Luke 10 verses 25 to 37 - The Good Samaritan

Although the story of the Good Samaritan is familiar to many of us, I think we can learn some important lessons from it.

I’ve read it several times – but as I’ve prepared this talk I’ve felt there are things here that I really need to take on board and make more of an effort to put into practice in my life – and this morning I’d like to try and draw out some of these.

The story starts with a lawyer asking Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. And when Jesus asks him what is written in the law he comes up with the right answer.

And this answer has two parts to it. The first part is to love God with all our hearts and the second part is to love our neighbour as ourselves.

And of course the story of the good Samaritan illustrates the second part of the answer - who our neighbour is – and how we should love him or her – which I’ll get onto in a minute.

But we mustn’t lose sight of the first part of the answer about loving God wholeheartedly – because this is absolutely essential for us to take on board if we are to love our neighbour as God intends.

Indeed, the motivation and desire to love our neighbour is rooted in us first loving God. And by loving God I don’t mean a gooey emotion we may feel occasionally when singing a hymn or admiring a beautiful landscape.

No, we express our love for God by being actively obedient to Him, by doing those things we know He wants us to do.

This includes the very basic things we should do as Christians. Spending time with God each day in prayer and reading our bibles. Meeting with other Christians and doing our best to live Godly lives.

And we do these things because we know it pleases God and because they are essential if we are to be effective Christians – those who do try and share God’s love and make a difference to the lives of those around us.

If you’re a gardener, you’ll understand that the more time you put into preparing the soil – the better your crops will be.

And we are the same – the more time and effort we put into our relationship with God – the better able we will be to love our neighbour and the more fruit we’ll produce.

Loving God also involves being obedient to the specific instructions He gives us. In other words, we should offer Him ourselves in service and then respond by being obedient to where He leads us and what He asks us to do.

And this is important as we need to be where what God wants us to be doing what He wants us to do.

And as we do this He will enable us to love our neighbours in the most appropriate ways – using our specific gifts and talents to do this.

So the first part of our task as Christians is to actively love God by offering ourselves to Him and seeking to live in obedience to Him.

And then the second part is to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Now quite often we skip over the ‘as ourselves’ bit. But if we don’t love ourselves it can be difficult for us to love others.

I’m not talking about thinking we’re wonderful and wanting everyone to admire us because we’re so cool or clever or charming.

Loving ourselves is more about accepting ourselves and forgiving ourselves for past mistakes.

It’s the opposite to actively disliking ourselves and concentrating all the time on our failures and weakness and needs.

Ideally, as Christians, God wants us to know His love for us – so that we can then share that love with others.

And if we believe we’re unworthy of love, it makes it very hard for us to receive or believe in God’s love for us. And its then very hard for us to share or give away something we haven’t received or understood.

So we need to accept ourselves and forgive ourselves for past failures.

We need to say I know I’m not perfect and I’ve made mistakes in life and I may have regrets – but with God’s help I’m making progress.

And if God has accepted and forgiven me who am I to refuse to accept and forgive myself.

And then we need to make the decision that instead of focusing all the time on our own problems and shortcoming and needs – with God’s help we will focus on looking out for the needs of others.

And actually by doing this we will then often find the healing and encouragement we may have been looking for.

I’ve recently been reading a book by a lady called Joyce Meyer who I came across on TBN which is a Christian TV Channel on Freeview.

And Joyce makes this point very well in a chapter entitled “Be an answer to someone’s prayer.” I’ll read you a bit of what she says.

“I’ve spent many years teaching principles from God’s word but one of the simplest and most powerful things God has showed me, is this. If we want to have hope and happiness (in our own lives) - we need to give hope and happiness (to others).

“When we take our eyes off our own problems and look to help others with their problems, it’s amazing what God will do. I discovered that there is great joy in being used by God to answer someone else’s prayer.”

The story of the good Samaritan illustrates very practically meeting someone else’s need and being an answer to their prayer.

Of course the Samaritan people were despised by the Jews whereas priests and Levites were highly regarded religious people. And in this story Jesus once again shows his dislike of those who may appear outwardly religious – but whose hearts are cold towards God and others.

This Samaritan however, who to the Jews would have appeared outwardly to be anything but good – shows that his heart is good by the care he demonstrates for the man who has been robbed. He shows that true religion involves actively loving people.

He does everything he can to help this man get back on his feet. He cleans and bandages the man’s wounds. He takes him too an inn – where he can rest and recuperate. And he ensures all the bills are covered.

Jesus says at the end of the story “go and do likewise.” So when we come across someone with a need that we can do something about we should try and meet it.

And sometimes it may be inconvenient and time consuming and we will need to put ourselves out. I mean I’m sure the good Samaritan was on his way somewhere and it was inconvenient to help this stranger.

And it may cost us some money – but as we seek to sow seeds of happiness and blessing in others’ lives we will find that in time we ourselves reap what we have sowed.

Joyce Meyer recommends we make it our aim each day – with God’s help - to try be a blessing to someone else, to actively look for ways we can help out and encourage those around us.

These can often be just small acts of kindness. Offering to babysit for someone. Offering to help a friend or neighbour with a task that needs doing. Offering to help an elderly person do their shopping.

Giving the time of day to someone who is lonely. Offering to help someone out financially if we know they’re struggling to pay a bill or can’t afford something they need.

Simple practical things we can do to show others that God loves them and we care about them.

As I prepared this talk I was reminded of a Christian lady at my previous church, who was in her sixties - who was a good Samaritan.

She was the local lollipop lady and she always had a kind word and a smile for the mums and children going to school.

She helped with a children’s group on Sunday mornings and she also helped to run a weekly club for elderly people in the area, where they could socialise and chat and have something to eat.

She was always willing to babysit for younger couples in the church especially if it meant they could then go to some church activity. Basically, if she could help anyone out she would and she always had time for people.

She didn’t have an upfront role in the church but she played a major role in the local community bringing people together and making people’s lives a little brighter and easier.

Of course as Christians we want to help other people come to know God – but rather than just trying to share our faith verbally we also need to share our faith by our actions.

Joyce Meyer puts it like this; “If there are people in your life today who need to know Jesus, let me suggest you try a new method of sharing the gospel. Instead of just telling them about the hope found in Christ, find out what needs they have and ask God to help you meet those needs.

“Whatever you can do to show them the love of Jesus, do it. When you help people with their physical needs you’ll be surprised at how quickly they open up about their spiritual needs.”

Can I just say at this point that we need to get a balance between meeting people’s physical and spiritual needs.

Just as preaching at our friends and neighbours about God without offering to lift a finger to help them out is unlikely to bear fruit – so is being the kindest most helpful neighbour – if at the same time we never mention God or the faith we have in him.

Really the two things need to go hand in hand.

So to tie up what I want to say today, the two great commandments point us upwards as it were - towards loving 

God but also point us outwards – towards loving our neighbour.

God loves and cares for us – but He then commands us to reach out to those around us – our neighbours – to share and demonstrate that love.

Of course it’s essential that we put time and effort into developing and maintaining our relationship with God – but the outcome and result of doing this should then be a desire within us to love and bless others and help them find what we have found.

And really the most effective way of doing this is by showing kindness and care to those around us – showing them that they are loved.

And if we show people that we care for them and that God cares for them – they will be much more open to hearing what we want to say about our faith.

So can I encourage all of us over the coming week to look out for people that we can be good Samaritans to. And if there are people we’ve been praying would come to know God – perhaps we can make a special effort to show them God’s love through our actions and a willingness to help them in any way that we can.

In the name of the living God. Amen.