The Good Samiratan
Introduction
Looking at the Good Samaritan
A well known story
We can sometimes know things ‘too well’
What is it all about?
About helping people – love and care for everybody
But it is a gospel story about eternal life
The story starts with a religious lawyer asking how to gain eternal life?
Is this of concern to us?
Example of Arthur States
This world is not the only world
The religious lawyer is testing Jesus
A good question from a bad motive
This is a sad thing
Some people want to catch Christians out
You cannot catch out Jesus
Example of Richard Bulely
Jesus answers in a way the religious lawyer does not expect
v26-37 in three parts
* What the law demands (v26)
"What is written in the law"
The religious lawyer answers from Deut 6:5
We start from the Old Testament / with the law of God
The Old Testament command given to the Israelites
What has this to do with eternal life?
The law commands obedience
‘God first and then others’
Jesus commands him to do continually and eternal life will be his
Our relationship to God comes first
Love Him with all our soul, mind, strength
There is a problem – we cannot do this
The law is a like a mirror and reveals what we cannot do
We cannot live a perfect life
What humans do (v29)
The religious lawyer wanted to justify himself
He wanted to prove to Jesus that he was good enough to have eternal life on his own merits
He wanted to show he was right before God by his own merits
Example of Under the Milkwood by Dylan Thomas
Many people think they have ‘done enough’ – that their ‘good’ outweighs their ‘bad’
The religious lawyer wants him to rubber stamps his beliefs
He asks ‘who is my neighbour’
Many at the time believed it was their fellow Jews
They were derogatory towards Samaritans – examples
He has passed over all the words about God (in v27) and zones in on ‘who is my neighbour’
He sets aside the command of God
Humans wants to justify themselves and have their beliefs rubber-stamped
We concentrate on the horizontal and not the vertical
Example of Christmas sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury
This is a problem of the Church today
Consider history
‘The great awakening’, changing society
Example of the 1904 revival in Wales
What Jesus teaches us (v30-37)
The Samaritan shows mercy to a Jewish person
Not the levite or the priest
The religious lawyer cannot say the word samaritan – ‘he who showed mercy’ (v37)
This sticks in his throat
He hates this thought
A gospel story
The samaritan had compassion (v33)
Maybe one of the Samaritan’s saved in John 4
This man is reflecting the love of God in his life
Example of Billy Graham’s daughter
God is compassionate
The samaritan ‘takes care’ (v34-35)
God and Jesus Christ do not just have compassion and leave us – they have helped us
Wonderful stories of Jesus showing love for people
The samaritan goes beyond (v35)
He will settle any bill on his return
The gospel breaks down barriers
The Lord Jesus has done this – He bore our wrath at the cross
If we are left with the commandment – we are lost
We are saved by the work of Jesus
He has obeyed the law of God
He obeyed
We are advised to ‘go and to do the same’ (v37)
We don’t know his response – but it should have been that he could not do this
Then we would ready to saved – because he would have to come to the Lord Jesus Christ
Closing Remarks
The parable is about eternal life
We cannot earn this
Jesus has done this for us
We are pointed towards Jesus Christ
We can only do ‘likewise’ if we are saved by Jesus (v37)
Our first response is we can’t
When we are saved our response is that we can
Example from John Bunyan
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ – be saved simply by faith
Receive what He offers
Cry out to the Lord for salvation
As Christians – speak of Christ