The Good Samaritan - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

You see, who's the neighbor? So Jesus wants to get this guy to respond, I can't do this. In other words, what Jesus is after in this whole parable is, I cannot save myself. I cannot. Because Jesus realizes if that's not the first step, you'll never be saved.

You see, that's the whole point. I have to admit I cannot save myself. And as I said earlier, for all religious people, that's an impossibility because they believe that their religion will save them. I'll be saved by doing things in my religion and then God will be pleased and I'll get in. And Jesus says, no, that will never ever work. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. A Samaritan. And you know what you and I think? Nothing.

You know why? We have romanticized that term. He's a Samaritan. Do people in our culture be called good Samaritans? Oh, that's Samaritan. Yeah, I mean, one of the ministries that we really support, Samaritans Purse, helps people everywhere.

You know why? Because Samaritans are so good. Samaritans are these really good people.

They're not. They're despicable, horrible people, especially to the Jews. It would be like today when he introduced a Samaritan. It'd be like today telling a story in Iran and then saying the hero of the story was a good Israelite. What? You see, it's a complete contradiction.

Let me give you some background. The Samaritans are part of the 10 northern tribes called Israel. After Solomon died and the kingdom was split, Israel was in the north, Jude and Benjamin in the south. Every king of Israel, every king was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Every king. They were horrible people. So the Assyrians came down, conquered them, and left a small portion of the Jews in the land, took all the rest back to Assyria. That's why they're called the 10 lost tribes. And the Assyrians brought people from another province of their kingdom and put them in the northern kingdom of Israel. So these became half-breeds. They married with all of these pagan Assyrian plants in there and they formed their own religion, a completely different religion, such a different religion that they only really honored the first five books of the Bible.

There are a lot of things that go on. The Jews hated the Samaritans. If you remember the story of Nehemiah, when they went back into the land after the Babylonian captivity for the two southern tribes, when they got back into the land, it ended up that the Samaritans tried to stop them.

They wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans and so that turned into something terrible. Then the Samaritans knew that the Jews hated them and they had rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, so they rebuilt their own temple. They built their own temple in Mount Gerizim, you see, in Samaria. And they had this pagan-like worship there. The Jews hated that so much that in 138 BC, they went up and tore the temple down because it was such an affront to God.

That's why they tore it down. Jews didn't speak to Samaritans. You never speak to a Samaritan, ever. In fact, Jews wouldn't walk in Samaria. When a Jew wanted to go to Galilee, which is north of Samaria from the southern tribe, they crossed the Jordan, went up the east bank, crossed again and went into Galilee.

They wouldn't even walk in their land. That's why the story in John 4 of Jesus and the woman at the well is so extraordinary. Jews don't ever walk into Samaria. Here's Jesus. Jews never talk to Samaritans, ever. Here's Jesus talking.

These rabbis never speak to a woman publicly. Here's Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman. But a Samaritan, I mean, it'd be like if you said a terrorist. Or how about a serial killer? If I said that, that'd be getting a response. Well, there was a serial killer who came.

That's the response you'd get. When we romanticize Samaritans, it's like, it's just wonderful. They're the most wonderful people.

They're not. You see, they're despicable people, not from the Jewish point of view. And Jesus adds this, and I'm sure that got everybody riled up. But a Samaritan who was on a journey, he came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. The priest saw him, the Levite saw him, now the Samaritan sees him.

The priest and Levite run to the other side. The Samaritan feels compassion. Wow.

By the way, we'll talk about this as I go on. Compassion is not sympathy. And it's not empathy. That's not compassion. There's something compassion demands that we often forget about. If you have compassion for something, you have to act upon it.

You have to act. You can't say, I feel so much compassion for that poor person. Well, what'd you do? Well, I didn't do anything, but I felt this compassion. That's not compassion. This word compassion is used by about one other figure in the Gospels, Jesus. It says, and Jesus felt compassion. And every time he felt compassion, he did something. You feel compassion, you do something. You don't just say, I have a feeling of compassion. You may have sympathy, you may have empathy, but that's not compassion. And so he feels, in this sense, a tremendous amount of compassion.

Now, watch what that turns into. And he came to him, and he bandaged up his wounds. And then he was pouring oil and wine on them. And then he put them on his own beast, and he brought them to an inn, and he took care of them.

These are the steps. This is what you do if you feel compassion. So the first thing he did is he bandaged up his wounds, obviously with his own clothing or what he was carrying with him. And then he poured oil and wine. Wine is to disinfect the wound.

The oil is to soothe. That's the way they treat an open wound in that part of the world at that time. Then he put them on his own beast. So apparently he was probably riding on a donkey or something like that. He put that man on the beast. So now he's walking. And then he brought them to an inn and not holiday.

Okay? It's not like that. This word inn is not that word at all in any sense of the word. The word that he has for inn is a word that means all or any place. It's just a roadhouse. You see, the only people who would ever stay there are someone that's so desperate they have to. This isn't a place you go on vacation and stay. Not on that road. But what if you get caught in the middle of the night in the middle of the road?

You'd stay there. So he takes them, and he does that. And it's an amazing thing when you think about what he's already done. But guess what he does? He drops them off at the inn, and then he spends the night with them.

How do you know? On the next day. That's what the next verse says, on the next day.

He went and spent the night with them at the inn. And they took two denarii, and he gave them to the innkeeper, and he said, take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I return, I'll repay you. Now, you and I don't know much about that, because we don't really. We just read the word denarii and think I must be some money.

Okay, a couple of things here. The word denarii means one day's wages. Two denarii are two days' wages.

But it might be even different than you think. Archaeologists found, dating in the Roman Empire at this time, a plaque of an inn that was advertising. And on their advertisement on their plaque was how much it cost to stay a night. One thirty-second of a denarii. He gave them two denarii. Sixty-four days. Sixty-four days he paid his rent. And then he said, oh, by the way, if you need more, I'll come back through you and pay you more. Now, the innkeeper's thinking, wait, I got sixty-four days of rent with a guy here that's really in trouble?

Could you imagine doing such a thing? You help a person, you felt compassion, and you did all these things, then you spent the night with him? Remember, he couldn't call back.

He couldn't call back to Samaria, no cell phones. His wife might be thinking, where's he at? And then he decides I'm going to do it for sixty-four days of rent. Do you think that seems a little bit, you see, from your point of view, a little bit over the top?

It is. See, compassion turns into care, which turns into commitment. If you feel compassion, you have to give care, and then you have to be committed to it. And this guy is committed almost beyond our imagination.

Who would be committed to helping somebody for sixty-four days, and if he needs more, you see, I'll come back and I'll pay. Now, you say, well, it just seems to me that Jesus has gone way, way, way, way overboard in all of this. I would agree. I would agree. He went way overboard.

But watch what happens. Jesus now is going to ask a question. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hand?

This is brilliant. This man likens himself as righteous, as righteous as a priest, as righteous as a Levite. I'm a lawyer.

I'm a scribe of the law. I'm not righteous. Now, when you see those three comparisons, the priest and Levite beat it to the other side of the street. And you see what this man does who's a Samaritan. What's the answer to the question?

How can you answer that question? Now, which one of those do you think was more neighborly? The one who felt compassion and then he took his, bound up all his wounds, and then he put oil and wine on him, and then he took them to an inn, and then he cared for them, and then he paid. Or two guys who walked across the street.

Now, you tell me which one of them do you think was more neighborly? You see, you only have one answer. There is no other answer. So, this guy thinks about it for a moment, and he said, the one who showed mercy to. And then Jesus says something very, go and do the same.

Now, you say, wait, wait, what's going on here? First, he answers correctly, no question about that. But Jesus says, now you go and do that.

What's Jesus hoping that guy thinks right then? I can't do that. I can't.

I just, I can't. That's exactly what Jesus wants him to think. You see, that's the whole point. He's saying, look, love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And if you said to him, can you do that? He goes, yep, I do it.

He doesn't, of course. And your neighbor is yourself. So, he tries to trap Jesus and say, well, then tell me who's my neighbor. And Jesus said, this was what a neighbor is. And he goes, I can't do that. I hate so many, I hate, I hate all, if that was a Samaritan, I'd probably spit and walk by. I don't like these people. But I just said he was the neighbor.

You see, who's the neighbor? So, Jesus wants to get this guy to respond, I can't do this. In other words, what Jesus is after in this whole parable is, I cannot save myself.

I cannot. Because Jesus realizes, if that's not the first step, you'll never be saved. You see, that's the whole point. I have to admit, I cannot save myself. And as I said earlier, for all religious people, that's an impossibility.

Because they believe that their religion will save them. I'll be saved by doing things in my religion. And then God will be pleased and I'll get in. And Jesus says, no, that will never, ever work. So, the whole point of the Good Samaritan is to tell a religious person that he cannot keep the law perfectly.

Nobody can keep it perfectly and you cannot save yourself. But for us as believers, there's certainly application here. And what I mean is, when you come to the Bible, there's three steps you have to go through if you want to study it. The first step that you go through is called observation. And that means there's just you and a Bible. And you just read the Bible and you observe it.

And you see what comes before, what comes after, what are the key words, how does this work. It's an observation. The amount of observations in any text are innumerable. There's tons of observations that you can make about a verse in the Bible. There's many, many observations. I taught Bible study methods, I mean, I graded for Dr. Hendricks at Dallas Seminary with Bible study methods. And one of the assignments Dr. Hendricks gave to everyone was, I want you men to go to Acts chapter 1, verse 6. And I want you to write 25 observations about that verse.

Just things you see in the text. And when I first got the assignment my first year at the school, I thought, oh, gosh, I hope I can come up with 25. So, typical of students at a seminary, some of the students got 25, some got 30, 35. I had a student that had 100 on the first part of the exam. He had 100 observations.

And it's like, wow, the trouble was, if you didn't know it, the next day you go, he says, don't hand those in. I want you to go back and do 25 more. Now, the guy did 100 thinking, what in the world?

I did 100 of these things. So, there were just tons of them. I mean, you start doing, you do 50 and up of observations of one verse, Acts 1, 6.

That's observations, there are many of them. The second thing you do is interpret the passage. To interpret the passage, you know how many of those there are? One. And there is only one correct interpretation of every passage in the Bible.

There's not 50. That's why I get so crazy when I hear people in a Bible study and they'll say, let's read the verse. Okay, what do you think it says? What do you think it says? What do you think it says? God has spoken.

He hasn't stuttered. He wants one thing interpreted out of this passage. You don't make up interpretations of the Bible. So, when you interpret this, this is about salvation. A strange thing about this, this is a parable. Of the 40 parables in the New Testament, almost every single one was about salvation one way or the other.

That's when Jesus spoke in parables. So, the one interpretation is he wants this man to know you cannot save yourself. That's the interpretation.

The third stage is application. Application is what does this mean to me? First, what do I see?

Observation. What does it mean? Interpretation. What does it mean to me?

What can I do with this? That's called application. And there are many, there's as many applications to a passage as there are people in here. We all have our own application. What does it mean to me?

And there are plenty of applications for us just with this idea of the parable. It's clearly, the point is, if we are to love the Lord our God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength, us, and our neighbors ourselves, it tells us then, how can you and I be neighborly? How can I love my neighbor?

The first step is if I see a neighbor in need, I feel compassion. You see, but there's something else here. The question is never raised by Jesus.

In fact, it's answered a different way. Who's my neighbor? Jesus answers, everyone's your neighbor. You mean everyone?

Everyone. Remember, he said, love your enemies. Pray for them.

That's your enemies. You pray for, everyone's your neighbor. You see, now what if I see a neighbor in need? You should feel compassion. You should offer care.

And you should stay committed. And it should cost you something. You see, when you ever have compassion for someone, it's going to cost you.

It just is. And from our point of view, it seemed to cost the Samaritan more than is logical to us, isn't it? I mean, he did all that. He takes him to a place, he stays with him overnight, and then he pays two months rent. He said, yeah. But think of it this way.

Jesus sees us as sheep without a shepherd, as sinners lost, and he has compassion on us. Did he do anything about it? Well, yes. He went to the cross. Was that a big commitment? Yeah, that was a really big commitment. Did it cost him a lot? It cost him. It's beyond our imagination.

Why? Because he had compassion on us. He's our master.

He's our Lord. He said, now you go and do likewise. So it tells us something about this. It's good for us to look at something like the Ukraine and say, I'd like to help if I could. Now, the only way you and I could help, except if we left our jobs, flew to a neighboring country, but we could send money to people we trust, and they could help the Ukrainian people. And that means when I sent the money, I was giving them care because of my compassion.

But how about on the smaller level? Do you ever meet anybody in your life that has need? Do you feel compassion?

You see, that's a big question, because we're a little bit different here. Sometimes when I see people who have need, what do I think? It must be a scam. They're doing a scam in me. You know what?

Now I don't have to do anything. I know that's a scam. Now, is it possible to be a scam? I surely is.

But come on, be honest. There are people you saw that have real need, and you know they have need. And if you say, look, I don't feel compassion for them, that's up to you. But if you say you have compassion, you're obligated by the word of God to show them care.

And it's going to cost you something. You see, that's just the way this works. That's what it means to be neighborly according to Jesus Christ.

And so from an applicational point of view, that's very important for us. And I know this for a fact, God puts people in need and they come across our lives. Sometimes we know they're coming and sometimes we don't. And I think every time he does, he's testing whether you have compassion or not. And I can't say to him, yeah, I have compassion, see you.

You see, I can't. I can say I feel sympathetic, but I'm on my way. Compassion always turns to care and commitment, and that's his message to us.

Let's pray. Father, this parable, which was designed to convince a man that he could not save himself, has great application to us. The Good Samaritan represents what it means to be a good follower of Jesus Christ. When we see human suffering and human need, we should be filled with compassion. And that compassion of ours should turn into action. We should do what we can to help those individuals.

And that requires true commitment and sometimes a sense of loss to us. I thank you, Father, for this. I thank you that you looked down and you had compassion on us and you sent your son as our solution. I thank you that he looked at us and he had compassion. And he was willing to go to a cross to die for the sins of the world so that people like me can spend eternity with you, justified and forgiven. I just pray, Father, now that I will be a servant of that compassion. And when compassion comes my way, that I'll do something to alleviate the suffering of others. I pray this in Jesus' name, for your glory and our good.

Amen. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.