In David Green's sermon titled '8 - Love Your Neighbor,' the parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37 is explored to illustrate the profound teaching of loving one's neighbor. The narrative begins with a lawyer attempting to trap Jesus with a question about inheriting eternal life, to which Jesus responds by highlighting the scriptural commandment to love God and one's neighbor. The parable depicts a man attacked by thieves and ignored by a priest and a Levite, but compassionately aided by a Samaritan, an unlikely hero due to historical animosities. This Samaritan's selfless actions embody true neighborly love. The sermon emphasizes that knowing scripture does not equate to righteousness, as even those familiar with the law can fall short without genuine love and compassion. Jesus uses this parable to hold a mirror to self-righteousness, highlighting that law's purpose is not salvation but self-examination. The speaker underscores that only Jesus, who perfectly fulfills the law, offers true salvation, urging listeners to reflect on their own shortcomings and turn to Christ. The sermon concludes with an invitation to embrace the teaching of loving all as neighbors, transcending barriers of race, religion, and social status.

Go ahead and open it to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. Let's begin verse 25 and going down to verse 37. Luke chapter 10, beginning of verse 25, says, And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law, how readest thou?

And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do, thou shalt live. But he willing to justify himself said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest by a certain priest that way.

And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, set him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the morrow, when he departed, He took out two pence, gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?

And he said he that showed mercy on him, then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise." My subject today is on the subject of love your neighbor. Of all the parables that our Lord ever spoke, I guess this may be the most dramatic of all. And for the next several minutes I want us to carefully unpack it. I say carefully because if we're not careful, we go too quickly, we will miss some things and come to some wrong conclusions. Sadly, many have, as they've read through this, and many preachers have come to the wrong or perhaps too early come to a conclusion on this.

The first thing we want to notice is that there was a certain lawyer. This lawyer was a scholar of the law. He had, as Brother Tom mentioned some about how these fellows were, They knew some things about the law and he was asking this question not to learn. He was not asking to try to increase in his knowledge, but rather this was a trap or to try to, I like that, trip him up. Right?

That's that's really what was going on here. And again, this is something that happened quite frequently. These were fellows who were engaged in warfare. Okay? This was spiritual warfare and it wasn't happening between people who were non-religious and people who were Christians.

This wasn't between Christ and those folks who were absolutely were of pagans, although sometimes that sort of thing did happen. But a lot of times these were people who knew, read, thought that they were on their way to heaven. They knew something about the words written in the Old Testament. They knew, they thought, the law and the prophets. These were folks who were religious folks who thought that they had reached a pinnacle of their education, a pinnacle of everything that they needed to know, and they felt that they were doing God's service by trying to destroy Jesus.

By trying to destroy Jesus. This question was meant to challenge, it was meant to confuse our Lord. Now usually trick questions do not happen in a vacuum and such is the case here. Jesus had just spoken some very hard to swallow truths to these people. Jesus had entered into the scene and as you read through the Gospels and I recommend that you do, I recommend you read through your Bibles not just once when you're young and met maybe again when you're middle-aged read through every year but look there as you go back here in verses 13 through 15 he says woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Basidia, for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

But it shall be more tolerable for tiring sight on it the judgment than for you and in thou Capernaum Which art exalted to heaven shall be thrust down to hell These are some hard stuff I Mean he was he was going in and speaking some hard truths and you read that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, each one of the gospels brings this out. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the Herodians, they were all after him. He had a target on his back. He was speaking truth, but he was speaking hard. And then in verse 26, Jesus answers this man, this lawyer, with the question, What is written in the law?

How do you read it? What is in the law? And to that, the lawyer replied with Scripture. You see this this back and forth going on. Don't forget that even Satan himself engages in the scripture with our Lord using scripture back and forth but understand something that that men even though they pick up their Bible, even though they hold on to the scriptures and say that they're believers of the Word of God and so on and so forth, it does not mean that they are Christian.

It does not mean that they're for the Lord. It does not mean that they are fighting for the truth. He said, well, here's where we're at. He said, and he quoted this lawyer. He quoted scripture, he quoted Deuteronomy 6, 4, 5, and then for good measure, he added the last part from Leviticus 19, 18.

He knew his Old Testament. Good reminder of a couple of things, right? Not only are there men who are out there engaged in warfare against the Lord, But there are also men and women out there who know the scriptures but are lost. Don't just assume because somebody can quote scripture that they know the Lord. And put it another way, just because somebody knows the Word of God does not mean they know the God of the Word.

And this man is an example of this. We see here as he engages with the Lord and as the Lord engages with him, he gave a good answer. In fact, in the text that Brother Tom read, there in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus had given that very same answer when he engaged with that lawyer. The question was different, which is the great commandment in the law, but the answer was very Much the same, wasn't it? Go back there if you want.

Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 through 40. Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy mind this is the first and great commandment and the second is like unto it thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." So what happened was this lawyer reading the Gospel of Matthew? No. There was no such thing as the Gospel of Matthew when all this was going on, as far as not the book. But what we find is that maybe this man knew enough about the teachings of Jesus.

Maybe he knew enough about the law, maybe he studied, maybe he heard some things, whatever the case may be, he knew what answers to give. What a great way of answering this question. It wasn't wrong. The commandments are indeed divided into these same categories. I mean, even if we take the Ten Commandments and we look at those, the first through the fourth are about loving God and the fifth through the tenth are about loving your neighbor.

But every other commandment is simply explanation in detail what it means to love God or love your neighbor. What is the law? Do this and live. And that's what this conversation is about. He says, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

That's why this conversation is all about the law to begin with. What can I do to inherit eternal life? What can you do to inherit eternal life? God has revealed himself and his law in this book. The lawyer, as this conversation goes on, you and I may think to ourselves, especially we who are sovereign grace baptists, we who have been raised on t-u-l-i-p, we may read this and say, hold up, pump the brakes.

This conversation is going the wrong direction. Why is Jesus now simply telling him, you're not able to do anything to inherit eternal life? That's true. He can't do anything to inherit eternal life. That's where we need to really pay attention to what's happening here in this text.

Nothing is missing here. Jesus did not mess up this conversation. He knew. He knew the Word of God. He knows the way to heaven.

In fact, Jesus is the way to heaven. He ain't gonna mess that up. And furthermore, he knew the heart of this man. What was going on? Jesus was holding up a mirror.

The mirror of the law for this man to see, to see something that he had never seen. You see, he had read the law, but he had never seen it as a mirror. And Jesus is holding that up like a mirror for him to see. And I want us to understand here in this demonstration from our Lord in this parable he was telling that self-righteous lawyer that he is not as good as he thought he was. That he had fallen short of the law of God.

He knew it. He knew the right answers, but he had fallen short. Understand something. This is what the law of God is for. It was never meant to save anybody.

No one can be saved through the keeping of the law. None of us are good enough to keep the law. It was never meant to be a pair of binoculars so that we could always be looking at our neighbors, our brothers and sisters and the church down the road and everybody else, but rather it is a mirror. The law, the Jews love to use it, The Pharisees, you see them all the time, they were often using it like that, binoculars like that, magnifying glass, and they were out looking at everybody else but themselves. You know where they are today?

Except they repented of their sins. Except they trusted in Jesus Christ. They are in hell at this very hour. And except that we also likewise repent of this evil and believe in Jesus Christ we also will likewise perish. You see the only hope for that generation was Jesus and The only hope for us is Jesus.

And so we must today, before it's too late, we must in this lifetime turn that Bible around and do some self-examination and look at the mirror of God's Word like Jesus was showing this man, this lawyer. You're right with God Because you can't get right. You can't do enough to inherit eternal life. Look here what happens in this text in verse 29 or verse 28. And he said unto him, thou hast answer right, this do, and thou shalt live.

But he willing to justify himself said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? This man, When he came to Jesus, proud as a peacock, as we sometimes say, what can I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, what's written in the law, how read is thou? He answered him.

He probably felt pretty good about himself. He said, well, I answered that right. Jesus said thou must answer right, this do and live. Jesus knew this man, this man's heart, I'm sure of it. This man said he was willing to justify himself.

He said to Jesus, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And how many times do we take the Word of God and we take the text and we read something? Love the brethren. Who are my brothers?

Love your enemies. Well, you don't know what they've done to me. Love your neighbor. Who is my neighbor? We may not say those words out loud, but Jesus knows our heart.

God knows our hearts. Beloved, we need to come face to face with the Word of God and understand that we have fallen short. He was willing to justify himself, this man, and I'm glad he asked this question out loud, and I'm glad that the Holy Spirit has seen fit to record this for us. These are questions that still come up in our hearts today, 2, 000 years later, though we're not in the same religious system, we are in a system. And though we may not be in the same cultural environment, we are men and women, totally depraved, and we still have these things come up.

We like to play lawyer with the Bible, fast and loose with the text, but here it is very, very clearly. It's been brought up time and time again even in this conference and in this text here we see what Jesus is telling us and and and and we might think to ourselves well my neighbors are my four and no more My neighbors are these fellows who agree with me doctrinally all the way down the line. My neighbors are the people who have the same skin color. We might think that my neighbors are just the people who are of my bloodline, you know, whatever it is. We all have our own little kingdoms on earth that we like to set up.

We all have our little hedges we like to put up and try to limit ourselves here. But oh beloved, there is Nothing that is taught like that here. In this parable, verse 30, Jesus answering said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him, departed, leaving him half dead." So the story begins with a man going on a very dangerous road, and it's important to realize that this is a real road. It's a journey of about 17 miles to get from Jerusalem to Jericho, and it's about a 4, 000 mile drop in elevation. From what I've read, It's a very hard road to travel some of y'all Have been in West Virginia and other places where the mountains go up and down and you know That even in a vehicle such a journey is rough These guys weren't traveling on Motorcar They didn't have any good way of traveling, but he was traveling on this rough road with the change in elevation.

Not only was it a rough road, but he was traveling alone. That's not a good way to travel. And as he was traveling alone, Jesus says here that he fell among thieves, some robbers, some bad guys, some criminals. Not only did they rob him, you know it's bad enough to be robbed, have all your stuff taken, but notice what they did. It says they stripped him of his raiment wounded him Departed leaving him half dead This man was stripped naked beat down and left for dead in the street.

Okay? Terrible scene. Terrible thing to happen to a man as he's traveling alone on the road. I know We see an increase in crime sometimes in some of our cities. I don't know about you, but I often think about, you know, when I'm traveling, what, something like this might happen.

But it does happen. That's why I love the Word of God because he gives illustrations that are timeless. We know what this is like. We've seen it. Maybe some of you have been robbed.

I don't know. But in verse 31 he says, and by chance there came down a certain priest that way and when he saw him He passed by on the other side. So we begin to get this picture of now there's people coming All right. Now there's there's someone coming down the street. Oh good.

There's hope this man It's been left for dead in the street. Now he's got some hope. And he's a priest, so surely he's going to do some good for this poor man. But no. No.

Now a priest would have been familiar with the Mosaic code. He would have been familiar with the laws of Moses. But no, he went around the other side. What would he have been raised reading in the scripture? Well, I mean there's a lot of different passages, but you look at Leviticus chapter 19 in verse 18.

He says, thou shalt not avenge nor bearing grudge against the children of thy people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself I am the Lord." So he would have been familiar with these passages. He would have been familiar with the Proverb of Proverbs chapter 21. Proverbs chapter 21 and verse 13. Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard." He would have been familiar with passages like that, no doubt. But this man went on the other side.

He passed on the other side. He shunned him. Now in verse 32 it says, And likewise a Levite, when he was at that place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side. The Levite comes along, another religious person. All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.

This man would have been a descendant of Aaron. Surely he will stop to help, but no, no, he passes by on the other side. Can I stop for just a moment and say that if you can't relate to the man laying in the street, we all can relate somewhat to the people who are passing on the other side? We've all been in situations, if we're honest with ourselves, where there's something going on, somebody's badly hurt, somebody is down and out, some homeless person, whatever, and we pass by on the other side because they smell bad because there's some situation we don't know what it's going on but we kind of feel like that if we get involved that maybe we're gonna put ourselves in danger And if you don't know what that's like, then you're better than I am. But both of these men lacked compassion, didn't they?

Neither of them showed love for their neighbor, and that's the point of what Jesus is saying here. Many a sermon ends here with the preacher condemning these men and the man in the pulpit may have some arrogant superiority over them, but the reality is, again, how many of us have walked past someone who is in need and so why should we condemn them when we ourselves are no better? How many times have we pretended that we didn't even notice someone who is in need or when we've been well driving we're in a hurry to get to church, and someone's broke down on the side of the road, or something like that. Well, we got to hurry up and get to church, because we might be late. We can't stop and help that person, right?

Because we got to do what's important. Not that coming to church isn't important, but let's think about this for a moment. What kind of witness are we being to our community? What kind of a neighbor are we being to those in need? That person who maybe looked bad or maybe wasn't the same color as we were, maybe we assumed that they'd gotten into that trouble because of drugs or because of gang violence or because of some other situation where we don't even know but we've already passed judgment on them.

Maybe we know something about them, maybe we know the color of their skin, maybe we know what church they go to. We say, well that's not one of us. How can I help them? And so we pass on by. Examine your own heart and consider these things as we think about and read what the Lord is saying here.

We do fall short more frequently than what we care to admit. And this is the point that I'm coming to. But look at the hero of the story here, this unlikely one, it says in verse 33 through 35, it says, But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again, I will repay thee." This good Samaritan, as he's come to be known, was not like the religious fellows. He was not like the priest.

He was not like the Levite. He actually came up on the scene and he actually loved, he actually cared, he actually had compassion. And when he saw this one who had been beaten, this one who had been robbed, left for dead. He didn't go to the other side of the street like the Levi and the priest. No, no.

He actually went to him. The one in the street couldn't come to the Samaritan, but the Samaritan went to him. Now I'll not get into the centuries old conflict between the Samaritans and the Jews, but just know this, that this was an unlikely scenario to the minds of Jesus' original hearers. This is why he pointedly said, a certain Samaritan came. You can go back in your Bibles and read all about this.

Jesus intended this story to sting like this. There was a gulf between these two because their people had been hostile to one another for so long. If we were to put it in our day, we could say there was a poor Baptist laying in the street. The pastor came by and he went on the other side of the road. The deacon came by and he went on the other side of the road, but the Catholic priest came.

Or how about this, to bring it home more. There was a poor reformed Baptist laying in the street. You see where I'm going. He had compassion on this one who was different. And this is the reason why, because there was animosity in the hearts of the two groups.

Elite status as religious leaders among the Jewish people did not make someone fit for the kingdom of God. Being a priest or a Levite is not what makes a person better than anyone else. To put it in our modern language, in our modern situation here, being a Baptist, being a sovereign grace, landmark missionary Baptist does not make you any better than anybody else when the Bible is very plain here in this passage. What is it that Jesus said in James chapter 1, in James chapter 1, in verses 26 and 27? James chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, he says, "'If any man among you seem to be religious, "'and bridleeth not his tongue, "'but deceiveth his own heart, "'this man's religion is vain.

"'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Pure religion is not about having the right pedigree or having the right ancestry or whatever it may be. The Jews and the Samaritans had this age-long conflict. Jesus said in John chapter 13, it's been read before but I'll read it again because he goes along with this passage in John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

He says, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. How will they know us? By the sign on our door? That we're His disciples? Will they know that we're his disciples because we have the right baptism, but because we are members of the right church.

Those things aren't important beloved, but understand we've got to understand what Jesus is teaching here about love. Notice how this Samaritan loved. He saw this man and he was moved with compassion. Something inside of him moved him to rescue and to recover this man. He bore that injured man's burdens as if they were his own.

Verse 34 says He went to him and bound up his wounds and pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an end and took care of him. This is the opposite of what the other two had done. He bandaged him up, poured in oil and wine. This would have been good cleansing, good medication. Now remember there was no corner drugstore for him to go to there on that road.

There was no Walmart for him to go to. Where was he getting this stuff? Where did he come from? It would have been in his bag. It would have been his own possessions.

And beloved, these things in this century were costly. They were costly. He spared no expense for this Samaritan, or for this one who was left on the street. This Samaritan spared no expense. Indeed, he put him on his own beast and took him to an inn and took care of him.

Verse 35, he took out two pins and said to the innkeeper to take care of him and, by the way, if there's anything else that comes up, charge it to my account. He can't pay you, charge it to me, I'll repay him. He provided this man with food, shelter, medical care, water, whatever else was needed. What we don't read here is that he did not give him any kind of cross-examination. There was no interrogation, nothing of the sort.

He was simply deeply moved with love to help him out. He truly loved his neighbor as himself. Because after all, if you fall on the road, if you're robbed, if you've got an injury, you're not gonna spare any expense to fix yourself up are you? You're going to do whatever you can to try and get help. And this is what we see with this Samaritan, He really loved himself.

So the question was asked. Verses 36 and 37 says It says here, which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves? And he said, he that showed mercy on him, then said, Jesus on him, go and do thou likewise. The question was asked to this lawyer, which one is the great neighbor? Which one was neighbor to him that fell among thieves?

And the answer is, he that showed mercy on him, the Samaritan. Jesus said, go and do likewise. Likewise. Now if this story, this text, gets you to go and to be a better neighbor to others, That is great. We should be.

It should impact all of us. Whatever hedges we've put up, whatever way we want to restrict the meaning of neighbor, This text ought to flatten all that out. Homeless person, religious, skin-collar, nothing. Everyone's your neighbor, everyone. And we ought to really think about that in our world as we try to be lights in this world for Jesus, as we all try to show the love of God in our world.

But if we ended here, we'd miss the point. Jesus taught this story. Jesus told this in order to illustrate what an impossibly high standard the requirements of the law are. If you see the law demands you do this, do this and live, love your neighbor as yourself, not sometimes, not when you feel like it, again, not to a certain group of people, but all the time. And how many of us can possibly be like that good Samaritan every time?

The answer is we can't. We aren't. We have fallen short. Then the question is, if that Good Samaritan isn't you, it's not me. If it can't be you or me, Then who is it?

Who? Who? Is it some great humanitarian that would live during the time of Christ? Is it some great humanitarian who lives in our time? Let me tell you, it's the only one, the only one who could possibly obey the law perfectly every single time.

The only one who would ever stop to help his neighbor, a stranger, someone who is different, someone who's an enemy even, and not not only that but to give him more than he deserves and much more than he could ever repay. Brother Todd brought it out in his sermon. You see, The way that good Samaritan loved the stranger is the way that God loves sinners. The Samaritan sacrificed his time and money for that one on the street. Not one of us, not one of us was clean enough or good enough that we could ever merit God's favor.

But there we were, Unable, unwilling, we couldn't pay for anything that could possibly be given to us, and yet Jesus, let me back up, John 3 16, God gave his only begotten son to die for sinners. Jesus paid what we couldn't pay for ourselves with his own life. Romans chapter 5 and verses 6 through 8. Romans chapter 5 verses 6 through 8, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

Verse 8, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. His love was put on display there at the cross when he died for us. What a great thing that is. We were left for dead, yet we were dead in our sins and our trespasses, and Jesus came and rescued us. Let us confess our sinfulness as revealed in the mirror of God's law.

As we look at it, seeing our lack of holiness, our lack of compassion, our lack of sacrificial love, And turn to the only hope that we have. With repentant faith, I point you this very hour to Jesus Christ, the only one who totally and completely fulfilled what the law demanded. I don't know whether that lawyer ever did. His time is gone, but yours is not. And so I just say to you, flee to Jesus.

May God add the blessing to the preaching of his word. I want to thank this church for hosting this conference And for the brothers who came as well to preach, it's been a good conference. To our visitors, I'm glad you came. I hope you'll come back again. Stay for lunch today.

And to the members of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. Thank you for the hard work you've put in to this conference. Let's...