Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you, worship team. If we would please turn again to Luke chapter 10. And Lord willing, we'll take this Sunday and next Sunday to wrap up this series on a very famous story that Jesus told, the story of the Good Samaritan. And we're looking at it through the lens of legalism because it was in the context of a lawyer who asked Jesus a question that Jesus tells this story And it can be very helpful to us if we think through how Jesus actually responds to the question. And we'll begin talking a little bit more about that in greater detail today. So let me read for us verses 25 through 37 of Luke chapter 10. It says, And a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall 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, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your 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 replied and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan 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. 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 is Which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And he said, the one who showed mercy toward him. Then Jesus said to him, go and do the same. May the Lord bless his word. When I think about the Bible, I think in terms of 1 Corinthians 13, which says the greatest things are faith, hope, and love. And the greatest thing of all is love. And so oftentimes I'll put up on the screen something that summarizes for me what that verse and other verses are talking about. I think of faith in terms of resting in Jesus. And there's all kinds of ways we can talk about faith. But one of the most fundamental questions of life is, how can I be reconciled to God? In other words, We know we're not perfect. We have some guilt in our life. So what are we going to do to deal with the guilt in our life? And the Bible tells us in a number of different ways that we are not to rest in our own goodness, our own good works, what we do, but we're to rest in Jesus and what he's done for us. And that is very important to keep in mind as we think about what we're going to talk about here. When we move on from there and we think about hope, that hope is to be in what? Our hope is to be in God for what? for the help we need and the happiness we long for. That's really what the lawyer is asking about when he says, how can I enjoy eternal life? How can I have the satisfaction my heart longs for? The Bible tells us that we were created for God, by God, for God, and it's only in God that we can be truly, fully, forever happy. And then lastly, love, which Paul says is the greatest of these, is something that we're to pursue. It can be defined in a number of different ways, but when we're talking about the kind of love that God says is evidence that we're really resting in Jesus and hoping in God, we're talking about a love that desires the good for another person and does good for the other person even when they don't deserve it. All three of those things feed into this story and what we're going to talk about here. I believe those three things answer the three basic questions of life. What do I do with my guilt? The Bible says, rest in Jesus and what he's done for you, not what you do. Second question is, what do I do or how can I find the good that will satisfy my soul? The Bible says, hope in God. He is your help and your happiness. The third huge question is, what's my guide for life? And Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I'm the truth that tells you how you can experience God and how you can love people. And so pursuing love is very much about trusting and obeying God's word. But trusting and obeying God's word is a tricky business because when you read the Bible, you hear what the Bible tells you to do. And that's what the lawyer is asking, what must I do? It makes all the difference in the world what you do or what you think about when you read your Bible and it tells you to do something. So I hope I can bring that together for us. We've been talking about all of those kinds of things over the last several weeks. But let me just begin by saying, we're talking about the fact that, as someone has said, all of us naturally are like the lawyer. We're all wired to be legal in our thinking. Lawyers view life through the law. And they ask the question, what is the law? Did you follow the law? Then you get the benefits of following the law. Did you break the law? Then you get the consequences of breaking the law. We're all lawyers in our thinking naturally with regard to our relationship with God and our relationship with each other, which means we operate on the basis of law, not grace. On the basis of what people deserve, not what they don't deserve. incredibly important for us to think about. As a result of this idea, we think that in order to be accepted by God or blessed by God, we have to earn it. We have to keep the rules. We have to keep the law. If I break it, if I break the rules, I break the law, then I don't get the blessing or I don't get the acceptance. We think that relationship is based on law and it translates into how we treat each other as well. You know what the rules are in our relationship. Follow the relationship. then we'll be good. Break the rules and we're not gonna be good. Things are gonna separate between us. He asked the question, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And again, the lawyer's thinking in legal terms. What's the law? What's the rule that I have to keep to get eternal life? And Jesus responds by basically asking him, you tell me how you read your Bible. You tell me how you read what the Bible tells you to do. And ultimately, what we've talked about is how we read our Bibles says something about how we look at God. We either look at God like the parable of the talents, where the one talent person who buried his talent said to the master, I buried my talent because I knew you were a hard man. I didn't do what you told me to do because I knew you were a hard, harsh, demanding man. But it says, he read the commandment, take this talent and do something with it, and I'm going to come back and check up on you as, I don't want to do that for someone who's so selfish and harsh. You can read the Bible and say, God seems harsh and demanding, reluctant to bless me, What do I want to do what He tells me to do? Or if we do do it, we do it reluctantly, we do it joylessly, because we want the blessing, but we don't want the God who seems to be so demanding. We see God as a harsh lawgiver, but we don't see Him as a gracious Father. We've talked about the fact that as a result of all this, if you're trying to live according to rules, to earn God's favor or to earn His acceptance, A lot of times what we resort to is what the Pharisees did or what the lawyers did. They decided they had to modify the law to make it a little more manageable. If the Bible says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, that's a pretty tall order. So what do we do? We do some mental gymnastics and we determine that that's not really what God expects of me. It doesn't really require that I love him perfectly. It doesn't really require that I love other people perfectly. Or I might simply redefine it as the lawyer here did and ask the question, OK, so I have to love my neighbor. Who's my neighbor? Maybe we can define neighbor in such a way and define love in such a way that we're all good. I can live up to that, and everybody's happy. Well, what I'd like to do. is just highlight three things. Basically, that was sort of a summary of what we've tried to touch on over the last several weeks. But I want to bring it down to this one question. The question is, the lawyer says, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? Jesus asks, how does the Bible read to you? The lawyer says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then Jesus says, okay, do that and you'll inherit eternal life. And then the lawyer comes back and says, who is my neighbor? Then we have the story of the Good Samaritan. The question is, why in this context does Jesus tell us the story of the Good Samaritan? It's a very famous story. In fact, this is one of those stories that a lot of people who aren't Christians will look at it and say, This is why I like Jesus, I just don't like the church. This is why I love Jesus, because Jesus tells us wonderful things about how we're supposed to treat each other. Jesus was a wonderful teacher. A lot of people will like Jesus in terms of his teaching. They'll say, that's a great way to look at life. That's what we ought to be doing. There's a couple of different problems with taking that perspective. One is, like C.S. Lewis said, you have to take in into consideration all that Jesus said. Because Jesus also said, I'm gonna die and rise again from the dead. Did he lie about that? If he lied about that, why should you think he was a great teacher? He also said, I and the Father are one. And the only way you're getting to heaven is through me. Was he crazy? Was he a lunatic by saying that? If he was, he wasn't a great teacher. You can't be a liar and a great teacher. You can't be a lunatic and a great teacher. But if he was who he said he was, which is Lord, then yes, he can be a great teacher. But that doesn't settle the issue because the question is, why did this great teacher tell us this story? Did he tell us this story because he wanted us to simply say, wow, that's a great way to live, so I'm going to live my life that way. That's really not why he told the story. At least that's not the main point. It has some application, and you'll see why. But really, the reality is, he told the story that he, in this context, to destroy the lawyer's confidence in his ability to keep the law. He's talking to a lawyer. The lawyer thinks, there's a law I need to keep in order to have eternal life. What is Jesus doing? Is he telling him, follow this law and you'll have it? What he's doing is he's destroying or he's seeking to destroy that lawyer's confidence and his ability to keep the law. Why? So that he'll trust in grace instead. Until you despair of ever thinking that you can keep the rules and satisfy God, you will not trust in grace and grace alone. And so that's the first thing is to say that Jesus told this story to highlight how impossible It is to fulfill the law of God, what God actually requires of us, meaning that we're actually more sinful than we think we are. We think we're just, we're imperfect, but we think we're good enough. And Jesus is highlighting the fact that no, we are worse than we can imagine. If you think about what's going on here in this story, you've got this man who's been beaten up and left to die on the side of the road. They probably thought he was dead. He appeared to be dead, but he wasn't. A priest comes by and he walks off. He doesn't help him. A Levite comes by, looks at him, walks on by. Why did they walk by? Well, people have speculated on why they just walked on by. There's a number of different ideas. Maybe they thought they would become ceremonially defiled if they touched a person that was dead, if he was dead. Maybe they were too busy on their way someplace else. Maybe they thought the robbers were still around, and if they began to help this guy, they'd get beat up, too. Maybe they were just indifferent, hard-hearted, having a bad day, didn't want to show any kindness to anybody else, because nobody was showing them any kindness. We don't know for sure. But I think what we can say is that fundamentally, they came to the decision one way or the other that that person wasn't deserving of help. They made the quick judgment that, yes, this person needs help. But you know what? Everything considered, this person doesn't deserve my help. It's interesting to think about the fact that when the lawyer asked the question, who is my neighbor? what is he really asking? If he's trying to justify himself, if he's trying to find a way to meet the qualifications to get eternal life on his own, what is he really asking when he says, who is my neighbor? He's asking, who deserves my love? That's what he's really asking. Who deserves my love? Why do I say that? I say that because in that day and time, there were different ways the Jews would look at the law, love your neighbor as yourself. Many times they thought of it in terms of love your neighbor and hate your enemy, or love your neighbor the Israelite, or love your neighbor the Pharisee, because you're a Pharisee, or love your neighbor the righteous alone. If you're righteous, just love those who are righteous. So what's going on there? Basically, the idea is love those who you believe deserve to be loved. You're an Israelite, he's an Israelite, then he deserves to be loved. I'm a Pharisee, he's a Pharisee, he deserves to be loved, et cetera. He's not an Israelite, doesn't deserve to be loved. He's not a Pharisee, doesn't deserve to be loved. So the lawyer is actually asking, who deserves my love? Because that's the basis of law. Law tells you when you deserve something, whether it's reward or when you deserve punishment. That's the whole basis for law. It's what do you deserve? And so the question is all about what do people around us deserve? Who deserves my love? And I think that's what Jesus is addressing. He's basically saying you've got what they might have considered the best people in their society, priests, Levites, religious people, and they're walking by this man on the side of the road. Why would they do that? Well, one fundamental reason is they quickly concluded that he was not worth the time and effort to care for. Whereas the Samaritan comes by and does just the opposite. Takes the time, spends the money to care for him. If you turn to Romans 3, Romans 3 highlights the fact that the Bible is designed, first of all, to show us how we can never live up to what God calls us to do. Because the reality is, we all operate that way, naturally. We all will assess a situation and ask ourselves, who deserves to be loved? Does that person that just walked in the door and lied the way they spoke to me deserve to be loved? Or do they deserve to be pre-buked or ignored? In light of my history with this person, do they deserve to be loved? or to simply be ignored or attacked. What's the law? Has it been followed? Has it been broken? What is deserved? And so when we think about the fact that we naturally apply the law and that we're assessing reward or punishment based on what people deserve, we have to ask ourselves, does anyone live according to the story of the Good Samaritan. Does anyone assess someone and say, you know what, they don't deserve my time or my money or my concern, and give it to them anyway? The Bible says none of us live that way naturally. None of us love like that. And that's really what the law is about. It's about a love that calls us, as I said earlier, to desire the good and do the good to even those who don't deserve it. That's what the law is really about. So, in Romans 3, verse 9, it says, What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asp is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. In the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now you read that and you think, that's gotta be talking about the worst people on the planet. That can't be talking about everybody. But he is talking about every single one of us, naturally apart from any work of grace in our hearts. When it says, no one does good, he's not saying that no one treats others good who treat them good. He's saying no one does good to those who do not do them good. No one loves like God calls us to love, which says, I desire the good of those who don't desire my good, and I pursue the good and do good to those who don't do me good. And we naturally, whether Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, male or female, whatever it may be, none of us naturally lives that way. Later on in the book of Romans, chapter 13, Paul talks about the law, and he says, In Romans 13 verse 8, no, nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Who deserves our love? Paul could say there, Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another. Which means every single person deserves our love. On what basis do they deserve our love? If you look at James chapter 3, James highlights the basis for love. the obligation to love, which is what Paul is talking about. He's highlighting the fact that the law requires us to love people. We have to ask ourselves, why is that required? In James 3, verse 9, it says, he's talking about the tongue and how we misuse our tongues in our talking. It says, with it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way." So he says we can use our tongue sometimes to bless people, sometimes to curse people. And he says that shouldn't be this way because some people deserve better talking to. Is that what he says? No, he doesn't say that. He doesn't say we should talk differently to people because some people deserve it and some people don't. He says no, we shouldn't have mixed talking, there should be some blessing and some cursing, some kind words and some mean words, because every person is made in the image of God. What does that mean? That means how I treat people is how I treat God. That's what that means. It means I am called to love people not because they deserve it, I'm called to love people because God deserves it. That's the point. Jesus highlighting the fact to the lawyer that nobody lives that way naturally. We assess whether or not we think somebody deserves our love. And if we think they do, then we're nice to them and we give to them or whatever. But if we don't, we don't do that. And so he's wanting to expose the fact that no matter how good you are, you might be morally at the top of the list and you might be good in everybody else's eyes, But even those in that category do not live the way that is described in the story of the Good Samaritan. Nobody does what the Good Samaritan did. Why? The Good Samaritan did good to an enemy. The Good Samaritan was an enemy to the Jew, and the Jews were enemy to the Samaritans. So what did he do? He loved someone that he did not believe deserved it. That's Jesus' point is that there's no way we're going to ever despair of being right with God on our own until we realize that every day I make choices where I put people in the category of deserving and undeserving. And I'm kind to those who deserve it, and I'm unkind and mean or ignoring those who don't deserve it. Until I see my sin, I will never see my need for a Savior. And so the first thing Jesus is doing in this story, with the story of the Good Samaritan, is what an evangelist named Fred Brown talks about when he says, the law in its first purpose is like a dentist's mirror. Carolyn obviously had some work done, and we've all had work done at the dentist. And they'll stick this little mirror into your mouth. And they'll use that mirror to find out what's going on with your teeth and what needs to be done. But they don't use that instrument, the mirror, to drill or to pull the tooth or to do the work that needs to be done. It just exposes the need. That's what the law of God does. That's its first purpose, is to expose our need for a savior. He also talks about a flashlight. Let's say your lights go out in the middle of the night. You pull out a flashlight, You go to the electrical box, you find the fuse that's bad. You don't take out the bad fuse and try to shove the flashlight into its place to try to make the electricity come back on. You get another fuse, a good fuse, to replace it. The flashlight simply exposes the need for a new fuse. Or he talks about a plumb line. If you're building something, you might use a plumb line to see what is straight and what's not. But you don't use the plumb line to nail nails or to straighten up the structure, you get a hammer and whatever else you need to do that. And so what Jesus is doing in this story is he's kind of pulling out the mirror, and he's pulling out the plumb line, and he's pulling out the flashlight, and he's saying to the lawyer, the first thing you need to do, if you really want eternal life, the first thing you need to do is realize that you have no hope on your own of fulfilling what the law is really about. You read the law, but you read it in such a way that you think you can actually do it. You think you can actually keep it sufficiently so that God will accept you. And Jesus says you'll never have eternal life on that basis. If you're relating to God on the basis of law, then you'll never actually experience that eternal life. But that's not the only purpose that Jesus tells this story. Because there is the important application for us as Christians. We are to take that story and apply it to our lives. But we're only to do it once we have looked away from ourselves and looked to Christ alone. He lived a life we could never live. He loved his enemies perfectly. He died the death that we deserve to die. He took the punishment we deserve for not loving our enemies. He rose from the dead and he freely offers us forgiveness of our sins and the gift of eternal life. If we will just trust what he did, if we'll just receive him for who he is, we freely receive the gift of eternal life based on nothing that we do. And on that basis, then we can come to the story of the good Samaritan and ask, okay, now, Now that I've been reconciled to God, now that I've been given the Holy Spirit, how does this apply to me? So what I'm saying is, the first thing Jesus does is, he says, this story's meant to show you that it's impossible for you to be reconciled to God on your own. But the second point of the story is to say, this is a picture of the kind of life that is possible, the kind of life that is possible If you are reconciled to God, and if God is living in your life, you can actually be the kind of person who loves those who don't deserve to be loved. You can actually be different from a world that's filled with just attacking one another when we don't live up to each other's rules, when we break each other's rules. If you look at Luke 6, verses 27 through 36, you can see how Jesus describes this very reality when he's talking to his disciples and he's talking about what it means to live as his disciple. And this is obviously on the basis of already understanding that we're saved by grace, not by keeping rules, not by keeping the law, by trusting in Jesus and what he did for me. And then after I've done that, then I begin to think about, okay, how should this apply to my relationship with my wife? How should this apply to my relationship with my kids, or the people I work with, how does this apply? And we see in terms of the fact that the story's about a Samaritan and a Jew, and a Samaritan loving a Jew, and they were enemies. We can see how Jesus would say this should apply in Luke 6. It says in verse 27, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. And whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. which means you will show yourselves to be sons of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful." As I said before, we tend to think that we have to earn our acceptance with God. We tend to think that we have to earn God's blessing. We tend to treat people in the same way, that if you want my acceptance, you have to earn it. If you want my favor or my blessing or my kindness. You have to earn it. And Jesus says don't operate on the basis of law. Get right with God on the basis of grace. Receive his offer of grace by faith and trust what Jesus did for you and then translate that basis of grace into your relationship so that you love those who are even your enemies. Now we might think that simply means those who are our physical enemies. The reality is, anyone's an enemy who I don't think deserves my love at any moment in time. You just offended me. You don't deserve my loving response. You're my enemy. It's all it takes. All it takes is someone to sin against you for you to treat them like an enemy or consider them an enemy. If they're not doing what you want them to do or what I want them to do, they become functional enemies, even though we might say, but we're friends. That's true, you're friends, but you're acting like your enemies, because you're not loving your enemy, which is the natural thing to do. It's the eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. You hit me in the eye, I hit you in the eye, or I might just kill you. It might be easier just to do that. That's the law. And Jesus is saying, that's not what it means to be a Christian, because even unbelievers can love those who love them, Even unbelievers can be kind to those who are kind to them. Unbelievers can forgive those who forgive them. Even unbelievers can do that. You're to be like me. You're to be like me. And I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna enable you to be like me. You can't do that on your own either, but I will enable you to live this way, to love your enemies. But what does it take to do that? There's a lot that can be said in answer to that simple question, but the most fundamental thing we could say is it actually takes a radical change in your perspective on God, not your perspective on the other person. Because what Paul does with this whole issue of the law in Romans 7 is that he says that when we become a Christian, Our relationship to the law changes. We no longer have to be concerned about meeting up to the requirements of the law to be accepted by God. The law, in a sense, has died in that respect. If you look at Romans 7, verses 1 through 4, he says this, Or do you not know, brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." Now compare that to what he says in the first four verses of chapter 8. He says, "...therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death." For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Let me try to real quickly just sum up for you what he's saying there. He's saying before we were Christians, we were obligated to keep the law. But by grace, God has saved us and freed us from the obligation of having to keep the law. Why? Because Jesus kept it for us. And Jesus was punished for our failure to keep it. And God accepts us freely, gladly, simply on the basis of what Christ has done for us, so that we're not under the law anymore. And yet he says, even though there's no condemnation for us according to the law, we still are to live our lives in light of what God says is right and wrong. Why? Because He's given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to do that. But what is the basis for it? Is it because I'm afraid that He's going to punish me if I don't do it? No. Is it because I'm trying to earn something from God, acceptance or blessing? No. We're to do it because we love Him. We love the God who has received us graciously, who has forgiven us graciously, who's promised us eternal life graciously, what we don't deserve, through his son who took what we do deserve. And so out of love, we gladly embrace what God tells us is what we should be doing with our lives. Paul uses the picture of a woman who's married to a man that's very demanding. He says, this is what you have to do. Someone has said it'd be like This woman was married to a man who said, okay, honey, I know you don't love me, and I don't love you, but this is what you need to do. And so you need to get up at this time of day, and these are the things you need to do during the day, and this is what you need to fix me when I get home from work, and you just need to make sure you do all these things. I don't love you, and you don't love me, but this is the rule. And there's gonna be consequences if you don't follow the rule. That woman, would do what she had to do reluctantly at best, joyously certainly, and she would get out of it any time she could. That's the reality of the way we are before we understand grace, and before we're reconciled to God by grace. We think that's the way God is. And in a sense, that is certainly the way the law is. The law says this is the rule, you break it, this is what happens. And Paul says, because of Jesus, And through faith in Jesus, we're free from that kind of demand on our lives. And it's like that law-oriented husband has died and the wife remarries. And she marries someone who loves her, someone who wants the best for her, someone who is going to do whatever it takes to make her happy. And she goes through her day and She's in this relationship, she loves this husband, this husband loves her, and eventually she comes across this list that her former husband made for her. And she says, you know what? Those aren't bad things. Serving in this way and serving in that way and serving in this way, that's good things. I want to do that for this man. I want to love that husband this way. It's not an issue of I have to, It's not an issue of I'm gonna get punished if I don't. It's not an issue of I have to earn this husband's favor. No, I love this husband and this husband loves me. I want to do what would bless this husband. I want to do what would please this husband. See, Jesus is working on the lawyer's heart and saying, that's what the law is about. God didn't give the law so that we could earn our way to heaven or earn his blessing. He gave us the law to show us what faith looks like and what love looks like. If I'm trusting God for all that I need and all that I desire, and I believe He loves me, then God says, this is how you can please me, and this is how you can enjoy all that I've promised you. Grace precedes trying to obey. I rejoice in God's gracious love for me, and then I want to obey. I want to please Him because it glorifies Him, it pleases Him, and it pleases me. That wife would say, it pleases me to please my husband who loves me so much. God is after our love. He's working in us that we might love Him, not just that we would be trying to keep the law. I'm going to have to wrap this up and complete this next time. The last point is very closely related to what I just said. The story of the Good Samaritan highlights the glory and grace of God. The Samaritan represents God in Christ finding people dead and unresponsive and doing what needed to bring them back to life, so to speak. It's a picture of Christ. It's a picture of our salvation. It's a picture of graciousness. We're the people who've been beaten and left dead on the side of the road by our sin. The wages of sin is death. Jesus comes, says, that's my enemy. He doesn't deserve anything from me. I think I'll love him. I think I'll love him. That's the God we see. Father, we thank you that that is truly the way you are. That is truly the way you are. And you are worthy of our worship. You're worthy of our love. Help us to see that. Help us to see what is really true. Help us to read our Bibles and not just see rules. Help us read our Bibles and see your love, to see your grace, to see how ready you are to forgive, to see what you've provided for us in your Son, the promise of grace, the promise of eternal life, the promise of forgiveness. And help us to believe you and to believe in your Son. And may our lives be concerned with doing what pleases you, not to earn your acceptance or earn your blessing, but to enjoy you and to experience you and to evidence our faith and to give evidence of our love for you. Because the only reason we love you is because you have first loved us. And so we pray, Father, that you would radically change how we operate and that we would see that the only way we're going to be gracious to one another is if we believe that you've been gracious to us. Please help us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.