We Are Not The Good Samaritan

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”27 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.”28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”30Jesus 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.

31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 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. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii[a] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Recently our daughter is in the age where she really has solid records of our conversation. She is in the stage where she likes to say “for real, Mum? For real life?” She wants to know if what we say is actually happening — not pretend, not online, but real. And honestly, it’s confronting (and also costly to follow through). Because if we’re careless with our words, eventually they will lose their meaning.

Christianity works in a similar way. We’re not only called to be the messenger of the gospel, we are also called to live it out. A living tree shows signs of life, it will grow new leaves, fruits, and flowers. In the same way, the messengers of the Gospel will show evidence of grace in [real life].

Today we are still in the series of Luke. It is interesting to note that the first 9 chapters of Luke tell us about the person and the work of Jesus. Now, chapter 10 onwards tells us what it means to be His disciples, like Edrick’s sermon - what it means to follow Jesus.

At the start of chapter 10, the disciples were sent two by two to proclaim the Gospel. And now at the end of chapter 10, Jesus taught them how to live out the Gospel - what you believe will be evident by how you live and how you treat people. People will know you are disciples of Christ by these marks.

Today we will look at one of the most famous parables “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” — not to learn how to “be nicer,” but to see how the gospel transforms the heart. We are going to learn about 4 points:

1) The question

2) The parable

3) The Gospel

4) Go and Do Likewise

1) The Question - What must I do?

First of all, back in the day, the lawyer was not like a lawyer nowadays. The law in which they were experts on was the law of God. So in other words, they were theologians, expert biblical scholars. They are educated, religious moral people. This guy came to Jesus and Luke made it clear there that his motivation was to test Jesus. He hoped Jesus would say something wrong so that the religious leaders would have reasons to catch him.

“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Today, you and I can stand here and say that this question was so wrong on so many levels. YET, the harsh reality is every fibre of this question still lives in our life, the way we work, the way we relate and love one another, the way we make sense of things, the way we live basically. The easiest example is when something bad unexpectedly happened to us, our most common first response was “God, what did I do wrong to deserve this? WHY is this happening to me?”. In a split second savage moment, we asked as if life depends entirely on us.

This lawyer’s not seeking salvation — he’s testing Jesus. What most of them believed and taught, the way to get to heaven is to take the 10 commandments with all your life and do them as good as you possibly can. They believe they can justify themselves, make themselves “good”. Jesus responded by returning questions. Jesus asked what the Law says, you should know, right?

The lawyer summarised the commandment. But here’s the problem: nobody can do this. Not perfectly. Not even close.

Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind - all of it. That means, nothing comes first other than God, 100% of your thoughts 100% of the time. Zero self interest, zero distraction, zero competing loves. Not even a mili second, your mind is occupied with other things than God. No “What should we eat for dinner tonight? Where should we go?” - none of that. It’s impossible.

Love your neighbour as yourself. That means, you will spend as much attention, as much time and as much effort and willingness to meet other people’s needs like it is your own needs. When someone gets what you prayed for for years, you should be happy for them as you would have been for yourself.

You said, tsk, ah but nobody loves like that - but that’s the standard of the Law. To obey the law perfectly is to love perfectly. Jesus is saying, yes, the law is the way of life, you should live that way, but don’t get mistaken. It is certainly not the way to life. You will never be saved that way. The Law is a mirror. It shows you the requirement but also exposes our inability. It shows us we cannot justify ourselves.

The lawyer started to feel the weight — so he tried to shrink the command: “And who is my neighbour?” In other words: “Define it for me. Make it manageable. Give me a box I can tick.”

Do you know why the lawyer did this? Because he believed that ‘if I am good enough, God will finally accept me. So give me the minimum standard that I can meet’. Human nature: If there is a limit or line somewhere, we will find a way to be as close as possible to that line, without touching it.. Isn’t it true? Whenever we try to justify ourselves, we don’t uphold the Law — we shrink it. We turn God’s perfect standard into something we think we can tick off, instead of something that drives us to grace. That’s what the lawyer was trying to do.

Secondly, if you think about it, this question assumes as if there are people that fall outside of the category of neighbour. So Jesus then responded with a parable, which leads us to the second point.

2) The Parable - A Heart Exposed

30Jesus 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. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 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. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii[a] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Now Jesus tells the story of a man travelling a dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho — a place well known for its violence; part of it was literally called “the pass of blood.” So many people get jumped, robbed and killed there. And this man was attacked, beaten up, stripped, left half dead there. In those days, clothing was worth a lot of money. So the robbers didn’t only take your money and your belongings, but they took your clothes too. So this man has literally nothing with him.

Then, there came the Priest and the Levite - they saw him and passed by on the other side. They avoided him and hurried on. Do you know why? Because they were smart. Because if you see somebody who is not dead yet, that means the incident was fresh, the robbers are right nearby. To stop would be tremendously dangerous. I would imagine it would be like stopping in a random corner of King Cross with no light at 1AM. These are the kind of places where people always get beaten up and robbed. You don't stop and get off your car. All you know is just drive home. The man looked dead anyway, if I stopped here, I would get robbed too. Pretty good logic, right?

Jesus put the Priest and the Levites, two people who are extremely religious and moral. They are the people whose job is to help the poor. Yet, they did not help. They could not help. What is Jesus trying to teach us? Morality does not change your life. Morality can adjust your behaviour, but it cannot transform your heart. It does not change you from the inside. It cannot produce the kind of love Jesus calls us into.

Then the third person, Jesus shocked the lawyer - a Samaritan saw this man and was filled with compassion. He stopped and he came to this man. To stop, this Samaritan was risking his life, his safety, his time, his money, his everything.

Before we go further, it is important to understand the context. The tension between the Jews and the Samaritans was so extreme that they were considered public enemies. The hatred between them went back over a hundred years around racial purity. The Samaritans were the result of the Jews who intermarried with Assyrian invaders. They had a different religion, and built their own temples. From Jewish point of view, the Samaritans were half-breeds heretics. In fact, some rabbis had a serious debate as to whether a Jew had any responsibility to save a Samaritan. They said that Samaritans “should be pushed (into the ditch) and not pulled out.” It was that extreme.

I would imagine if the injured man had not been so desperate, he may have refused the Samaritan’s help altogether. But in this case, he was helpless. And this Samaritan did it for this man.

Not just stopping there, bound up his wounds, poured on oil and wine. Then he sat him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. This means, the Samaritan ended up walking on his feet the rest of the journey. He gave up his saddle for this wounded man.

Back in those times, there were no bankruptcy laws. If you owed money, you can’t pay for it, you had no options but to sell yourself and your family into slavery. So if this man, who after all had been stripped, had no clothes, and no money and no health, if he had to stay for six weeks in that inn and nobody paid that charge at the end of six weeks, the homeowner or the innkeeper, would have every right to say, "Okay, now you're my slave." And the man would have no defense at all, no choice but to be a slave. But instead, this Samaritan saves the man not just from death — but from slavery too. Amazing isn't it?

Jesus is basically asking the lawyer: What if you were the one lying on the road — bleeding, helpless, and with no way to save yourself? And what if the only person who could rescue you was someone you considered an enemy? At that moment, would you still refuse grace — or would you want it?”

Here, Jesus intentionally made the Samaritan the hero - the one person the lawyer would never, ever call a neighbour, and certainly never imagine needing for rescue. Jesus didn’t flip the roles. If the Samaritan were the one dying and the Jew the hero, it would just be another command: ‘Go love your enemy.’. But this? This cuts deep. It exposes his heart, not just his behaviour.

We have to admit, there are certain kinds of people that we don't mind helping. Internally, we want to help people who like us and who we like, who we can identify with. We avoid people who are different, difficult, or draining. That’s the way our hearts are wired, self‑protection, not sacrificial love. Let alone strangers, even I struggled as a mother with my own kid. There were many many times I was agitated, impatient, harsh because I was more concerned about my own comfort, my own need, my own ease. We are wired that way.

On the outside, life already feels full. We’re busy people. We’re tired. We’re stretched thin. Most days we are just trying to get through. So the thought of adding one more burden and inconvenience feels overwhelming. But the kind of love Jesus calls us into always costs something — our time, our energy, our emotional space. Late Timothy Keller once said we don’t fail to love because we’re bad people — we fail because we’re self‑absorbed people. The problem isn’t that we don’t know what God’s love requires — we do. We know we should love others… we just don’t have the resources inside ourselves to do it.

This is the point of this Parable: it wasn't to highlight the needy, it was not about being nicer, it was to expose our hearts. We - can - never - love- like- this.

And by making a Samaritan the hero, Jesus is saying, your neighbour is absolutely anyone. You don't get to choose who qualifies. Anyone in need whom God puts in your path IS indeed your neighbour. G.K. Chesterton said, We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor.

Jesus flips the question: Not “Who is my neighbour?” but “Who acted as a neighbour TO YOU?” The lawyer couldn't even bring himself to say the Samaritan but he finally gets it.

3) The Gospel: Jesus the True Good Samaritan

In Luke 9:44, Jesus tells His disciples that the Son of Man will be handed over to men — foretelling His coming death in Jerusalem. But the disciples couldn’t get it. The idea of a crucified Messiah didn’t fit their expectations. They imagined God’s kingdom arriving with power and glory, not with a suffering King who would be wounded and broken for our sins.

From this point in Luke — all the way to chapter 19 — Jesus is walking toward Jerusalem and toward the cross. Jesus was ‘on His way’ to crucifixion. And right at the beginning of that journey (Luke 10), Jesus opened with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke is trying to show us that this parable isn’t mainly about what we must do. We are not the Good Samaritan. It’s first mainly about what Jesus has done for us.

When you put God’s Law amongst sinners like us — whose natural tendency is to justify ourselves — it always ends badly. Anything we look to justify our worth (other than God) will eventually turn on us. If we chase power, power will control us. If we chase approval to justify us, it will end up owning us. They will drain us and leave us empty. In the end, they leave us like the man on the road — stripped, beaten up, and dying spiritually.

But the gospel says, Jesus Christ stepped down into our world, He came onto our dangerous road. He didn’t owe us anything; He is the Creator, and we owe Him everything. Yet when He found us, He was moved with compassion. We weren’t just wounded — we were dead in our sins. Jesus didn’t simply cross the road to help us; He crossed the infinite distance from heaven to earth. And when He saw us, He knew the cost. It wouldn’t just risk His life — it would take His life. Still, He came willingly, without hesitation.

He lifts us up and places us where He should have been — He puts us ‘on the saddle’ — but that costs Him unimaginable suffering, His blood, and the agony of the cross. The Bible said, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. YET He did it. And He is so committed to finish what He started. He promises to return and bring us home to glory.

When you see Jesus as your Good Samaritan — your true and ultimate neighbour — when you see what He has done for you, the mercy and the compassion that He poured on you, it changes everything.

David Gooding has said: “We were not his neighbors nor he ours. But he chose by incarnation to come where we were; and in spite of the fact that human beings hounded him to a cross, he rescued us at his own expense, and has paid in advance the cost of completing our redemption and of perfecting us for unimaginable glory.” - Jesus is our True Good Samaritan.

In one article, Jon Bloom said that loving our neighbour sounds beautiful when it stays as an idea — something imagined, idealised, neat. But real love shows its beauty in the messy places: in the tiring, inconvenient, self‑denying call to love the actual people (sinners) God puts in front of us. Not the neighbours we would choose, but the neighbours we are given.

We need to understand this - in this parable, Jesus asks for love that cannot grow out of obligation or willpower, but it can only grow out of a response to grace. The lawyer wanted a requirement he could manage; Jesus gave him a command he could never keep. BUT then Jesus offers Himself to be our Justifiers. Every other religion gives you laws and leaves you to justify yourself. Only Jesus offers Himself as your Justifier. He lived the perfect life we couldn’t live — loving God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving His neighbour as Himself — and He gives that record to us through His death on the cross.

Before we see ourselves as the Samaritan, we must first see ourselves as the man on the road. You cannot love like this until you have experienced God’s love for you in the gospel. Only when you recognise what the true Good Samaritan has done to you, will you be able to love others in a way Jesus calls us to. This kind of love only grows from hearts that have been saved by grace. Grace alone can turn our wired self‑protection into sacrificial love.

4) Go and Do Likewise

The cross is not only the source of our acceptance to God — it also becomes the pattern for how we live and how we die. It is something that we continually learn and live out, as we walk our own ‘road to Jerusalem’, where we continue to learn what Jesus meant when He said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23)

A heart touched by grace will always be drawn towards compassion — for the neediest, the most broken, the most ungrateful, most evil, the people we think least deserving. It doesn’t mean this will happen seamlessly, without struggles. Of course our flesh still kicks in, we will still wrestle. The compassion we show won’t be perfect. But by His grace, we are being processed and our heart will become softer bit by bit, more and more compassionate, like His heart. It’s a process, not instant. Our grip on self-protection will loosen bit by bit.

Keller uses a helpful picture: a tree’s leaves don’t give it life; they simply reveal that life is already there. In the same way, caring for the difficult, the costly, those hard to love — these actions don’t earn us eternal life. They simply reveal what kind of heart we have: a heart still trying to justify itself, or a heart that knows it has been saved by grace. Jesus ends with: “Go and do likewise.” Not to earn eternal life, but as the fruit of having received that life.

Two simple applications:

1) Preach and behold the gospel again and again.

Before we love our neighbour, we need this first and foremost. Otherwise, it will highly likely become another attempt at our self justification. Before focusing on the outside, we must first be calibrated internally. Everything begins with seeing ourselves as sinners saved by grace. It softens us, melts us, humbles us and empowers us at the same time.

As Christians, many of us know these truths in our minds, but these truths haven’t exploded in our hearts. And that’s why so many people burn out (including myself) while trying to help others. Unless there is a continual regrasping of what Jesus has done for us, we will simply run out of fuel.

Think of an engine, like a diesel. It runs because of constant little explosions that create power, over and over again. That’s why we worship together, we go to church, to MC, we pray, we read, we listen to the word even when we don’t feel like it. Because these things help us to grasp, to remember, and re-discover what He has done for us. Not that these things will save you, but not doing them will get you nowhere. The only thing that enables us to love like the Good Samaritan and keep us going, is by constantly having that explosion through our experience of Christ’s love in our heart.

So let the beauty of what Jesus has done dawn on us again and again. Let His mercy warm our hearts again and again. And as it does, we will become merciful — just as He is merciful to us.

2) Love your neighbour

Once you have done number one, THEN, you can go love your neighbour. I am speaking this genuinely from my heart, specifically for our RSE community. Like family, we don’t get to choose each other; they are given to us. We are thrown together with them. As much as your sibling annoys you to death, you are still called to love them, right? And in so many ways, church is similar. We do choose our church community, yes, but we don’t get to choose who else God brings into that church.

Over time, if you stay long enough, we find ourselves walking alongside pastors, leaders, ministers and members who disappoint us, who hurt us, who disagree with us, who see things differently. Brothers and sisters with their own flaws that push our buttons, different interests, different ways of thinking, different priorities, different ministry styles, different musical tastes and so on. Doing life together looks so far away from the ideal community we imagined.

But church, WHAT IF that is the very reason God placed us all here? Maybe, just maybe, for some of us, the change we need may not be a new community — it’s a new willingness to love the neighbours God has already placed in front of us.

Christian faith is basically super simple - to admit that I have nothing, Jesus, please be my everything. That’s all it takes. And yet, Keller said, even that is impossible to do unless Jesus helps you. The Lawyer could not do it. You and I can't do it. Only when we receive His love — again and again — we will slowly become more and more like the true Good Samaritan, Jesus Himself. This kind of love isn’t a ticklist or a project with deadlines. It’s a way of life, shaped and sustained by grace alone.

Discussion questions:

What struck you the most from the sermon?
Why do you think it is easier for you to act in self-protection mode than in sacrificial love?
What is so shocking about making a Samaritan the hero of the parable?
How does the gospel enable you to love like the good Samaritan?
What are some things you can do this week to love your neighbours?