This morning we come to part two of this parable of the compassionate Samaritan that really begins in verse 25. So last time we considered verses 25 to 28. We'll read again from verse 25 down to verse 37. This is God's word. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strengths and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, He had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy, and Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. So ends the reading of God's word. Let's pray. O Lord, we ask that you would now give us ears that would hear your word, hearts that would be receptive to your law, to conviction, and a hope that would be fueled by the encouragement that comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. As we have just sung together, we ask, Lord, give us light, thy truth to see, and make us wise in knowing thee. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if there's anything that people the world over love, it's a nice, warm, feel-good story that has a happy ending where everything works out in the end. And so it's not surprising then that Jesus' story of this Samaritan helping a stranger in need is something that we often see referenced in our culture because it seems to fit that bill. Whenever a stranger helps someone else, they're called a good Samaritan. When a stranger risks his life to help someone who's drowning, they're called a good Samaritan. When one person pays for another person they don't even know in the grocery line, paying for their maybe Thanksgiving meal for an impoverished family, they're called a good Samaritan. That's typically how the phrase is used. It's whenever one person does something really nice or helpful for a stranger. And the world loves stories like this because the world is always ready to hear heartwarming stories that restore our faith in humanity. And so the application is that we should all be nice and good like the Samaritan. While that all sounds very nice, the problem is that it is a sheer and utter misinterpretation of Jesus' parable. Now certainly Jesus does want us to be nice and kind and loving and he calls us to be good neighbors. But the point of this parable is not about how we need to be good neighbors to others. Rather, the point is to show us that we have not been good neighbors to others, and that we can never hope to secure eternal life on the basis of our good works. Remember, the context is that the lawyer has just asked Jesus what works he must do to inherit eternal life. The lawyer is not asking, how can I be saved from his sin? Nor is he asking, how can I, as a believer justified in Christ, better be a witness to my neighbor? No, he's asking, as Luke tells us, how he can be justified according to the law. And so Jesus appropriately points him back to the law. Jesus essentially says, love God perfectly with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, love your neighbor as yourself, do this, and then you will live. You will inherit eternal life. Jesus was leading him back to the law in order for him to see how no one can be justified according to the law. The law requires absolute perfection. The law doesn't grade on a curve, it requires 100%. There is no passing grade. The problem is we are not perfect. We, like this lawyer, are sinners and wretches who have not done what the law requires. But here the lawyer, not wanting to admit defeat at this point and still wanting to justify himself, questions the definition of the law. Who is my neighbor really? And then Jesus responds with this brilliant but very misunderstood parable of the compassionate Samaritan. With this parable, Jesus is not writing the script for a Hallmark movie. This is not designed by Jesus to be a cozy, heartwarming tale of kindness in the most unexpected of places. No, this parable is designed to condemn those who would seek to be justified by their works before the Lord. For all who look to their own works for their standing before God, This should not warm your heart, it should turn your stomach. Friends, we are not the Samaritan in this parable. If anything, we are the lawyer. We are better still the dead man lying in the ditch. And what we need is the compassion and the good works of another in order to save us from the wages of our sin. Through this parable, the Lord Jesus doesn't point us to our own righteousness or our own good works or efforts. Instead, he calls us to look outside of ourselves to a righteousness that comes through him. So let's consider then, Part two of Jesus' interaction with this lawyer. We'll consider the lawyer's question, Jesus' parable, and then finally Jesus' point. So first we have the lawyer's question. Now up until this point in the conversation, the lawyer's goal and purpose has been to try to prove to Jesus that he can keep the law in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus responded, pointing him back to that very law in order for him to see the law as requiring perfection. He wanted the lawyer to realize that no fallen man can attempt to keep the law in all of its perfection and thus earn eternal life. And Jesus, amazingly, was able to get the lawyer to admit that with his own mouth, that the law requires absolute love, the totality of one's heart, soul, strength, and mind, something no one can do. And then Jesus, quoting the Old Testament, said, do this and you will live. Now that should have silenced the lawyer. He should have been blown away and kind of walked away, scratching his head, taking time to think. Best case scenario, he should have fallen on his knees before Jesus and said, how can I, a sinner, be saved? However, this man is so blinded by his own pride that he is blind to this truth. And so he presses Jesus once again to try to prove his own righteousness. The very thing which the Apostle Paul says is impossible for man to do. Seeking to justify himself by the law, he tries to redefine the law. Look at verse 29. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now, if your eternal standing before God and your entrance into eternal life is based on your love for your neighbor, well, wouldn't you want to know who your neighbor is? And that's the logic of the lawyer here. He wants to figure out who falls into this category of neighbor and who doesn't. Because if your eternal standing before God and in heaven rests on the treatment of your neighbor, well, if you can maybe limit the category of neighbor just to Jews, and maybe then just a little bit more to Jews that are like me, lawyers and priests and that sort of thing, good, respectable people. Well, then that makes the law a lot easier to keep. And so that's why he asked this question, who is my neighbor? And this was actually a very hotly debated topic at this time under the Mosaic law. Neighbor meant specifically your fellow Israelite in the land. And it could also be extended to sojourners, people traveling through or staying in the land for a time. But it absolutely did not apply to the Canaanites. Under the law, the Mosaic law, the Canaanites were to be perpetual enemies of Israel. Under the Mosaic law, it was a sin to seek the peace and prosperity of the Canaanites. And at this time in Israel's history, that debate continued to rage about the status of neighbor. Were the occupying Romans neighbors to the Jews? What about the Greeks who had settled there? Well, certainly not the Samaritans. And so this background helps us to understand the nature of the lawyer's question. It helps us, doesn't it, to see the question behind the question. You know, he's not asking for a definition of neighbor because he just has a big heart and he wants to love everybody and he's hoping that Jesus will broaden the definition. No, he's asking who is my neighbor because he wants to narrow the definition of who is my neighbor. He wants to make the law easier to keep. And so in his own twisted logic, what he's doing makes sense. If I can narrow it down to just this small group of people, well then I think I am pretty righteous. I think I'm doing a pretty good job with the law. And I'm sure God is happy with me. That's what he's doing. He's trying to find a loophole in the law in order to justify himself, in order to sanitize his sin, in order to make the law more manageable. And sadly, This is something that even we as believers, believers who know that we're justified by faith alone in Christ alone, even we at times find ourselves doing this very thing. Can you think of a time when you responded to the law of God this way? You know, when God, by his word and spirit, convicted you so clearly about an area of sin in your life where you needed to repent. You know, maybe it was the case where you came to church on a Sunday morning and you left church that morning wondering if the pastor had a camera set up in your home that week. The application was so piercing to your soul and to your very exact circumstances. There's no way. Was he in my workplace? How did he know that? And of course, it's the Spirit of God who's convicting you of that sin. And maybe it lingers in your mind for a while, but then, instead of confessing your sin, and instead of repenting before God, you play the lawyer. You find reasons why, you know, well, actually, you know, the pastor said it this way, but it doesn't really apply to my life. All right, I know God's word says this, but I think there's some technicalities here that make my situation differently. And whether verbally to others or just in our own minds, we justify ourselves, don't we? We rationalize our sin. We say, well, it's okay for me to be doing this. I really don't like when they do this, but it's okay for me for these reasons. Or the young unmarried couple, well, you know, yeah, we're not married, but we're married in the Lord's eyes. I'm sure he understands. Or, it's okay for me to take a little bit of petty cash from the till every now and then. I don't do it that often. Or to take supplies from the workplace. I put in the time, after all, and other people do it too, so it's not technically stealing. Or, yeah, I'm sharing this information that's none of my business with this other person with whom it's none of their business about this other person in the church, but I'm just concerned. We do that, don't we? We sin, and then we play the lawyer to justify our sin, to rationalize away things that God has clearly, clearly and unequivocally forbidden in his law. And the Lord speaks to us, not only through the pages of scripture that maybe we read throughout the week, but he speaks to us through so many forms. He speaks to our conscience as we remember past passages of scripture and sermons. He speaks to us as we read devotional books and all sorts of things. And his word comes and it convicts us. And so often we play the lawyer to make our sin less toxic and putrid, and to make our work's righteousness more justified. We might be fooling ourselves, but we're not fooling God. That's exactly what this man is doing. He may have been a lawyer by trade, but he is not a keeper of the law. He is not a loving man. He doesn't love his neighbor as himself. No, he only sees his obligation to love as limited to those whom he considers to be his neighbor, those for whom it's convenient for him to love. And Jesus sees right through this. Beloved, beware of the little lawyer that resides in all of our hearts. And let us take care to be hearers of the word when it comes to us. Let us not dull our consciences, but let us be attuned to God's word when it comes to us. For what we all need is the pure word of God to come to convict us and to cut through our excuses. And that's the very thing Jesus is about to do. So there's the lawyer's question of who is my neighbor? Secondly, then, there's Jesus' parable Jesus' response with this parable is masterful. Instead of directly answering the man's question, he turns the question on its head. Jesus begins his story setting the scene. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Well, everybody knew of that 17-mile stretch of road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was a long, winding, descending road that was filled with all kinds of turns and narrow passages and dangerous precipices. It was ideal for bandits to hide and wait and attack travelers and passersby. In fact, it was such a notorious road that it became known colloquially as the road of blood. And so the scene that Jesus is setting is one that is not at all unfamiliar with his hearers. So that's the backdrop. And the first character Jesus introduces to us is the man who is beaten, stripped, and left half dead. The fact that he's stripped, that his clothes are taken, is actually a significant point in the story. You see, in the ancient world, your clothing was a large part of your status and your identity. And so the fact that this man now has no clothing, well, that means that we have no way of identifying him. In a sense, he is a John Doe. And this observation is reinforced by the fact that Jesus deliberately leaves this man anonymous. He's careful to tell us the identity of the priest, the Levite, and, of course, the Samaritan. But this man is deliberately left without an identity or a status. We don't know who he is. He could be a Jew. He could be a Roman. He could be a Samaritan. We don't know. deliberate on Jesus' part, and it's genius, because already Jesus is turning the entire conversation on its head. So the scene is set with this man bloody, beaten, and stripped of his identity. But good news, everyone. By chance, Jesus says, someone is coming along the road. Verse 31, now by chance, a priest was coming down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. The first person with an opportunity to help this poor, wounded, dying man is a priest. And you could have told he was a priest by his beautiful priestly garments. And the priest here is, he is a man who is the epitome of godliness. Priests were men known for their knowledge of the law of God. He's your pastor, your seminary professor. Surely he will stop and help, but he doesn't. What's perhaps even more striking is that he's just come from church. He's come from preaching a sermon, we'll say. He's come from the temple where he's offered sacrifices on behalf of the people. He's borne the people's names on his chest and prayed for them. He's worshiped the Lord, and he just takes one look at this poor man. He classifies him as a non-neighbor, and he refuses to help him. He walks on, leaving him to die. But the story's not over, there are more footsteps coming down the path, more people who could help. Verse 32, so likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. Levites often served as assistants in the temple, so he too is coming from the temple where he's just fulfilled his temple duties before the Lord. Now some people will say, Well, the priests and the Levite, their problem is that they cared too much about the law. They were just concerned about ritual impurity and getting impure by helping this man. But that's not the problem here at all. It isn't a case of law being pitted against love. In fact, there's nothing in this scene that would have been ritually defiling for the men. If the man had been dead, then that would be the case, but he isn't. So there's no concern about ritual cleanness. Jesus's entire point is that they're failing to obey the law because of their failure to love. Just like the priest had done, this Levite takes one look at this poor dying man and says, this man isn't my neighbor, and he walks on. Well, just like the points of a sermon, all good things come in threes. And so the people listening would have known that, well, there's someone else going to come and this will resolve the plot and the narrative. And what the people expected is like, okay, the priestly class has failed us. This next third person who's gonna save the day is gonna be a Jewish lay person. And it's kind of Jesus' way of propping up the little guy. However, in spite of their expectations, Jesus doesn't introduce a Jewish lay person with whom everyone could identify, yeah, yeah, that's like me. Instead, he introduces someone with whom no one could identify with. Jesus introduces a complete plot twist. In verse 33, we see Jesus introduces this third man, the Samaritan. The Samaritan doesn't mean much to us when I say that word, but those around Jesus would have rolled their eyes and booed and maybe spat on the ground. The Jews did not like the Samaritans. They did not get along well at all. By the time of Christ, there was a settled animosity between the two people groups. As John tells us in his gospel, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. One commentator says, the Jews saw the Samaritans as people of doubtful descent and inadequate theology, a sort of half-breed of Jew and Gentile. But surprisingly, whereas the priest and the Levite both came, saw the man, and then passed by on the other side, we read how the Samaritan came, saw the man, and didn't pass away. Instead, he was moved with compassion, and then he cared for the wounded man. Rather than cross to the other side of the road, he moves towards the man. He takes of his own provisions and helps the man. He pours oil on the man so that his skin is kept from cracking. He applies wine to disinfect his cuts and wounds. and then he lets the man ride on his animal while he walks. He takes the man to be cared for in an inn. He gives the innkeeper enough money up front to cover his stay from probably between two to four weeks. And then amazingly, he offers to cover any other costs that are incurred. When I come back, I'll pay you whatever's owed. This is like putting someone up in a hotel for a month and putting your credit card behind the counter and saying room service, open bar, spa treatments, whatever they need, I'll be back in a month and I'll cover the whole thing. To call this generous is an understatement. And finally, Jesus turns to the lawyer and he asks, which of these three do you think proves to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? Remember, the lawyer's question is, who is my neighbor? In other words, who has the status of neighbor and thus is worthy of receiving my love and care? That's how the priest and the Levite thought. They refused to help the man because in their eyes, the dying man didn't have the status of neighbor. And so they had no obligation to help. But Jesus turns this whole thinking on his head. He says it's not about the status and identity of the other person, just as he leaves out the identity and status of the wounded man. The focus isn't does this other person have a status of being neighbor? The focus is am I being a neighbor to others? Rather than worrying if the other person is the neighbor, Jesus clarifies it The law requires us to be neighbors to others. Rather reluctantly and perhaps with gritted teeth, the lawyer answers Jesus' question, and he can't even say the Samaritan. He says, the one who showed mercy. At this point, Jesus has blown the lawyer's argument out of the water. He has shown without a doubt that all of this man's attempts to justify himself and present himself as righteous have failed. They're empty. Even his best attempts at obedience are shallow and worthless. The lawyer is not a man who loves the Lord and certainly does not love his neighbor as himself. That's the lawyer's question, Jesus' parable. Finally, Jesus' point. What point is Jesus making with this parable and this interaction with the lawyer? It's incredible how many people miss Jesus' point. You know, it's not uncommon to pick up a commentary on the section and to find the commentators there presenting the lawyer as a genuine, truth-seeking disciple who just wants to know how to be a better neighbor, forgetting the fact that he stood up, interrupted Jesus, and is trying to test him like Satan tested him. And so they read Jesus' final words. you go and do likewise, as words of warm affirmation, given perhaps with a smile on his face, a gentle wave. And so we should just do the same. We should be nice people to strangers, so that we too can gain eternal life. If we interpret the parable this way, the irony is we're doing the exact same thing that the lawyer has done. We are making the law into something more manageable. To come away from this parable thinking that we just need to be nicer would be to miss Jesus' entire point. The lawyer is seeking to gain eternal life by his works to the law. Jesus has already quoted Leviticus 18.5 saying, do this and you will live. Meaning that life, according to the law, can only come through perfect obedience. Paul even quotes this in Galatians 3.12, where he contrasts the law and faith, saying, but the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. And so Jesus' final words, then, you go and do likewise, are just a repetition of his previous quotation of Leviticus 18.5. Do this and you will live. The point being is that Jesus is saying, yes, just as I said, do this and live with reference to obedience to God, the same applies with loving your neighbor. If you want to be justified before God on the basis of your works, you must perfectly love your neighbor without failure. The flip side of do this and live, of course, is that if we do not do these things, we will die. The law has no mercy. And so if we try to justify ourselves according to the law, unless our obedience is perfect, we will be judged and condemned. And therefore, these final words, you go and do likewise, are not warm, friendly words of affirmation and encouragement. No, they are words that are spine-chilling, words of condemnation. Why? Because no one has loved like this Samaritan. That's the sad irony in all of this. In seeking to justify himself, the lawyer has in fact only further condemned himself in his sin and his unrighteousness. As Paul says, no one is justified by works of the law. It cannot be done. And the point that Jesus makes to the lawyer here is the same point he wants us to understand. The point of the parable of the Samaritan is not for us to think in our minds of all the ways we've been nice and kind to strangers and then feel good about ourselves, nor is this simply or chiefly to serve as our example. No, the point of this parable is to show our failure, how we have failed to meet the standard of God's perfect law, as one person put it. This parable does not preach to us our duty so much as that we have not met our duty. The point is that this is holding out to us a standard that none of us can keep or have kept. Now, whenever we read a story, we all want to identify with the protagonist, the hero, right? Reading a book like To Kill a Mockingbird, you want to identify with the good guy. You want to be the brave and noble Atticus Finch or maybe Scout. You don't want to be the bad guy in the story. We approach stories that way, and that's what people have done throughout time. Well, as we look at this story, the hero is clearly the Samaritan. And so as we read this story, living in the time and place that we're in, we say, the Samaritan is the hero. Well, that must be me. But we can't identify with the Samaritan. Jesus doesn't allow us. We are not the Samaritan for a number of reasons. By choosing a Samaritan, someone who is a foreigner, an outsider, someone who the Jews hated and would never want to be associated with, Jesus is deliberately putting the Samaritan aside as someone that we cannot be or identify with. Jesus is deliberately excluding his audience as identifying with the Samaritan. What's more, the kind of compassion and love that the Samaritan shows is beyond anything we could ever show. As one person observed, the care the Samaritan offers is not a model of moral obligation, but of exaggerated action grounded in compassion that risks much more than could ever be required or expected. The Samaritan stops in this dangerous place. He risks his life to help a complete stranger. He gives of his own provisions. Not only that, but then he takes a man to an inn, a place that was known for taking advantage of its patrons. And he hands over his credit card and says, it's all on me. I'll be back in a month. And if he needs anything more, I'll pay for that too. So this isn't even like helping someone You know, with a flat tire on the side of the road, you go and you change out the tire and you feel good for the day. And that is a good thing. But this is nothing like that. This is not even like helping someone buy groceries for the holidays who are in need of help, as good a thing as that is. No, the kindness of the Samaritan here is beyond anything we could imagine. And Jesus says, this is the standard of love that is required for eternal life. If you want to be justified according to your works, do this and you will live. And this should make all of us cry out. Who can love like this? Whose love can be so pure and selfless and self-sacrificial as this? Who can love strangers like this? Who can possibly follow Jesus' words? You go and do likewise. And that's where Jesus' parable is designed to cause us to look to a righteousness that we don't have in ourselves, something that the reformers called an alien righteousness, meaning it's a righteousness that is not in us. It's foreign to us. It comes from another. It is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The bad news of the law is that we have all failed to love God with all of our being, and we have failed to love our neighbor. You see, each of us is like this dying man on the side of the road. Sin has ruined us. Sin has beaten us and stripped us so that we cannot stand. And the law looks at us in the ditch, and it tisks, and it says, there is none righteous. No, not one. No one does good, not even one. Well, if we are those who are half dead, beaten and stripped, lying in the ditch, then who is the Samaritan who is so other and different, the one who rescues us? It's Jesus. Jesus is the compassionate Samaritan. Throughout the gospel, you may have noticed that Luke has continually highlighted the compassion of one figure. Who is that? It's not his disciples. It's Jesus. Recall of when he came upon the widow who was about to bury her only son. Her husband was dead, and now she was burying her son, and Jesus was moved with compassion for her. Jesus is the compassionate one who has rescued us. He came, and he found us beaten and wounded by sin, but he did not cross the path. Instead, he moves towards us in the incarnation, becoming like us. He came, and he bound up our wounds. by taking those wounds to himself. As the prophet Isaiah said, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. The good news of the gospel is that the way we are justified is not through what we do, but through what Christ has done. He offered himself as the righteous and perfect sacrifice that paid for our sins, that paid for all of our failure to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and for our failure to love our neighbor as ourself. On the cross, he paid for our sins. And thus by faith, we are made right before God. What this means is that our standing before God is not based on how well we keep the law. It's not based on how good of a neighbor we have been to others. No, the law, our standing before the Lord is based on Christ's keeping of the law. Through his work, we are justified. so that God no longer sees our sin or our weak and lame attempts to love others. Instead, he sees the perfect, compassionate works of our Savior. The law comes to us without mercy. It says, do this and live. But Jesus answers on our behalf. And he says, I have, I have. And it is finished. And now he offers this eternal life that only comes through doing and working on the basis of his own doing and the basis of his own work. And he gives it to all who call upon him by faith. And so what is the ultimate takeaway from this parable? It's faith. It's trust in Christ Jesus for your righteous standing before the Lord. Trust in Christ alone. Trust in the only one who has ever loved God with all of his heart, soul, strength, and mind. Trust in the one who not only loves his neighbors, but even loved his enemies, who loved us when we were his enemies. Receive right standing before God, not through the offering of your pathetic, empty works. but come before God on the basis of Christ's perfect works, and having been justified by what Christ has done, well then, we are freed to love, not in order to earn a place in heaven, not in order to earn eternal life or better standing, but now in Christ, we are free to love our neighbor. as our grateful response to what God has done for us. Having received compassion from Christ, well then he changes us and he gives us hearts of compassion so that we want to stop and we want to help and we want to give of ourselves even when it's costly and painful because we want to love our neighbor because we love the Lord. And as we love others, Let us always ground our assurance of eternal life in the justifying, completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ, a work which tells us and assures us that by faith in him, our names are written in heaven. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for the works that have earned us life, works that are not our own, but the works of our faithful Savior, the kind one, the compassionate one, the one who never failed, but always obeyed. Lord, help us to rely more and more and lean more and more on that righteousness that is alien to us, that righteousness that comes by faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.