Well, turn with me, if you would, in your copies of God's word to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10, we'll be looking this morning at verses 25 through 37 of this great chapter, Luke chapter 10. As we come to this point in Luke's gospel, Jesus has set himself to go to Jerusalem. That is, he is on his way to the cross. Now, he'll take some time getting there. Luke doesn't end his gospel in chapter 10 or chapter 11. And yet we've already learned that the path that that would mean for Jesus to go to Jerusalem would normally pass through Samaria. But chapter 9, there he encountered opposition. You'll remember that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans and it appears to go the opposite way as well. And that means he's probably at this point, or will be taking the eastern path, and that'll put him across the Jordan, along with many other peoples that are not traditionally thought of as Jewish people. These are foreign peoples, foreign towns that Jesus is going to have to pass through. And as he goes, Jesus continues to interact with people. And here we find a very well-known interaction that's in the passage before us. Again, we're in Luke chapter 10, and our focus this morning is verses 25 through 37. This is the word of God. Let's hear him. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, 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 your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him. and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will pay you when I come back. Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. So ends the reading of God's word. Let's pray for his spirit. Lord God, you are the God who has spoken. You are the God who raises the dead. Lord, we thank you for this, your word. We pray that you would send your spirit, the same spirit by which these words were inspired, that same spirit which you sent and anointed your son with, that he ministered in the power of during his earthly ministry, and by, in that same spirit, you raised him from the dead. Lord, send that spirit, Lord, that we might have life, that we might have ears to hear, and that our eyes would be on you, Lord Jesus. and that seeing you, we would be transformed. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, the passage before us is well-known. It's so well-known that it affects the modern English speakers, even those who do not know anything about the Bible, or at least they'd say they don't. That is, if you were to describe someone as a Samaritan, most people would assume that you're describing someone who's acting with compassion toward those in need, even towards strangers. For example, you can find headlines in the news saying, a good Samaritan pulls a woman from a burning car, or good Samaritan helps police stop thieves. There are even Christian ministries that take this into their names, Samaritan's Purse or Samaritan Ministries. What's funny about these examples is that the meaning of Samaritan in all of those examples, the meaning of Samaritan for many people today is just about exactly opposite how Jesus' audience would have heard the term as he used it in this passage. Which means we're going to need to do some work this morning to understand the point which Jesus was making. And the point is shocking to them, and I trust should be shocking even to us. And that is that Jesus is the merciful neighbor. And therefore, we need to love mercy. Jesus is the merciful neighbor. Let us love mercy. As this passage opens, we find Jesus on trial. There's some tension in this passage that it's easy for us to just read right past, small detail, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test. That is what we find in this situation is hostile questioning. And by the way, it's not just something that happened in ancient times. Our age, even today, is full of this sort of thing. Just imagine press conference rooms or lines of questioning from the Senate or House inquiry. Video clips of these things go viral because they're full of what? Antagonism. The questioners are not trying to get information so much as to entrap the politician in a lie or to expose their incompetence. Trying to find a soundbite that will ruin their political career and maybe help the speaker's own career. And yet such tense questioning is nothing new. Tensions, I'll remind you, have been brewing in Luke's gospel. And it started not with Jesus, but with John the Baptist. The tax collectors and sinners went out to receive a baptism of repentance. But who didn't? Who didn't receive John's ministry? Well, it was, we told, chapter 7, verse 30, the Pharisees and the lawyers. rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John. So these fault lines that began with John are widening now that Jesus is on the scene. In fact, next chapter, Jesus will twice be pronouncing judgment. Woe to you, lawyers. Now you might ask, why would lawyers, including this lawyer who's asking this question of Jesus, who's testing him, why would they see Jesus as suspicious? Well, we see that in several ways in this gospel so far. Jesus doesn't just quote rabbis. He preaches, you have heard it said, but I say to you. Jesus preaches with an authority that is coming from himself. He is God's son. And his followers aren't the educated ones, but rather uneducated fishermen and zealots and tax collectors. His followers include prostitutes. And Jesus has instead butted heads with those authorities in the ancient day. He's butted heads with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the scribes. These are all groups which the lawyers would have aligned themselves with. All the religious authorities seem to have butted heads with Jesus. So if you, like perhaps the lawyers would have seen, if you see the world as groups of people that can either help you or a threat to you, you would see Jesus as a threat. Here's someone who's subverting the status quo, who's undermining these groups that I rely on for my livelihood, as the lawyers did. So lawyers, the point I'm making, lawyers would have looked at Jesus the same way a Jew would have looked at Samaritans. They would have looked at Jesus as an enemy. And so the lawyer is putting Jesus to the test. He's trying to disprove and discredit Jesus Christ. Remember, though, how well it worked out when Israel would put their God to the test. That's what's going on here. He's putting God in the flesh to the test. How wrong this is. And yet, you know, this is also the way that many people today view Jesus. They view him as suspicious, even as an enemy. People discount Jesus often because of the worldviews they hold. They view Jesus' followers as backward, that we were knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, that we are maligned as if we were against women's rights. When we insist that children are made in God's image, precious, family life is a good thing. We're maligned as erasing trans people because we believe, as Jesus said, from the beginning, God made them male and female. Many people are not coming to ask, but to trap. They would view Jesus, they would view us as his followers, as enemies. And yet look how Jesus responded to the trap this lawyer set. The question is, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus takes this as a good question. It is a good question. It's essentially the same question that's asked by the rich young ruler in another passage. Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? In both instances, the question assumes something, though. It assumes that we can do something to deserve heaven. By the way, this is a question I think we should expect from a lawyer. This is a man who has given his life to studying the law of God and teaching it to others. He's made this law his identity. And that would be, in contrast, in the face of the Hellenized culture, that is, the Greek influence that's coming into the world around him, He didn't want to compromise like the Sadducees did, and he didn't want to rebel like the Zealots did, and he didn't want to run away like the Essenes did and form their own private community. Instead, the lawyers would have been those who doubled down on the law. He's going to make his life about knowing and keeping the law. He's going to be obedient, and that's going to be what his life is for. And so it's no surprise that he would ask this question, what must I do to have eternal life? In fact, we read verse 29, he's trying to justify himself. And yet consider that. This man is coming to Jesus, trying to justify himself, even as he's trying to trap Jesus. This man who, this lawyer, who's like any one of us, a sinner, descending from Adam, we have a sinful nature, trying to trap Jesus, who never once sinned, never did unrighteousness before God, his Father. He's trying to uphold his own righteousness and make it out that Jesus is unrighteous. How twisted a situation we find here. And yet notice our Lord Jesus. Observe his wisdom here. This lawyer thinks his obedience to the law is his strength, but Jesus will actually use that perceived strength to expose his greatest weakness. But we find in this passage, it's like spiritual jujitsu. And Jesus is the master. Jesus answers his question with a question. Actually two questions. Jesus always asked good questions. And let's notice that Jesus turned first to the word of God. He says, what is written in the law? How do you read it? Now, it's a very good question to ask a lawyer, right? What is written in the law? How do you read it? And what we get is the answer that's the sum of the law, or the summary of the law. We find that this lawyer gave the correct answer. I say so first because when Jesus, there's several reasons why we know this is the correct answer, and one is that when Jesus is asked the same thing, what's the greatest commandment, he answered with the same two parts in Matthew 22. A second reason is because this lawyer, what is he really doing? He's just quoting the law itself. He actually did know his Old Testament. The first part he's actually quoting from Deuteronomy. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. The second part is a quote from Leviticus. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Implicit here in Jesus affirming that this is the right answer is that the best interpreter of scripture is scripture. If you want to know what God says in his word, you look in his word. He clarifies himself. He makes clear what he's saying. If you want to know what is written in the law, you've got to go to the law. And a third reason why this is the correct answer is that Jesus says as much. Jesus is the eternal word of God. The second person of the Trinity, he is the Messiah who will teach us all things. And he says, verse 28, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Notice how Jesus said that. He's saying this man, this lawyer, spoke the right answer. Now here's a reminder that even people who oppose Jesus can get some interpretive questions right about the Bible. I say this in contrast to some traditions of Christianity, maybe even the Roman Catholic Church. Their teaching is you'd have to be part of the magisterium to really know what the Bible says, and they alone can authoritatively say what it says. This man would be outside of Jesus' followers, and yet he can give the right answer. And yet there's a catch in what Jesus says. Again, notice the last part. Jesus commands him that he must do it, do this, and you will live. You see, Jesus, while affirming that he's intellectually right, he's saying it's more than an intellectual answer that needs to be given. As I said, this is Jesus using the force of the lawyer's attack against him. The Lawyer had said, remember from the beginning, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus is answering his question. If you want to gain eternal life by doing something, then all you have to do is obey these two laws. Of course, as Jesus understood, himself understood these two laws, they were the greatest commandment and the second which is like unto it. These two are the summary of all the law of God. Paul said, Galatians 5.14, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And so if you want to do something to get into heaven, you must perfectly fulfill the whole law of God. And yes, I know I added that word perfectly, but I think it's implied here. So imagine Jesus saying this to you. That's all you have to do. Love God perfectly. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. And if you have any conscience, your conscience should be crying out, well, hold on a second. I haven't loved God perfectly. What about that time I lied? What about that time I stole or I lusted or I was full of envy? What about that time I was full of anger against my neighbor? And that's why this lawyer can't just let Jesus' answer stand. He immediately is on the lookout. He's on the search for a loophole. He's trying to justify himself. And in fact, he feels he has to because he's come with this presupposition that getting into heaven, being right with God, inheriting eternal life, it has to do with what he does, his performance. And so he's got to find some way to get out of Jesus saying, you've got to keep the law of God if it's going to be you that does it. And so this is why he asks what he does. He asks, who is my neighbor? You know, this was actually a question that we know from other sources that had been debated among Jewish scholars, among the rabbis. And probably, I'll say, probably it was for the same reason. If I must love everyone as myself, then that means that this law is showing my heart is sinful because I don't want to love everyone the same way as I love myself. I want to love myself and you guys can figure it out on your own. And so the natural response of a sinful heart is to try to restrict the law, try to limit who do I really have to love. And so the rabbis debated, who is my neighbor from Leviticus 19? Remember, that's where that part of this summary of the law comes from, Leviticus 19. And so some rabbis would actually point to that same chapter. They'd say, Leviticus 19, verse 16 says, you shall not go around as a slanderer among your people. You shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor." Oh my, your people and your neighbor, they're right next to each other. And so they argued, your neighbor must just mean your own people. That is, if there's somebody who's from some other nation, including the Samaritans, you don't have to really love them. Let's just keep this restricted. Orlivicus, 1917. They look at that and they say, where it says, you shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor. And so they reasoned, well actually we can be even more restrictive. We can say your brother is your neighbor. Maybe this is actually saying a close relative. Surely in Israelite, definitely not anybody from out there. These are all the people that God needs us to love, our family. And so it was a popular teaching that people heard said by the rabbis, you shall love your neighbor, implying these people near to you. And it's okay, you can hate your enemy. They restricted God's law in order to excuse the fact that they didn't want to love anyone out there. They didn't want to love their enemies. And that is exactly what this lawyer is trying to do here. And here's maybe a counterbalance to what we observed earlier. That even people who oppose Jesus can get some things right in interpreting scripture. And yet, we as sinful mankind have a natural tendency towards self-protection. We'll even bend the scripture to ease our own consciences. Rabbis did this. Teachers of the law did this. And we might say, you know, the Sunday school teachers of that day, the pastors of that day did this at times because that's the natural way sinful mankind will treat even the word of God. And yet when they do so, they're showing that they love their own selves more than they care about what God actually said. They're actually showing they aren't loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They are bending the law so that they don't feel bad when they hate other people like the Samaritans, but what are they doing? They're showing that they themselves are breakers of the law. Now here is a grave warning to us. We as Christians, we in this congregation, we are regularly interacting with God's word. I hope you're reading it privately. I hope you're reading it in family devotions. We're regularly talking about God's word. We should be, God wants us to. When you lie down, when you rise, when you go out, when you come in, God wants us to be speaking about his word. But mere interaction does not guarantee faithfulness. Are you aware? Are you actively resisting the fact that you have a built-in proclivity towards twisting the Word of God in order to justify yourself? The context they ignored was that Leviticus 19 also has these words. When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you. You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. You see, the law is clear on this. You need to love the stranger. You need to love the foreigner. You need to love that one who is near you, who is local to you, whoever it is. This lawyer who is attempting to justify himself by the law should know that he is actually condemned by the law. You know what's amazing, though, is that Jesus doesn't just smack him with the law. Maybe you and I might have that tendency. This is another way we can use God's word wrongly. Jesus gives what has become a well-known parable. And this is his answer to the question of who is my neighbor. And it strikes at the very heart of the legalist, the very heart of the one who's trying to justify him by what he does. And the story begins with a man who, obviously in the context here, he would be a Jew. He's the one who's robbed, stripped, beaten, and left for dead. And the thrust of the narratives is then three men pass along the same road, and each of them sees him. They see this man. And the first two, very similar, the first two are a priest and a Levite. Now priests and Levites would also be Jews. Now particularly they were Jews that had special roles among the Old Covenant people of God. They were from the same people group, of the same ethnicity, they were kinsmen, they were brothers, and even among, according to the rabbis, if anyone should have been more neighborly to this man, they should have. Remember, you love your brother, you love your own people, they of course should have showed this man mercy. But essentially both of them did the same thing. They saw him, and then they passed on the other side. Now they may have had their reasons. I was benefited from a sermon by Pastor Shawn Anderson who pointed out some of these. For the priest, we'll consider he's the first in the order here, maybe he's the first on the scene. He may have realized that if this man has been robbed, he's injured, then whoever did this to him is probably still around lurking. If he stopped to give aid, it could easily make him an easy target. And furthermore, He may have been on his way to perform some religious duty. He is a priest. And that he would have been unable to perform that duty if he touched a corpse. Remember, this man's half dead. He might die while he's trying to tend to him. And God had commanded, right? God had commanded in Numbers 1911, whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. And so out of concern for himself, maybe even out of concern for ritual purity, I mean, I want to serve God. He did not show love to the wounded man. Likewise, the Levite. It's entirely possible that the Levites saw the priests had passed by the man, and Levites were like assistants to the priests, much like the lawyers were assistants to the Sadducees, Pharisees, these groups that were in power. And perhaps he did not want to appear more holy than his leader, and so he followed his example. And kind of like the Pharisees, they want to respect the tradition of the elders. That seems like good enough reason for this man to leave this wounded brother for dead. Now, Levites were supposed to be teachers of the law, like lawyers. And yet in this example that Jesus gives, he did not fulfill the law to love his neighbor, even love a fellow Israelite. This man left him for dead. But the point that Jesus is making is, regardless of their excuses, Jesus doesn't even bother to give them excuses. That's why I've maybe hypothesized these could be reasons. They each, in the end analysis, failed to love their neighbor, this neighbor, this man left half dead. And that's entirely contrary to expectation. These, a priest and a Levite, these were the holy people. They were supposed to be exemplary Jews, but they left a brother to die who, as the story goes on, could live, could benefit from any help they offered if they had but offered it. And I think even today we have a cultural expectation that you're going to, of course you're going to naturally be more kind and friendly to people who are like you, or like the proverb says, you're going to be nice to people who are rich. We expect these natural nicenesses, and yet as we see these first two men, it shows that men can fail. Men can fail at the things that they are obviously supposed to do. Men can fail their own kinsmen, they can fail their fellow Jew. And what that's exposing is that our nature, and this is wrong, our nature is to love ourselves. Our nature is not to follow what God says is right. Our nature is actually to withhold the help that we could give if it's in our self-interest to do so. Our nature, what Jesus is exposing here, is to break God's law. And so Jesus gives a third person to pass by. He's the fourth character in the story. And so after a priest and a Levite, you'd be right to expect that this third character will be an average Jew. But Jesus already gave the average Jew. He was the man that was beaten up. You know, just like today, there are stories about a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, you know, common enough today. In those days, it was usually a priest, a Levite, and a Jew. But in Jesus's parable, this fourth person, or rather the third person who's passing along the road, he's the wild card, he's the curve ball, but he's an unexpected one. Instead of a priest, a Levite, and a Jew, it's a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan? Jesus goes on to show that this Samaritan goes at lengths to care for this man. He had compassion. He saw him and went to him. He didn't avoid it. He went to the man he had seen in his need. He bound his wounds. He cleansed and anointed them. He gave him a ride. He got him a room. Essentially, he handed him his credit card. Did you catch that? You know, he says to the innkeeper, whatever more expenses, I will come and pay for it. He didn't give any cap on that. The reason all that care appears so extravagant and over-the-top is because of how this man would be seen. He was a Samaritan. As I mentioned at the beginning, many people today use the word Samaritan as if it's synonymous with a good-doer, but that's so far from the context in which Jesus told this parable. There is nothing good about Samaritans, even though there's nothing good about any of us. In fact, of the Samaritans, the Bible actually has a lot to say against them. After the northern tribes of Israel were destroyed and deported in 722 BC, the Assyrians took other conquered peoples from heathen lands and settled them in Samaria. We read about that in 2 Kings. The Samaritans descended then from a mixed people group, you know, people who followed God and people who didn't, and there's kind of a meshing of the two, which, whenever you find that in the Scriptures, that syncretism is a corruption, because it leads to a heart that's not fully true to the Lord. And in fact, that's what the Bible explicitly tells us of the Samaritans. They feared the Lord, but they also served idols. They were thus viewed by the Jews as half-Jews. They were called derogatively the people of the land. And that bad blood continued and only intensified. When the Jews returned from the exile, they wouldn't accept help from the Samaritans to help rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. You read about that in Ezra. And in the intertestamental period, I know this is extra biblical, but I think there's something about this historically being accurate, that one of the Jewish Maccabean rulers, John Hyrcanus, came in the year 128 BC, and he destroyed Samaria and the temple in Mount Gerizim. In fact, John 4, 9 tells us plainly, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And I think we should take it the other way around, too. The Samaritans have no dealings with Jews. In fact, we just saw that in the previous chapter, didn't we? Luke 9, 52 to 53, a town of Samaritans redacted Jesus. Why? Particularly because Jesus was on his way. He had set his face to go to Jerusalem. And James and Gon gave, by the way, the expected Jewish response, you know, it's bad blood both ways. They said, should we call down fire from heaven? Jews and Samaritans did not like one another. They had plenty of bad blood. So this Samaritan had every reason to look at this dying Jew and say, not my people, not my problem. He had every reason to tell himself, this is not his neighbor. What Jesus describes in this man is so unexpected is that he, a natural enemy, looked at this bloodied and broken man, not as a Jew, but as a man. And he had compassion. Essentially, Jesus is saying that is who your neighbor is. Your neighbor can be even your natural enemy if he's near you, a Jew to a Samaritan. So long as he crosses your path, or rather you cross his path, this is what's needed. He's your neighbor whom God commands you. You need to love him. Which means this is a story about caring for the poor, but it's about more than just caring for the poor. And it's not about loving those people that are far away from you. I think often this is what our culture talks about. You've got to love those people that you're never going to see. The real loving person is, I'm going to love everybody that I don't really encounter, and I'm going to love those people groups that I've never seen. Now, don't get me wrong. We are to care for the poor. We are to care for all peoples. But the particular way that we're to show that is with people we see, the ones we encounter. That's our neighbor and we need to love him. Now what are, now we need to love that neighbor even if he's a natural enemy. Now what are the natural enemies that people might have today? Well, I think you know as well as I do, there are many. Just think of the news lately and you'll be reminded of some. You know, Republicans versus Democrats, bad blood. Russia versus Ukraine. The free Palestine people versus the Jews. You know, racial tensions of all kinds. Competition between the sexes. Feminism. Patriarchalism. There are surely many more. An interesting phenomenon is how each group feels it is standing up for the oppressed guy, but in many ways, they express their way of showing up for the small guy by being against that other group. It's so easy to stand up for someone who is on the other side of the world by standing against the person who is in the same state, the same city, the same neighborhood as you. But Jesus is saying here that if you are a Samaritan and you see a Jew in need, you show mercy. This would be like saying if you were a white nationalist and you see a black man who's been hurt, you have a duty to bandage his wounds and vice versa. You know, reverse the roles too, same thing. You love your enemies. And yes, the church has seen many enemies arise. Materialism, pro-choice movement, the sexual revolution, the gender revolution, rampant secularism, the culture of death, the list goes on and on. We must never forget, we need to love those people if we encounter them as they're still humans made in the image of God. If these are people we are encountering, they are our neighbors. If we see them in need, it's wicked to turn our eyes away, to walk on the other side, to avoid helping them, avoid loving them. Rather, the law of God requires that we love our enemies. Go and do likewise. standard of God. His righteousness, His holiness requires that we do what's contrary to our sinful nature. And really Jesus is telling us, telling this lawyer, that if we were to try to attempt to gain eternal life by something we do, then it is something that is impossible for us. There's not a fiber of our being that wants to do this in our natural estate. There are enemies, we want to hate those enemies. But that's where Jesus wants us to look to Him. There's a way that this can be changed. We can be changed. We need to look at the one who showed mercy. You see, at the end of this story, the lawyer doesn't even want to admit that the good guy is a Samaritan. He didn't want to say the word Samaritan. Notice what he says. He says, the one who showed her mercy. I think what that means is that something in this parable hit him. and yet he's still trying to resist it. Which begs the question, how much did he actually see in this parable? Did he see what he was supposed to see? Could have maybe started by asking, how did he see himself in this parable? How did he see himself as he stood there trying to justify himself and trap Jesus as if Jesus was the enemy, as if Jesus was a wrongdoer? Now perhaps he would see himself, he's with one of these groups that the lawyers are regularly helping. He's like the priest. He's like the Levite who would fail to keep the law out of a pretense of saying, I do keep the law. If he's honest with himself, he is exactly like that. And yet who is he contrasted with? Whom is the one truly showing love, lavish love? Could it be his enemy, this one whom he's trying to trap? Could it be this Jesus? This Jesus that he would see as any Jew would see a Samaritan. This one's one who's standing in the way of the powers that be, of all the things that I hold dear, of me showing how great I am by my obedience to the law. Jesus, I can't stand him. Could it be that this Jesus, is actually the one you need to show you mercy. That Jesus is the one who's been casting out demons, he's been healing the sick, he's been doing all the righteousness, all the mercy that is actually the mercy of God himself shown to mankind. Could it be that this one who you've been against is actually the one that you need to show you mercy and is the only one who could perfectly and has perfectly done it? Yeah, what do we find? the law, you're standing there before him. And even to the last words we hear from him, it is that he's still in the midst of trying to trap Jesus, he's still in the midst of not, I don't even want to confess who this guy who shows mercy is. And that's the power of this parable. Is that you, you know, the parable itself, you can't reach in and change that priest and Levite. You guys should have done differently. It could have ended so much better. You can't change them. Similarly, we read this and it really happened. Jesus speaking to this lawyer, this lawyer trying to chap Jesus, and you can't reach in and change that lawyer, can you? What this is actually doing is it's calling you. Are you gonna repent? Are you gonna see that you need Jesus? You need Jesus as much as that man left half dead. You need the mercy of one who is righteous in a way that is surprising. You need the mercy of this man who is the one who naturally with eyes, you see Jesus as an enemy, but you need him. Will you repent? The priest, the Levite don't, the lawyer, who knows? Who knows what's gonna come later? What's gonna happen with you? Friend, if you are changed, if you do repent, you will receive the mercy of Jesus Christ. And you know what that will do? It'll actually turn us into good Samaritans. Not that we'll be suddenly perfect like this one, the lavish love that he shows, but we're gonna love love shown to enemies enough that we're actually gonna be, what are we gonna wanna do? If we have received mercy, we're gonna love mercy. I want those people that I once hated, I want them to know this mercy too. Friend, that can happen today. If you will repent and look at this one, Jesus, who is the merciful neighbor, the one who showed mercy, I can show it to you. Jesus is the merciful neighbor. Let us love mercy. Let's pray. Gracious God, there's so much here. Lord, how we need to keep it simple. We need to turn from being those who are against you naturally and being against our enemies. We are wanting to love ourselves. We are so, and we use even your law to try to prop ourselves up, to try to make ourselves out to be something that we cannot be on our own. And we are not in need of you rewarding our righteousness. We are in need of your mercy. And you have shown it in the Lord Jesus. Lord, would that change us? Lord, we pray it for all of us, that we would be growing and loving, even those that have been hostile, hated us. Lord, recognize, and we can't show that in a general sense to everybody and it mean anything, but show us this week, who have you put on our path? Help us to see them as we have seen ourselves. We were dead, half dead. We were truly dead in our trespasses and sins, and you gave your Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us, to give us new life, make us to love mercy, to show it. Lord, help us in this. This is hard. We're naturally wanting to twist things. Lord, forgive us that. Lord, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We pray that you'd be glorified. Exalt the name of Jesus, we pray in his name, amen.