Neighbor

And we want to welcome you once again. If you’re a guest this morning, maybe this is your first time with us. Or you’ve been coming the last couple of weeks, since Easter and checking us out and seeing if maybe this would be a church that God would have you call home. Also, to those of you that are streaming in online, and you got a little bit of an update there on what’s going on with our building project and specifically chick fil A. I actually filmed that video this last Wednesday. And would you like an update to the update? Because many of you, you know, that we were really targeting, Sunday, May 18th is our groundbreaking day. And so our discussions with them, because we have all of our ducks in a row. We just need them to do something really simple. Just sign the purchase agreement. Sign the purchase agreement. Give us a $2.5 million check and then we’re all ready to go. And so they’ve kind of just asked for more time. And then just Friday they sent us an email and said, hey, we want to jump on a call with you tomorrow.

So the 30 days actually went well into May. We went into the middle of May, so we were honoring their request. So we just knew that, you know, we weren’t going to be able to break ground May 18th as we continue to wait on them. So at the end of the service, we will be praying specifically about this, but we wanted to invite you into that as well. Pray tomorrow at 330 for that phone call. We know that God already knows his plans for our church and how it’s all going to unfold, just like he did when we had the two houses out front and we thought we were getting a dairy Queen, and then all of a sudden we didn’t get a dairy Queen. We got the property. So whatever it happens, it’s God’s will and we just have to be patient. Which I’ll tell you, I’m not a very patient person. I’ve learned that in the business world they go a little bit slower. I think I would go nuts if I lived in that world. I just don’t understand. Like just right at $2.5 million check and let’s be on our way. You know, like, just get on with this. So that’s the update. And we just wanted you to be aware of what is going on. So I’m good. All right. So we’re in this sermon series called Faces of God.

Pastor Ben kicked it off last week, did an incredible job introducing us to this whole idea of a worker and how every human being on the planet, God is able to work in and through, whether they’re a believer or not, a believer. So any circumstance that you’re in, God is always at work through human beings. And likewise, God is also at work through you, whether you know it or not. Sometimes God puts you in situations or has you do things because that’s part of his plan for somebody else’s life. And so today we’re going to be looking at this whole idea about being a neighbor, and we’re going to look at a passage of Scripture that is very familiar. In fact, if you grew up in church or you have any kind of semblance of church, this is going to sound familiar. It may even be one of the top three sermons or text in the Bible that people are familiar with, but I would submit to you this. You may think that you know the story. You may even think you know where you fit in the story.

And I believe that God is going to challenge us all today as we explore this text. And so really, the fundamental question in looking at this whole idea of a neighbor is this as well, who is my neighbor? No one. That’s why I moved to alma. And I live on 80 acres. I know, that’s why I get my groceries delivered. That’s why I grow my own eggs. Who’s your neighbor? Who knows? Do you know where this question came from? Is Mister Rogers? They did not say that at nine. Go back a little bit earlier than Mister Rogers. Does anybody know? Just a little bit earlier than Mister Rogers, who is my neighbor? It actually came from a lawyer in Luke chapter ten who asked Jesus that very question. Now, to understand and appreciate what is going on in answering or figuring out why he’s even asking that question. We’re going to go back to verse 25 and look at this text in its proper context. And so Luke 1025, it tells us that Jesus is having a conversation with an expert in the law. Now, this is important to know this isn’t a lawyer like what we would think of today. someone that does litigation or goes before judges.

This expert in the law is a theologian of his time. He knows the Old Testament. He knows the Torah. He knows the temple system inside and out. He is just a very brilliant person. And he stands up in front of a crowd, and he stands up in front of a crowd to test Jesus, which that word is to give us an indication of his heart. He’s not a believer in Jesus. He believes in God, but he doesn’t believe that Jesus is God, even though Jesus is claiming to be God. And so he’s going to get into a debate. He wants to go toe to toe with Jesus. And so he asks Jesus, what must? And this is really important. I do. What do I have to do? What are the works or the acts or the things that I should do or not do to inherit eternal life? How do you think Jesus responded to him? You should all know this. This is a popular passage right? The way Jesus does what Jesus does a lot. When he’s asked a question, he asked a question. I love Jesus, Jesus. He’s a brilliant, brilliant debater. And he says, well, what’s written in the law? How do you read it? You’re the expert. And so the guy just says, here it is, love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your strength and your mind.

That’s easy. Check anybody. Love God with all their heart, their soul, their strength and their mind. Anybody, anybody online. It’s absolutely impossible to do this. It is absolutely impossible to love God to this level. And then the second part of it is what you love your neighbor as yourself. Is there anybody in here that actually loves their neighbor as their self?
You are going to need to confess that during the communion time. Okay? You really love your neighbor as equal to yourself. I mean, both of these, they just seem completely impossible. And that’s the point. Jesus says, oh by the way, you answered correctly, you do both of these, you’ll live. You don’t need a Savior. You can love God. You can love your neighbor. That’s it. You can do it all on your own. Here’s the crazy part the lawyer’s wanting to justify himself. This is where the text comes in. Who is my neighbor? Notice the question he doesn’t ask Jesus. He doesn’t go back to the first commandment because in his in his insane, prideful mind, he thinks that he has actually kept the law. He actually thinks that he has love God with all of his heart and soul and strength and mind.

And so now all of a sudden, he wants to justify and also show everybody, as he’s debating Jesus, that he is also completed the second part of this. And so he asks Jesus, well, who is my neighbor? And then Jesus is about to do something. He also often does. Instead of answering the question, he tells a story. And what we would say is that these are called parables. If you didn’t grow up in church, you don’t know what this is. A parable is an earthly, relatable story, but yet there’s a divine meaning attached to it. And so Jesus would take things from their culture and their time that everyone would know. And then he attaches a divine meaning to it. Now, when you look at the parables, there are parables that are really hard to understand. There are parables that Jesus would tell and the disciples would be on the side, and they’d be like scratching their heads, and they’d be having a side conversation to be like, what is he talking about? Jesus, you don’t even make sense. Your story doesn’t even like like we can’t even track with what you’re saying. The Scripture actually even tells us as parables that we won’t ever really fully understand.

Here’s the other danger. Parables, especially in American Christianity, are often misinterpreted. And so people will follow certain pastors, certain churches, especially with social media, and you’ll get these little sermon clips and they’ll think that this is what the passage says, and they’ll share this clip, or they’ll share this quote when they actually have no idea. That’s exactly the opposite of what the passage actually means. So listen to what Jesus says. He’s going to go into story mode here. And he says, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, they beat him up, and then they went away, leaving him not dead, but half dead. Everybody following along with Jesus. The story. Everyone got the visual in your mind. Now this was very common back then. Jerusalem to Jericho, about 18 miles. Everybody knew it was a desolate road. Everyone knew that this was a very popular place for people to be robbed. Like they would have been like, okay, this this is just common. Like, we all know that this is something that happens in our day and age.

Jesus goes on to say, a priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So he perfect. He purposely picks a priest because he realizes that that is the mediator between God and man, at least in their minds, and that that is a person that shouldn’t act like that. He goes on to say so to a Levite, when he came to the place, saw the man, the wounded man pass on the other side as well. So he takes two figures, both of which they would have known, both of which have been elevated in their society, one that represents the law, the other one that represents all of the temple rituals and things. And said, both of these guys got it wrong. Then he goes on to say, and here’s the part of the text that we love. This is it right here. 33 to 35. It says, a Samaritan. Now, as soon as he said the word Samaritan, their bodies would have just reacted to that. Jews hated Samaritan. Jews refuse to eat with or associate with Samaritans. They would use derogatory terms like half breeds, crazy stuff that they would, that they would go out of their way to not have any interact. I mean, these were the despised people of the time. And so just hearing that name, just hearing that word would have just caused a reaction in them. Jesus says A Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine. Then he puts the man on his own donkey brought him to an end, and he took care of them. So much so that the next day he took two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, look after him, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. This is the part of the story we love. I mean, this is the part of the story that we’re probably most familiar with. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be the Good Samaritan? Who wouldn’t want to be this guy who was willing to give up his most precious resource? Which was why his time? Because he had to stop what he was doing.He had a he had to pause his agenda and wherever he was going to get to in that day and ten to the man he had to get off his donkey and put the guy in his donkey. He had to take him to the inn and and minister to him himself, and even return the next day. So he had a clear part of his calendar out the next day, and then this is crazy. He literally took money out of his own pocket, and he was willing to pay so that that man could be nursed back to health. Now Jesus looks at him and asked him another question. Which of these three lawyer do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell in the hands of the robber? So who do you think the lawyer says?

Now remember, this guy is an expert in the law. He knows everything about the Old Testament, the Torah, backwards and forwards. He would have known that all the way in Leviticus. It was God that said to Moses, that priest are not allowed to go near dead people. The only people that are allowed to go to that are dead are their close family members. And if they go around anybody that’s dead, they will defile themselves and thus jeopardize the vocation that they are in. As priest. He would have known this, but yet he still is somehow able to answer the question correctly. He says the one who had mercy on him. So he’s processing what Jesus is saying. He knows the law, but he also knows what Jesus is kind of doing in this moment. And Jesus looks at them and just says, go and do likewise. Again, this is part of the text that we like. We go, oh, go and do likewise, and we should go and do likewise. Great service, communion. Give us the blessing and send us on our day. Sermons over. This is the part people don’t realize. Jesus saying these words to him is like a hammer. It is the law. This is equal to. When Jesus was having a conversation with a rich young ruler and the rich young ruler asked the same question, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he says, sell all of your possessions, give them to the poor, and come and follow me. And that rich young ruler stood there, completely frozen at what Jesus just said to him.

Jesus saying this to him would have left this man standing there frozen, because now he’s having to go back and replay all the the relationships that he’s had up to this point, because in his prideful heart, not only does he think that he’s been able to uphold the law of loving God with all of his being, he also wrongly thinks that he has loved every single person exactly the way they should be loved, or at least the people that he thinks are deserving of his love. And Jesus comes along and shatters completely shatters his mindset. Now, you saw with me which of these faces. Represent Jesus? Or some of you are nervous to answer? I understand that no. The Samaritan Jesus is the one that is. Jesus is the one who rescues us. So let me ask you this. Which of these faces represent you and me? Got quiet at nine two. So.

You and I are the priest and the Levite. You and I, all the time bypass people that are right in front of us that need help. You and I have a natural dispensation to move toward being selfish and self-centered all day, every day. You and I have a fair, a cynical attitude and mindset and heart in our lives. That’s the law that you need to hear. Not only are we the priests and the Levi, we are also the wounded man. We are the one that’s lying on the side of the road, half dead. And this is the problem that we face in our society. We have lots of people that want religion and they want church, but they don’t understand that what they really need is Jesus. You and I are broken, fallen, sinful human beings. We sin all day, every day. We are the ones on the side of the road. We are the ones that can’t even pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and dump oil and wine on our own bodies, or figure out how to get to the end. We are literally gasping our last breath until Jesus comes along, and he’s the one that picks us up.

And the way that he picks us up is by stretching out his arms on the cross and dying for us. He’s the one that places us on the donkey. He’s the one that takes us to the end. He’s the one through his precious blood, paid for us to be restored and to be given faith and hope in the life that we have. Amen. Do you see the difference? You and I know that the Good Samaritan Jesus is. And when we look at something like this and we look at this passage and we think about, like all of the things that vie for our attention, we always go to this like, well, what often gets in the way of us helping our neighbors? What is it that gets in the way of helping our neighbors? We already said at the beginning, number one thing, time. It’s our time. The prioritizing of our lives, trying to figure out how the how Jesus has put us on this earth and that we are to live our days in service, not to ourselves, but in service to him.

There was another time that Jesus was in story telling mode, telling another parable, and he had a crowd around him again, and he was trying to get the same message through. And you jump over to Matthew and he tells them this. The king will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. And in this passage he’s getting another mind shift of the crowd. He’s trying to get them to see that what you do is not for you. Pastor Ben said this last week. God does not need your good works. Did you hear that? You don’t need your good works? Who need your good works? Your neighbor need your good works. And what does that look like? How do we then, as followers of his, in a society that has gone so far the opposite way? I mean, think about the guy that’s on the airplane, right? You just want to have a conversation and you’re wondering who’s going to come on the airplane. And some guy comes on, he’s got his big headphones on, he’s got sunglasses on, he’s got his hood off. He clearly does not want to have a conversation with anybody, does he? Or how about now, this next generation, some of you young adults, some of you teenagers that are in here, it’s clear that you don’t want to have conversations with people. You know how I know you walk around with those things hanging from your ear and they’re not earrings.

Covid screwed up a lot of people that were already screwed up. And it’s caused fracture. It’s caused this whole chasm in our society where people can’t even have face to face conversation with each other anymore. I saw an article this week that some of our kids that are graduating college are now paying. They’re paying someone to teach them how to talk on a telephone. And when I saw it, I said, first, how do I become a teacher so I can have a side hustle? And second of all, what did we do to these kids that they’re so worried now that they have a degree? How to have a conversation on the phone with someone who may be recruiting them, or wanting them to come work for their company? What is going on? This is the answer to who is your neighbor. You said at the beginning, everyone, the religious people, the people that maybe even exist in our church who might think they’re better than others because they have more Bible knowledge than others. They need Jesus people that are more devoted to a system of doing church, rather than reaching people and telling you how you should do church and what you should do and not do. Which to be honest with you, is one of the things that plagues our denomination. How about the robbers? Anybody want to love on the robbers today?

But yet, what is our response when the news media sends us articles and we see people that have done heinous crimes or acts and we say and we think, well, I hope they get what they deserve, or I hope that they rot in prison or worse, I hope they rot in hell. Is that the right attitude? Is that what Jesus would tell us to do? That’s the hardest one in the whole list. Everyone. Everyone needs Jesus. And that’s why we’re so passionate about our mission here at Shepherds Gate that we’re going to value everyone, whether you agree with us or look like glass, or talk like us or vote like us, or whatever the circumstances are, we are going to value you. We are going to take time to listen to you. We want to know you. We want to know your story. We want to know what it is that’s going on in your life. And we’re not only are we going to value you, that we’re going to influence every where we go, whether that’s in our neighborhood or in the grocery store or ready for this. Even when we’re driving our vehicles and someone cuts us off or someone doesn’t let us in. This is for me, by the way. I’m preaching to myself right now. This is for me. And then the hardest of the list is to live generously with everything we have. Because for us, all of these are in brackets on purpose. Every one. It means every single person they call shepherds get home individually is going to value everyone, but we’re going to do it corporately as a church.

Influence everywhere is that we’re going to be involved here in our homes and our churches, in our local community and all around the world and everything means we are willing to give up our most precious resources, our time and our money. The two denarii for a complete stranger on our way. I worked so hard for this, Tim. I you know, I developed this business and I you know, I lost sleep and I did all of this, this, this, this, this, this, like, I, I have the right to enjoy my life. Yeah, you do, but not at the cost of ignoring your neighbor. That’s right in front of you. And so as we approach step out and serve 2025, something that our church has done for many, many years now, I’ve been part of this and been able to be part of this then before I even was married. And so it’s fun to go back and look at the pictures of Lisa and I when we were engaged. And then the next year when we were actually married and we were at a different site, and then all of a sudden she’s pregnant with Henry. And then the next year we’re eating ice cream at the, at the, senior center because we had a kid, which is one of the awesome sites you can go to, by the way, just go eat ice cream and be nice to people. To Brady being born to now, here they are in sixth and eighth grade and being able to go in to watch God at work. Not because we’re great, not because we want to feel good about going and helping others, but because he is great and because he is good. And here’s what we’re trying to figure out as a church.

How do we turn neighbors into friends and then have those friends then become part of our church? See, we use a term around here a lot. Then when you come to Shepherds Gate and you join the membership, which thanks be to God, Ben right now is teaching a class with 40 new people that want to become part of our family. How do we get them from being a neighbor to a family member? Over the years, some of the sites that we’ve been able to go to is up in Flint. We’ve been down to sites in Detroit. We’ve been in other people’s neighborhoods and other people’s homes. And this year, my wife, just had this tugging on her heart from the Holy Spirit. She’s like, you know, we’ve been everywhere. We’ve never done anything in our subdivision. And there’s a single mom that lives kitty corner to our house, single mom, two twin kids, boy and girl. They’re both in seventh grade, so their kids are in between our two kids grades. And she said, what if I talked to Ron? And what if we go and maybe see if we can help her and just give her a boost? And in so doing, maybe it’ll open the door for more conversation? I said, I think that’s great. God’s putting that on your heart. You can be the site leader. The next thing you know, the the step out and serve team that are going to be in the hallway after the service, they’re over there talking with her, measuring her DAC, but she’s got boards that are rotted.

Looking at her landscaping, look at all of the things in and around her house. Here’s the other crazy thing. I live in a subdivision with 253 homes. Do you know that there are six homes in that subdivision of members of Shepherd Ski? She know what I did? I called every single one of them and said, here’s our step out and serve site this year. We don’t even have to leave our subdivision. And it’s going to be awesome. Because here’s the other crazy thing out of those households, most of them don’t even know each other. And we’re like, wait a second, maybe God’s up to something. Maybe there’s something that could be stirring in all of this, because the point of going to her house is not so that her house has nice landscaping and her trees get trimmed. The point of going to her house is not fixing all the things that she wants fixed inside of her house, because she’s a single mom. Because let me ask you this does she deserve for us to come in to bless her? Yeah. No, she doesn’t.

Why should we give up our time and our money? Because of the money that we donate to Shepherd’s Gate. Goes to fund the wood chips and the paint and all the things that are going to be utilized to help her. She doesn’t deserve it, just like you and I don’t deserve it. And that’s the beautiful part of going and serving her. She screwed up her life. There’s some things that that have happened to her along the way because she’s a sinner, just like you and me. And we get to go and we get to run to her and we get to bandage up her wounds, and we get to help her and encourage her. And in so doing, hopefully it leads to a conversation. Hopefully she’s so overwhelmed by the fact that there’s all these people with their matching t shirts surrounding her house and in a few hours flipping it upside down, and that someone will say to her, we’re here because Jesus loves you. We’re here because we were in the same situation that you were in. We are no better than you. We all deserve hell. But because of Jesus Christ, because of what he’s done. That’s why we’re here. Not sitting on our couch watching television. We’re here because we’re a community of believers that refuse to sit by and watch our neighbors suffer when we ourselves were in that circumstance. Without Jesus. That’s what this parable means. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t there something so humbling when you know the true meaning of the Good Samaritan?

Because the Good Samaritan is Jesus Christ, and we do what we do as a response to what it is that he has done for us. Amen. So what do you say one weekend? And yes, if you’re new, this is the church that will not have church on June 1st. So if you come here on Sunday, June 1st, they’re just going to put you to work. Just, you know, no band, no Jeff and Tom, nobody else. We’re going to be out. Just be in the hands and feet of Jesus. And once again, this is why I love this church. Because they’re willing to roll up their sleeves, recognize that we’re fallen sinful beings, and me included, like everyone else needs Jesus. We need the hope that only he can give us. Amen. And we’re going to do it because when we do it for the least of these, we do it for him. Amen.