You know we've all heard the term Good Samaritan.
We have Good Samaritan hospitals, Good Samaritan nursing homes, Good Samaritan mercy organizations. When a person goes out of their way to help someone else, we call them a Good Samaritan. And today we're going to talk about the Good Samaritan because we're in a series of messages entitled People Jesus Met. And you know, really, the Good Samaritan was not a person Jesus met.
It was actually a story that Jesus told, but he told it to a person that he met. And so we want to meet this very same person. We want to figure out, well, why did the Lord tell them the story of the Good Samaritan? And then we want to bring all of that forward and say, well, what difference does that make to you and me today?
So that's our plan. Here we go. Luke Chapter 10, beginning at verse 25. The Bible says, And behold, a certain lawyer stood up. Now, this is not a lawyer the way you and I think of a lawyer today. This person was not an attorney at law.
He was not a litigator. He was called a lawyer because he was an expert in the Old Testament law. In other words, he was a theological expert. And this theological expert comes to Jesus and asks him a theological question.
Here we go. And trying to trap Jesus, he said, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, we should stop and point out that this question that the theologian asked is based on three very important assumptions. Number one, it assumes that there is such a thing as eternal life. Number two, it assumes that it's possible for normal everyday people like you and me to possess eternal life. And finally, number three, it assumes that it's equally possible for people like you and me to miss eternal life. And please notice that the Lord Jesus never disputed any of these three assumptions because they are all correct. Verse 26, Jesus replied, Well, what's written in the Old Testament law?
How does it read to you? Hey, you're supposed to be the theological expert here. I'd love to hear your answer to your own question. Verse 27, the theologian answered and said, Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The theologian says, Well, Jesus, the way I read the Bible, it looks like to me there are two things that a person has to do in order to work their way into heaven. And then he puts together two of the greatest verses out of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5, which says that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and Leviticus 19, 18, which says that we should love our neighbor, our fellow man, as ourself. Then Jesus said to him, You know what?
You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Jesus says to this guy, Hey, bingo, you got it exactly right. Do these two things and you will work your way right into heaven.
So whether a person is Jewish or Gentile or Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim or vegan, it doesn't matter. These are the rules for earning your way into heaven. You said, Alon, wait a minute, wait to stop. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on here? Is Jesus here endorsing salvation by human works?
Is that's what happening here? No, no, no, not at all. Jesus is simply saying that if a person wants to try and work their way into heaven by their own human effort, this is the way they have to do it. You say, wow, say just two things. Well, that doesn't sound all that hard. I mean, if that's all I got to do is two things.
Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. If you're going to base your entire eternal destiny on trying to get into heaven this way, then we, you and I, we better have absolute clarity about exactly what God is requiring of us right here. And it's interesting that that's exactly what the theologian was thinking because that's exactly what he goes on to ask Jesus for.
He asks for some clarity. He says, verse 29, but wanting to justify himself, the man asked Jesus, and who exactly is my neighbor? In other words, hey, Jesus, I need some clarity about loving my neighbor as myself. I mean, how far does this command go? I mean, where does God draw the line on who I have to love like myself and who I don't? Does it end with my my relatives or my friends or my co-workers?
Where's the line here? And in response to that question, Jesus tells this lawyer the story of the Good Samaritan. So remember, the story of the Good Samaritan is answering the question, well, how many people do I have to love like myself to get into heaven?
Here we go. Verse 30. In reply, Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, and they left him for half dead. And by chance, a Jewish priest was going down the road. And when he saw the man, the priest crossed to the other side of the road and passed by. So, too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed on the other side of the road as well. So as this man lies there, bleeding to death, two of the highest ranking religious leaders in Israel come along, and both of them pass right by the wounded man and completely ignore him.
Verse 33. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came to the place where the man was, and when he saw the man, he took pity on him. Now, to make Jesus' story have full impact for us, we need to take just a moment and learn a little bit of background about Samaritans. The Samaritans were a race of people who lived at the time of Jesus in central Israel. They were essentially a race of half-breeds, the result of intermarriages between Israelites and their Assyrian conquerors in 721 B.C. when the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. The Jewish people of Jesus' day hated the Samaritans with a biblical hatred.
They did everything they could to avoid contact with the Samaritans. They treated them like they had the plague. The point is that Jesus couldn't have picked a more despised character in the minds of his Jewish listeners to finish the parable with than this guy.
Okay, back to the story. Verse 34. And the Samaritan went over to the man and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he put the man on his donkey, took him to an inn, and personally took care of him overnight.
The next day, the Samaritan gave two silver coins to the innkeeper and said, You look after this man, and whatever else you spend taking care of him, I will repay you when I return. Now, you know what's interesting to me, intriguing, is that knowing how the Jews felt about him as a Samaritan and knowing that no Jewish person would have ever stopped to help him if he'd been lying in the road, isn't it interesting that the Samaritan never even asked whether the man lying in the road was Jewish before he helped him? No, actually, he simply saw this man as his neighbor who needed help, and then he did for this man what he would have wanted somebody to do for him if he'd been lying there in the middle of the road. And now Jesus ties the knot on the bag.
Watch. Verse 36, then Jesus said to the lawyer, this theologian, he said, So he says, Which of these three men, these passerbys, do you think was a neighbor, a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And the lawyer replied, Well, it was the one who showed mercy towards him. Then Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise. You see, the theologian's question was, Who is my neighbor?
Jesus's answer is, Who isn't your neighbor? The point is that when it comes to satisfying God's command that we love our neighbor as ourself, if we want to work our way into heaven, you and I therefore need to understand that loving our neighbor as ourself in Jesus's mind means every single person we pass in life, that we have to treat them all exactly as we would want them to treat us, every single one of them. Well, this means that we have to treat our boss with respect and godly submission every minute of every day, no matter how miserable they're making our lives. It means that we have to treat every person in our neighborhood with kindness, even if they decide to paint their house bright pink and plant corn in the front yard.
We got to be kind to them. It means that we have to treat everyone who's ever hurt us with forgiveness and mercy, even if they never say they're sorry. It means that we have to treat our husband with absolute honor. We have to treat our wife with utter respect and tenderness. We have to treat our parents with unbroken esteem. We have to treat our children with total patience. We have to treat every shopper in the mall parking lot with complete sensitivity. We have to treat every driver on the beltway with perfect courtesy.
And we have to speak well of all people at all times, no slander, no gossip, no backbiting ever. So how are you doing on this one? Oh, wait a minute. We're not done yet.
There's only one of them. There's a second one that we have to do if we want to work our way into heaven. And that is we have to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all our mind.
And the key word here, I'm sure you got it, was the word all, 100%. We have to love God with 100% of our heart, not a single motive or desire in our heart that ever displeases God. We have to love God with 100% of our soul, not a single feeling or emotion in our soul that ever offends God. We have to love God with 100% of our strength. Never a single day must go by where we invest less than 100% of our energy into loving God. And finally, we have to love God with 100% of our mind. Not a single thought, not a single scheme can ever be in our mind that dishonors God. We're talking about an absolutely altogether perfect love for God.
So, how you doing on number two? Yeah, and you know what? The Bible says that just doing our best to keep these two is not good enough. James chapter 2 verse 10 says, For whoever keeps the whole law of God and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. In other words, if you're planning to earn your way into heaven, and if I'm planning to do that, friends, our observance of these two commands has to be impeccable.
It has to be absolutely perfect. A single violation of either one of them and our career path to heaven is history. So let's ask the question.
Here you go. If you have perfectly, without fail, ever fulfilled both of these commandments, please raise your hand. No hands. Well, I need to put mine down.
OK, because I can't raise my hand either. And what this means, my friends, is that by your own admission. When it comes to the requirements of God for earning our way into heaven by our own admission, all of us have just sentenced ourselves to missing heaven. Jesus didn't have to sentence us.
God didn't have to judge us. We just sentenced ourselves. All right, let's stop now. That's as far as we want to go in the passage. And we want to ask ourselves now our most important question. So you know what this is. Here we go. One, two, three.
That was very good. He said, Lon, so what? I mean, so what difference does this make to me? Oh, friends, makes a lot of difference to you and to me, because we all just admitted that when it comes to working our way into eternal life, we can't do it. Now, let's ask the real bottom line question, and that is, can anybody anywhere do this? Can anybody anywhere meet God's conditions for working their way into heaven?
Well, of course not. This theologian talking to Jesus, he couldn't do it either. And that's precisely what Jesus wanted him to realize. It's precisely what Jesus wanted him to admit. Jesus wanted him to humble himself and say, you know what? In light of what you've just said, Jesus, I need to tell you that I'm trying as hard as I can to love my neighbor as myself.
And I'm trying as hard as I can to love God with all my heart, my soul, my strength, my mind. But you know what? I can't do it. I can't meet this test.
I'm in big trouble. I can't make plan A work. And so, Jesus, I need to know, is there any other way to get eternal life? Is there any other way to get into heaven? Is there a plan B, Lord?
Hey, listen, folks, all of us who couldn't raise our hand a moment ago. This is what God wants us to realize, too, that we need an alternate plan to get into heaven. We need plan B, a plan that is based on an entirely different foundation than the one that theologian was following. His plan was based on human effort, human merit, human worthiness. And as we've seen today, that plan is a train wreck of a plan.
Nobody can make that plan work. This is what the Bible says, Romans chapter 3, verse 20. The Bible says, therefore, no one, look at that, will ever be declared righteous, right with God, by means of that person's observance of the law, by means of human effort, human worthiness, human religious activity.
Nobody will ever get there that way. And friends, this brings us to the great news of the Bible. The great news of the Bible is that God, in His wonderful mercy, has provided an alternate way for people like you and me to get into heaven. He's provided a plan B, and the next verse in Romans 3 goes on to tell us about it.
Look, Romans 3, verse 21 says, but now, you say, but now what? Now that Jesus has come to earth and lived a sinless life and died on the cross as our perfect substitute and provided His blood to pay for our sin, now that all of that has happened, now a way to be righteous, a way to be right with God apart from keeping the law, apart from human performance has been made available to us. This is good news.
This is good news. Suddenly, we're presented in the Bible with a way to get to heaven and a way to obtain eternal life that has nothing to do with human works, human effort, human religious activity, human worthiness. You say, well, then how do you get it? Well, the next verse says, verse 22, this way to become right with God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Friends, plan B is not based on our worthiness. It's based on faith in Jesus Christ. And look, it's for all who believe. Plan B isn't reserved for theologians and big shots and VIPs. Oh, no, it's for butchers and bakers and candlestick makers all over the world.
How great is that? And just so there's no confusion about what faith in Jesus Christ really entails, God goes on to define what he means precisely in verse 25. He says there that the faith in Jesus Christ he's talking about is faith in or reliance on Jesus's blood. So the Bible says that God's alternate way to get eternal life in heaven, plan B, is based on our making a decision. Look here now, a decision to stop relying on our own human works to get us into heaven and instead to rely 100% on the blood sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross as our complete payment for sin in the sight of God. Let's put it another way.
Plan B is based on our deciding that we're going to transfer our trust forever off of our own human works and worthiness and on to the blood covering for our sins that Jesus purchased for us and provided for us on the cross. You know, this past Sunday night, Brenda and I were in the emergency room with my daughter Jill, who was very ill. And as part of being there, the doctor ordered a chest x-ray. And so the technician a few minutes later wheeled the little mobile x-ray unit in, you know, that they use. And she got Jill all set up. And then she said, now I'm going to leave the room with this long cord and do this from outside the room, but I need you and Brenda to stay in here and make sure Jill doesn't move. And then she said, and you need to put these vests on. And she put these huge vests on us that went literally from our neck to our ankles and wrapped completely around us. And you know why they put those vests on us, right?
It's because the x-rays that she was about to shoot into that room, those x-rays couldn't pass through lead. Well, what I'm here to tell you is that the blood of Jesus Christ is the lead vest of heaven. That's what the Bible says, that when a person gives their life to Christ, don't miss this, God wraps them up. He wraps around them the blood of Jesus Christ so that when that person stands before God, the judgment of God against their sin simply doesn't pass through.
The blood of Christ stops it just like that lead stopped those x-rays there in that hospital. This is why the Bible says, Colossians chapter 3 verse 3, that as followers of Christ, look, our life is now hidden in Christ before God. What this means is that as believers in Jesus Christ, we are not exposed to the judgment of God for sin because we're hidden away in Christ. We're hidden behind the blood of Christ. And as followers of Jesus, this is what lies at the heart of Jesus's promise, John 10, 28, that we will never perish. This is what lies at the heart of our eternal security that no matter what we do, say, think, or act out, if we've trusted Christ, we're going to heaven because what is this? It's the fact that our salvation is all about being covered, not in our own worthiness. Friends, you face God covered in your own worthiness. It's like facing God with Swiss cheese around you.
That is not going to work. It's because when we face God, we face him covered by the blood of Christ, by the lead vest of heaven, and the judgment of God simply won't go through. Is that great news or what? Can I get an amen to that? All right, so let's summarize. What did we learn today from the story of the Good Samaritan? Number one, we learned that the whole point of the story is to help us understand that there is a way to work our way into heaven is just nobody can do it. Second of all, as a result of that, God wants us to understand that this is why Jesus came to earth, to provide us with plan B for getting into heaven, a plan that is not based on human worth, that's not based on human worthiness, but that's based on the blood covering that Jesus created for us by shedding his blood on the cross. Now, let me say in closing that if you're here today and you are just like that lawyer in Luke chapter 10, I mean, you really want eternal life. You really want to go to heaven when you die, and you're doing your very, very best to earn your way there with religious activity and lots of good works and trying to keep the Ten Commandments and all this other stuff, recycling, whatever.
You're doing it all, and you're just hoping that it'll be enough. Folks, I'm here today on behalf of God to offer you a different plan. I'm here today on behalf of God to offer you a better plan. That first plan will not work.
That should be obvious to us today. I'm here to offer you a plan that will work. You say, well, Lon, but how do I activate plan B? How do I make it mine?
How do I make it work in my life? It's very simple, friends, three simple steps. Number one, we have to forsake our own efforts to earn eternal life once and for all.
We've got to say that is a defunct system, and I'm done with it. I'm not trying anymore to earn my way. Number two, we have to humble ourselves and admit that we can't do it. And finally, number three, we have to embrace the blood covering, the lead vest that Jesus created on the cross for us, and we have to make it our one and only plan for getting into heaven. When we show up at the pearly gates, if Peter's there, and I don't know of such a thing, and he says, on what basis are you planning to get in? Friends, we've got to have one answer and one answer only, and that is I'm covered by the blood of Jesus.
That's the plan that will work. And if you've never availed yourself of that blood covering that the Lord Jesus Christ created for you on the cross, we're going to give you a chance to do that right now. Let's pray together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, nobody looking around, here's what we're going to do. If you want to transfer your trust today off of your own human effort to get you into heaven, and onto the blood covering, the lead vest that the Lord Jesus offers us, then I'm going to pray a little prayer, one phrase at a time, and we're going to make that transfer today. And as I pray out loud, I want you to pray silently, one phrase at a time, and let's get this done.
Here we go. Lord Jesus, I come to you today because I want eternal life. I want to know that I'm going to heaven when I die here on earth, and I want there to be no doubt. And so today, I give up forever any plan that I've ever had to work my way to heaven.
I admit I can't do it myself. And humbly, I embrace today the blood covering of Jesus Christ purchased on the cross for me as my one and only plan for getting into heaven. Lord, come into my life today, forgive my sin, and put the lead vest of heaven around me.
I surrender my life to you today. In Jesus' name I pray. And Father, I want to pray for the folks that prayed that prayer that you right now as they sit here would confirm in their heart that a great transaction has taken place in the heavenly realms that they have passed, as John 5-24 says, out of death and into eternal life forever, never to go back. And for those of us here who have already done this, I pray that you would remind us today of the amazing mercy, the amazing kindness and grace that you have shown us in creating a plan B for those of us who could never, ever make plan A work. Lord, may your love and your mercy inspire us today as followers of Christ to rise up and want to obey you and love you and serve you and honor you with everything in us, Father, in response. Thank you for your great love and thank you for freeing us from trying to work our way into heaven once and for all. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.
