The Samaritan!

Everybody calls a fellow in there a good Samaritan. And I’m challenging the word good because Jesus never called him good. He invited the lawyer who was challenging him on that particular day. He was challenging him, which of the three people who found a dying man on the side of the road, one of them was living up to the standard that was found in the books of the law. So I’m first of all going to read out of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse three. If I give all I possess to the poor and give my body to hardship so that I might boast. But if I don’t have love, I gain nothing. In Luke’s gospel chapter 11, verse 45. One of the experts in the law answered Jesus. Teacher, when you say these things, you’re insulting us. And Jesus replied, and you experts in the law woe to you because you are bad people, you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry. And you yourselves won’t lift a finger to even help them. Woe to you because you build tombs for the prophets, but it was your ancestors who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets and you built them tombs because of this God and his wisdom said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute. And therefore, since this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for all of it.

Woe to you experts in the law because you’ve taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered and you’ve hindered those who would wish to enter. When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions. So now we go to one of those moments when one of these teachers of the law known at that time as a lawyer and the other word that’s commonly used is scribe. So a scribe is a lawyer. Now a lawyer, we have to remember a lawyer acts a little differently than the lawyer that we’re familiar with in North America. The lawyers at that time had one law that they were looking after. It was the Word of God and in fact it was the pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the scribe lawyers knew those chapters, those

books of the pentateuch. They knew what they had committed to memory. But what happened was they used their knowledge of the Bible, their knowledge of the Word of God, their knowledge of the laws of Moses. They used it as a weapon against the people. They held themselves up as the right people. We know the Word and we know how to rightly divide it. We know how to interpret. You people are peasants, you know nothing. And they made life so difficult for the average Jewish person. But now they needed to deal with Jesus because when He spoke, people trembled. It was absolutely amazing what Jesus knew of the Word because the Bible says He is the Word of God in the flesh. So they were troubled by Him because suddenly they realized He was right. They were desperately wrong. So one of these scribe lawyers encountered Jesus and this story is found in Luke’s Gospel chapter 10. And behold, a lawyer stood up and put him to the test. So one of these biblical scholars is going to test Jesus. Let’s take knowledge of that word test. He doesn’t really long to know the truth. He’s not interested in his fidelity. He’s not interested in his own morality. He’s not interested in what God thinks of him.

He wants to put Jesus to the test. He wants to trap him. So here’s what happens. Here, what will I do to inherit eternal life? That’s a huge question. You have the books of the law. Genesis asks you this, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. That’s the law. And he asks, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? What do I have to do to be seen by God as a good person? Jesus replies to him not an answer, but he replies with a question. What’s written in the law?

What do you read in the law? And the lawyer replies, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength and all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you’ve answered correctly. So do this and you’ll live. But the lawyer, desiring to justify himself again comes at Jesus. And who is my neighbor? What a nutty question. Now, the Word of God says, love the Lord with everything in you, but then love your neighbor as yourself. So now this Jewish scribe lawyer is asking Jesus, well, which neighbor do I have to look after?

Which neighbor do I have to love as much as I love the Lord? Who is my neighbor? And Jesus replies with a story. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him and then left him for dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Then also a Levite when he came to the place, he saw him. He passed on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where the man was and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.

And that he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out to Daeneri. That’s the equivalent, about $400 today. And he gave them to the inn cupkeeper and he said, take care of them and whatever else you need, I will repay you when I come back. Then Jesus asks the scribe, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And the scribe replied, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said, you go and do likewise. You see, this was so much against the grain of the elite of Jewish society. They cared only about themselves. They prided themselves on their knowledge, their head knowledge.

We know the law and we know how it’s to be prescribed. We know how to live up to it. They really didn’t care about people. In fact, they were put down, they were put down by professionals. They hurt people with their pushing of the law. But here Jesus gets this fellow to quote out of the commandments. Love the Lord God and love your neighbor just as you would take care of yourself. This was the challenge of a lifetime for this poor lawyer. So in just a moment, I’m going to be joined by three of my good friends from our congregation. One of them will be representative of the priest. One of them will be representative of the Levis and the third gentleman shall represent the Samaritan.

Now these fellows don’t have to say anything. They’re just my stage props for what I’m about to share with you my thoughts on what is going down when Jesus takes on the lawyer. So this fellow who’s a lawyer, not all lawyers are bad. They’re all expensive, but they’re not all bad. This was not the kind of lawyer that we’re accustomed to in our society today. Lawyers are responsible to know the law and to help society keep those laws. And when those laws are broken, the lawyers are called upon to at times defend someone who’s accused. And another lawyer, his responsibility is to make sure that the accused is confronted with some form of justice. But in the biblical day, there was another word for lawyer and it was scribe.

So you read the scribes and the Pharisees. The lawyers and the Pharisees. The scribes, the lawyers, they knew the book, especially the pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They knew it off by heart, backwards, upside down. They knew it. And as I have suggested to you, out of the words of Jesus, we come to understand that they were responsible to use the law as a weapon to control the people, to put them down. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were so proud of themselves. They did nothing else, but look at themselves in the mirror and make sure how I am doing today.

I know God’s just thrilled with me and I’m doing everything right. But in fact, the priest, not all of them, the Levites, not all of them, the scribe lawyers, maybe not all of them, but so many were guilty. So many were a problem. And this was the crew that saw the path of Tagalog Katha. That was the wrecking crew. So we have a scribe, a lawyer, who prides himself in knowing the law and he comes along to Jesus and the words that we just read to us were these. You may have missed it. The lawyer came and had a question for Jesus. I’d like to know something. The wording is, he came to test Jesus.

Now Jesus welcomed questions. He did not take kindly to the tests, to the traps. So this fellow comes along and he says, how can I be good enough to get to heaven? What do I have to do to ensure that I make it to heaven? So Jesus doesn’t answer him. He poses a question. Well you know the law, the law that you’re trusting. You know the law. What do you understand from the law? The young lawyer scribe, very proud. He says, well I know what it says. I’m to love the Lord God with all my heart, with all my strength and my neighbor as myself.

Jesus says, there you go then. Happily be on your way. But you see, the lawyer implies the test is not over. We’re not done here yet. And now the test. Now the test comes. Okay, who is my neighbor? Let me turn the question around to show you what this lawyer was really trying to do. Lawyers are cunning when they get in the courtroom. They’re cunning. 

And the way they ask a question often bait you into a corner where they can get you. 

So when the lawyer said, who’s my neighbor?

Here’s what he really, really wanted to know. Surely not the whole world is not my neighbor. They’re not all my neighbors. Surely I don’t have to love everybody in the whole world just like I love myself. So Jesus, he really meant, he didn’t say, he said, who’s my neighbor? He really meant, who can I discredit? Who can I discount? Who can I get away with? That’s not my neighbor. Because you see, this group, the priest, the Levites, describes this crowd. They were so proud of their knowledge of the Word of God, they were righteous. And anyone that didn’t live up to their standard was a non-worthy person.

So this guy was really sighing. Okay, I’m supposed to look after my neighbors. But what if they’re not holy? What if they’re blemished? What if they don’t live up to, you know, the standard? He’s really sighing. I don’t want to love all my neighbors. So what neighbors are you sighing? What neighbors is the Lord saying that I have to love? And you see, this is a commandment. It’s not a suggestion. You will love the Lord and you will do so in another way that’s reflected as you love

your neighbor and how are you to love your neighbor? You’re to take care of your neighbor as you take care of yourself. And we don’t like that because you see, we love comfort. And for me to make someone else’s comfort might cost me something. So I’m going to take care of myself first. And whenever I have left, I’ll share with you. It’s humorous now for her to set the time, our very first church. A man who was very prominent in the church, clearly the wealthiest man in the church showed up at our humble little door. We were living in a church-provided cottage. It was like living in an airy cardboard box on some of the coldest nights of the year. We get a knock on the door.

I open the door and there stands this guy in all of his glory. He’s got this big box in his hand. Pastore, he said, I was thinking about you today. He said, my wife and I decided we want to buy a half a cow. So he said, I went to the butcher and I bought a half a cow. He said, then I got thinking, I need to bless my pastor. So we said, I’m here to share with you a nice portion of the half. Well I got all excited and tickled up. Well, all right. He’s treating us like he’s treating himself but isn’t this sweet. So I came in and I said, look at this, April. I said, you know that gentleman.

I said, look, he bought a half a cow and we got this great big box. So I left April in the kitchen with the box thinking, well, she’s going to start this out. Gotta put some in the freezer. It was cold enough outside. We could have just set it outside the back door. But I’m going to let her look out. She said, David, you’re going to come back here to see what’s in the box. It was all the bones. He gave us the soup bones. He was so kind, so generous. Love your neighbor just like you love yourself.

He was so proud of himself and announced that I just felt so impressed. I needed to bless my pastor. It’s funny now. I think. Love your neighbor as yourself. Who’s my neighbor? Again, Jesus does not answer the question directly because it’s a trap. It’s an impossible question to answer really when you think about it unless you know Jesus and you know if you know the way the Lord thinks and you’ve got to read the book, the whole book, the whole counsel of God to come to know how God thinks. So Jesus says, who’s your neighbor? Let me see.

He says, there was a man. The man was Jewish. How do we know that? He’s traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. If you’re not one of the in crowd, you don’t travel. What were you doing in Jerusalem? Maybe you’re running for your life. You had no business being there. You couldn’t just go to Jerusalem at will. He was definitely a Jewish person. Should that Jewish man who experienced robbery at the hand of some pathetic people with an inch of his life and left him on the road for dead, took everything that he had?

Would that be your neighbor? I wonder. So Jesus goes on to say, this man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, obviously a Jew. That’s an important point. A priest comes along. A holy man of God. A man that God has called to protect the people with the word of God, to love them deliciously, not to hurt them, not to impose, but to care for them as the word of God has dictated. He’s a man of God. We don’t know which way he was going. I want to suggest to you he was going from a place like Jericho. I want to suggest he’s heading on his way to Jerusalem.

And if so, he’s on his way to work. You see, the priesthood never was given property when the land was divided up. You know, the promised land? The Levites didn’t get any portion. The Levites were to live off of the altar. As the people came and they brought their gifts to the Lord, that is where the priests would get their sustenance. So any fact, priests, if you don’t show up for work today at the temple, you don’t get to take any food home to mama. And that’s not a good idea. You already know that. So you better show up for work.

And by the way, priests, on your way, on your way, don’t you dare become solid. Don’t you dare experience anything that would declare you unclean. Whoa. Here comes a test. As the priest is walking along the road, he spots this fellow who’s in bad repair. The guy’s bleeding. We don’t know his total condition, but I’m going to suggest he was really bleeding out. He wasn’t long for this world. He needed attention. And Jesus specifically says that when the priests observed this bleeding Jewish fellow, he crossed to the other side of the road. Why would he do that?

Well, you know, the higher ups, the hierarchy of the Jewish religion, they wanted to be so careful to keep the laws that they actually created what they called fence laws. I’ve gone into great detail with this to you before. A fence law was a law that was imposed by the Jewish hierarchy to make sure that you didn’t even come close to breaking the law. The holy day, the Sabbath day, you can’t do anything on that day. And it begins at such and such an hour. So last you should come too close to that hour and oops, you found yourself doing something you ought not to when it’s Sabbath. They created a fence law and that fence was to keep you away from the real fence. Okay? So when you’re told in the book of the Vedicist priest, you must not become soiled in any way. You must not be sure that you don’t touch anything dead. Yikes. If you know that somebody is a woman, has an issue of blood, which happens on a routine basis, keep your distance because she’s unclean. Anybody who does anything that’s unclean, stay away. So as the priest is coming along the road and he sees a man that’s dying, he gets as far away from him as he can. He doesn’t even want to breathe the air. When the fear was on with COVID, we lived in Niagara Falls and right behind our house was this huge park. Like I want to suggest maybe a couple of hundred acres.You’d have to live in Niagara Falls to even know where this was. Big power line and the city have turned it into a beautiful park.

Massive. 

I’m allowed to go for a walk with my little dog Sophie in this huge park in case that guy, a quarter of a mile away was to breathe out and some little germ would find its way and I’d get COVID and I’d kill all of you. That was the law. So I wasn’t even allowed to take my little Sophie dog for a walk in the park. That was the fence law. Six feet? No, two miles. Don’t even get close.

So priest, I don’t blame you, I guess. You’re not going to go near that man. You know what I’m going to say? No, you’re going to take the chance of stepping in his blood because that makes you unclean. You have another problem though in those same three chapters in the book of Leviticus. It says none of you, all of you people of Israel, don’t leave a dead person unburied because cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. How’s that fit? If somebody’s hanging on the tree, they were probably hung there, broke their neck and died. God said, don’t leave them there. Barium.

Cursed is everybody who’s left hanging on the tree. Remember the Jewish people were very, very, very upset about this? They said, we got to get Jesus down off that cross and get him buried. We don’t want him to mess up our wonderful, wonderful holy festival. Get rid of him quickly. Get him buried. So you’ve got two laws. You’ve got two laws up against you. Don’t you get tainted. But if he dies, he’s got to be buried. Not to worry. You bypass them in your thing.

Everybody also looks after it. And who comes along to look after the project? Your able-bodied assistant, Mr. Levi. He is boxed in by the same laws. And Jesus is careful to say this to the young lawyer. He was just like this guy. He crossed over to the other side of the road to make sure. This to make sure that just like this guy, this guy would be good enough to go to the temple and do his work. If he doesn’t show up at the temple, I don’t think anybody’s going to be upset with him. But if you don’t show up to work, you don’t get to eat.

They moved along. Once you were listening to this story, by the way, this scribe, this lawyer, he’s thinking, yeah, okay, this all makes sense to me. He’s trying to trap Jesus, and he’s walking right into the web himself. Jesus says, and then a Samaritan happens along. Good news, Tim, you’re an okay guy. How many have heard this word? The good Samaritan. Have you heard of that? You know, I missed a point. I meant to go back in, Mr. Google seems to know everything.

I don’t know how spiritual he is, but I was going to ask Mr. Google, at what point was the man that Jesus called the Samaritan? At what point does somebody decide he’s a good Samaritan? Because that word is good, it’s a pretty big word. What Lee will leave you with, Tim, it’s okay. We’re not against you. Tim, let’s just assume he’s a good Samaritan. No, this is so interesting. Do you know that the Samaritans felt about the Jews like the Jews felt about them? The Jews had come against the Samaritans so terribly, and I don’t want to go through all of it again.

I explained this two weeks ago, three weeks ago, whatever. The Samaritans were considered half breeds because when the Jewish people were taken into exile, the Samaritans, for reasons I do not know, they were left in Samaria. Meanwhile, the captors of Israel, the conquers of Israel, they took their people and they planted them in Israel. This was a way to keep all of these conquered lands under their thumb. So all of a sudden, they exported people in among them. 

So all these people live among the Samaritans now for a couple of hundred years and who could ever believe it? The young teenagers fell in love, got married and came up with their own children. Half breeds. That’s what they were considered by the Jews.

Sorry, Tim. Don’t get depressed. So here’s what’s interesting. They were considered dogs by the Jews. Half breeds. You’re not a real Jew. This was so important to them. Circumcised the eighth day. Remember the Apostle Paul said, hey, a Pharisee? I was a good one. I was circumcised on the eighth day. Jesus was taken to the temple on the eighth day. And there he was circumcised. You see, all of these laws had to be kept in a perfect manner. So the Samaritans were so upset because they were so mistreated that they decided you won’t do business with us. Fine. You can’t fire me. I quit. So you see, the Samaritans would have nothing to do with the Jews and the Jews would have nothing to do with the Samaritans. Okay? The disciples and Jesus are on their way to Jerusalem. They stopped off at Samaria.

The Samaritans said, keep moving. We know where you’re going. You read it for yourself. It’s in the gospel of Matthew. They wouldn’t accept it. They wouldn’t invite Jesus in his disciples. We know who you are. You’re with them. So the bickering was mutual. That’s an important factor here because this man was overlooked at all. Jesus said, when this man, this half-breathed, this dog, when he saw what these two men saw, he did not cross to the other side of the road. This is a huge word. It says, he had compassion. That’s one of the heaviest words I think in our vocabulary that speaks of feelings. Compassion. He had compassion. He cared. The man who was paid to care. Cross the other side of the road. I got things to do here. The man who was paid to show up and assist him. No, not me, not me. They did not care.

They did not care about their own. So here’s the lawyer scribe saying, who do I have to take care of? Who’s my neighbor? And you’ll have a Jew laying on the side of the road. And he’s being treated by these two illustrious gentlemen as though he is a Samaritan. I’ll have nothing to do with this. Why? Well, you know, I’ve got my duties and I don’t want to get there and my hands are all dirty. And then I’m considered unclean and then I ceremonially. And you know what? If you’re unclean, everything that you touch becomes unclean. If I’m unclean, I just made you unclean.

Touching, just sorry. When you get to my house, there’s wipes. Yeah, we have wipes out there and then a yellow cylinder. Anything that you touch, a doorknob, anything that you touch, if you’re unclean, they become unclean. So these guys are not going to take the chance. But watch with this man. I’ve told you and told you and told you. There’s not one unimportant word in that thing that you read called the Bible. What’s this? Tim, God bless you. You knelt down and you touched the unclean.

Now, you see, he has Jewish biblical heritage. He believes the same things about clean and unclean. He believes all of that. But he’s with a different sect, the Samaritans. Because they were rejected, they built their own temple, they did their own thing. They had their own business, but they still believe the same thing. So it’s not like this guy gets a pass. No. Is he touching the unclean thing? He’s now unclean. And everything that he touches and everywhere he goes, he’s now ceremonially unclean. He goes on. He takes from his own package there. He had a donkey and he took some oil and he took some wine. He wasn’t Pentecostal. He used wine.

I saw a thing late last night about Martin Luther. He married a lady by that name. I think her name was Christine. And they say, just very casually, it’s a Lutheran passage. He says, and she was in charge of brewing the beer that you can’t be a Pentecostal. You can’t even drink cough syrup if it’s got a little alcohol in it. Sorry. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. So he pours wine because you see the alcohol in the wine. It’s a curative thing. And the oil, I don’t know. It does something good too. And then Jesus says this. There’s not a dull word. It says, Jesus said that this Samaritan. You can’t pick up a man’s body. I’m not going to ask you to try and pick me up here, okay? But you can’t pick me up like this and put me on your donkey. Hello? It’s going to take all of you. It’s going to take your torsos. It’s going to take. It’s going to take. You’re going to have to hug me, man. You’re going to have to. I’m going to be all over you. I’m going to make you sick. Your blood is going to be all over me. And you didn’t care. Sounds like Jesus to me. Hello?

He hugs me in my filth. And he says, I love you just the way you are. Well, let me go and change. Don’t do a thing, David. I’ll clean you up. No, no, really, really. I’m going to get rid of someone with a bad habit. So I’m going to go and apologize to people. And you know I robbed a bank. I’m going to take all the money back. They’ll be so happy to get their money back. And Jesus says, quit. I’ll clean you up. I’ll pill out righteous robe on you. And when we all get to heaven, there’s an old song we used to sing. We shall wear a crown. We shall wear a crown. Dear God, what a beautiful picture, huh? I’ve got to hurry up. The burgers are almost ready onto the buttons. There’s a clock up there. Jesus says, Jesus says, this is so important. Jesus said, after He had applied the oil and the wine, He said, and He put Him. What’s this?

The wording, the wording. He put this man on his own donkey. He could have seen somebody passing by and saying, I’ll give you a thousand dollars for that donkey. If you sell it to me, I got money. I’ll buy you. Because maybe He doesn’t want His donkey. You see, if He puts this man on the donkey, the donkey’s unclean. Now we can’t write His own donkey. He’s going to have to take His donkey to a pioneer car wash in St. Catherine’s before He can write it Himself. This story is so rich and it’s so deep.

It’s so delicious. There’s so much there. Who’s the good guy? Who’s the good guy? And you know the story as well as I do. He took him to an inn and he gave the innkeeper the equivalent of today’s money, $400. He said, this is downtown payment. Look after my friend. The Jew. Look after my enemy. Look after the man who in another circumstance, another day, another hour, another city, another moment, he would have refused to be in the same room as me.

He hated me because I’m a half-breed. But because of his condition today and because of the compassion I feel for him, all the enmity, all of the trashing, all of the getting rid of is dispersed. This is what Jesus’ love does. This is what compassion does. Ah, you know the verse, for by grace are you saved through faith and that and not of yourself. It’s the gift of God. The salvation, sorry, Tim, salvation is not of works. Hello? This is the problem I have with calling the Samaritan a good Samaritan. Hey, we only know his works that day. I asked somebody a couple of days ago. I said, I got a cute question. I said, it’s a nasty question. Do you believe the story of the Samaritan? Do you believe that his entry to heaven was guaranteed? 

Well why not? He did something good, the good Samaritan. I’m not taking issue with it. I’m just tripping you up here. For by grace are you saved through faith. Well then David, where does this compassion come from? The compassion, the living out mercy and grace and love is the outflow of the inflow. The inflow is that dynamic transformation when you surrender your life to Christ. Behold, all things become new. You’re a new creature that which you despise, you now embrace and that which you used to embrace, you now despise. You’re a new creature in Christ Jesus. Everything is new. And out of that newness now flows compassion. How did that newness flow compassion? I got in a hurry here. Who do I have to treat as, how do the gospel stories? Who do I have to treat as my neighbor? Well you’re my friends. I’ll do anything you want.

I’m here for you. My neighbor is whoever’s in need. Is there anything racist in my heart, in my spirit, if there is? My Christianity is at risk. Hello? Racism. It’s now a political card. I’m sick to death of, well it’s racist, it’s racist, it’s racist. It’s so disgusting. If you don’t embrace the LGBTQ, ha ha ha, you’re a racist. And how they ever can contrive and pull it around to say, I don’t know. They use it now, racism as a card. But Christians have no right to play that card. We love all people. And don’t question us, we do. And it’s the outflow of the inflow. So this man ran toward his comfort, his comfort zone. He had to get to work, put on his fancy vestments, sing some nice songs, and take home a T-bone steak from Amma. He went to work, he got paid. And this guy, he got the bones from the T-bone. So he got rewarded too. Sorry. We ate a lot of soup that winter.

They make, they make good soup. So these two guys, they ran for and they embraced personal comfort. And my calling, not because I’m a pastor, but because I love Jesus, my calling is not to seek my comfort. My calling is to pursue the need. That when I see there’s a need, I have compassion. Whether he’s part of my community or someone else’s community. Whether he believes the same thing that I do or not. I know they’re not going to pick this up. So I’m safe right now. I’m going to tell you something. I may have alluded to this before.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. We have some people move into us next door. Right down here. The first person, a lady, I went over as soon as I saw a car there. It’s a year ago, I went over and introduced my name’s Dave. My wife is April. Welcome to the neighborhood. I think you’re going to love it. This is a truck route. Just sit here and count the trucks. It’s wonderful, it’s a wonderful hobby. And she said, well, we’re looking forward, we’re just leasing here.

And my partner will be here in a couple of days. And as soon as I heard my partner, she didn’t say my husband, she didn’t say my sister, she said my partner. And so my little aerials went up. Partners, not a bad word. It’s just a word that some people use to sort of not scare you, but kind of give you a little clue. And sure enough, the partner is another person of the same gender. I’ve done everything that I could for the last year to show care, to show love. And I just confess this to you. They don’t know I’m a pastor. Do you know things are so bad that if you tell a person right up front, I’m a pastor

or whatever, you actually turn them off and they start shutting you down. So I let them guess it after a while. I just leave it there. I think she’s pretty suspicious. We’re just a little different. They’re not different. We’re the ones who are different. And then I saw a sign up go up a week ago for lease. So I went over and knocked them in the door. 

So what are you doing to me? I did. She opened up. I said, what are you doing to me? What do you mean? So what’s the meaning of that sign out there? I said, you have no business moving out of this neighborhood. Just kidding you. I will give you tomatoes. I will give you cucumbers. I fed you. I, you, you, you, you couldn’t get to work one. She works at Home Depot in St. Catherine wrapped on my door. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Forrest, but my car’s all broken and I have to get to work. You wouldn’t. I said, I’ll be right there. I got my keys. I was in the car with another woman. We were both very safe. I’m sorry. Can I get arrested for saying that? And I drove her to work. I drove her to work. I had other things to do. I had people from this church waiting for a focal wear.

What I saw and needed and I had a sense of comparison. I want them to know if they ever figure out who we are, we don’t hate them. They’re not the Samaritans. They’re not that dirty. They’re souls and Jesus died for them. Who’s my neighbor? I got two moving out on me next week. And you know what she said to me the other day? She called me over and she said, David, yes. We’re moving out to Turkey Point. I said, Turkey Point, I love Turkey. I’m an idiot all the time. And she said, I want you to promise you that April will come and visit us because the beach is right across the road. I said, you’re serious. Well, of course I am. I said, look out. We’re coming. I’m not bragging. I think to call him a good Samaritan is kind of off the wall. I’m like a good Christian. Well the opposite is a bad Christian, isn’t it? He’s a good Samaritan. That means all the rest of them were bad.

I see, I don’t like the word good. I don’t like that word, the good Samaritan. Compare them to these other two guys, sorry guys, compare them to them. Okay, they were bad. They were careless and they didn’t care. But in his own category to call him good, I’d rather say, I’m not surprised. How Samaritan did that. So he just don’t, couldn’t go to the temple for seven days because he touched a man. You know, what if the guy was still alive? What if the guy died on this donkey on the way? Boom, you’re unclean for seven days. Hello, you’re going to have to take a bath in bleach.

He took a huge, he took a huge chance. What about others who would, who would greet him along the way? I’m surprised that the innkeeper accepted this man. If this guy died in the innkeeper’s house, the innkeeper would have to shut down his inn for a whole week. Everybody, everybody took a chance here. Everybody took a chance. So the moral of this little story, I just want to suggest to you is this. Don’t be pursuing your own comfort, but be looking for a need. And by the mercy and the grace of God, you can probably in some measure meet that need. Okay? No?

No? Okay. Well, gentlemen, if you come to my house today, I’ll still feed you. God bless you, Tim. I’ll say it’s her second time here. And I said, I need you up there. He said, did you just volunteer for me? I said, I guess I did. He said, I accept. Thank you, Tim. God bless you guys. Thank you.

Let’s just pray. Heavenly Father, every time I read the word of God, I’m challenged. I’m challenged beyond description. I’m just challenged constantly. I’m saying, oh my goodness, oh my, I feel like I’m just falling short, everywhere I feel I’m falling short on every side. Help me to be what you’ve designed and created for me to be. 

Through your words, show me pictures of your plans for my life and help me somehow or other to live it out. Help me to know the difference between mercy and grace, free, but to know that grace and mercy without works is dead. But I need that balance in my life.

I’m free. But I’m in bondage to Jesus. I’m in bondage. I’m a love slave. I owe him everything. And I want to be faithful, oh Lord God, to those that I don’t understand, to those that in some ways I actually fear. I just don’t, I, I, so much of it right now that’s going on in the world. I’m just so confused by it all. And I’m sure Lord God, I’m praying with a whole lot of people who feel like we’re just about all the same. What, what, what’s going on with all these people?

Lord God, I pray you’ll help me to somehow accept them and to help when they’re in trouble. I don’t have to believe what they believe. I don’t have to accept their, their, their trending. I don’t have to, I don’t have to embrace that, but I have to embrace the soul that’s buried in this stuff. Help me. Help me to be the man you want me to be in Jesus’ name. 

Thank you. 

God bless you!