5/26/2002

Let’s bow in prayer: 

Father as we think in terms of Memorial Day week-end to many of us just the first week-end of summer, even though it hasn’t felt like it. Father we know that there is great meaning and a time where we commemorate the effort and sacrifice people have put in before us to maintain, to gain our freedom. Father we thank you so much for there sacrifice. And thank you that you are the one who gives us true freedom in Christ. It is not the freedom to do what we want, it is the freedom to do what is right. So Father I pray that you would help that to become part of our being and part of our lives even now as we celebrate and thank those who have gone on before us and those who are among us who have fought to gain and keep our freedoms. Father we thank you for the Christ who gave us true freedom by dying and giving himself as a sacrifice on the cross that we might have true life and have it eternally, not just in this life, in this country but life that will last forever and be an amazing life, one we can’t even describe in this life it will be so wonderful and so long. In Jesus Name we pray. Amen

Turn to the Book of Luke, please. Luke Chapter 10, we are going to be talking about lawyers today. Sounds like a good topic don’t you think. Actually one particular lawyer who came to Jesus and hoped he was going to be able to obtain a different answer than he got. We are studying the parables and this one is a great parable, one that is very familiar to all of you, I am sure. The parable of the Good Samaritan and one of those that teaches us a very important lesson that sometimes I think we miss. In fact, I probably read this, I don’t know how many times I have read this and came up with a little different conclusion this time as I was studying it then I had before.

Luke 10:25 says, ‘And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "What should I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And He answered and said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOU NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS, AND YOU WILL LIVE." But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answered and said, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.’ "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?" And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."

Now you have to understand a few things about the culture and about the people involved here. The lawyer is not a lawyer in the sense that we would think of today in terms of civil law. Even thought it is in that culture they were quite similar. He was more of one who was aware of the Old Testament Law. In fact, he was a student of the Old Testament Law and in fact he was not quite like the scribes. You hear about the Scribes and the Pharisees, they give those gentlemen a different name, a lawyer. There levels to commitment to the written law some to the written law of the Old Testament, some to the traditions of the elders. You understand how it came, here is how it came. The Old Testament was written, of course. Years and years before Christ’s time. Moses wrote most of the first five books and then others wrote some of the others, the prophets and people wrote different books. So the Old Testament was pretty well in hand by the time Jesus came on the scene. 

About 400 hundred years before Christ, after the people came out of exile into Babylon they said we never want to go into exile again. We don’t want to lose our home land, we need to make sure we follow this law perfectly because that is why God sent us into exile before because we disobeyed his law. So they developed a group called the Pharisees, the separated ones. They separated themselves out from everybody else in the world saying we are going to completely keep the law of God no matter what. Not only did they try to keep the law, they actually began to codify the law and write not only laws but protections of the laws. And so pretty soon they insulated themselves from breaking any of the laws by not breaking this little law that would get you to this little law, that would break the main law. And so they had all kinds of side laws insulating laws, as a matter of fact, they call it building a hedge around the law so you would never get to breaking the main law. And so they had a number of commentators back in those days a couple of main ones were Hanil and Shiah, one was the liberal and the other was kind of the conservative type on the interpretation of the law and they developed traditions and commentaries on the law and things. So down through the years they developed a system of traditional understandings of the law not just the law itself. So not only did you have to understand what the Bible said, the Old Testament said, especially the first five books, but also the conditions and the commentaries upon the law written by the commentators. And these became the traditions of the Jewish culture, the Pharisees especially.

So sometimes after you look in Matthew at the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said ‘You heard that it has been told this or taught this and it is not even quoting scripture it is quoting the traditions of the elders or sometimes, he says, the ancients told you this. That is what he is talking about. It is not the law itself but the traditions that were built up around the law. That became traditional laws. And so the lawyers were the ones who said we are not going to listen to all the commentary we are going to go just right to the written law and that is going to be our guide. Only the written law itself, we are not going to listen to the commentators and all the hedge builders and things like that. We are going to go just right to the laws. So the kind of considered themselves just a little more superior as it were, a little bit more close to the law of God because they didn’t listen to all the traditions of the elders and things. They went right to the law. And so Jesus was ask by this lawyer what must a I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, ‘Well what does the law say?’ You are the expert of the law, what does the law say? So he quotes two passages of the law. One is back in Deuteronomy Chapter 6 and the other one is Leviticus 19 where he says, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.’ In fact, Jesus said the greatest law is the first one and the second greatest law is the second one. So this man was right according to the law. And so he was a wonderful lawyer but it says he also tried to justify himself by saying, who is my neighbor? Now it is an interesting that this guy who prides himself on the knowing of the law but when he is trying to argue for himself the understanding becomes one that is a little bit more traditional than actual scripture. Because some of the things that he would have leaned on, of course the law just says, Love you neighbor as yourself. A proper question is, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ Who is your neighbor? Who is my neighbor? Well, if you look at the people around him you would see that neighbors are not what we think of neighbors being. We think the people who live next door or someone who is neighborly is somebody who helps out the neighbors, the ones who live near them. But let me give you a little bit of lawyers perspective here. At least this lawyers perspective of that day but let’s get some background information first.

Jericho was a city seventeen miles from Jerusalem. So it says they were going down from Jerusalem to Jericho they went 3000 feet down in seventeen miles. So it was a steep incline going downward. It was an open trail and so probably in the second part of the story you see the Levite who passed by, the priest had already passed by, most likely the Levite had seen the priest pass by because the trail was so open, as I understand. And even the Samaritan himself who helped later on might have seen this all occur too. We don’t know that but it wouldn’t be unusual, they said the trail is actually so open you could probably see three or four miles ahead sometimes. It was also a place where there were certain places where there were robbers. In fact some of the writings of the day suggest that Herod when he was building the huge temple that Jesus talks about taking forty-six years to build, had huge numbers of workers there when they got there work done he just let them go and some of them had no place to go, to go back home as it were because he used some pretty unsavory people. And so they would quite often rob people on the road. And this road from Jerusalem down to Jericho was quite a dangerous place and has been even up til recent days. So Jericho road was a fairly dangerous place.

Jericho was also kind of a bedroom community for the priests. See the priest would serve two weeks at a time. By lot they would serve two weeks at a time. And so when they went into Jerusalem to serve in the priesthood, to direct the offerings and things, then they would go back home to Jericho, quite often Jericho or some other city nearby. But Jericho at one point would hold seventeen thousand priests and their families. So as a place full of priests going down from Jerusalem to Jericho would have been common for most any priest of the day. 

The Levites were the tribe of Levy, of course, the Priests came from Aaron, Moses brother. They were the high priest, they were the ones who were actually the clergy as it were. The Levites were from the tribe of Levy, they were helpers to the priests. There was also another segment of the society of Jewish people called the congregation of Israel and they were the ones who assisted the Levites. They were not priestly at all they were just regular lay people but they also gave help to the offerings and things and they were called the congregation of Israel. So if you are a person sitting in Jesus congregation at that moment he was telling the story you would assume since he talked about the priest, and then the Levite, you would assume the next one would be one of the congregation of Israel. Instead he replaces that one with the Samaritan. And Samaritans were not just disliked they were hated. Samaritans, if you look at Israel there is the lower part called Judea and the upper part is called Galilee but the middle part is Samaria. Remember back to the walk through the Bible days, Judea down here, Galilee up here and Samaria in between. Called Samaria. They were mixed up, ok. Truly mixed up.

Back in 722 BC the Assyrians had conquered the northern ten tribes of Israel. Remember there were two tribes that stayed loyal to Solomon’s Son, ten tribes rebelled so they set up two kingdoms. The ten tribes up here and the two tribes in the southern part of the country. And in 722 BC the Assyrians, which were off the northeast about where we think of Iran and Iraq, in that area right now, came down and defeated the ten tribes and took them away and replaced them with other people. And so they were scattered out, other people were scattered in and they became truly a mixed race and they held to some of the Old Testament writings but still formed their own worship and when Ezra and Nehemiah came back from exile to build the temple and the wall around the city, they were the ones who said let us help because after all we are the same people and they said, No you aren’t you’re all mixed up, look at your genealogy. You are not Jewish you are all mixed up. You are some of the enemy actually. So not only did they refuse their help, the Samaritans began to oppose them. Wrote letters back to the Babylonian King and said you have got the stop these people and stuff. And then in Jesus’ day they would actually defiled the temple by scattering bones of unclean animals in the temple and so the Samaritans were truly hated at this time. In fact, let me read a passage here from one of their writers that says there are two nations that my soul detests the third is not a nation at all. Inhabitants of Mt. Ser. and the Philistines and the stupid people living in Samaria. It was one of the Jewish writers and he says also, ‘Samaritans were publicly cursed in the synagogues and a petition was daily offered up praying to God that the Samaritans might not be partakers of eternal life. So how did they like these people? Not at all. If you are a Jew you hate them. At least in Jesus’ day. In fact it was against the law even to receive food or drink from the hand of a Samaritan. And so you can understand when Jesus said the Samaritan came along and felt compassion, how opposite that would have been to the Jewish mind set of the day. 

Now let’s tell the story here. So we have a man who is beaten, left for dead, and stripped of his clothing. He was lying there apparently dead, had no clothes on or little enough to be left stripped naked, and unconscious. The priest comes along, sees him, and passes by. The Levite comes along, sees him, in fact the wording there indicates the priest was riding on his animal and he looked over and just happen to look at him and kept on going. By the way most anybody who had any kind of income rode an animal, even though it doesn’t always mention it. Almost all the time the seventeen mile journey would be ridden not walked, unless you were just very poor. In fact they might have had more than one animal. And so then the Levite came along, the indication is he came over and took a look and backed up and kept on going. The Samaritan came, walked right over to the guy, and then helped him. Put him on his own donkey, took him to the next place where there was an inn, put him in the inn, gave them enough money actually for twenty-four days of care, approximately twenty-four days of care. He said when I come back if there is more that you need to have I will pay you some more. Ok. Now sounds like a pretty simple story. Showing you that a neighbor is anybody who is close and in need. That would be a good definition of a neighbor wouldn’t it? 

But Jesus didn’t answer by saying that. In fact he closed the session here with a different question. Now what I would like to do is take on a bit of a character today and explain from the lawyer’s perspective. Now a few lawyers, none that I know, and I only know one fairly well. In fact I played ping-pong with him yesterday and beat him and got beat by him in pool so we are kind of even. Some of them are considered shady characters. Ok, so from here on out I am the lawyer talking to Jesus and I am going to give you the reasons why it was wrong for the priests to help.

It was wrong for him to help this man on the road. It was wrong for the Levite to help him on the road and in fact it was wrong for the Samaritan to help him on the road. Here is why it was wrong for the priest to help him on the road.

According to the law, he would have offended God by helping this man on the road. According to the law, as I see it, he would have offended God by helping this man on the road. Let me tell you why. This man was apparently dead, for a priest to touch a dead body would defile him. Make him unworthy to offer sacrifices, and in fact to touch this dead body would be so defiling it would take him a week in order to cleanse himself. He would have to find a red heifer, reduce it to ashes and to dust almost and it would take a week of purification for him to do that, to become clean again after being defiled by a dead body. In fact according to our traditions, the priest could not come within six feet of a dead body. Now how do we know that he was dead. We don’t know that he was dead but if he was a priest would not only have to ascertain that by touching him to check and come within six feet of him thereby being defiled by a dead body. He would actually have to tear his clothes to indicate that this body was dead and he was defiled and our tradition says that no one can destroy valuable things. And so you can not tear your clothes without great reason. So it would have been wrong for the priest to tear his clothes being near a dead body because it would have been offensive to God.

Not only that, we don’t know for sure that, that man is our neighbor. Because our traditions say, the law says in one place, that he neighbor is your brother and your friend. In fact we believe that our neighbor is only those who are related to us or who are close to us in friendship and is certainly not a Samaritan. Certainly not a gentile, in fact we are convinced of that, and in fact a convert to Judaism we have some questions about, as to whether they are a neighbor. And in fact if the priest were to help that person and he turned out to be either dead or a gentile or a Samaritan worse, he would be so offensive to God that we wouldn’t even allow him in our homes until he was cleansed of that defiled. So it would be wrong for that priest to touch that dead body plus he didn’t know for sure who that person was. Because you see the man had been stripped naked, so we don’t know by his clothes who he was. In our culture we can look at a person and tell what tribe they are from or what station they have in life, or who they are by their clothing, there are certain things that people wear. So we don’t know if he is Jew or Gentile or Samaritan or who he is and since he is unconscious he can not answer. And so therefore, I can’t go up to him and say, ‘Sir, Sir who are you?’ Are you friend or foe, what is your background, who are you, where do you come from? Since he was stripped naked and unconscious the priest could not talk to him, could not identify him as either a friend of a living person, or as a gentile or a Samaritan. So it would have been wrong for the priest to go any closer than six feet to that person lying there. Makes perfect since doesn’t it?

It would not only have been wrong for the priest it would have been wrong for the Levite. The Levite came along after the priest, and most likely, possibly at least saw the priest bypass him. The Levite was not so strictly bound to the defilement laws so he could have gone over and at least taken a look within the six foot rule. But he didn’t, do you know why? Or he may have, it says he came and looked so he may have gotten closer but he didn’t touch him. He would have been defiled also. Back to the priest, one of the issues of defilement would have been this. When he went back to the temple, he would have had to stand at one of the gates for all the people who stood were unclean. And everyone in the whole place would have known that he had allowed himself to be defiled and would have shamed to himself and to his family to be defiled in that way. So therefore, it was not only wrong for him to not touch this person on the road, it was right for him to ignore him. Otherwise, he would have been defiled. So the law would have said it was right for him. And culture is culture, and would have supported him in not helping that person.

Now the Levite comes along and he says the priest didn’t help him, so I shouldn’t help him either because it would be a great affront to the priest for me to come along and help when the priest decided not to. Who am I to judge the actions of a priest? So therefore, the Levite would have been right in his actions. And in fact it was wrong to give any help to somebody that I considered not my neighbor. In fact, let me read from the passage here, ‘If you do a good turn know for whom you are doing it and your good deeds will not go to waste. Do good to a devout man and you receive a reward, if not from him then certainly from the most high. Give to a devout man, do not go to the help of a sinner. Do good to a humble man, give nothing to a godless one. Refuse him bread, do not give him any it might make him stronger than you are. Then you would be repaid evil twice over for all the good you have done. For the most high himself detests sinners and will repay the wicked with a vengeance. Give to the good man and do not go to the help of a sinner. This help offered to sinners may be labor against God himself who detests sinners. Furthermore, sinners hands should not be strengthened. Willie Benserock, the writer, cautions against helping any stranger. The priest may have been influenced by many such ideas current in his time, more likely he was a prisoner of his own legal theological system. He would have said this, Once we do not know if a man’s sees a fellow drowning, mauled by a beast, or attached by robbers is he bound to save him? From this verse thou shalt not stand by the blood of thy neighbor.’ He is saying you should protect your neighbor by not helping the enemy. So I don’t know if this is a friend or an enemy so therefore I can not help him because it will put my family in danger. The Levite would have said, No, I can’t do this because it would be an affront to the priest. Because I would be deciding what the priest had done was wrong. So therefore, who am I to judge the decisions of a priest. And I would have put my family in danger if I had helped this person because suppose he was an enemy and became stronger and attacked my family. It is right for the Levite to not help this person.

Not only that it is wrong for the Samaritan to help him, according to the traditions and laws. Because a Samaritan does a number of things. For one thing just for himself he puts himself in danger. Puts himself in danger because he now is in danger of being called the robber. He puts this man also in a bad place. Suppose this person were a Jew, which is most likely. The Samaritan helping him on his own beast and walking ahead leading the beast would have put the Jew in a bad light. That would have said this Jewish man has a Samaritan friend, or a Samaritan servant. This would have looked badly upon the Jew. In fact to receive wine and oil from the Samaritan would have put the Jewish man under obligation. Because you see it would have been a gift from the Samaritan to the Jewish man, so it is wrong for this man to receive help from the Samaritan. And it was wrong for the Samaritan to offer help because it put the Jewish man in a bad light, in a dangerous situation. Because now he is connected to a Samaritan, and by the way there is an interesting situation that we in our culture have that speaking as a lawyer now days for Jesus time, is called blood revenge. Blood revenge means that if you hurt me I have somebody in my family who will hurt you. Called blood revenge, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The custom became called blood revenge. It meant if I can’t hurt you because you are out of reach for some reason, I will hurt your wife or your son, or your husband or whoever else it is that is connected to you. If I can’t find somebody that is blood related I will hurt somebody that is connected with you in some way. 

So therefore the Samaritan walking this man into the Inn on his donkey would have put himself and this man in danger because this man, the Samaritan himself, would have been construed as the one who had done the harm to this man. Just like back in the cowboy days, if an Indian came with a soldier draped over his horse with his scalp missing but still alive and brought him into town to get help they would have assumed that the Indian had scalped him. Well, and he would have been in trouble, the same with the Samaritan. He brought this Jewish man injured into town so therefore he was the one who caused the injury. In fact that is how the mind set is over there often. Is if you are a part of the situation you must have been part of the cause also. It would have endangered the Samaritan himself. 

Now bringing him into the Inn and leaving him there was a dangerous thing also because this man had no income. It had all been stolen. So therefore he had placed this man in great danger by putting him in an Inn. Inn’s were notorious in those days for being bad places. If you did not pay they would sell you as a slave to get your rent money. And in fact there were such evil places they were almost as bad as on the road where the robbers were. And so for the Samaritan to give the money was still not any better to the Jewish mind because it was endangering the person still further cause the Innkeeper would keep all the money and still sell the person as a slave. 

And so legally the priest was right in bypassing him, the Levite was right in bypassing him, and the Samaritan was wrong in helping him, legally speaking. So it is a proper question? Who is my neighbor? Now what did Jesus say about the parable? Look at the end. He says, ‘Which of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber’s hands?’ You notice the turn of the question? What was the lawyers question? Who is my neighbor? That means my actions being determined by the value of the person, right? Are they my friend, are they my neighbor, are they my enemy, are they going to defile me and am I going to be hurt by touching them? So the value of that person to me becomes the judge as to how I treat them. Are they friend, are they enemy, are they neighbors? So therefore I have to define who neighbor is. In fact some of the traditions of the elders actually said, ‘If it is a Samaritan or an unbeliever and infidel not only do you not help them out of the ditch you push them into the ditch. And so I determine my actions by the value of the person. So I have to determine if I consider them my neighbor.

What was Jesus’ question? Verse 36, ‘Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor?’ The lawyer said, ‘I want to determine who they are so it is worth my energy and expense to care for them.’ Jesus said, ‘No, no, no it is not based upon them, it is based upon you.’ Are you a neighbor? Are you the neighbor who would have helped that person no matter what. See Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, give to those who harmed you. In fact in Romans 12 back in Proverbs this is probably the Old Testament too that this guy should have mentioned but he didn’t, he should have known this. He says, ‘If your enemy is hungry do what? Feed him, if he is thirsty give him drink for in so doing you heap burning coals upon his head. Which means you give him enough and more fire to restart his fire. Ok, if his fire has gone out, cause they would carry the coals in a pan on their head. So it doesn’t mean you give them a hot head, it means you give them more than enough coals to restart their fire. Ok. So it they are in need of any sort even if they are your enemy, you give to them. That was Old Testament law also. Old Testament instruction it means. So this lawyer should have known that. He should have known that the law says, ‘It is not a neighbor by who they are, you are a neighbor by who you are.’ So the questions is then, are you a neighbor? Am I a neighbor? Or do we give of ourselves based upon the persons value to us, or how others are going to treat us? Or how people are going to look at us because of our actions on behalf of that person. Do we determine who they are, are they a friend of mine or are they a true neighbor of mine, are they related to me, or if they are not there not worth my energy.

There is a story that goes around, I don’t know if it is true or not, but kind of like some urban legends. Abraham Lincoln was walking through one of the southern towns early in his presidency and a young black lady walked by, he tipped his hat to her, and the fellow walking with him said, ‘Sir don’t you understand she is a slave, you don’t have to tip your hat to her.’ He said, ‘Sir, don’t you understand I am a gentleman. I tip my hat to ladies.’ His tipping of the hat didn’t make any difference who the lady was because he was a gentleman. Our neighborliness is not based upon the name of the other person, it is based upon the love we have for each other. Based upon the love we have from God to others. The Bible says in 1 John, ‘We love because God first loved us.’ In 1 John and also James says, ‘You can’t say I love God and hate your neighbor.’ It just can’t be done. Says they are totally inconsistent. That is why the greatest commend Jesus says, in fact the man quotes, ‘Is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you were the man on the road, stripped naked and all your money gone and beaten unconscious, left for dead, would you care who helped you? Believe it or not according to the traditions, this man if he woke up during the time the Samaritan was helping him culturally should have said, ‘Go away from me and quit touching me. I can not be defiled by you.’ I will tell you what if I am beaten and left for dead, I am not going to ask what nationality he is, are you? If you are on the side of the road and somebody pushes you out are you going to say wait a minute here, are you from my neighborhood? Did you vote Republican or Democrat? Did you vote Libertarian or who are you? I can’t have you help me, push me out of the ditch. No, we want to be helped, we help. So the questions is not who do you help, the question is are you a helper? Not who do I love but are you a lover? That is why Jesus said the second greatest commandment is that you love your neighbor as yourself. We naturally care for ourselves, we naturally care for our bodies, we give ourselves food and drink and we cloth ourselves. So he says that is how you treat others and you don’t determine your actions by who they are. Your actions are determined by who you are and the love that God has shed abroad in our hearts. 

Now back up to the first commandment. Says you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. How much of you is that? If I were to say that I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength that means every particle of my being doesn’t it. So the question is this. The man says, ‘Can I inherit eternal life by doing things? What must a man do, what can I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said, ‘All you have to do is love God with your whole being and love other people that way too. And if you do that you are in. If you just do those things. What does doing those things entail? Well, if we love God. In 1 John says, ‘If we love God we love the Son whom He has sent.’ If we love God we believe the Son whom he has sent. 1John 5:11-12 says this, ‘And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.’ So if I am going to love God with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength the first thing I do is accept Jesus Christ, his Son, as my Savior. That is the first step of my loving God. Jesus came up out of the water at baptism and God said, ‘This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ Another place says, ‘This is my Beloved Son hear Him.’ Means listen to Him. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and life.’ So to love God the first thing we do is trust his Son. Beyond that we love neighbors as ourselves and we don’t determine neighbors by who they are, we determine neighbors by who we are.

Let’s pray

Father we thank you that you have given us your Son, Jesus Christ, that we might have true life. This man said Jesus what must I do the inherit eternal life and he was hoping Jesus would say well you are doing fine. Just study the law and live according to the way you think you should, according to the law as you understand it. And it will be fine. But that is not what he said. This man had determined that most people weren’t his neighbors. He had determined that he didn’t have to love people. He had determined by his own standard that most people were outside the realm of his love. And Jesus included everybody because he said, ‘Who is the one who acted as a neighbor?’ And you go and do the same thing. Become the lover, become the neighbor and love God first with all you heart, soul, mind and strength. Father help us to first of all love Jesus Christ as our Savior, love God and his character and love you as our Father. The Bible says your spirit communicates with our spirit that we are children of God and by your spirit we cry out Abba, Father, we are your children because of your love in Jesus Christ. Beyond that Father fill our hearts with love for those around us. Help us not to determine our love by their value to us. By who they are and what they do, by what the say. Help us to be true lovers of people because you have loved us first. We love because you first loved us. Father I pray that if there is one here this morning that does not know you as their Savior that you would speak to their hearts and let them know that this is essential to their eternal life that they trust Jesus Christ for Salvation. Not in themselves, not like this lawyer did who said, ‘I can do it on my own, I’ll follow God as I wish and I’ll love those I like to love.’ Father help us to know that these loves are not conditioned to the person. That your love for us was not conditioned by our righteousness, but conditioned by your love. You said, ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’ You demonstrated your love toward us while we were still sinners Christ died for us. You didn’t come down here because we were such a valuable people you came down here because of our need for you. Just like the Samaritan was good to the person who had the need, you are the good to us because we had the need of a Savior and we need to share that love with other people in such an unconditional way that they know our love. He said that they will know that we are your disciples by the love we have for each other. Help that to be the determining factor, the identifying factor of our lives. That we love you and that we love each other. We ask it in Jesus precious name. Amen 

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