The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 7: The Good Samaritan

Episode Date: June 4, 2017

God did not give you all that you have so you could have all you want, but so others could have all that they NEED.

Amen, amen. How are we doing, church? Doing okay? You look great. Hey, if you got your Bibles and I hope you do, grab them and go to Luke chapter 10, Luke chapter 10. If this is your first time here at 1122 at any of our campuses, you picked a doozy. This is known as our Compassion Weekend, and I have a very clear objective or goal for this weekend. My goal or my objective is to get you to sponsor a Compassion Kid, all right? And so we partner with Compassion International, and we have since before we were, we were ever a church. And it actually goes back about 17 years for my family. I'll tell you more about that in a little while. And so if you'll look around, there are packets of kids all over every location and every spot that we have. And so the goal today is to get you to sponsor a compassion kid. And so I know thousands of us already do, but we have grown by about 1,800 people since the

last time we did a compassion weekend, which was last year. And so I know that there are hundreds, if not thousands of you, that haven't had an opportunity to do that so far and so today is your chance so the reason i tell you that is that if any point during the sermon you feel compelled to just get up from where you are and go to one of the tables or to the walls and to fill out the packet and sponsor them you could you don't even have to wait to hear the sermon some of you don't even like preaching your mama just made you be here and so you could get out of this one today uh and just get up at any time go sponsor a kid fill it out turn it in and then leave here and go to brunch

and you get a check in the box from Jesus on what church was about today. Okay? Now, this is the only opportunity you get to ever do that. So feel free to. And I got to let you know, while I love Compassion Sundays, I feel a different sense of pressure on this day. Because I really do, man. I get to travel and meet Compassion projects and kids and directors and all of this.

And in fact, that's where I was the last two weeks. Me and a bunch of my friends were in Brazil visiting some of the church. churches that we have planted, et cetera, and I just feel like I'm standing here on behalf of thousands of children that are living in poverty, and we, at all of our campuses, we have the resources to rescue at least a thousand children from poverty in Jesus' name this very weekend. And in fact, this is something that 1122 is just into, and it's just something that we personally are into. My family sponsors, it was four, now it's six children after our Thursday night service. I did such a good job preaching. I convinced me that we should get two more.

In total, my family has sponsored 19 children over the 17 years that Gretchen I have been married. And not only that, we as a church, we sponsor about 5,000 children. So way to go. That means you are sitting among a bunch of people that sponsor kids. Way to go. And then not only that, compassion told me that through the influence that the church, of 1122 is that we have influenced other churches to sponsor about 10,000 children. And so I don't know how well you can see this picture that is back here behind me, but that is, that's a little girl named Grace that we sponsor from my family. But her picture is made up of about 10,000 individual pictures of children that you have

sponsored to make a mosaic of that one picture. Amen? And so that is a really big deal. our staff and elders sponsor over 100 children and there's one family here in our church they sponsor 14 kids and I did not get his permission to share his name so I'll just give you his initials are Rick Graham all right and so if you know he or his wife Donne send them a text in fact you'll remember we put Rick and Don on a video not too long ago he was the they are the family that when he lost his job they up to there before all things pledge that's the kind of of family they are. And not only do we do that, but we also, 1122 as a church, we partner with compassion and some other things too. Like we help compassion plant compassion churches. That's where we were for the last two weeks, helping them plant churches. And so here's a picture of

one of the churches that we planted in a place called Fortaleza, Brazil. And if you'll see right next to my right hand, there's the 1122 sticker. The sticker is everywhere, people. All right? It's not just all over town, it is in Brazil. And so that's an Acts 29 church. That's the network of churches that we are a part of. And so we planted that church there. Also, about four years ago, four and a half years ago, as we were preparing to launch here, you know, the original church of 1122, a team of us went to Brazil to plant a church in Brazil. And so we went to Kodo Brazil, the voodoo capital of South America.

and we partnered with a church there, a Presbyterian church. Can you know this? We planted a Presbyterian church. Isn't that crazy? It was preordained before the foundations of time that it happened, but that's cool. And so we went and we planted that. And so when we first went there, it was just a big mound of dirt. There was nothing there.

And then about a year after it got planted, they had a baptism service that's very similar to our baptism service next week. So next Sunday, we have a beach baptism service where the whole church shows up. up at the beach to celebrate hundreds and hundreds of people declaring that Jesus is their Lord and Savior. And so a year after this church in Caddo planted, they had a baptism service and they sent us a picture of what their baptism service looked like and check it out. This is a church that you planted. Amen?

And so before you planted this church, there was no gospel presence in this area. And after one year, that is what God has done. So just know this. Every time you bring back to God a portion of what is. is his and you give to our before all things generosity initiative these are the kinds of things that you are doing and so we as 1122 partner to plant churches with compassion we also sponsor what's called a CSP a child survival program that gives prenatal care to moms and and their babies before they're born and then helps them survive up to three years old so we sponsor one of those in in Uganda

we also have sent eight kids through what's called their lDP program leader development program. It's the best and the brightest kids that come from the projects we have sent through college. And then not only that, I would never ask you to do anything that we don't do personally in my own home. And so this is one of our kids. His name's Pedro. I got to hang out with him in Brazil last week. Here's a picture of me and Pedro. And so he is about 18 years old. And I was wise enough to not play him in soccer and get demolished by my own compassion kid. That's embarrassing. Once we start tackling in football, then I'm all in, okay? But until then, I'm not. Also, here's a picture of a little girl named Sonia. Sonia, we sponsored her after my family and I a

couple years ago went through the mobile experience. And so if you have not gone through the compassion mobile experience, it's at our Mandarin campus, way to go Mandarin. And you could, when you leave here today, it'd be real easy for you guys in Mandarin, but for the rest of us, we could drive over to Mandarin, and you could go. through this experience today, okay? It takes about 20 minutes to give you kind of a sense of what it would be like to grow up as one of the 1.7 billion kids that are raised on less than a dollar and 25 cents a day. And it tracks through kids actual experience. And so I took my kids through that mobile experience a couple years ago, mostly just so they quit whining a griping that

they didn't have the right kind of french fry and chicken nugget. I don't know how people raise children without chicken nuggets and french fries, but these people, do and so but when we went through that we decided to sponsor her we haven't met her yet also we also sponsor two children from Africa who I've gotten to hang out with a couple of times this is grace this is whose pictures right back here and this is Brandy and and this is when we were at that when we were at that pastors conference in Africa these two girls came to hang out with us and so we always bring them gifts and you know hat all that sort of stuff and then Brandy, the little girl on my right, she was so thankful. I've been to her house before.

She's being raised by her very young mom and her grandmother. And in order to say thanks, she gave me a chicken. And it's hard to have a conversation in Lugandan about Delta's chicken policy and bringing it back. So we didn't know what to do with the chicken, but anyway. And then lastly, one of our kids that we have sponsored really the whole church has is her name as Prossi. This is Prossi. Prossi is what's called an LDP student, and so she has graduated from college now, et cetera, so we've known her for years and years and years and I got to see her again in Africa. I've seen her over and over and over throughout the years. And here's the thing about Prossie. Prossi, when we met her, she was an orphan, total orphan, no mom, no dad, no family at all.

Her mom and dad both died of AIDS. And so when we met her, she asked if she could call me and Gretchen mom and dad. And if you go to Prasie's Facebook page, her name there is Prossi Joby. Because she has no family, and apparently doesn't understand how last names work, but that's a totally different thing. However, the thing about

Prassey is when we went to Africa, I shot her a Facebook message and said, hey, I'll be in Uganda. Can I send you some money to have you travel over to where we are so that you can come see us and hang out and I would love to see you. And she writes me back. I don't need your money. I have a job.

Now this is a little girl that grew up in a mud house and didn't get her first pair of shoes until she was eight years old. And now she's got a college degree and she's a business administrator and has 13 employees working for her. And the thing, amen, amen. And not only that is she, you know, she's got no mom and dad, she's got no family. So she calls Gretchen and I, mom and dad. And she says when she gets married, she asks if we would come back that I might walk her down the aisle. All right, you know. I told her, I just got to meet that sucker first to make sure that he is worthy of anybody named Prosse Jobie.

And so, for me, for us, this is very, very personal. Okay, this is very, very personal. This isn't just some kind of project or idea that we have. This is very personal to us. And so the way the whole thing got started is 17 years ago, we were at a, Gretchen and I, my wife and I, were at a youth specialties conference. I'm a recovering youth pastor. And we were there getting trained.

And she just, unbeknownst to me, went to a compassion table that are like the ones set up here. And without discussion, which probably marks most of our marriage, but she just did something, all right? And she just comes back with a packet and said, hey, we just sponsored a kid. And it was this little kid. We called him blue boots because he had these blue galoshes up to his thighs. He was from El Salvador. And we sponsored him. And we'd been married less than a year.

I didn't know you could say no, so we just had a kid. And I was like, all right. And so then we start writing letters, and, you know, they kind of go back and forth, and we got into it. A year later, we're at the same conference, and a guy named Louis Giglio is preaching, and a guy named Chris Tomlin's leading worship. Chris Tomlin wrote Good Father, so that's how you may know him. And so Louis gets up at the end of it to close down the conference and says,

instead of standing up and coming down front to give glory to God, why don't you stand up and walk back to the compassion tables and sponsor a kid. And so there goes my wife. And so I went right behind her. We've been married a minute now, so I knew that we could discuss. And so she goes, we're going to get another kid. I'm like, baby, hold on, hold on. It's $38 a month.

You know, we're kind of on a tight budget. I don't know if we've got that kind of flow right now. And she said, well, we spend more than $38 on cable. And so we called our second kid Comcast until he graduated. That's a fact. Now he's in the military in Ecuador, okay? And so it's just true. Now, here's why I share some of that with you.

My goal is that you, but at any time, if you could get up right now, maybe you're already convinced and you could go ahead, is that you would come off to $38 a month and sponsor a kid to rescue this child from poverty in Jesus' name. I mean, think about what we spend $38 on. You know what we spend $38 on? A meal for one at Chili's.

And you know what happens every time you eat somewhere like that? Every time you get up from that and you walk out to the car and you go, ugh, I shouldn't have done that. Is it not true? And yet, you know what, I've never, ever done, ever. I've never received a letter from one of my kids and said, I shouldn't have done that. You see, I look at some of the junk I spend $38 on and think,

that wasn't worth it at all. And every single time I see the face of one of these kids, or I receive one of the letters, every single time I say, yeah, that was worth it. And so at the end of the service on Thursday night, my plan was to sponsor one more this year. And Gretchen always outdoes me. And so she found twins, okay? I've never seen twins before in my whole life and all of Compassion International history.

But we got them. And so here they are. And so this is something that we are doing and want to give you the opportunity to do that. And so if you haven't found Luke 10 by now, just give up. You probably won't ever find it. But we put it in your notes. And so, but we're going to talk about a very, very, very famous parable. And we're in this really long series right now called the storyteller.

And we're studying different parables of Jesus. And the word parable is a Greek word that means to lay alongside of. And Jesus was a master storyteller. Now, he primarily was not just a teacher or storyteller. He was primarily the sovereign savior. But in an effort for us to know what we have been saved from and who we have been saved too, he would tell these parables and he would cast alongside a complex theological mystery of the Almighty God alongside an average everyday story that people like me could understand.

And this is what a parable is. And so this parable is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Even if you've never been to church before in your whole life, you've heard the word Good Samaritan. and this is where it comes from. But the context in which we find the parable of the Good Samaritan matters a bunch. And so it really, you've got to understand the context. If you start in Luke chapter 10, verse 1, I don't have time to read it all. But Jesus sends out the 72, 72 followers of his.

He basically sends them out on a short-term mission trip. He says, you're going to cast out demons, you're going to preach the gospel, you're going to care for the poor. This is what to do and not to do and who to talk to and who to not talk to. And so they all go out and do that. And by the time you get to verse 17, they've all come back home and everybody's really stoked. Verse 17 says, in the 72 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpets and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall hurt you. verse 20 nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven this is really important what jesus is saying he's going to book in the parable of the good samaritan with this idea that we should rejoice in our identity more than our activity you see because for the next 40 minutes or so i'm going to talk about what we should do as Christians. And if we're not careful, we can get really, really excited about rescuing children from poverty. And what Jesus is saying is first and foremost, rejoice in your identity that first and foremost, I have rescued you from spiritual poverty. In other words, don't ever confuse your activity

of what you do because you're a Christian with your identity and who you are because of what Christ has done for you. You see, the story or the event that follows the Good Samaritan parable is, is the event of Mary and Martha. These two sisters, Jesus is coming over to their house. And Martha is like a type A clean freak. She's got to get everything ready because she's got guests coming over. Not just any guests, the son of God. And when Jesus shows up, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus.

And Jesus says to Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha, you have chosen the wrong thing. In other words, identity always precedes activity. And so with that in mind, in verse 23, Jesus leans in just to his core disciples. It says, and he turns to the disciples and he says privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see it,

and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. Now, listen to 1122, when I read those verses, I think they apply to us to. In other words, what Jesus is saying to the 12 disciples is, do you understand that prophets prayed forever to see things and they didn't even get to see it, but you get to see a mighty move of the hand of God? I mean, 1122, honestly, who are we? We're a bunch of rejects. You know our church is like the island of the misfit toys, don't you understand?

I mean, it really is. And yet, God uses us ordinary, unschooled people who've just been with Jesus. And who are we that he would use us to sponsor for? 5,000 kids and rescue them from poverty in Jesus' name. And who were we that he would use us to reach thousands and thousands of people here in Jacksonville, really all over our city? And who are we that he would use us to plant churches all over this world? I mean, who are we?

Now, what Jesus is specifically talking about here is this, is he's saying, hey, blessed are you because you get to see the face of God. Some of you are like, you know what? I wish I could see the face of Jesus. Well, according to Jesus, if you flip over to Matthew chapter 25, he says, until I return, your best chance for seeing my face is whatever you do for the least of these, brothers and sisters of mine. You do for me.

You want to see the face of the Almighty God? He says, you get face to face with serving the poor, taking care of the orphan, loving the widow, speaking up for the one that cannot speak up for themselves. And when you do that, then you are face to face with the Almighty God. And while Jesus is having this little private discussion with his disciples, this religious guy butts in. Says this, and behold, a lawyer, he butts in. Why?

Because that's what lawyers do. Amen? And if you're your lawyer, you should say, amen, all right? Now, when the Bible says lawyer here, it's not the kind of lawyer that you are. This is not litigation amongst pig farmers. When the Bible says lawyer, it means a teacher of the Bible, a teacher of the law of Moses. And so this is like a seminary student, okay? A very religious guy.

And it says, and behold, a teacher of the law stood up and put Jesus to the test. And he says, teacher. Now, you can't pass by stuff like this. You see, what happens is, is when he stands up before Jesus, this is a sign of respect. And he even uses the right language when he calls him rabbi another sign of respect. Yet, we know that the intention of his heart is not to respect him. In fact, he's trying to put Jesus to the test, which is always what religion does. You see, in religion, hearts and actions are never aligned.

The outside is doing the right thing. They're at the right place. They say the right things. But yet, in their heart, while they're doing righteous activity, they're just self-righteous trying to define themselves as righteous by their activity, and they've never humbled themselves in their identity before Christ the Lord. And so this is what this guy does. He says, rabbi or teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? By the way, this is the most important question you'll ever ask. And every single human being at some level ask this question.

Now, you might not ask it this way, but this is a legit question. This is that moment when you lay your head down on the pillow, even after you're crushing it in your world and have achieved all of your goals and dreams at a younger age than you set out to, and you ask this question, is this it? I mean, is this it? Is this what I was created for? Do I just get up every day and do the same thing? I mean, I just wake up to the same ringtong, and I eat something, drive something, sell something, come home, watch something, eat something, go to sleep, do it again. Is this it? Or is there more to this life than what I have experienced? And so this guy asked a very, very, very legit question, but in his question,

we can see that he totally does not understand how the whole thing works. Because he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? As if it is all up to him. And so Jesus is going to answer in verse 26. And he says to him, what is written in the law. Now don't pass by this too vast. This is very very important, especially in our day. This guy asked, okay, what do I have to do to be saved? How do I go to heaven? What does it take for someone to be right with God?

And you know what Jesus does not answer with? He doesn't answer with, well, it depends on what you believe or depends on where you're from or how you grew up or there's many roads to the top of the mountain. He answers with one thing. It's written in the Bible. It's not about my opinion or your opinion. What does the Bible say? Because the Bible says there's only one name under heaven.

whereby we must be saved. And also, this is a little bit of Jesus, Duke, which is very appropriate because this is Jesus, because he's talking to who, a Bible teacher, a Bible expert. And he basically says, come on, bro, do you read your Bible? He says to him, what does the Bible say or what is written in the law? How do you read it? And this lawyer, or this teacher of the law, answered him, you shall love the Lord of 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 says to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. So when this guy answers, he nails it. The first part of it, you shall love the Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

That is the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 6. It is not a surprise that this guy would nail this. Every Jewish family would know that the Shema, the Shemah in the Old Testament is like the John 316 of the New Testament. It is like the verse that everybody knows. Even if you don't go to church or synagogue, you would know this. They literally would have that verse nailed to the doorpost of their house, and the families would pray at three times a day at least.

So he nails this. What do you do? You love God. But he also throws in a little Leviticus 1918. I know you knew that, but just for those of you that are new. Leviticus 1918 is, and love your neighbor as yourself. Which means either this brother has been studying the Bible, or he's been chasing Jesus around when other people said,

what's the greatest commandment? Because Jesus put those two things together. Love God, love people, and he jams those together. Now, so Jesus says, all right, you nailed it. Do this, and you will live. And the guy's like, so do what? Love God. That's how you inherit eternal life.

What must I do to inherit eternal life? Do I go to church? Do I sponsor a bunch of kids? Do I raise my hands in worship? Is there a prayer that I pray? What do I do? And Jesus answers with, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about a thing that you do. It's about a love relationship with the Almighty God. Now, I'm always a big fan of using the Bible to be commentary unto the Bible. And so in 1 John chapter 4, there is commentary. It tells us exactly how we as people are to love God. Not only does it define what love is, but then it tells us how we are to do. what Jesus says to do. So, if you will, flip over to 1 John, if you're new to Bible study, this is Little John, it's way in the back, there's three of them, go to number one, okay?

First John, chapter 4, beginning in verse 7, the Bible says this, beloved, that's us. Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God, and anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. Now this is really, really important. Before the Bible is going to tell us how we are to love God and love one another, it starts by establishing the reality that God in and of himself is love. This is why the doctrine of the Trinity is so incredibly important, because there is one God in three persons.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and God in and of Himself, before there was anything else in all creation, God in and of himself was a perfect love relationship, that he was not in need. It's not like God was walking around heaven going, what am I going to do with all this space and time? I know, I will create some people to sing me songs on the weekend and disobey me all week. That'll be fun. No, that is not what, like he didn't need us. But when the Bible says that God is love, this means that God is both the subject and the object of God's love for God's self.

and that God's love for God's self spills out into creation and he creates everything that is to display his glory and then there's one thing in his creation that he gives the ability to give and receive love like he gives and receive love and that is mankind. This is what it means that we are created in the image of God. That we are the only thing in his creation that can love like he does. Like I hate to break this to you, okay?

But your cat doesn't love you. Especially if you're like a cat lady. I really hate to break it to you. We'll pray for you. But your cat doesn't love you. Now, cats can't love anything, so let's go to something else. Your dog doesn't even love you. He doesn't.

I know he acts like he does, but he's actually just responding to his environment. You know what he loves? He loves bacon. And you have the bacon. And you have conditioned him to know that you have the bacon. Here's how I know that your dog doesn't love you. Because if you died in your apartment tonight, he would eat your neck meat to stay alive. he just would and he would have no problem moving over to your neighbor's house if they had bacon okay

he is not an image bearer of god but we because we bear god's image and god is a perfect love relationship in and of himself then we can give and receive love verse nine in this the love of god was made manifest among us in other words here's how god showed us that he loves us that god sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. Verse 10, in this is love. You want to know what love is? The Bible defines it. This is love.

And we need a definition for love, right? Because we live in a world that uses love like, we look at our wife and children and say, I love you. And then we also love tacos. There's a very different kinds of things. And, you know, people have been asking Tina Turner said, what's love got to do with it? God would say a lot. And foreigner wanted to know what love is, and God says, here it is. And then some other band we've never heard of said, what is love? Maybe don't hurt me.

I don't know what that has to do with love, but God's saying, you don't have to ask anymore, this is love. In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. That word propitiation matters. We teach it over and over and over, because I am convinced if you can understand Carmel Machiato, you can understand propitiation. Perpetiation is a payment that satisfies. This means that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, he satisfied the perfect law and justice of God on our behalf. And says, perpetuation means a payment that satisfies. This means that God will never be dissatisfied in you.

Because to be dissatisfied with something is you expected this, but you got that. And that gap created is where dissatisfaction is. God knew exactly what he was getting when he chose you and paid for you. And now you and I are covered in the perfect righteousness of his son. And so Jesus is the propitiation for our sin. And since our sin debt is fully satisfied, then God is fully satisfied in what Christ did for you. That's what love is. Verse 11.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we are. also ought to love one another. In other words, what John does is he gives this commentary on what Jesus says the greatest commandment is, to love God and to love people. And so, Jesus says to this lawyer, do this, do what? Love God. Love God. And then you will inherit eternal life. Well, how do I do that? You've got to understand that Jesus is the propitiation for our sin. Let me just bowl it down real simple. You've got to believe that when Jesus died on the cross, that counted for you. That the way that we love God is not by the stuff that we do. The way that we love God is we accept the free gift of salvation given to us in Christ. And when we do that, he fills us up with his

kind of love that reflects back to him the very love relationship that he is. And so Jesus looks at the man and says, that's what you do. You surrender your life to the Lordship of Christ. That's how you love God. Check this out. Verse 29. But he, the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, says to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now, there's some very interesting things here. First of all, this is what religion is. Religion is man's attempt at self-justification. A relationship with Jesus is us receiving what God did on our behalf to make us right with God. These are very, very different things. And also, notice, this man skips right by the whole loving God thing. He doesn't want to have, he doesn't have any questions about, okay, so how do I love God more?

He's like, let's just skip that. Why? Because he's not interested in loving God. He's interested in testing Jesus and in self-justification. And what he jumps to is, all right, well, let's get this straight. So who is my neighbor? You see, this is minimalism at its best. what's the minimum amount of effort that I must do to be okay with God?

You see, being a minimalist and being in love are complete opposites. If you actually love your spouse, you don't go to them, we're like, okay, what's the minimum amount of quality time we have to spend together so you will leave me alone and I can watch football, okay? That is not love. Survival, maybe. Love? No way. You see, love never asked what's the minimum that I have to do. When the Bible describes God's love towards us, it uses words like lavish.

That means like an overflow. And so this guy is saying, okay, what's the minimum that I might do? I know I'm supposed to love like the people with my last name and maybe my actual neighbors, but I don't have to love people that don't look like me and act like me, do they? And so he says, so who's my neighbor? And so Jesus goes into story time. And he's going to tell one of the most famous parables of all time, verse 30. And Jesus says, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

And when it says this, he's being literal, because Jerusalem is like the highest point in the nation of Israel. And everything is down from there. And the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is 17 miles long, and you drop 3,300 feet on that trip. Now, on our trip, when we were there, somehow we walked uphill for 14 days straight. I'm not sure how it happened, some kind of miraculous geographical thing, so get ready if you're going to go with us. But the guy's literally going downhill from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, this is very common on the road to Jericho because it's very windy and there's a bunch of rocks and stuff. and so robbers would hang out kind of into cliffs and wait for people to come by and jump them and rob them.

And so, again, this is just a story, but as he sets this up, people are like, yeah, I know a guy that got robbed there. Verse 31. Now, by chance, which is a little bit of wink, wink, when the sovereign Savior says by chance, he kind of means God ordained this, all right? Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So two things happened. This priest, this religious guy, when he saw him, that's the first thing that happened, then he made a decision to get on the other side of the road and to pass by.

Now, people, I don't know, maybe they would be surprised, but in reality, the religious people in the audience would think, yeah, but he's justified in passing by and not helping this guy. You see, because a priest, if he was coming from Jerusalem to Jericho, that means he's probably been in Jerusalem, ceremonially cleaning himself, which means you had to stand in line, you had to pay money, you had to sacrifice a red heifer and give it as a burnt offering.

I don't know if he burned a red heifer before. It takes a long time, like a week or so. There was this whole process by which he had to go through. And his religious rules told him that if he got within six feet of a dead person, then he would be unclean. And I don't know if you've been around somebody half dead, but they look most dead.

And if you get up there real close, then you would be unclean. And then this priest, he'd have to go all the way back to Jerusalem, uphill again, and take seven more days. He couldn't go do what he was supposed to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm sure, in his mind, he was justified in and of himself to pass by on the other side. Verse 32, and so likewise, a Levite.

Now, a Levite's like a J.V. priest. So the priest came from the line of Aaron. The Levites come from the line of Levi. and the Levites, they were like JV priests that were never going to make varsity. They just helped out all the time. But they had the same rules. And so, it says, so likewise the Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side. And again, I bet if you interviewed the priest and the Levite, they would justify themselves as to why they had such good reasons to pass by on the other side, to which I would say this.

If your religious rules cause you to move away from people, then you have the wrong religion. That Jesus has never been about self-preservation. He's about self-sacrifice. And if you want clean hands before God, that means you get your hands dirty by loving God and loving people. And so this is what these two guys were thinking. I got really good reasons. And I bet if you got down to the reasons and behind the reasons, they would say things like, You know what? We're just too busy.

I mean, I hate it for this guy, but we're just too busy. I got a lot going on, man. I just got clean in Jerusalem. I got to get down to Jericho. I've got my own congregation there. I bet they would say things like, you know what? How much can I actually do? I mean, here's one guy on the side of the road.

There's people beating up on the side of the roads all over the place. Not only that, there's enough to do in my own hometown. I'm not going to reach out to places outside of my town until I get everybody taken care of in my own. hometown. And not only that, I'm in ministry, I don't have enough money. And, and you know what, if we're honest, how do we know it's not this man's fault? How do I know that he hasn't been running with the wrong crowd and he made a bunch of poor decisions? And it's by his own decisions that he's here. And not only that, I don't even know if he's here legally. Sound familiar? You see, when you see somebody in need, you can either make excuses or you can make a difference. But never both.

you can either make excuses or you can make a difference. You'll never be good at both. And in your heart of hearts, you know. You know before the almighty maker of heaven and earth, and you know before your heavenly father if you're just trying to justify yourself so you feel better about you when you see and you pass by on the other side. You see, Edmund Burke says,

all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for God. good men to do nothing, for good men to do nothing. And then Jesus keeps going. Now, at this point, the audience is a little bit like, whoa, the priest and the Levite aren't the heroes of the story. And so he says this, but a Samaritan. And listen, when he says it, I think he paused. He was like, but a Samaritan. And the whole crowd went, ah, not a Samaritan. Yeah, the music, you know, the soundtrack of Luke 10, the music changes here. Okay? Because when we hear Samaritan, we think good, because we know this story, and we know the good Samaritan.

But see, when they heard this, they had nothing but hate and animosity. And if you grew up around church, you know this stuff. During the Davidic exile, there was a remnant of Jews left in the Holy Land, and they intermarried and intermingled with pagan cultures, and they kind of made up their own religion, and they were not racially pure, and there were all of these reasons. I mean, you take the racism that is prevalent in America as bad as it is, and you multiply it by about 2,000 or 3,000 years, and you're starting to get on the front end of the hatred among these people with each other.

And when Jesus says a Samaritan, I mean, people are like, you have got to be kidding me. It would be like if I was in Gainesville, Florida. And somebody were to say to me, Rabbi, who is my neighbor? And I would say, imagine there was a day, and there was a tailgate right here in Gainesville. And this young man was leaving his tailgate, innipeated, walking down the street, and he fell, and he was beaten, and he was robbed, and he was left for half dead. And you know what happens if you leave somebody half dead long enough? They become whole dead, okay?

It's not good. And he was beaten, and he was naked. His jean shorts were just gone. People would be like, ah, this is serious. And then coming over the hill, there is the old ball coach himself. And everybody thought, dun-da-da-da-da. And then the old ball coach saw this gator fan and passed by on the other side. And the crowd would think, oh, strange things are afoot.

And then, lo and behold, over the same hill with a French horn playing. There is Tim Tebow. And everybody thought, now, our savior. Timmy himself saw this gator fan in the curb and he passed by on the other side. And all of you would go, dear. But then, just when you thought all hope was lost, behold, Herschel Walker, done, da, da, done, got it? Okay, so it's like that, but way worse. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, he came to where he was,

and he saw him and he had compassion. He saw him and he had compassion. See, compassion is not a feeling. Compassion is a feeling or a stirring that leads to action. You see, John 316 does not say, and God so loved the world, that he said, aw, it's not that God so loved the world that he did something. He sent his only begotten son, Jesus. And so this man has compassion and he does something about it.

He went to him, he bound up his wounds, pouring 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 denary that'd be like two days wages and he gave to the innkeeper and he said take care of him and whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back he did not give excuses he did not make excuses he just made a difference verse 36 which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers notice what Jesus does the question was who is my neighbor Jesus says that's a wrong question

the question is not who is my neighbor the answer is you just be a neighbor to whoever's around you this is why the church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus we're not asking who our neighbor is we're declaring we will be neighborly

to everybody no matter what no matter who you look like where you're from it does not matter because God loves all people and so we're a church for all people that includes all these little people on all these little packets all over the walls and all of our locations. And so Jesus says to him, go and do likewise. In other words, back to the original point,

love God and love people. That's how you'll inherit eternal life, not by what you do, but what Jesus has done for you. And when you know Jesus that way, when you surrender your life to the Lordship of Christ, then the love of the Father is poured into you. It lavishes out of you, and you begin to love other people the way that he has loved you. And the reason I wanted to spend some time on this famous parable is because it is a beautiful picture of our partnership with Compassion International. You see, in the parable there are three characters. There's the man in need, there's the innkeeper,

and then there are the three people that come down the road. And you see, the man in need could represent the children that are in poverty. One of the only legitimate excuses for a Christian to not help somebody is you just didn't see it. You just didn't know. Well, everybody look up and everybody look around. I want to take away that excuse. Every single one of these children in these packets, these are actual children. This doesn't represent somebody.

This is this kid. And these are some of the poorest people in all the world, in the entire world. And God orchestrated the events to allow us to see it. just like by chance the priest came walking down the road well by chance you were at this service today no matter what location you're at and did you know 22,000 children die every day around the world from preventable disease like diarrhea we get diarrhea and we think this isn't awesome I'll go to Walgreens still not awesome but we don't die around the world they do 1.6 billion people live on less than a dollar and 25 cents a day

11 children under the age of 5 die every minute. And 35 mothers die during childbirth every hour. And yet, the problem with statistics is you can't smell them. You just can't smell a statistic. And so part of the reason I was in Brazil last week with about 29 of my buddies is I just wanted them. They're mostly pastors of other churches. I wanted to equip them to be able to share with their people what is actually going on. And so where we're planting churches in Kodo, Brazil, there's this place right in the middle of the city, and they call it the mall.

The reason they call it the mall is because that's where most of the people from this village go to get food, to kind of scavenge through the trash from the city to find things that maybe they could use or recycle or sell so that they could try to feed their families. And so we took our folks to this place called the dump. And it's interesting that when Jesus in the New Testament was teaching his people, on hell. He used this Greek word called Geheni, which literally translated is the city dump. Because there was everlasting fire, because the trash was always

on fire. There was gnashing of teeth because these dogs are fighting over scraps of meat and the vultures of prey are everywhere. I think Jesus wanted his people to see a tangible representation what eternity apart from Christ would look like. And we walk through it. This is what the dump and Cado looks like. Check it out.

And it's worse than the video, because you can't smell And there are families, and that's where they go to eat. Now, you've seen it. You've seen it. There's a man beaten and left for half death. Now, there's another character in this story, and it's the innkeeper. And in the Good Samaritan parable, the innkeeper is he's got the systems and the structure to do what the Samaritan on the journey isn't set up to do.

It's to take care of this man. He's got a place for him to eat, a place for him to stay, and a place for him to recover. And this is like what Compassion International is. It is this worldwide organization set up to rescue children from poverty in Jesus' name. They've been doing it since the Korean War. It's grassroots. It's holistic child development, heart, soul, mind, and strength. They feed them, they educate them.

They give them clothes. They give them skills so that they can be employable one day. and more importantly than all of that, they give them the gospel. You see, at 1122, we want to alleviate all human suffering, especially eternal. And so 40 years ago, we went to plant a church that was a compassion project. And this year, two weeks ago, we went back to see how that project was doing. And this is right on the village just outside of where that dump is. And I want to show you what happens when compassion brings the gospel to town.

Check this out. And the video doesn't do it justice. See, every one of those children are compassion kids. Every single one of them. Those were kids that four years ago when we went and visited, they were eating out of the dump. And every single time you sponsor one kid, I'm telling you, you rescue a child. And every single time we as a church plant another church, we rescue about 300 children that don't have to go to the dump anymore. to scavenge.

You see, that's what happens when the gospel is proclaimed. It's just like at the very beginning of the Bible, there was nothing and God said stuff, and then life began to happen. And on that hill where you see all those children singing, Hallelujah, four years ago there was nothing. There was a big dirt hill, and we planted the stake of the gospel there, and now there is life, where there used to not be life, which leads to the third category, and that's those of us that see.

This is us, and you've got... One of two options. All of us have seen the need, and you can either pass by or you can have compassion. And so listen, we have carefully orchestrated this, per my request, to hang up child packets at every, you can't get out of any of our locations without passing by one of these kids. And so now it's just up to you. You can either see and pass by on the other side, or you can have compassion. You see, here's the point that God did not give you all that you have so that you could have all that you want, but so that others could have all that they need.

And so now that you've seen the need, will you pass by on the other side or will you have compassion? Now listen, the truest meaning of the Good Samaritan is this, is not that we're the Good Samaritan. In actuality, the truest meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that you and I are the guy beaten up and robbed. and left for half dead on the road. And then someone who was not like us came from a distant land. His name is Jesus. And he saw us and he had compassion. And then he didn't go to the innkeeper.

He went to the cross and he paid the full price so that we could be healed. And if Jesus has done that for us, then I don't know how we see children in this kind of need and not do something about it. You see, imagine this. Here are the two girls that we're sponsoring right now. Maria Victoria Sousa Barbosa and Maria Clara Sousa Barbosa. A lot of the same names are they're twins. Now just imagine for a second, would you?

Imagine on this packet or your kids or your niece or your nephew. And you lived on the other side of the world. Do you know what the difference between your kids and these kids are? You know what the difference between you and me and the people in that video, where we were born? You realize that's the only difference? Where we were born? And there's some mamas and there's some daddies and they are doing the best that they can do, man. They are.

They're not lazy. They are working. They're doing the best that they can do. And because of corruption, because of sin, we live in a broken and twisted world. And just imagine for a second if this was one of your babies. And you knew that today on the other side of the world, there were a great. group of people, Jesus followers, gathered together, and their primary message was love God and love people. What would you want those people on the other side of the world to do for your babies?

That's what you should do. That's what you should do. You see, because every single time I go on one of these trips, man, I look eyeball to eyeball to some moms and dads that love their kids just like we love ours. And I say, I promise you, mama, I promise you. Debti, as long as God gives me breath in my lungs, we will do whatever it takes to rescue children from poverty, your children from poverty in Jesus' name. In church, we have the ability this very weekend to change the lives and potentially the eternal trajectory of a thousand children around the world. And so in just a second, two guys from our worship team, they're going to come out and they are

going to sing a song and you're not even really intended to sing it. Okay, it's an original song and if you want to see how unskilled you are, try to sing along and it'll expose what a terrible thing you are, okay? You just kind of need to, they're just going to sing it, okay? Don't even try. But during this time, your job is not to sit and soak. I need you to do three things. Just a second, I'm going to pray, and even when I start praying, you can go ahead and start moving, and then the guys are going to come out at all of our locations, okay? we're going to do this the same way. And then when I say amen or even if you don't want to wait until then,

I need you to get up, go get out. And I need you to fill it out right now. We're going to turn the lights up so old people like me can see, all right? So we don't have to have a thousand iPhone lights on, okay? We're going to turn the lights up. I need you to get a pin. I need you to fill it out right now and then turn it into somebody. And this will be your spiritual act of worship.

Normally we sing and we pray. This time we're going to get up, go get a packet, fill it out, and turn it. it in. Because if you take this thing home and you don't turn it in today, there's only one packet per kid because this is it. And they will be out of the loop for about half the year. They will not have the opportunity to be sponsored. And so you have a choice. Everybody has seen the need and you can either decide to justify yourself and pass by on the other side. Or because what God did for you, you could see and have compassion. So let me pray.

Then you're going to get up, go, fill it out, turn it in, and then we'll be dismissed. Please pray with me. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you because you love us first. God, we thank you that you are first, that you love first, that you go first. And God, because of that, we want you to be before all things. We want to put you first in our lives. And God, you commanded us, you commanded us to love. the least of these. God, I thank you and I praise you for an organization like Compassion

International that makes what's so close to your heart so accessible to us. And God, I pray that you would continue to pour out your spirit on this church, your church, the Church of 1122. God, I pray that we would continue to be a five-talent church. God, we would not be led by fear, but by faith we would do what you have called us to do. And God, I thank you that you wanted us to know you as a good, good father. And so, Lord, I thank you that you are a father to the fatherless. So, Lord, we pray for the thousand children that are represented in these packets that we have in all of our locations, God. And we pray that you would move through this church to do a mighty, mighty thing for your glory and for our joy.

And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.