We who believe in Jesus Christ, have been born again, trust in His offering of Himself on the cross as the atonement for our sins, are now citizens of His heavenly kingdom. It's important we always keep that in mind. We're citizens of His kingdom, but until He calls us back home, we live here in Babylon, in the fallen world. And I don't think any of you need me to tell you it's a world that's marked by sin, pride, greed, hatred, desire for pleasure, for comfort, for power, for influence. Fallen world has always been marked by these things. And it's been marked by the oppression by some of others. And the division of one people against another people. And that was certainly the case in the history of the sons of Jacob. From the time that God created this nation in a barren couple until their fall in 70 A.D., during that period of a little over 2,000 years, the sons of Jacob had many enemies and very few friends. They were enslaved by the Egyptians. They fought wars with the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and others. And for several hundred years prior to Jesus coming into the world, they shared a mutual hatred, and it was a bitter hatred, with people who lived to the north of Judea, Samaritans. These were people who lived in an area formerly occupied by many of the northern ten tribes of Israel. When God brought the sons of Jacob into the land of Canaan, He allotted out twelve portions. One to each of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, excepting Levi, of course. But He allotted a double portion to the sons of Joseph. And the northern ten tribes of Israel, this would be all but Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin had come to be practically absorbed into the tribe of Judah. Those Northern Ten Tribes were an idolatrous people. And the Lord, as we read this morning, came in judgment on them, ultimately in 722 B.C., scattered them all over the face of the earth by the hand of the king of Assyria. So we read in 2 Kings 17 this morning. And after the Lord had scattered the people of those northern ten tribes, the king of Assyria caused people from other nations to come and indwell this land. And he caused the people of the northern ten tribes to intermarry with the people of Babylon and other nations. And He settled them in Samaria, many of them. They were called Samaritans and they hated the people of the tribe of Judah, of the kingdom of Judah. Now over 700 years after the fall of those northern ten tribes of Israel, Jesus came into the created world. And this was the circumstance. He came to gather this harvest of souls that we've been reading about. Souls appointed to Him by His Father in heaven. And He was going to be gathering, and still is, people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue. He came to die for people from every nation. To cleanse us of the stain of our sins. To obtain forgiveness of sins for people from every nation. During his three years, a little more than three years really, of earthly ministry, teaching and working supernatural works, Jesus met though with a lot of opposition. His love for the world was not returned. It was unrequited. And particularly in Israel, in Galilee and in Judea, where he was ministering, the Jewish religious leaders saw him as a threat to them. A threat to their position, a threat to their religion, a threat to their influence, both with Rome and with the people. And many, as we have seen, were openly hostile to him. Tried to kill him in his hometown of Nazareth. And oftentimes, the Pharisees and their scribes or lawyers, scribes and lawyers, same thing, they would attempt to expose Jesus as though he were a false teacher, as though he were a fraud, trying to show him somehow in opposition to the law of Moses. These Jewish religious leaders, as we've seen, were men who believed in their own righteousness. They thought their own good works were enough to obtain for them the blessing of God, and that it meant eternal life in their eyes. And we meet one of those this morning. One of those lawyers, a scribe, in verse 25 of chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel. Now this man displays no open hostility toward Jesus. In fact, he addresses our Lord in rather respectful terms. But his motive was less than virtuous. And when someone is seeking to do harm to another, there's always a measure of deceit in that person. So let's look at our passage, Luke 10, 25. And a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Look at the question. 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? Jesus said to him. And the lawyer answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said to him, You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. But wishing to justify himself, the lawyer said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Well Jesus replied and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he 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 who was on a journey came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. And he came to him, and he 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. Now Jesus asks the lawyer, Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And the lawyer said, The one who showed mercy to him. And then Jesus said to him, Go and do the same. Lord, You teach us so much here in this passage. I pray, Lord, that by Your Spirit we would glean from this precisely what You want us to hear. That, Lord, You would transform our hearts anew by this, Your Word. Lord, we pray this Word comes to us in Your power. In Christ's name, amen. The Jewish religious leaders saw his message It was one of God's grace and mercy. He wasn't teaching, obey the law, make sure you get here, make sure you get to the sacrifice. He was teaching a message of God's grace and mercy. And they saw this as a repudiation of the law of Moses. And so they often attempted to challenge him as this lawyer does here. A lawyer stood up and put Jesus to the test. Do we know people who try to put Jesus to the test? Well, the Bible doesn't say this. Does the Bible really say that? Did Jesus say that? Yeah, we do. It's a grave sin. Well, it appears this lawyer had been seated that Jesus was teaching. And he asked this question. He's not seeking information. He wants to see how Jesus is going to respond to test him. And look at the question, what shall I do to inherit eternal life. And what does this tell us? It tells us he was thinking in terms of salvation by his own works. What shall I do? He believed he must do something in order to obtain eternal life. He wanted to hear what Jesus would say was the most important thing for him to do. Wasn't going to accept Jesus' answer, by the way. His intent was to find in Jesus' answer some opposition to the law. And then charge Jesus with being a false teacher. Even blasphemy. The Jewish religious leaders saw Jesus' teaching, you have to remember this, as diminishing the law of Moses. That's how they looked at it. So if Jesus said there was a way of salvation that was superior to the law of Moses, then this lawyer could trap him. and turn the people against him. Look at this man. He's against the law. This is why they stoned Stephen to death. He speaks against our temple and our law. They're trying to do the same thing here with Jesus. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Well, he gets a reply back from Jesus that's far different from what he had expected. Jesus asked him a question. Jesus often answered a question with a question. People don't like that. They like an answer to a question. And Jesus asks him, a lawyer, a man expert in the law, what is written in the law? How does it read to you? And he has to answer. Love God with all my heart, love my neighbor as myself. The mind of Jesus here. How he turned this around on the lawyer. He referred him right back to the very law that he was teaching. What does your law say? This was something he knew very well, this law. He knew what the law of God commanded. One should love God with his whole being and his neighbor as himself. And by the way, when Moses commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he wasn't saying we should really have a great love of ourselves. No, he was saying that we should love our neighbor at least as one in equal rank with ourselves. Don't place yourselves above others. That's what we saw Wednesday night, isn't it? And we'll see again this Wednesday in 1st Corinthians 13. The very essence of all true religion boils down to love. What did Paul say? Our goal is love from a pure heart. Love of God, love of the brethren, love of our neighbor, and even love of our enemies. This is what Jesus was preaching. He's still preaching it to us. We may not have warm feelings toward every other person in this world. But every believer in Christ has been transformed by His Spirit. We were incapable of loving others before the Spirit of God indwelled us. Now He's enabled us to do what He says, to be the person He calls us to be. And we're called to give of ourselves to others. And again, without regard to whether we see them as deserving of our love or our sacrifice, and without regard to any benefit to ourselves. Love doesn't weigh the worthiness of the object. Now the problem that we're presented with here and that this man, this lawyer was presented with, is that none of us is capable of earning eternal life by our compliance with this command of our Lord. But for believers, Scripture says that this kind of love of others must be the fruit of the indwelling of His Spirit in us. It must be the fruit of faith. When he talks about the fruits of the Spirit, what's number one? Say it. Love. Do this and you will live, he told him. If you just do this, now there are those who would say, well if He said to do it, it must be possible. No, Paul shows us in the clearest possible terms, it's not possible for anyone. If one obeys the law, he's saying to the lawyer though, in every particular, for every second of your life, you will have eternal life. You'll earn it yourself. If you're looking for a way of salvation by your own works, that's it. Live a perfect life. including the love of others and of God. So Jesus says to him, look, you're correct. You're correct. You've cited the right law. All you have to do now is live up to this law that you've cited. The law that you teach others. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you live like that, you will earn, inherit eternal life. By the way, we inherit that which we don't earn. Inheritance is a gift. Well, at any rate, Jesus' reply must have caught this lawyer off guard. Was Jesus agreeing with him that the law was a way of eternal life? Well, yes and no. In theory, yes. If any man born with a sin nature could perfectly comply with the law his entire life, he'd have eternal life. But the answer is no, as we'll see in a moment. Because in practice, no man is capable of such perfection. I don't know whether it's just because I really miss our time in Romans or not, but these Scriptures set forth precisely what the truth of the gospel is here. I'll start with Galatians 3.1. Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. No one is justified by the law before God. That's evident, Paul says. Galatians 3.11. The righteous man shall live by faith. However, he says, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. If you're going to try and earn your salvation by the law, then you've got to do it perfectly. But you can't. Romans 3.10. There is none righteous. And this is Old Testament teaching that Paul brings into the New Testament. There's none righteous, not even one. Not even one. No one's earning eternal life by their works. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God. all have turned aside, together they have become useless. There is none who does good, not even one." And that being the case, Paul posed this question, Galatians 3, 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be. But he says this, if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on the law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the law, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. The law shows us our need for Christ. It shows us we cannot earn our salvation. Romans 321, but God made a way. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. There's no distinction. All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. That's how one will inherit eternal life, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Those are four or five of the most important passages in all of Scripture, obviously. The answer is clear. If any human being would actually fulfill this law of love to perfection, he would indeed obtain eternal life. And Paul says the law is good. It doesn't make the law bad because it exposes our sin. The law is holy, Romans 7, 12. The law is holy. The commandment is holy and righteous and good. So did that which is good become a cause of death for me? No. May it never be. It was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good. So that through the commandment, sin would become utterly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, that I'm of the flesh. I'm sold into bondage to sin. It sounds so hopeless. And it is hopeless if we're trying to earn it ourselves. But God had a plan. Our brother Phil loves this verse. Romans 8, 1, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You hear that? There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, even though we can't keep the law. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. You're not going to be judged according to those Ten Commandments summarized in the law of love. You're going to be judged according to His righteousness. You're set free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did it. Sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. So that, and look at this, the requirement of the law to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love one another, might be fulfilled in us, who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, who have been born again of His Spirit. And foolish men out there say doctrine doesn't matter. Yes, they do. Doctrine doesn't matter. Here is the one and only doctrine of eternal life. Hold it close to your heart. So what happened to this Samaritan? Well, we're coming to him. But the law teaches how a man may obtain righteousness by his works. Do this and thou shalt live. And yet the law shows no man can do this. No man is justified by his works. But the fault lies not in the law and its doctrine. The fault lies in the wickedness of men. And men must be convinced of their wickedness and their just condemnation by God before they will be moved to seek His mercy. This is why evangelism fails so much today. This has to come first. If only the lawyer would admit his sin and cry out, O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus would grant him eternal life. Well, by these words, do this and thou shalt live, Jesus spoke as though the matter were ended. Really, what more was there to say? And this guy's a lawyer, though. That means he's looking for what? A loophole. Jesus had shown the man if he complied perfectly with the law he declared he'd inherit eternal life. Lawyer knew he hadn't done that. Hadn't treated every person with godly love. So he sought to limit the number of people he was called to love. Kind of loophole in the requirement of the law. wanting to keep his hope of eternal life by his own works alive, wanting to justify himself, Luke says, he asked, well, who is my neighbor? So the lawyer is still seeking a way of life through his own works. Couldn't love his enemies. Perhaps he could love his friends enough to earn eternal life. So he's aware that this test, the way he's read it, doesn't look so good for him, he seeks to be held righteous under the law by a limited definition of the word neighbor. Now he wasn't alone in this. Among the sons of Jacob, there were those who perverted the command of Leviticus 19.18, to love your neighbor. And the way they said it, it came to be this, you shall love your neighbor, the Israelite, and hate your enemy. Anybody remember Jesus talking about this? On the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus refuted this there. Look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 43. You have heard it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. This is what they were saying. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Don't even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Well, clearly this lawyer subscribed to this view. Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, the Jews had some enemies. They hated the Samaritans, and the Samaritans hated them. They hated one another as though they were creatures of different species. So how does Jesus answer this? Who is my neighbor is the question. Well, Jesus might have simply said, well, that word neighbor applies to every man in the whole world. Because that is the answer. But Jesus answered with a parable. He's not just going to tell him, He's going to show him. This is why Jesus is the greatest of teachers, His ability to do this. The traveler in the story is clearly a Jewish man. He doesn't say that, but that has to be the case. And the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is about 17 miles, and it's a steep descent. The descent from Jerusalem to Jericho is about 3,000 feet. And it's rugged, it's rocky, it's wilderness, it's desolate country. And there's a road there. It's the kind of wild country, though, that robbers would feel free to conduct their business there. But this is the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. And Jesus said that this Jewish man, an inhabitant, he lived in Jericho, but he's traveling back from Jerusalem. He was accosted, stripped, robbed, and wounded by these robbers. So there he is laying half dead by the side of the road. A priest comes by. Great news, huh? Some suggest the priest was returning from a temple service in Jerusalem, but we don't know that. But he happens upon this beaten, half-dead man. Now there's historical evidence that many of the priests and Levites lived in Jericho. We don't know that that's the case, but we know this priest is traveling by. He sees this man, and what did he do? He hurried over to the other side of the road and passed him on. offered him no help. And a Levite, a priest's helper, another one who serves in the temple, he came by. He too saw the man half-dead, passed him by, stayed to the other side of the road. The Levite, like the priest, didn't have enough love and compassion in his heart. Who would you expect the third man to be if there was going to be another man? Here we've got two clergymen. This guy wasn't a clergyman. He wasn't even a Jew. He was one of that hated race, the Samaritans. He came upon this same half-dead man. And really, in view of this long-held hatred, I'm going to tell you a little bit about it again in a second. This Samaritan is the last person we might have expected to render aid to this beaten man. But he had something in his heart that the priest and the Levite didn't have. He had compassion. And he acted on that compassion. came up to the man and he did everything he could for him. Bandaged his wounds. He had some oil and wine with him and they would use wine as something of an antiseptic. Oil to soothe the wounds. He poured them on him. He lifted him up onto his own animal, probably a donkey. And he then walks with him to an inn. Now folks, I want to tell you something about the Jews and the Samaritans. Because you must think of people you find most revolting in this whole world to understand the difference here. Because he's helping somebody who is so far removed from his way of thinking and his way of life. In the synagogue, for example, the Samaritans were cursed openly in the synagogue. The Jews prayed they would have no part in the resurrection of life. They prayed for the condemnation of the Samaritans. If a Samaritan wanted to become a proselyte to Judaism, he was refused. They would not accept a Samaritan as a proselyte. To eat their food was deemed the equivalent of eating swine's flesh. And it was thought better The Jews thought it was better to suffer than to accept help from a Samaritan. Look at John 8, 48. When they wanted to make the ultimate criticism of Jesus, the Jews answered and said to him, Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? That was the worst curse word they could come up with. But Jesus' portrayal of this Samaritan man's action is a picture of the perfection of love of a neighbor. That's why he's using this illustration. It's Christ-like compassion that lies behind what he does. And he acted on his compassion. We can walk by somebody and see somebody suffering and feel really bad. Boy, did I feel bad. But I had to get wherever I was going. No, no, he didn't just feel bad. He stopped and acted. And we notice here, the man's too weak to walk. He puts him on his own animal and he walks, the Samaritan man walks along, brings him to this inn. And he could have said, okay, you take care of him now, but he didn't. Stayed a bit. He gave the innkeeper two denarii, which doesn't sound like a lot. We know one denarii was a day's wages for a laborer in those days. But one denarii would buy you maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month of lodging in the inn. We've got a historian here who says a man could secure accommodation in the inns in Italy around 150 B.C. for 132nd of a denarius. So he tells the innkeeper, here's enough for at least a few weeks. And when I come back, if it's more, I'll pay you that. This is what Jesus is trying to show the lawyer as an illustration of love. Not even when he was leaving did he think he'd done enough. So what was the lawyer's question to Jesus? Who is my neighbor? And what did Jesus do the second time here? He asked a question of the lawyer. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor? He turns it around again to the man who fell into the robber's hands. Who proved to be a neighbor to him? Well, the lawyer's answer, what could he say? He doesn't say the Samaritans. No. Wasn't going to use his name. He says the one who showed mercy toward him. Now let's think about this. The lawyer had not regarded the Samaritans as his neighbors. They're not my neighbors, they're my enemy. But now he was compelled by conscience to admit that the Samaritan man had proven himself to be the lawyer's neighbor. Who's my neighbor? Well he just proved he's your neighbor. He couldn't escape the fact that the Samaritan had acted in greater compliance with the law of God than the priest and the Levite. Don't you love the Word of God? A lawyer had affirmed that the law required love of God, love of neighbor. And now Jesus had shown him that every man is his neighbor, and under the law of God and in his sight, every man is deserving of our mercy, of our compassion, and of our love. So this is what a man must do if he is to earn eternal life. You've got to be like that all your life. But Scripture shows us, as we've read, such perfection is impossible for sinful men. So we've got a picture of what it would be to exhibit perfect love. But you'd have to do it for 70, 80, 90 years. But it's impossible. But this doesn't mean that the command of God's law to love Him and one another is abrogated. It's not. The solution to our failure to love has been furnished by God Himself. He sent His Son. You see, there was one who exhibited and lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. His only Son. And He did it. And He went to the cross and He credited His people with His own righteousness. He cleansed all of those who believe in Him of our sin, of the stain of our sin. He credited us with His righteousness, a robe of His righteousness. God looks upon us and sees the righteousness of Christ. That's what God did to overcome all this. He's done for us. what we ourselves would never have been able to do. That's a picture of what we ought to do. We know our failing, and we know what God did. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That's why union with Christ is vital to eternal life. So we must confess, as I would hope that lawyer ultimately did, we must confess that it's impossible for us, by our own actions, to fulfill the demands of God's law. And we must, by God's grace and the power of His Spirit, come to Jesus and place our trust in Him And we should know because of Christ's saving work, we have received an inheritance of eternal life as a free gift. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Trust in Him. So what do we do now? All of us gathered, I pray, have received this gift, this inheritance. So now, empowered by the Spirit of God, we must now live a life to the glory of the Triune God, a life of love and obedience to Him and of love of our neighbor, the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of our faith in Jesus Christ. As born-again believers, we must live in accordance with the law of love because He first loved us. Holy Father, I pray that we see what You want us to see in this passage this morning. We're so grateful that you sent Jesus. We're so grateful that because he came into this world and fulfilled the law of love, the law of righteousness, that there's a way, there's an inheritance for those who are called by him and come to him and trust in him. Lord, most of all, even as we give thanks, I pray that you would stir in our hearts a desire to love those we worship with, gather with, but even those, Lord, who are apart from the body of Christ. Lord, we are a wicked people. And we have received a gift beyond our comprehension. And so, Lord, I pray that you would transform us by this word, because we know that in your word is power to transform. And we give you praise and worship and glory in all things in Christ's name.