Go and Do Likewise

Well, thank you very much, Mike. I'm glad we were able to find you here for this song. And you got us really going. I think that we ought to do that every now and then, because, you know, we have to kind of pay attention to what the song leader said, and I didn't, and then I didn't know when to sing. And if we'd have tried that up in Fulton this morning, we would have had some blank stanzas, because there weren't any ladies there.

So, it's nice to be able to have everyone here, and I'm glad to see all of you today. I hope all of you have enjoyed the Days of Unleavened Bread. It seems like it's actually gone by rather quickly, with kind of the way everything fell, with the first holy day being on the Sabbath anyway. It seemed, in a sense, like, you know, well, that's what we normally do Saturday afternoon anyway. So, we started off the feast, and then throughout the week, and then with yesterday being our final day, it's nice to have so many people here.

Nice to have the Fulton group, for the most part, down here, be able to get a number of additional folks together. And I hope that you've enjoyed these days. I know my wife and I were talking about it, and it felt that, you know, what we have learned this year, what we had thought about, what we were focused on, what we were trying to do, you know, was more beneficial to us than, you know, any that we remember. Maybe it's just that I don't remember very well last year or the year before, but anyway, this year, you know, it really was encouraging to, you know, be able to identify, you know, certain areas in our lives that we want to try to improve, that we want to try to change.

And I hope that is also the case for you. I know, you know, we went over the topics of putting sin out of our lives, and actually, in order to do that, we've got to ask God to replace that, you know, with His Spirit and with His fruit. And we do that through faith in Jesus Christ. And so, a number of things that are quite encouraging to us.

And as we went over in the service yesterday, you know, the value and the importance of the burial that Jesus was in the grave for three nights and three days. I know we mentioned that. I don't know that we elaborated on that as far as sequentially trying to go through those things. But, you know, we know, just from reading the account that you have of Jesus' crucifixion, and then of His burial, you know that He was in the grave three nights, and then three days, and then He was resurrected.

And the next morning, which ended up that year being a Sunday morning, a first day of the week, He was already gone. And yet, when we think about that burial and His resurrection, in a sense that also is a benefit to us as we think of our baptism, as we think of burying the old man, putting aside, putting away the things that we have come to see are wrong, and then being resurrected to a new way of life, a newness of life.

So there's a lot of different analogies that we can think about and be able to benefit from. I know I've mentioned to you over the last several weeks, not just here during the Days of Unleavened Bread, but how it is that we want to abide in the words of Jesus Christ, how we want to abide in Christ as our rock, as our refuge, as the one who provides us all the stability and all the security and all the assurance that we need to be able to live Christian lives in what we can look around us and see as a rather chaotic world. And abiding in His love, learning to walk like Jesus did, and what He said, that we would benefit from that.

I think those are certainly meaningful things that we ought to be carrying from here into, as we mentioned earlier, our next Holy Day season will be at the end of May, be the time of Pentecost. And in a sense, we're even counting from midweek here this past week, seven weeks, and be able to come to the time when we will celebrate the Day of Pentecost, which has tremendous, tremendous meaning.

I wanted to review a parable with you today that I hope will have meaning to all of us as we think about our lives and how we are to be toward other people, how it is that we can think about others in a responsive way, in a receptive way, in a caring way. And I mentioned this this morning, as you read through different of the parables that Jesus spoke, you find that, actually there are hardly, I guess, maybe none that you would directly identify as parables, but you would identify them as miracles in the book of John. You know, you've got the four gospel accounts of Jesus' life, and the book of John has some of the miracles. I think all of the gospels have accounts of healings that Jesus performed, and others of them have accounts, and John, more particularly, about specific teaching that he gave his disciples that actually led up to the time when he'd be crucified. But in the book of Luke, you have several unique parables. They're not recorded in any of the others. I'd ask you to think, if you can, of what do you recall about the book of Luke, about the parables that are recorded in the book of Luke, and how they stand out, and how they are significant. You know, there are a number of parables that are in two different gospels, or maybe three. I think there's only one that's in all four of them. The one of the feeding of the five thousand, I believe, is in each of the gospel accounts.

And yet, what about the book of Luke? What two parables, or maybe what parables, stand out to you? I know, as I think of Luke chapter 15, I think of a parable there that, in many ways, to me, is maybe most remarkable, most amazing, because it's a parable about two sons.

We normally think of it as a parable of the prodigal son. That's the way it's often advertised, but it's really a parable about two sons, both of whom had significant problems, that they, in one way, addressed, in another way, didn't. And a primary, wonderful lesson of that is the Father in that particular parable, which, of course, pictures God, pictures the way God is toward us, pictures the way that He wants to relate to us, the way that He wants us to relate to Him. He wants us to love Him. And, of course, we can only do that as we recognize that He extends that to us. He extends that to us and then wants that to flow out from us through His Holy Spirit to others that we interact with, to others that we share His nature with. That's what we're in the process of learning. That's what we're in the process of growing in. So, Luke 15 stands out to me. I also find it interesting, and I believe this is the only account of this in any of the Gospels, and it's in Luke 10. Luke 10 has an account of Jesus telling a story about someone who was robbed and about how that individual was robbed and beaten and left alongside the road, and then how he was cared for, how he was nurtured, how he was loved. And, of course, you know, that example, that could be called the parable of the Good Samaritan. I guess it could be just a story. He doesn't even go ahead to say, you know, the explanation of it because it's pretty obvious what it is. And yet, he gave that, and Luke recorded that, and Luke was recording things that he was researching, he was writing, as he did the book of Luke and the book of Acts. He wrote accounts that were conveyed to him, or maybe that he heard, or that he verified.

And yet, this is the only account that we have of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And yet, that parable points out, you know, how it is that we can do what Jesus said here in Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew 22, when Jesus was asked, he was actually asked here by a lawyer.

Matthew 22 verse 34, a lawyer asked him a question to test him. Verse 36, a teacher, what commandment in the law is the greatest, and he said, you should love the Lord your God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And he says in verse 38, the second, that's the first and great commandment, or greatest and first commandment, and the second is like it. In verse 39, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. See, here he was summarizing what we read in the Ten Commandments. You know, the first four of the commands, directly dealing with how we worship and how we honor and how we love God, how we put God first in our lives, how we put or allow nothing else to interfere with our worship of the great God, certainly use his name in a proper way, and respect his appointments. Respect his Sabbath, as we're doing today, as we did an annual appointment yesterday with the last day of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

But then Jesus mentions loving your neighbor, and that's generally thought of with the remainder of the Ten Commandments, honoring your father and mother, and not killing and stealing, not committing adultery, not stealing, not lying, not coveting. Those all apply, not only, you know, to our love of God, but more so to our love of human beings, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

And of course, here in Luke 10, if we go back to this parable that I want to focus on today, you find the account that Luke recorded. He recorded this, in a sense, I think, I'm not sure exactly why he put it in his text where he did. It's actually between two different settings that he describes. The one following it, you know, it's Jesus meeting with Mary and Martha, and how it was that he talked with them, and how it was he shared with them things that were important to him, and how, you know, he told Mary how she was really focused in a correct way by focusing on what Jesus Christ had to say. And prior to this account, you see in verse 21, that Jesus explains how important it is. He explains how significant it is that God has seen fit to open our hearts or open our minds. It really is a significant factor, brethren, to not only know, well, I'm a part of the Church of God, or I certainly believe in what the Church of God teaches, and I want to be a recipient of the Holy Spirit. I want to be led by the Holy Spirit.

We want to always appreciate the fact that God initiated. God called us to Jesus Christ.

He called us, and He gave us an invitation. He gave us an invitation that we're responding to. We're responding by being here in services. We're responding by studying the Bible. We're responding by loving our neighbor. And that's, of course, what this parable is about here, starting in verse 25. So I want to start going through this here in verse 25. It says, a lawyer stood up, and it says he did this in order to test Jesus. He wasn't really trying to learn anything, and so we could say, well, perhaps Luke recorded this, and Jesus stated this in order for us to learn. Because I don't think the lawyer really had an open mind. The lawyer, meaning a doctor of the law or someone who was a student or studier of the law, wasn't an attorney as we know of them today. But in a sense, he was testing Jesus by saying, what do I have to do? What do I have to do to have eternal life? And of course, you find that Jesus simply responded, well, what do you think? What do you see in the law?

What's written in the law? How do you read it? And so the man answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and strength and mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. See, now this was a good response. This was a good answer. You know, the man came back with a legitimate answer. It was one that was clearly biblical. It was out of the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5, and out of the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. Those two statements you can go back and find in the Old Testament. They're a part of the law of God.

And yet, as this lawyer responded to Jesus in this way, Jesus said to him, well, you have said the right answer. You're right! You win the prize. You're right. Of course, he went ahead and said, all you have to do is do it.

Do this, and you will live. And so, you know, the lawyer was thinking, okay, well, I asked a question. It didn't really trip him up. It didn't even set him back. He immediately just asked me a question. I had to answer him. I had to tell him. I couldn't say I didn't know.

And then he says, you're right. Go ahead and do it. Just do it. And, of course, you know, Jesus had more to say about this because the lawyer wasn't satisfied with that because he thought about it. And even as the young ruler who came to Jesus and essentially asked the same question, what do I have to do to gain eternal life? And Jesus went through, again, a numeration of what the laws of God are about. Well, you need to do these, and actually, you need to do more than these. But he was sad, and so he didn't want to accept what Jesus had to say. And in this case, the lawyer didn't either. He didn't want to hear, all I have to do is do that.

He brought up an entirely different question. And this is really probably what this parable or story is about. He says, well, who is my neighbor? You know, why did he ask that type of question?

What was his thought? What was he thinking? He knew the right answer. It hadn't really tripped Jesus up at all. What was he thinking when he said, well, who is my neighbor? Well, what he was doing was thinking, well, you know, I wonder if there's any way that I can minimize how much I have to do. I wonder if there's any way that I can skirt the issue here and not really have to love my neighbor, because I really like to love my neighbor. I like to love my fellow doctors of the law. I like to love my fellow Pharisees or Sadducees. I like to love, you know, the certain group of people who pad my pocket or who pat me on the back or who, all my cohorts. I'm just thrilled to love them, but I don't really like a lot of these other people, the common people who are maybe coming to us for answers. And if I have to love them, well, that won't be such a good deal. So he asked the question. He was trying to ask, well, how much do I have to do? See, that's not always a good question to ask. How much do I have to do? Because, you know, we find that, well, we limit ourselves when we ask that kind of question.

In essence, he was even saying, how little can I do and still get my. That was what, you know, he was almost implying. So Jesus, answering the question, who is my neighbor? In verse 2030, he said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him and beat him and went away and left him half dead. So he starts off his story with somewhat of a common knowledge situation for the people in and around Jerusalem. Because the road to Jericho was about a 20-mile stretch of road. It was a road that went pretty from Jerusalem, pretty much to the northeast and with Jerusalem being a pretty high area as far as on the hills that surround Jerusalem, most everything else is down. And of course, ultimately, if you go down to the east, not 20-30 miles, you're at the Dead Sea. And that, of course, is a very, very low elevation, a very, very low level. And so everything, any road pretty much from Jerusalem, is going downhill. And this particular road, this road down to Jericho, was a very well-known, very noted, very noted place to avoid, place to not go because it was not only mountainous, it was not only winding. Some of the guys from Fulton were telling me more about having been there and having driven up and down this road. And it's kind of a perilous stretch of road even now.

And yet back then, it was, you know, where people were traveling this road. In a sense, they were taking their life in their hands because the mountains, but then also the windy, and also the wooded areas along it, made it a prime spot for someone to get mugged.

Maybe like certain areas here in Kansas City. Maybe you wouldn't want to go into some areas. But this particular road, you know, it was kind of a known, bad place to be.

But Jesus picked this out because, you know, everybody will know about this. They all know. It's called the Way of Blood. You know, that was what the road was called. And usually just a bad place to be in. So in verse 31, it says, a priest. After this man had been, he had been assaulted, he had been beaten, he had been robbed, he had been thrown in the ditch, and he was over on the side of the road and maybe pathway conscious and probably bleeding. Then we find in verse 31, excuse me, by chance a priest was going down this road.

And when he saw the man, it says here in verse 31 that he just passed by on the other side.

Now you can think, well, you know, surely the priest would have had, you know, enough, you know, feeling of concern that he would have stopped to see, you know, what's going on with this individual. You know, if we're driving on the road and you see a wreck, you see a lot of people who are wanting to stop. You certainly see a lot of rubberneckers who want to, you know, slow down traffic and see if they can see anything. But it almost appears that this priest was just too busy, too busy to help the man. Or he didn't want to help the man. He didn't care about the man.

He really just wanted to appear like this didn't happen. It didn't happen, and I'm just going to keep going. So that's what we find in verse 31, the description there. Certainly, even though he was considered to be one of the religious elite in Israel, you know, he didn't do anything. He just left the man along the road. And so you wouldn't say, you know, that that was such a good example. Verse 32, a Levite. Likewise, a Levite. When he came to the place, he saw him. I don't know whether he studied the situation anymore, whether he, you know, looked down, maybe explored anymore. It doesn't really say. It just says both the priest and then the Levite. They saw the man, you know, how how thoroughly they realized how much he was in need. We don't know, but both of them decided to ignore the situation and out of, you know, what? I need to go on, or I don't want to be polluted by, you know, this, you know, damaged, hurt, injured individual. I don't want to be in some way not able to perform my duties. See, I know there have been a lot of explanations of that or have different ideas about, well, why would they have done this or that? And yet, in actual fact, you know, they were heading from Jerusalem down to Jericho. They weren't coming the other way. They weren't coming up to do their priestly duties. They were going home, or they were going out from Jerusalem. So it appears they essentially had no excuse. No excuse except a bad heart.

No excuse except not enough time. No excuse except not wanting to expend the energy to be able to help, in this case, a neighbor. Of course, in verse 33, Jesus goes on to say, so likewise, after the Levite had come and passed him by, in verse 33, but a Samaritan, while traveling, came near him. And so here we find, you know, something that Jesus intentionally threw in there. It didn't just say another Israelite. It didn't say another Israelite or someone from Israel or Judah, someone who had identified with the Israeli people, someone who was, you know, like everybody else, the same race, nationality, same religion. No. The dreaded Samaritan. Jesus brings this up. He specifically says it was a Samaritan who came and actually was interrupting his travels by seeing what was going on. See, now, why were the Samaritans despised? And we might look at a couple of verses just to, you know, try to clarify that. Samaritans, and Jesus was using this particular name, this particular individual, as a part of the example here in this parable, he was doing it for a reason because Samaritans, if we go back to John 4, you know, John 4 is an encounter that Jesus had with a Samaritan woman. Now, Samaria was, you know, the area of Samaria was to the north of Jerusalem, actually to the north and west a little bit of Jerusalem, and between Jerusalem and on up into the Sea of Galilee. And so, you see, when you read about Jesus, a number of things around Jerusalem, around Bethlehem, around Bethany, these were all closer down to Jerusalem and in Judea, and then a lot of stuff up in Nazareth, up in Capernaum, up in Tiberius, up around the Sea of Galilee. So, you know, I think that's 30 or 40 miles. I may be off on that. But there's, you know, there's a distance between those two areas, but those are areas where Jesus is commonly, you know, he is with the disciples, he's with the fishermen, he's out on the lake, or he's down in Jerusalem, and he goes back and forth. And in between those two, you had an area over to the left, at least, over to the west that was called Samaria, a number of cities of the Samaritans. And the Samaritans, they were actually descended from those who had come into the land of Israel after they had been sent into captivity in the past.

You know, there had been several hundred years passed by, and so these Samaritans, you know, they had been brought into the land to occupy the land of Israel, part of the land of Israel.

They were viewed as outcasts, they were viewed as pagans, they were viewed in a very negative light.

And what we see in John 4, verse 9, the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? See, she was actually mentioning two different things. How is it that you would ask a drink of me, a woman? For one thing, that wouldn't normally have been done, and certainly, why would you ask a Samaritan to give you a drink? Because it goes ahead and says, Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. And I think your new King James says a little differently. They were just essentially despised. There was a great deal of conflict between the Samaritans, and actually, if you back up from where we are here in Luke 10, if you back up to Luke 9, you see Jesus traveling. He's traveling back and forth between Jerusalem and Galilee. And here in Luke 9, in verse 51, it says, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. This was Jesus and his disciples. They're going to Jerusalem. They're up in Galilee. They're going to have to come down. They're going to have to go through Samaria. And he sent his messengers ahead of him, and on the way, they entered the city of the Samaritans to make ready for Jesus. But the Samaritans did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. See, they didn't like it. It wasn't that the Jews didn't like the Samaritans only. It was the Samaritans didn't like the Jews at all either. There was just a direct conflict there, and they were essentially, from the standpoint of Israelites, looked down upon and despised. And even in this account, it says when his disciples, James and John, saw what the Samaritans were doing, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? You know, they were rather energetic in trying to get rid of this problem. Of course, you know, that wasn't the solution that Jesus had in mind. But he points out, you know, that, well, they weren't certainly readily receiving, you know, this band of travelers and trying to help them, trying to offer them anything. Jesus just said, you know, he turned and rebuked them for even thinking that you ought to call down fire out of heaven and consume the Samaritans. But he says, let's just go on to another village. And that's, of course, what they did.

He told them, you know, you don't really know, you know, the type of response that you are extending. You know, that's not me. That's not what I'm teaching. That's not what I want.

And that's certainly not the example that I'm going to reflect. So, you see Jesus using, here in the parable, the Samaritan. Luke chapter 10 again. Verse 33, he says, a Samaritan, while traveling, came near the man. And when he saw him, he was moved. He was moved with compassion.

He was moved with care and pity and concern because here you have someone lying half dead in the ditch, having been assaulted and robbed and, you know, wondering if they're going to live.

This Samaritan, you know, looks like he was quite quick. He went to the man. He bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine on his wounds. I guess he was prepared, wasn't he? He had a first aid kit.

He had some band-aids and some, you know, antiseptic. I guess oil and wine is what they use for antiseptic or for cleansing above a wound at that time. I guess we might use that as well today at times. But the Samaritan takes pity on this individual. He bandages his wounds, pours on oil and wine, and he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And it says in verse 35, the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, take care of him and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend. Now, this man's response was just remarkable. And, of course, that's why I think even today you have a term, good Samaritan, and even there's a good Samaritan society. There are nursing homes that are connected with good Samaritan services. And so they're all trying to follow the example of the care and the concern that this particular Samaritan in Jesus' parable that he extended to this individual that he obviously didn't know. He didn't know who he was. And even though, in a sense, if he was Israelite, which I think we probably assumed that he was, he went from Jerusalem down to Jericho, that he was really, you know, he didn't really care who helped him.

It just happened that the Samaritan was available. And he was willing to show the love of God, or love of a neighbor, in this case, to this injured person. And, of course, you know, it says he loaded him on his donkey or animal and hauled him however long. I don't know, you know, it may have been several miles in order to get to where he could have him cared for. And it says in verse 34 that he took him to the end. He took care of him there. It appears, you know, that he helped him that evening. He helped him through the night. He needed to go on, continue on his trip the next morning. But even as he did, he took out some money. He gave it to the innkeeper and said, please take care of him. I want you to, you know, continue to provide him the care. And, you know, the amount of money here appears to be a couple of days' wages. And so it was a fair amount of money that he was giving for the care of someone else. And he said, when you come back or when I come back, I'll repay you if you spend more. Now, that example, of course, is a believable example. Believable because Jesus stated it. He's the one who's explaining, you know, what it is that he's wanting to point out to these men. And so then he asked a question after telling this story, asked the question of the lawyer and of others who were standing around, and I'm sure his disciples and maybe many of those who were supporting the lawyer in this conflict. Which of these three do you think was neighbor to the man who fell among these? Was it the Levite? Was it the priest? Was it the Samaritan? You know, Jesus was making this pretty obvious. He was making it real obvious so that the lawyer had no excuse except to say, well, I guess the one who showed him mercy. Yeah, I'm sure he almost had to spit those words out.

Well, I guess it was the heated Samaritan! You know, it's what he had to say. I guess it was the one who showed him mercy. And of course, you know, Jesus added to that, well, I want you to go and do likewise. If you want to have eternal life, what you need to do is learn to love your neighbor. And of course, the lawyer, I don't think, wanted to hear that, but that was what Jesus had to say. And again, you know, this particular parable, it's only recorded in Luke, it's one probably more known to many people, probably known to all of us before we ever became a part of the Church of God. More than likely, you often even see it depicted in pictures or in paintings. I've seen a number of paintings of this particular parable about a wounded individual being cared for by what would appear to be a foreign person, not having the same guard, not having the same equipment. And yet, it's a remarkable, remarkable example that Jesus gave and clearly showed his mastery over what it is that he wanted to teach, what it is that he wanted to show in this particular account. So, what are the lessons that we learn? Whenever we read through this account, it should have more meaning. We can think about the fact that God expects us to love one another, and He does. He expects us to love our brethren. He expects us to love each other as far as our families, our husbands, and our wives, our children. He expects us to love these individuals. He expects us, if we're going to become like Jesus Christ, to learn in whatever way we could to love our enemies. But here, He's describing about loving your neighbor. And here, He gives this illustration. And I guess in a sense, He's answering the question of, well, who is your neighbor? That was what He was really saying. And clearly, I think we can recognize when we read through this that even though the Samaritan might have been of another religion, another maybe nationality, possibly of another race, than this individual who was injured. He says, your neighbor is one who is in need, whom you can help. That's what He was telling to the people who were around. That's what He was telling the lawyer. That's what He was telling everyone, His disciples. Your neighbor is another human being, and in this case, someone who is in need and that you could actually help. And so, it's not just whenever we think about loving our neighbor as ourselves, it's not just simply the people who live on each side of you or the people who live in up and down the street. They would all qualify, I guess, if they were in need and you were able to help them, then you clearly would want to do that. And yet, as He points out, this could be anyone, any type of individual who is in need that we can help. And in a sense, Christ put no restriction on who we might help or whom we might serve. And of course, even whenever He gave His perfect example to His disciples, well, who is it that you need to be willing to serve?

Well, Jesus was not only going to serve His disciples, He was going to even serve Judas. He was even going to reach out in a care and love to Him before He left the evening. When you read there in John 13, He says there is no restriction on race or nationality, on religion, on who your neighbor might be. Christians, we read this. I think Mike may have read it yesterday, but I'll read it again today here in Romans 12. Romans 12 were given a number of very specific statements that Paul writes down about how it is that Christians should be toward one another, but how we should even be toward others. He says in Romans 12, in verse 12, And so that's kind of an internal care and internal concern. Yet He also says extend hospitality, extend concern, extend neighborly love, even to strangers.

And that was clearly the case as Jesus' example showed that the Samaritan who came along was a stranger. He didn't know who this man was. He was willing to help, and he had pity and concern for the other person. He was actually the one who was going to live up to the statement of loving your neighbor. So our neighbor is anyone in need, and you might have the ability to help. The second thing I'll point out about this is that Jesus showed through the example of the Levite and of the priest that you need to practice what you preach. They didn't. They didn't practice what they preached. I'm sure the Levite or the priest, if they were to give a lecture on should you love your neighbor, they would have said, yeah, surely. You know, Luke or Leviticus 19.18 applies. You should love your neighbor as yourself. And yet clearly they didn't do it. They didn't practice what they preached. And I'm sure all of you would agree, and all of you would teach. If you were in a setting, you would say, loving your neighbor is the right thing to do.

Let's see if we don't go ahead and take action. See, that's really what he points out here. Well, what was right was overcoming all prejudices and then taking action in showing love. Here in 1 John chapter 3, you find numerous statements as we went through some of these yesterday.

1 John chapter 3 verse 17, how does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother and sister in need and yet refuses help?

Is that doesn't reflect the love of God. That doesn't reflect loving your neighbor. And that certainly doesn't reflect the way I am toward you and the way that God is, the way God wants us to be. In verse 18, the next verse, little children, let us love. Not in word or just simply speech, but in need and in truth. Let us love in action.

Let us go ahead and do it. And I know many of you are very good examples of that, and I appreciate that. I applaud that. But I remind us that we need to continue to do that. We need to continue to have love, not only for one another, but also be willing to love our neighbor as we have opportunity to do so. Over in James 1, you find other statements here that, I guess we back up a few pages here, to James 1. You have a similar concept that James describes how it's not enough just to see where I need to change. You need to go ahead and do something. And you could apply that to this situation. It's not enough that I should love my neighbor.

I need to go ahead and do it. He says in verse 22 of James 1, Be doers of the word, and not merely a hearer. Be doers of the word. Put love in action.

And on down in verse 27, and this could be very applicable to what the Levite and what the priest were doing. They were willing to just pass by. They were willing to almost say, I didn't even see that.

And yet, he said, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to care for orphans and to care for widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Now, this is talking about not just being religious. And that was really the effect of what Jesus was saying. He was separating the person who has real relationship with God and real concern of real religion, as he says here, or religion that is pure and undefiled, separating that from simply being religious. If you don't take action, if you don't respond in a way that Jesus was saying the Samaritan was responding and showing love, showing consideration, actually acting on that, then your religion is vain. And so, we want to consider the compassion that is described here.

And of course, another aspect of this was that the Samaritan acted out of love. He acted out of a necessity of care for the other human being who was in need. But he also realized that this individual, having just been robbed, having been beaten, and having been cast aside, probably had no way of paying him back. You know, he didn't have. See, compassion shouldn't be based on whether we think someone's worthy of that or worth that. Is there any way for them to repay me?

Compassion ought to be extended, and the love from God ought to be extended to our neighbor based on need. As they have need, are we able to help? Well, if we can, then we should. Here in Luke 6. It says in verse 32, this is in the section where Jesus is talking about even loving your enemies, but He says in explanation of that in verse 32, if you love those who love you, well, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. You know, anyone would love those who love you. In verse 33, you who do good, or if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that? Again, even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again. See, that shouldn't be the motivation. Luke 6 verse 32 through verse 34. He says, thinking about, you know, loving other people and putting that love in action, you know, that ought to be something that we don't do having calculated all the factors and say, this is going to be good for me. This is going to be, you know, this person will be able to repay, you know, because that's a wrong motivation and actually throws us in a wrong category. The last thing I'll mention about this is simply what we find here in Luke chapter 10 in this parable about how it is that the Samaritan, the Samaritan took the man to the inn in verse 34. He checked him into the inn and certainly cost him some money to do that. And in verse 35, you know, as he was leaving, he told him, take care of him. When I come back, I'll pay you. See, what he did was sacrifice a certain part of his own abilities, his own, in this case, his own money. He says, I'll pay. If it takes a few days, if it takes a few weeks, whatever it takes for him to get back on his feet, I will help him. And so, truly loving our neighbor, it's going to require, at least it may require, some sacrifice on our part, whether it might be material goods, as the description is here. But certainly, maybe even more applicable to us today, do we give the time to show interest in others that we could or should?

The time or the energy, or in this case with the Samaritan paying for this man's care, are we willing to make those kind of sacrifices? To be able to live up to what the Word of God says we should live up to? You know, loving our neighbor may require sacrifices on our part, and we'd have to evaluate that. A lot of times we're too busy. A lot of times we decide we're too busy to actually consider helping. Now, maybe that was what the Levite was. Maybe that was what the priest was. Maybe they were too busy. Maybe they didn't have time. But again, what were those? Well, those were simply excuses. Excuses that Jesus highlighted saying they're not practicing what they preach. They need to be genuine. They need to be authentic. And they need to be living up to the calling. If it's a Christian, a Christian should be learning how to seek eternal life, learning how to seek the Kingdom of God, and learning who our neighbor really is.

Over in Matthew 5, you see Jesus summarizing what I know all of us are well familiar with here, because it's a part of this sermon on the Mount. And in this section in verse 17 through 20, Matthew 5, verse 17 through 20, he's talking about that he had not come to do away with the law, or to abolish the law, but to fulfill. And he talks about the law. And then in verse 20, he says, I want you to live up to a much higher standard. As my children, as my brethren, as individuals who respect my laws, who honor the way that I ask them to live, I want you to live at a very high level.

Of course, we've learned about some of that here during the Days of Unleavened Bread. We think about that as we approach the Passover. But here he just says, I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, then you'll never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

See, our righteousness, the things that we seek, the things that we do, we don't need to exceed what the Pharisees were doing. They certainly had to exceed what the priests did in this parable, what the Levite did, and it needs to approach what the Samaritan was doing, because he was simply expressing love in action toward this neighbor who was in need. And so we want to ask God to provide us a righteousness that comes from Him, a righteousness that floods our hearts with His love, His concern, His compassion, His care, and then enables us to actually fulfill what it says.

And we want to love our neighbor as ourselves. We want to know who our neighbor is. We want to be concerned about the neighbor. We want to be willing to extend the love of God to other people.

So I hope that we can go over different parables that Jesus spoke, and all of them have tremendous meaning. They all have significance. This one, you know, is one that stands out because in many ways it's very unique, and it's not repeated anywhere else. But I hope it adds to our kind of the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread here today. You know, we concluded that unleavened season last night. We don't want to—now, we all—well, I shouldn't say that, not all—some of us went out immediately and got a hamburger last night, like me. And that's okay. That's okay. But we don't want to go back to the leavened wives, you know, things we identify, things we are trying to put away, things that we see as the old man. We don't want to bring those back. We want to remember, you know, what the words of Jesus were. And he said, well, you need to love your neighbor as yourself. You are correct. He said, just go do it. And of course, at the end of this parable, he said, go. Go! And do likewise. And that, of course, is what he tells all of us to do.