, so it kind of works out. He goes on to say this in Luke chapter 14.

Listen to this. Jesus says, Luke 14, 12 and following. And Jesus said to the man who had invited him, so Jesus gets invited to a party and he says to the party host, when you give a dinner or a banquet, don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, you be rebate. Honestly, isn't this how we live? You're doing your Christmas cards? Who do you send Christmas cards to? You got to go through the list. Who sent us cards last year? Because we've got to send them a card. This is why I don't send you Christmas cards. because Jesus, no, it's because I'm lazy, but it would fit. But here's what Jesus says. But when you give a feast, here's your invitation list. Ready? Invite the poor, the cripple, the lane, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Honest to goodness, have you ever done this before in your life? He's not saying you can only invite those folks. I mean, yeah, you have your friends over, for sure, no problem. But have you ever had a group of people over to your house? Have you ever loved the neighbors or your new neighbors that are not like you? And you don't even really like them. And they can't do anything for you. So I had a version of this yesterday at our house.

We invited a group of people that can't pay me back. J.P. is an 11-year-old baseball team. Okay? And they don't say thanks. And my house smells different this morning. And it costs us money. No problem. But I don't think that's exactly what he means.

And so I've got to tell you, man, we are very convicted about this, and I knew it was coming all year long, about loving our neighbors. You know why Jesus said love your neighbor? Because he knew that he would have to command that, because we know our neighbors. Could just be honest? Anybody got some neighbors you don't like? Come on, don't be a liar. Raise them up.

And I know somebody who didn't. You're like, not you, the other one, on the other side. You know, the weird ones. Let's be honest. Don't they give you lots of reasons not to love them? Like, pick up after your dog. Give me your break. Quit yelling at my kids.

You know what I'm saying? Like, there's plenty of reasons why. And as I look through what Jesus commands here, I know this. There are some people even on my street, and we have loved them well because they are a lot like us, and they're easy to love. They give our kids a ride to school, and they're nice to us. And then there's other people that we have willfully neglected. And so we need to have a party at our house.

And we need to invite the people that make us mad. So here's two action steps. Two. One is we have a serve day that our church is hosting on October the 21st. And we want every single human that calls 1122 your church, I want you to sign up for serve day. You can either go on the app and you can do it right now. In fact, I would highly encourage you because the sooner you sign up,

the more opportunity you have to get the project that you want. So do that. And so if you go to COE22.com slash serve day or if you go on the app, you'll see a thing that looks like this. And there are all these different opportunities to serve. And the reason that we want to do this is this, is we think that one day event where we show you some of the needs around our city will help your eyes be focused into other opportunities when you're just going down your normal travel corridors of life and you'll be more apt to see them. And we are going to blanket our city with love. what if the church of 1122 was not known as being one of the fastest growing churches in America?

What if what we were actually known for is that we loved one another? Because the greatest apologetic, at least according to Jesus, is that they would know that we are Christians by our love for one another. And we're not just helping people that are like us. We're partnering with a bunch of our local partners to help people all over the city. And this is really good news for you. I don't know if you know this, but churches, people in churches always have really great ideas is what the pastor ought to be doing with this time.

Thank you so much for your input into my life. But you know what? On this app is there's a section at the bottom, and if you see an opportunity for the church to serve, because people all the time, it's like, you know what the church should do. I'm like, that's a great idea. I don't know if you know this, you are the church.

So you, if you click on that button and you say, you know what, I have a neighbor, I have a relative, I have an opportunity, then you become the point person for that team that will help meet that need in our community. And so we want thousands and thousands of us, That's 1122, on October the 21st, to blanket our city by loving our neighbor as ourself. That's one.

So you can start doing that right now. Or when we sing and respond, I want you to go on and sign up. I'm going to preach on it a few times between here and there. And then secondly, secondly, I want you to throw a party at your house for your new neighbors. And for some of you, that could be the people on your street, and you just forgot. You forgot that God put you in that neighborhood as a city on a hill. as a salt of the earth, as a light in a dark place. Or it could be your neighbors at work, or it could be whoever it is, man.

Just pray to God and put together the invite list. And this is not throwing a party so that one day you'll get invited to their party. This is throwing a party so that you can demonstrate the love of God. Because you know what we did not do during the baseball party last night? At no point did I stop the party and be like, all right, everybody put the pizza down. Gretchen's going to sing two songs and then I'm going to preach. No, we did not do that. Now, we hope one day that our love towards that team translates to conversations that leads to answers to questions that leads to a life surrender to Jesus.

That's the ultimate hope. But I'm telling you, I command you. You've never heard a preacher command you this in your whole life. I command you. Throw a party. Now, it needs to be a God-glorifying party. All right, don't end up on the news. But just throw a party and invite people over simply to love them.

And this is who you invite. When you give a feast, you invite the poor and the cripple and the lame and the blind. People that can't do anything for you, people that don't look like you, people that are not like you. And you invite them in. And maybe when they say, why did you invite me? You say, well, actually, I am a Christian. And if you get to the end of the book, it gets kind of weird right before the end. But at the very, very end, there's this big party, this eternal life face-to-face with the Creator.

And by the way, it is a legit party. It's a marriage feast. It's a wedding feast. There's plenty of food. There's mansions. I mean, you want to talk about bling. They got so much gold, they use it as pavement. You understand?

It is a party. And guess who got invited? People that totally did not deserve to be invited. The broken and the cripple and the lame. Me and you. And the reason you throw a party and the reason you love your neighbor is because we did nothing to deserve his love. and yet he demonstrated his love for us and this.

When we had nothing to offer, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. See, I wish there was a Good Samaritan 2.0, like the rest of the story. Because I know it was just a story. It wasn't an actual event. But you know what I bet happened? If we get to heaven and Jesus tells like to follow up the 2.0 version of the Good Samaritan, I wonder what happened to, and again, this is total speculation.

But I wonder what happened to the man that was beaten up on the side of the road. I wonder what his life was like after he healed up. After the innkeeper came to him and he's like, I don't know how I'm going to pay for this. And the incomeber said, bro, it's crazy. This man that I've never met before from a different land who looked a little bit different, he paid your debt. I wonder how he lived the rest of his life. You know what I think a pretty safe bet is?

I bet that brother never passed by anybody else on the road that needed compassion. Because he had received the love and grace of God. he was a conduit to God's love and grace. Therefore, love your neighbor as yourself. Would you please stand and pray with me? Our good and grace is Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the blood of Jesus, through the love of the Heavenly Father,

standing on the authority of the Word of God, that this church would love our neighbors as ourselves. And that God, sometimes we would do it in, like, organized ways where we get thousands of people together for sure, without a doubt, but God, primarily it would just be an organic move from you. And that the thing that we are known for is not how fast we grow, but how much we love, because we are rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, God, I pray for the man, for the woman, for the student right now.

And the opportunity to serve and to love that you have given them is a mess. It's a family member. It's a co-worker. It's a classmate. And they know if they move towards it, they're going to be totally out of the their league, which God is perfect. That's perfect. Because that's the kind of environments where you really love to show out and show up. And so, God, we thank you that you have given us such a time as this to put on display the glory of God for our city and our world to see. And God, we pray that it

starts right here and it echoes through the world, your love for your people. We prayed in Jesus name, amen. A church, as we respond, we sing a song we started singing. saturated and the point of the song is that God may you do something in us that has a ripple effect throughout your kingdom and then we pray at the every at the end of every service we pray and some of you god is giving you this spligitsomai towards a mess and you know you're going to need his help in the mess that he's calling you to walk into I would ask you to come and pray and then we tithe we bring our first and our best we bring back to god a portion of the finance he has given us and by the church. When you do this, you participate with your church and what it means to love our neighbors.

Part of the reason we are able to partner with organizations and to love and to serve our neighbors and to meet needs is because you honor God with your finances. So let us sing and let us bring and let us pray. Let us respond.