Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] I'm going to start a new sermon series today called the Art of Neighboring.
[00:00:10] And we're studying this because our Lord taught us that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
[00:00:19] And so we're going to explore how we can be more obedient to him in that command.
[00:00:26] Our dear heavenly Father, I pray that your spirit would speak to our hearts today.
[00:00:33] I pray that we could sense your presence.
[00:00:37] I pray that you would not only teach us to love our neighbor as ourself, but you would inspire in us the desire to do it.
[00:00:47] And I ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
[00:00:52] Margaret Donnett is an artist. She's alive now and working, and this is her painting called old friends are the best friends.
[00:01:11] Margaret says that she gets her inspiration from her family and the town she lives in.
[00:01:21] And if you look at this painting, you can see two people who are very comfortable and enjoy each other's company. They're good friends.
[00:01:32] They kind of dress alike.
[00:01:39] They're having some kind of pleasant conversation, and they're hand gesturing.
[00:01:47] It's a beautiful representation of how comfortable you can be with a good friend.
[00:01:56] Sometimes we think of neighbors as the only people we want to call neighbor is someone we're this comfortable with.
[00:02:07] And if we're not that comfortable with them, then we want a little more distance.
[00:02:15] We're not quite as comfortable.
[00:02:18] But Christ says to us, if we're going to be the people he wants us to be, we have to get it right in the way we treat our neighbors.
[00:02:32] Luke told an interesting account from the life of Christ.
[00:02:36] He said that Jesus was teaching, and a lawyer stood up, and he came. The lawyer came that day with the purpose of making Jesus look bad.
[00:02:55] And the lawyer said to Jesus, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?
[00:03:03] So Jesus said to the lawyer, you're a lawyer.
[00:03:08] How do you read the law of MOses?
[00:03:12] And the lawyer quoted one of the most famous portions in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy, chapter six.
[00:03:19] The Jews call it the shema.
[00:03:22] And he said, love God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind.
[00:03:39] And then the lawyer added, and love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:03:47] Jesus said, all right, you got it right. Do that and you'll be fine. And kind of dismissed him.
[00:03:53] Well, the lawyer lost face. He was there to make jesus look bad, and Jesus made him look bad, so he didn't give up. And he said, well, who's my neighbor?
[00:04:09] First century lawyers in Judah were not like 20 century lawyers in America.
[00:04:16] Lawyers in America, they do billable hours.
[00:04:20] They defend you, and they prosecute you. That's not what a lawyer was in Christ's lifetime. In Christ's lifetime, a lawyer was someone who was an expert in the law of Moses.
[00:04:32] And in fact, you had to be independently wealthy or you had to be sponsored because you didn't make a living being a lawyer.
[00:04:43] So this lawyer, he kind of had an arrogance about him, and he had a sense that he was better than other people, and he was really there not to ask Christ an honest question, but to make Christ look bad.
[00:05:02] It's interesting to me that Jesus turned the lawyer's question back to him when he said to Jesus, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, well, you're a lawyer. How do you read the law of Moses?
[00:05:22] And the lawyer answered with this very famous passage.
[00:05:32] And then Jesus turned the table on him, and he said, go ahead and do that and you'll be all right.
[00:05:45] And now the lawyer gets edgy.
[00:05:51] This isn't going the way he wants it to go. So he says to Jesus, it's not that easy. Who is my neighbor?
[00:06:01] The lawyer was expecting a very different answer than what Jesus gave.
[00:06:08] I want to remind you that in the. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, you have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
[00:06:23] But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be the sons of your father who is in heaven.
[00:06:33] For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sins reign on the just and the unjust.
[00:06:42] For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
[00:06:48] Do not even tax collectors do the same?
[00:06:52] And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Even the gentiles do the same.
[00:07:01] Listen to what Jesus is saying. Jesus said on the sermon, he said to the people he lived with, you're thinking wrong about life.
[00:07:12] You're thinking improperly about how to deal with the people around you.
[00:07:17] You feel like you should love the people who are close to you, and you can ignore everybody else.
[00:07:28] You feel like if you love your family, you're allowed to hate your enemies.
[00:07:34] And Jesus said, that's not the way I created this place. That is not the way this is supposed to work.
[00:07:45] I wonder if Jesus said to us, who do you think your neighbor is? What might you say?
[00:07:54] Well, probably first of all, you'd say, well, the neighbor on the right side, I know them, and they're kind of easy to get along with. I like them. The neighbor on the left side, we kind of avoid each other.
[00:08:08] The neighbor across the street is too loud.
[00:08:13] They're always having some kind of party over there.
[00:08:16] If we defined neighbor, we would probably define it as the people who live around us. That's the way we commonly use the word now.
[00:08:26] But this word that Jesus is using, it's really not about the people who live around you. It probably should better be translated your fellow human being who is my neighbor. It is my fellow human being who is my neighbor. It's the people I run into at work every day. It's the people I see at the grocery store. It's the person that is going through a hard time in life, and they've got needs that they can't meet themselves.
[00:09:05] Jesus wants us to expand our understanding of who our neighbor is.
[00:09:13] In fact, he says, you're thinking about your neighbor should even include people you're calling enemy right now.
[00:09:26] Abraham Lincoln once said, the best way to overcome an enemy is to make him a friend, and then they're no longer your enemy.
[00:09:37] Ah, very intelligent man, wouldn't you say? So Jesus is saying right at the front of this, I want you to think differently about neighbor than you've been thinking in the past.
[00:09:52] And then Jesus told one of the most famous parables in the whole New Testament.
[00:09:58] He said, there was a man who was a businessman and lived in Jerusalem, and he was going to Jericho. Jericho was on a trade route that ran from.
[00:10:10] From Syria all the way to Egypt.
[00:10:17] And caravans would stop there, and businessmen would go to Jericho. They would buy stuff from the caravan, and they would take it to Jerusalem to sell it. So this businessman was going to Jericho to buy some stuff off the trade route. And when he got about halfway there, he came through a spot in the road where it was easy to set up an ambush, and some people ambushed him.
[00:10:45] They stripped his clothes off him, beat him, and left him half dead laying beside the road.
[00:10:52] The guy was so badly beaten, he couldn't even crawl forward.
[00:10:56] And there he lay.
[00:11:00] And Jesus said, after a time, a priest came walking down the same road.
[00:11:12] And when the priest saw the man who was beaten, bloody and helpless, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him and didn't do anything to help him.
[00:11:33] Another small amount of time passed, and another. A levite came down the road. And the Levite saw the man, beaten, broken, bleeding, glanced at him out of the side of his eye, crossed to the other side of the road and left him.
[00:11:57] Jesus purposefully chose these two men because they represent something the priest represents, a person who is called by God to serve people.
[00:12:12] This priest got it all wrong. Instead of seeing himself as somebody who serves people, he saw people as someone who served him. And when he saw this man in need, he walked right by him.
[00:12:30] I asked myself, why did he do that?
[00:12:34] Is it possible that he was more worried about himself than the guy?
[00:12:40] Is it possible that the thought went through his head, somebody got this guy, and if I'm not careful, they'll get me?
[00:12:50] Does it happen in life from time to time that we don't treat people the way we should because we're more worried about ourself than we are other people?
[00:13:04] I also wonder if he passed by because he said to himself, I don't know the guy. This just isn't my problem.
[00:13:13] This just isn't my issue.
[00:13:16] Somebody else can take care of this. This is not my problem.
[00:13:22] I wonder how many times in life God puts us in a situation where he wants us to be a good neighbor, and we say to ourselves, I don't have to do anything. This isn't really my problem. This problem is somebody else's problem.
[00:13:41] Let somebody else take care of this.
[00:13:45] And then I think he passed by because he just didn't care enough to stop and help.
[00:13:53] He just did not care enough to interrupt his day a little bit, stop, and see what he could do for the guy.
[00:14:02] Is it possible that we're not the neighbors God wants us to be, because we just don't care enough about the people that God is putting into our lives?
[00:14:17] The levite passed by.
[00:14:20] Why did he pass by?
[00:14:23] Well, he was a levite.
[00:14:25] He offered burnt offerings in the temple. He saw himself as really important.
[00:14:32] And this guy was just a businessman.
[00:14:36] The Levite said, I'm too important to get involved with this.
[00:14:44] Somebody else will have to take care of it.
[00:14:47] Is it possible we're not good neighbors because we look at other people and we think we're better than they are, and we think we're too good to have to do what needs to be done, and we end up not being the people God wants us to be.
[00:15:06] Would you entertain that as possible?
[00:15:10] I also think to Levi thought, I'm too busy.
[00:15:14] I got stuff to do. I got a schedule today. I got to get to where? I got to get to Jerusalem. I got to offer sacrifices. I'm way too busy to help a guy I don't even know.
[00:15:29] Is it possible that we aren't the neighbors God wants us to be because we hide behind the excuse of, I'm too busy.
[00:15:41] I'm too busy to help that person. I'm too busy today.
[00:15:47] I think sometimes we're too busy doing unimportant stuff so we don't have to do the important stuff?
[00:16:00] Church, is it possible that we find ways to keep ourselves busy so we don't have to do the stuff that Christ wants us to do, and that really has meaning and importance?
[00:16:22] I also think it's possible that the Levite said to himself, this man doesn't mean anything to me. He's a stranger. I don't know who he is.
[00:16:35] I'm not obligated to do anything.
[00:16:39] Is it possible that we miss opportunities to be good neighbors because we look at people as strangers and not as fellow human beings?
[00:16:52] Is that possible?
[00:16:53] Is it possible if you would stop looking at them and saying, that is a stranger, and you would start looking at them and say, that is a fellow human being, that you might feel altogether different about being the kind of neighbor God wants you to be?
[00:17:15] I want to be purposeful about this.
[00:17:21] It is a flaw in humanity that we look at other people and judge them way too quickly.
[00:17:31] We look at other people, we think we see something, and then we make assumptions about what we're seeing, and then we're allowed to label them as strangers, or we're allowed to label them as not our kind, or we're allowed to label them in any way that gives us an excuse that we don't really have to treat them the way God wants them to be treated. Church I believe with all my heart God has a plan to make the world better.
[00:18:06] And in that plan, he works in your life and in my life. He makes us different than we would have been without us. Without him. And then he sends us into our daily lives. He sends us to work, he sends us to the store, he sends us to do whatever you do throughout the day. And as we are going through life, it is his desire to work in us as we touch the lives of other people.
[00:18:38] God wants us to see everyone in front of us who has a need in life as our neighbor, because God wants to treat them well.
[00:18:50] God is looking for ways to extend himself to them. God is looking for ways to show them that he is good. And if in the living of my daily life, I can stop seeing people as strangers, and I can start seeing them as a fellow human being that God might like to bless in some way, today I'm going to treat them very, very different than I would have treated them.
[00:19:21] I've never met a person yet who didn't have, who didn't want to do good and didn't have a good excuse.
[00:19:34] I'm not saying that very clearly. Let me try it again.
[00:19:37] I have found it very common in life that when people don't want to do something good, they find a good excuse not to.
[00:19:49] You hear this.
[00:19:51] You can always find an excuse not to treat somebody the way you should treat them. You can always find an excuse. Your brain will produce hundreds of them for you.
[00:20:05] The problem is they're just excuses.
[00:20:09] They're not the truth.
[00:20:11] The problem is, because I can tell myself an excuse, it doesn't mean that I'm relieved of what I really should be doing.
[00:20:22] We don't have the curtains up today.
[00:20:28] God is placing me in life, and he's saying to me, don't let yourself give a million excuses for not doing what you have the ability to do in this moment.
[00:20:46] Church, can I remind you that Paul said to the one who knows to do good and doesn't do it, to him, it is sin.
[00:20:57] Do you hear that? If I know I should be doing something good, but I've given myself an excuse that I don't have to. If I know I should be doing that good thing and I don't do it, it's sin.
[00:21:16] And then Jesus continued the story.
[00:21:19] The two had passed by.
[00:21:22] I can only imagine what the poor, beaten up man was thinking.
[00:21:28] But then a third man came, and he was riding a donkey, and he had a backpack, and he looked over and he saw that guy laying there.
[00:21:42] And he instantly felt differently about that guy than the priest and the Levi did.
[00:21:51] When he looked at him, Jesus said he felt compassion, and he went over to where he was, and he bound up his wounds, and he poured wine and oil on the wounds, and he picked the guy up and put him on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn and he took care of him.
[00:22:22] This is drastically different than what happened with the other two.
[00:22:27] And the guy who helped wasn't a priest. The guy who helped wasn't a levite. The guy who helped was a samaritan.
[00:22:39] And a samaritan was looked on with an ugly prejudice by jewish people. In those days, nobody expected a samaritan to do the good thing.
[00:22:57] And in spite of everybody's expectation, he stops. He gets off his donkey. He doesn't know the guy, but what he sees is a fellow human being, and he immediately starts to take care of him.
[00:23:14] I've drawn some conclusions about how to be a good neighbor from what the Samaritan did. Number one, if we're going to be a good neighbor. We have to have compassion toward people.
[00:23:27] Do you hear this? You got to stop looking at people and judging them, and you got to start looking at people and feeling some compassion for them. Listen, listen. Love God with all your heart. Listen. And then love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:23:45] You have the same compassion for your neighbor that you would want someone to have for you if you were in that spot. Do you see?
[00:23:56] Jesus said, if you're going to be a good neighbor, then you got to start looking at people, and you got to start feeling some compassion toward them.
[00:24:07] Listen, I've heard church people say all kinds of stuff about people.
[00:24:13] They deserve to be where they are.
[00:24:17] I've heard people say they wouldn't be there where they are if they wouldn't have done this and this and this and this. All right, so here we're looking at somebody in need. We're not feeling compassion toward them. We're feeling criticism and judgment toward them.
[00:24:34] And we'll never treat somebody the way God wants them to be treated if. If we do that.
[00:24:40] So the first step in being a good neighbor is start feeling some human compassion toward the people that God puts in your life. Two, he stopped the bleeding.
[00:24:53] He bound up the wounds.
[00:24:57] I know that people all around us are wounded by life.
[00:25:03] Maybe they don't have. Maybe they're not visible wounds, but the wounds of the heart, church, are much deeper than the wounds of the flesh. There are people that you meet every day, and life has mugged them.
[00:25:21] They have been beaten up.
[00:25:23] Their inner life is broken.
[00:25:27] Many of them. Many of them are on the edge of despair.
[00:25:33] Those are the people that Christ wants you to look at and say, this is my neighbor.
[00:25:40] If this person has a broken heart, this is my neighbor. If this person has been disappointed by Life, this is my neighbor. If this person has been taken advantage of, this person is my neighbor.
[00:25:55] If we're going to be the people God wants us to be, we gotta start looking at the people that life has beaten up, and we gotta bind up their wounds.
[00:26:08] The third thing he did was he disinfected the wounds by pouring wine on it.
[00:26:15] The alcohol and the wine disinfected the wounds.
[00:26:19] We gotta start looking at people whose lives are broken, and they're not doing the right thing. And we got to say, what can God do through me to help disinfect them from the disease of sin?
[00:26:35] Do you hear this?
[00:26:37] A sin is an infection, and it infects the soul, and it ruins the person, and it makes the person incompetent. We got to start looking at people who are obviously sinners. Their lives are obviously broken. They have obviously been deceived. We gotta stop looking at them and judging them, and we need to begin to look at them and say, how can we share the grace of Jesus Christ with this person so that their sin sick soul can be healed church.
[00:27:15] We have to start looking at the broken and the sinful and saying, christ can help this person.
[00:27:24] What can I do to be Christ's partner to help this person?
[00:27:32] The fourth thing the good Samaritan did was he poured oil on the wounds. So evidently they put oil on wounds to keep them soft and so that they would heal better, so that the wound wouldn't get hard too soon and leave a bad scar.
[00:27:57] I believe you're going to run into people who have been hardened by life.
[00:28:03] Nobody poured any oil on them, and they got harder and harder and harder.
[00:28:10] Their voice became harsher and harsher.
[00:28:14] They're not pleasant.
[00:28:16] They say things that hurt your feelings.
[00:28:19] They are rude.
[00:28:21] But guess what? They're still your neighbor church because they have grown hard, because they've built a shell around themselves, they've lost their ability to communicate with other people in a kind way. That doesn't mean they stopped being our neighbor church.
[00:28:50] It could be that that person who is the most grouchy is the person who needs your kindness more than anything else.
[00:28:59] Can you hear this church?
[00:29:02] Is it possible that Christ is saying, my kindness through you will make a difference in this person's heart? And if there's ever going to be a softening, the softening is going to come because you pour the oil of kindness on them in some way.
[00:29:23] They've been yelled at all.
[00:29:25] Trust me. These people do not live happy lives because they're grouchy with everyone. Everyone's grouchy with them. But Christ said, I want you to be a neighbor to them. They are your fellow human being.
[00:29:43] The fifth thing the Samaritan did was he picked the guy up and put him on his donkey. The Samaritan walked so the wounded man could ride.
[00:29:55] Do you know there are times in life when people have to be carried?
[00:29:59] I'm not talking physically. I'm talking emotionally. There are times in life when people have to be emotionally carried. They're broken, they're wounded. Their life isn't working. They're confused.
[00:30:16] Their life is surrounded by sorrow, listening, and they gotta be carried.
[00:30:22] And the ones that God wants to carry them are you and I.
[00:30:28] He wants us to be their neighbor.
[00:30:32] You know, people who are an emotional wreck. You know, people who they're having a difficult time, they're struggling with life.
[00:30:46] And Christ said, I want you to be their neighbor.
[00:30:50] And if that means you got to emotionally pick them up and carry them, then I want you to do that.
[00:30:57] Paul teaches us that we're supposed to bear each other's burdens.
[00:31:02] Do you hear that? We are supposed to bear each other's burdens. It means there are times in life when we just can't do it. And God wants to place people in our lives who can emotionally pick us up and help us get to a place where we can be better. That's being a good neighbor. Church.
[00:31:26] 6th the 6th thing Luke says very plainly, he took care of him.
[00:31:35] What does it mean to be a good neighbor? It means when you run into your fellow man, wherever you are, wherever they are, whatever condition they're in, and God places them in your life, he places them in front of you. It means in some way he wants you to take care of them. Can you hear this?
[00:31:56] Christ is counting on us. He's placing people in our lives. He's making sure that we see them. And he's saying, this is the person that I want you to consider as a neighbor, and I want you to take care of them in the ways that my spirit will guide you to take care of them.
[00:32:19] Finally, the good Samaritan said to the innkeeper, I have business that I have to take care of. I'm going to leave you, I'm going to leave you to Denarius, and here's what I'm going to tell you. If it costs more than that to take care of this guy until he gets better, the next time I come through here, I'll pay you whatever it cost.
[00:32:49] Do you hear that? Being a good neighbor is being generous.
[00:32:54] You can't be a good neighbor and not be generous.
[00:32:57] Remember, this samaritan didn't know this guy. He didn't know him at all. He just knew that this was a fellow human being, that he had been beaten and left half dead. And he cared enough to get him to the inn, and he cared enough to say to the innkeeper, would you please take care of this guy until he gets better? I'm going to leave you this money, and if it's not enough, I'll pay you more when I come back by here. Church God wants us to be generous neighbors.
[00:33:36] I want to be as plain as I possibly can. There is no reason with the amount of wealth that we have, that children go to bed hungry. There's no reason for that.
[00:33:51] It just means somebody doesn't care the way they should care. Church.
[00:34:00] The billions that are wasted at casinos every single week. Billions?
[00:34:08] We have billions to waste at casinos, but we don't have dollars to help the needy.
[00:34:18] And please don't tell me. Well, if they'd get a job.
[00:34:23] You don't know their life. You don't know what they're going through.
[00:34:27] You don't know what their life experience is.
[00:34:32] I want us to let go of our myth that we think we can.
[00:34:39] We think we can judge people. And I want us to start seeing people as human beings.
[00:34:46] All right. I also want to push back at this. Some of you are going to say to me, you know, doc, I helped some people once. They turned out to be real jerks.
[00:34:55] They didn't appreciate it. They ended up saying bad things about me, okay?
[00:35:01] They're human beings.
[00:35:04] Are you doing it to make yourself look good?
[00:35:13] Oh, I'll be a good neighbor because that'll make me look good. I'll be a shiny guy.
[00:35:19] That's not the motive. The motive for being a good neighbor is your love of Christ. It's not really how they're going to respond. Yes, it's true.
[00:35:30] I know it's true.
[00:35:33] When our church was in another building, a guy stopped in my office one day. He said, I didn't eat yesterday, and I haven't eaten anything today. And I reached in my pocket, I gave him some money for lunch.
[00:35:49] My window looked out. I saw him cross the street and go into a liquor store.
[00:35:55] And I got out of my office. I went out on the sidewalk. I started yelling at him, come over here.
[00:36:02] Okay, that's on him. Do you hear this?
[00:36:09] He's responsible to God for the generosity I showed him. But I'm not going to stop being generous because there are people in the world who are jerks and don't appreciate it. That is not an excuse.
[00:36:24] That is acceptable to God.
[00:36:27] Because I want every one of us to look in the mirror and remember, we haven't always been primo church.
[00:36:44] And then Jesus said to the guy, the lawyer, you're a lawyer.
[00:36:50] Which of these three people prove to be neighbor?
[00:36:59] And the lawyer said, well, obviously, the one who showed him mercy.
[00:37:05] And then Jesus said to the lawyer, now, you go do the very same thing.
[00:37:11] Two commands.
[00:37:16] You go and you do.
[00:37:19] These are not requests. These are not suggestions. They're commands. Jesus said, if you want to get this right, you go and do the same thing.
[00:37:32] Could I remind you, the lawyer said, the one who showed him mercy.
[00:37:38] Mercy is God's response to misery. Do you hear this.
[00:37:44] In our lives, around us, there are people who are broken. They're inwardly miserable. Their life isn't working.
[00:37:53] God's answer to their misery is mercy.
[00:37:58] I want you to hear this. What we need to do, if we're going to be, if we're going to be the neighbors God wants us to be, we have to be dispensers of the mercy of God to the misery of the people that we come into contact in life.
[00:38:16] That's what God wants.
[00:38:19] That's his expectation.
[00:38:28] And so we come down to this.
[00:38:34] Can you put yourself in the lawyer's position?
[00:38:39] Can you let Christ tell the story of the Good Samaritan to you?
[00:38:46] Or have you separated yourself from the lawyer? You know, I don't like him. He wasn't a very nice guy. He had a bad attitude. Okay, you see what I just did? I didn't treat him as a neighbor.
[00:38:57] Huh? I look at that lawyer and I go, not a very nice guy trying to trick Jesus, trying to make himself look good.
[00:39:07] I'm glad Jesus taught him that parable. I've just done what the lawyer did. Do you hear me?
[00:39:15] Can you put yourself in the lawyer's place? And can you let Jesus say to you, you are the good Samaritan, you're the one. I want you to care about people.
[00:39:29] I want you to interrupt your life.
[00:39:32] I want you to bind up the wound. I want you to pour a disinfectant on there. I want you to help the person soften.
[00:39:40] I want you to pick them up.
[00:39:46] I want you to take care of them. Can you let Jesus today speak the good Samaritan parable to you and take it personally, just like he spoke it to the lawyer that day?
[00:40:01] If we can take this personally, if we can let Christ speak this to our heart, we have a chance of being different tomorrow.
[00:40:10] But if we hear this story and we just look and say, man, Jesus really told it to him, didn't he? I'll bet that lawyer was sorry he ever messed with Jesus. We're going to miss the whole point, and we're not going to treat anybody differently tomorrow.
[00:40:24] I want to hold this story up. I want to look at it as a mirror. I want to say, this is who Christ wants me to be, and I want to try harder than I've ever tried to be this person.
[00:40:38] Our dear heavenly Father, please teach us to be good neighbors.
[00:40:45] Please help us to take the teaching of Jesus Christ personally.
[00:40:52] Please nurture within us a desire to do this.
[00:41:02] Please make us weary of our old excuses and fill us with a new ambition. To be the neighbor that introduces Christ into the lives of the people around us.
[00:41:16] In Jesus name, amen.
