We’re continuing on our study in the Gospel of Luke.

Last week, we saw the start of a new section in the book in Luke 9:51 that will span all the way to Luke 19:44. This section is commonly referred to as the Travel Narrative.

Embedded in this bigger section is a small section that we’ll look at through the month of July, and by and large, this section is looking at the theme of discipleship in Luke.

We’ll consistently see that Jesus is continuing to draw people back to the essentials of what it means to follow him: that simply is hearing and doing the teachings of Christ.

It’s believing that what Jesus says is true, but not in an intellectual way that knows the right answers, but in a way that lives as if what Jesus says is true.

Understanding the Text

The Great Commandment

If you remember, last week we ended our text on this beautiful intimate moment between Jesus and his disciples. Luke 10:21 tells us that…

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit…

—Luke 10:21

Jesus is brimming with joy, erupting in gratitude towards God the Father and then in v. 23 we read…

23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 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.”

—Luke 10:23-24

It’s an affectionate moment that’s perhaps rudely interrupted by this know-it-all lawyer.

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

—Luke 10:25

A lawyer in Jesus’ day was similar to a lawyer in our day; he was interpreting the Law. The key difference for a lawyer in Jesus’ day being that they were interpreting God’s Law, religious Law in a sense. Now, there was not the dichotomy that we might have today; Religious Law was Civil Law in a sense; what was taught in the Pentateuch affected every day life.

There is some ambiguity to the text, and the lawyer seems to have both a genuine curiosity to him, yet simultaneously seems to have some sneaky motives as well.

The lawyer stands up, interrupts, and it says he puts Jesus to the text, which is a little bit sneaky. On the flip side, he shows Jesus honor and respect (presumably) by asking Him what seems to be a genuine question: “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus, like any good Teacher, flips it back on him.

26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

—Luke 10:26

“What do you think the answer is?” Jesus asks. “How do you interpret it?”

27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord 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.”

—Luke 10:27

The lawyer pulls together two different passages. The first is Deuteronomy 6, which in ancient Israel was to referred to as the Shema. This was a foundational text for God’s People.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

—Deuteronomy 6:4-7

The lawyer is summarizing the Shema with the first part of his answer, and then he tags on a summary of Leviticus 19:18

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

—Leviticus 19:18

To the lawyer’s answer, Jesus says to him…

28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
—Luke 10:28

So, the lawyer at least knows the right answer. He knows the facts. But facts doesn’t inherit eternal life. Jesus says that the man must do this.

That’s what we see in Luke 11:28…

28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

—Luke 11:28

Either the lawyer thought himself to be doing an awesome job, or he needed things to be a little more black and white so that he could assuredly know he was doing an awesome job.

So he asks a follow up question in v. 29, where we see Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

—Luke 10:29

Like most good lawyers this guy is a black and white thinker. He got the last answer right, but needed to know if he passed the whole test. So he asks Jesus to draw a line for him, most likely thinking that he’ll surely be on the right side of it already.

So, Jesus shares a parable, a concocted story with real import into Kingdom-living.

30 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.

—Luke 10:30

Jesus strategically opens the parable with an indiscrete man. He’s just a random dude. He’s going on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho, and this was known to be a treacherous journey. It was roughly 18 miles long, and it covered a significant topological drop off, a difference of roughly 2,000 feet in elevation. Jerusalem was up, Jericho down. So, imagine the quads are burning as you lean backwards downhill, and if that’s not enough, this road was dangerous. With the zigging and zagging through the mountainous terrain there was ample opportunities for miscreants to lie in wait.

This is a bad place to be in, and the man is jumped. His stuff is taken from him, they beat him physically, and then if being left half-dead isn’t bad enough, he’s stripped of his clothes. Naked? Possibly? But probably at least down to his undergarments, which is embarrassing enough.

Jesus goes on…

31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

—Luke 10:31-32

These religious leaders are, in many ways, in the same stratosphere as this lawyer. These were the reputable men, who were in many ways supposed to be the example of what it meant to live out the answer the lawyer gave earlier.

Both of them though, they arrive, they see, and then they pass by.

Now, this is where for the lawyer, Jesus is going to shake up his world, because the hero of the story is not somebody like him, it’s a Samaritan.

Remember, we talked a couple weeks ago about Jesus sending messengers ahead of him in Samaria to tell the Samaritan villagers about the Good News of the Kingdom. And they reject him. That’s when we see the brawling brothers, James and John, ask Jesus if he wants them to just call down nuclear fire upon them and wipe them out.

This visceral reaction that James and John had was likely common for most Israelites, including this lawyer. Because the Samaritans were this backwards clan who tried to claim that God’s Kingdom would come through their land and their people, and not through the Israelites and Israel. And this enraged the Israelites because the Samaritans were a group that split off from them generations ago, and rather than maintaining purity in their lineages by marrying fellow Jews, the Samaritans married non-Jews. To the Jews, Samaritans were a bunch of sellouts, they were half-breeds, or mud-bloods for my Harry Potter fans.

So, the hero in Jesus’ story, was paradoxically the enemy of the lawyer (and the presumed crowd around Jesus).

33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

—Luke 10:33

And it’s the compassion that wells up from his inner-most being that moves him to act in a way that goes above and beyond.

34 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. 35 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.’

—Luke 10:34-35

The Samaritan uses his own supplies, his own resources, his own time, his own energy, to care for this random dude on the side of this treacherous road. Once they get to the hotel, he goes even further, and says to the innkeeper, keep the tab open. I’ll handle whatever room-service this guy orders while I’m gone.

Jesus concludes the parable with that, and then asks his newest pupil the final question of the exam…

36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”

—Luke 10:36

Based on the modern interpretation of the law, the lawyer, like most Israelites, had come to believe that their neighbor was only fellow Jews; and they likely had a category for God-fearers—those who were not born Jewish but converted to Judaism—being classified as their neighbors as well. But this unknown man, half-dead on the side of the road, surely he could fall in the category of non-neighbor.

Putting it in the category of the lawyer’s first answer, he assumed that surely there was a limitation to whom his mercy must be bestowed upon. Surely there was a type of person that could be classified as a non-person, a whole category of people that he could stereotype and cast aside.

Jesus challenges this assumption though with his parable and his question and the lawyer does answer correctly. We read this in v. 37…

37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

—Luke 10:37

The lawyer answers correctly. He understood what Jesus was getting at in his parable. Getting answers is one thing. Living it out is another.

What are we to do with a text that is so commonplace, not just in the church, but in society? With something that’s so familiar, is there anything new we can learn? What might Jesus be inviting us to in this text?

Applying the Text

Invitation to be like the Good Samaritan

Remember last week, one the key parts of the text was Jesus steering his disciples towards rejoicing not in the cool things they had done for God, but in their position they had in God. He said to them…

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
—Luke 10:20

This is Jesus’ way of saying one of our church mantras: our identity precedes our function. Put differently, who we are becoming in our inner woman or man is way more important than the things we are doing.

But then we get to our text today and we bump up against one of the great paradoxes of our faith…we are invited to rest in Jesus and in our identity in Him, yet we are also invited to do something in light of it.

Thus far, discipleship for Luke is about hearing and doing the Word of God. And we are really confronted with this reality in our text today because we see the verb “do” show up many times in this passage.

Check this out…

Lawyer – What must I do to inherit life? (Luke 10:25)

Jesus – Do this and you will live. (Luke 10:28)

Lawyer – The one who did mercy (Luke 10:37)

Jesus – Go and do likewise (Luke 10:37)

Undoubtedly it may be confusing. If we are talking all the time about the fact that God cares about who we are becoming much more than the things we are doing, it might seem like we are saying that we should almost push all our chips into the “being” bucket and none in the “doing” bucket. But that’s not what we’re saying, nor is Jesus saying.

In a culture that tries to work from the outside-in…a culture that says you need to earn your love by doing the right things, what Jesus is always drawing people back to is the reality that in the Kingdom of God, things are inside-out. We receive God’s love freely, and because of that we are shaped into the type of people that do the right thing when the situations arise.

Let’s try to sort it out a bit.

Notice in our text the natural outcropping of the levite and priest versus the Samaritan.

Priest and Levite – came ➡︎ saw ➡︎ passed by on the other side
Samaritan – came ➡︎ saw ➡︎ moved with compassion

For Jesus, the externalities of the person—the status, the religious rule following, the cleanliness, the ethnicity—didn’t matter at all. What mattered was the natural internal response of the person. That was the measure of right and wrong in the parable.

Philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard gets at this idea in his book. Writing about the high bar of the Sermon on the Mount, he says…

In the Sermon on the Mount we are not looking at laws, but at a life: a life in which genuine laws of God eventually become naturally fulfilled.
—Dallas Willard, Divine Conspiracy (195)

Put differently, the life-long project of becoming a disciple of Jesus is not following a bunch of rules to earn God’s love, but rather, by continually and constantly resting in God’s love changes us to become the type of people that if we are put in the same situation that the Good Samaritan is in, we might respond in a God-honoring way.

Whyso?

Our function flows from our identity. What we do flows from who we are.

But a vital piece to this truth is that who we are flows from what (or whom) we love.

Our souls—our inner woman or man—are formed and shaped to become like that which we behold. The things we give our attention to the most.

If we are constantly on divisive political twitter, we will become divisive people ourselves.

If we are non-stop thinking about having more money, then we will become the type of people that will do whatever it takes to acquire that money.

We become what we behold, and who we become dictates the things that come out of us in various situations (the things that we do).

In the parable, the Samaritan responded like God would.

Again, in v. 33, differently than the Levite and Priest,

…a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.
—Luke 10:33

This word in the original language – splagnizomai – means to be moved within one’s bowels. For the ancient Greek, to be moved in one’s bowels was to be moved to the core of their being. In a sense, it might be how we say that we were moved deeply in our heart. It’s a deep response of love and compassion from deep within one’s being.

And check this out, the Samaritan, being moved deep within his bowels is the same word that is used elsewhere to describe the compassionate response of God to people.

First in Luke 1:78, during the prophecy of Simeon over Jesus, we see…

78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
    whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
—Luke 1:78-79

Then again in Luke 7:13

13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”

—Luke 7:13

The Samaritan is moved with compassion in the exact same way God is moved with compassion.

You see when we are shaped by Christ’s love to become like Christ, then in moments when we are faced with situations, the love that we experienced with Christ automatically flows out of us.

When our identity has been so radically transformed to be like Christ, when these situations arise, we can’t help but have Christ-like love come out of us leading to Christ-like action.

Theologian Joel Green hits on this in his commentary…

This is an important reminder…that [actions] are manifestations of one’s character and dispositions; in the language of the current passage, love of neighbor flows out of radical love of God.
—Joel Green, New International Commentary on the New Testament: Luke

For those who follow King Jesus, the hope is that we would be so shaped by His love, that when we are faced with a half-dead man on the side of the road, the love of Christ would simply burst forth out of our inner person.

That’s what being a true disciple is.

That’s what identity precedes function means.

Invitation to see Jesus as the Good Samaritan

If we’re honest with ourselves, we are more like the other characters in the Parable than the Good Samaritan.

Like the Priest and Levite, we are oftentimes more concerned about the religious rules, or getting on with our responsibilities.

Like the lawyer, we are trying to justify ourselves, by setting black and white lines that we can hop over.

In some respects, that’s kinda the point.

Now, I don’t totally agree with Him, but theologian Robert Farrar Capon argues that seeing the Good Samaritan as an example story is actually destructive to the Gospel.

Quite simply, it blows the Good News right out of the water. For if the world could have been saved by providing good examples to which we could respond with appropriately good works, it would have been saved an hour and twenty minutes after Moses came down from Mt. Sinai.
—Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment

His point in saying that is that oftentimes in the modern church, we read the Good Samaritan story as an example story, and not all-too-different than the lawyer, think if we can just do the right things in the right way then we will be “saved.” But again, that’s the exact opposite of the point. That’s the oustide-in philosophy of the world; do the right things in the right way and then you’ll have the right spot with Jesus.

There is a reality in this text that we have to recognize that we have failed to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we have failed to love our neighbor as ourselves (let alone our spouse/roommate/kids, etc.).

And so in that respect, the real character that we should identify with in the story is the half-dead man on the road.

If we can only give away the love and compassion if we experience it ourselves, we are the random half-dead person, stripped, beaten, destitute, and Christ is the Good Samaritan.

Which doesn’t that sound about right?

Like the Good Samaritan, Christ rides in to his rescue on a donkey.

Like the Good Samaritan, he looked on the plight of sinful man, and was moved deep within his bowels with compassion.

Like the Good Samaritan, he didn’t just feel compassion for us, he did something for us.

Like the Good Samaritan, he didn’t fear getting dirty in the religious sense; he got down in the muck and the shame, and bound up our wounds.

Like the Good Samaritan, his own stuff, his riches, his position, to pay for us.

Like the Good Samaritan, Christ pays what we owe, but leaves the tab open. The forgiveness that He offers is not something that runs out; it’s a payment that covers past, present and future sins.

And you see, it’s not because of anything that you have done!

The half-dead man offers nothing in this parable, and nor do you. Adoption into God’s Family is not because of your good neighboring, it’s a free gift of God to you in spite of you not being a good neighbor.

Friends, it’s only experiencing Jesus as the Good Samaritan to you that you then can go and even try to be a Good Samaritan to others.

First John 4:19 says…

We love because he first loved us.
—1 John 4:19

What we do flows from who we are, and who we are flows from who we love, or maybe even better said who loves us.

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This sermon was delivered at Sojourn Church Carlisle in Louisville, KY. Sermons that appear here are rarely edited, if at all. Because they were delivered in a different medium, they may feel more colloquial in nature than other writings on this site.