The One Who Showed Him Mercy

Good to meet you yesterday. My name is Greg. I have the privilege of pastoring a church in Southeast Asia. It's actually the church that Megan was a part of for the last two years before she moved here.

So it's a joy to be with you this morning and bring you greetings from Southeast Asia. There are people praying or have been praying for this church and for our service this morning, and I trust that you are encouraged by the word. If you have a Bible, I would invite you to take it out.

Introducing the Good Samaritan Parable

We'll be looking this morning at Luke chapter 10, the parable of the Good Samaritan. So I'll begin reading in verse 25 down to verse 37. Then after I read, I'll just briefly pray and we'll get into our study this morning. Luke chapter 10, beginning in verse 25.

This is the word of God.

Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?” He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’ “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

— Luke 10:25-36 (CSB)

The one who showed him mercy, he said, then Jesus told him, "Go and do the same." Let's pray, Father: we ask now that you would bless the preaching of your word. Pray, Lord, that you would move me out of the way and that you would speak clearly. Holy Spirit, we ask for the gift of illumination. We pray that as we encounter your word, Christ would be magnified. We pray this in his name.

Amen. There is a sister that used to go to my church back in Southeast Asia and she has this really unique gift. She is the type of person that you might go out to lunch with or to dinner with and you would sit down at your table and you would order your food, and then you might receive a phone call and might need to take it. So you would walk out of the restaurant briefly to take this phone call, and you would come back four minutes later, and you would find the waitress who took your order sitting in your seat.

And she is wiping tears from her eyes because apparently in those four minutes—240 seconds—this waitress has told your friend her entire life story, including the difficult situation she is currently in, while your friend in turn has shared the gospel with her, prayed for her, and invited her to church on Sunday. Do you know anyone like that? People that just have this gift make other people want to open up to them immediately. It's not just the gift of evangelism, but there's this warmth of personality, and it seems like people immediately trust them and open up to them.

They're the kind of people that you'll meet once, and you walk away from that meeting feeling like you've known that person for years. Maybe that describes some of you, maybe that describes a family member or a friend of yours. I think one of the character traits that these people possess is that they are uniquely compassionate. The word compassion comes from two Latin words that are put together.

The Latin preposition, which means "with" or "together," and then the Latin verb, which means something like "to suffer." So when you put it together, it speaks of suffering together with someone else. One online dictionary defines it as a feeling of sorrow or deep tenderness for one who is suffering or experiencing misfortune. This so describes that sister. Perhaps this describes some of you. She meets people who are suffering and her heart has been wired by the gospel to step into their suffering, to feel their sorrow as if it's her own, and people seeing this genuine compassion in her heart actually, in turn, opened their hearts to her.

Why do I say all of that? Because it is compassion that stands at the center of our passage this morning. As we work through this passage, I want to give you three headings that will form my outline this morning. The first thing we're going to see is a revealing test.

The Revealing Test of the Lawyer

A revealing test. We're going to see that in verses 25 to 28. The second thing we'll see is a shocking story. A shocking story.

We'll see that in verses 29 to 35. And then the third thing that we'll see is a staggering standard. A staggering standard. We see that in the last two verses Verses 36 and 37 this morning Let begin with that first point of our outline a revealing test The first thing we need to note about this passage is its placement within Luke's gospel.

So if you have a Bible and you look back up to verse 21, you'll notice that Jesus prayed this. He prayed, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. So Jesus in that verse is praising God because God has hidden the reality of the kingdom and its king from the wise and the understanding, from the intelligent, from the experts, but revealed these things to little children. And who do we meet at the start of our passage?

We meet an expert in the law. In other translations, it's a lawyer—not in a modern‑day sense, but someone who gave themselves to studying the law. This expert in the law becomes an object lesson of exactly what Jesus just prayed. This expert in the law is blind to the reality of the kingdom, and he's blind to the reality of its King who is in front of him. And because of his blindness, what does he try to do?

He tries to test Jesus. Now, it's interesting that the word “test” is only used one other time in all of Luke's writings—so Luke and Acts.

It's actually used back in Luke chapter 4 verse 12. If you want to turn there, you can. But that's the passage about Jesus' temptation. And in Luke 4 verse 12, Jesus says to Satan, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

So two people in all of Luke's writings are said to test Jesus: Satan and this expert in the law. It's not good company, right? Not a good track record.

Now notice that his test comes in the form of a theological question. He says in verse 25, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Given what Luke has just told us about this man—that his intentions are to test, to entrap, even to tempt Jesus—I don't think we're to understand this man's question as genuine. It's not that this man is struggling in his own soul about how he, a poor, unworthy sinner, can inherit eternal life.

No, this question is meant to stump Jesus. It's meant to catch him in some sort of theological quandary that will discredit him and his ministry. Notice that Jesus actually doesn't respond to his question directly; instead, he meets his question with another question.

It's just a reminder that Jesus is the master teacher. He poses this question to him in verse 26.

“What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?”

— Luke 10:26 (CSB)

Now, if you are someone who writes in your Bible, I might suggest underlining that word “written.” What is written in the law? Because Jesus wants this lawyer to go back to what was written in the Torah, not what had merely been handed down by tradition. Surprisingly, the lawyer—the expert in the law—gets it right; he quotes in verse 27 from two different Old Testament passages: Deuteronomy 6:5, which is the Shema, and then Leviticus 19:18.

He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.”

— Luke 10:27 (CSB)

And Jesus responds to him in verse 28, “Do this and you will live. Do this and you will inherit eternal life.” Now, three things I want to note here. The first thing I want us to note is the word “love.”

It's not “you shall obey the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.” No, it’s love. Why? Because God is not content with mere obedience; He desires and demands our affection. Those who love God in this way holistically will also obey Him. But there are those who can obey really, really well and yet have no affection for the one whom they are obeying. Every parent knows this, right? Our kids can obey us but not delight in us or in the commandments that we give.

God is not content with that. The second thing I want us to note here is that these four words, heart, soul, strength, mind, they really cover every aspect of our humanity. One commentator says that they refer to our emotions, to our consciousness, to our motivations or our volition, and to our intelligence or our intellect. There is no part of us that is left out of this equation.

We can't merely love God with our intellect, but not our emotions. We cannot love Him with our emotions and not our motivations God standard is that we love him and that we love him with our entire being Third thing I want us to note here notice that the lawyer rightly ties loving God together with loving neighbor. He understands that these things go hand in hand. A rightly ordered affection for God always has direct implications on how we relate to other image bearers of God around us.

And when it doesn't, then there's a defect in our own hearts. When we claim to love God in this way, but we don't have love for our neighbors, well, then there's a disconnect that must be addressed. this is all of this is the lawyer's revealing test first it reveals who he is right the this lawyer this expert in the law actually is revealed to be more aligned with satan than anyone else second he unintentionally reveals who jesus is Jesus here is the one who speaks with absolute authority about the Word of God because he is the Word of God incarnate. This man is supposed to be the expert in the law, but it is Jesus who possesses total expertise in terms of the law.

The Shocking Story of the Samaritan

So this is the revealing test, which brings us to our second point, a shocking story. Jesus's response to the lawyer prompts him to ask a second question. He says in verse 29, “And who is my neighbor?” Notice that Luke once again pulls back the curtain on this man's heart.

In the opening verse, we're told that this man posed Jesus a question not as a genuine seeker but as one seeking to test or entrap Jesus. And here we're told that now this expert in the law is seeking to justify himself. And the question is why Why does this expert feel the need to justify himself Well what did Jesus just said And Jesus said in verse 28 Do this and you will live Do what Love God and love your neighbor and you will live And this expert in the law who thinks of himself as worthy of eternal life, who thinks of himself as a faithful keeper of the Torah, wants to just clarify what the limits are to the term neighbor. In my study of this, I was just reminded of my own heart.

God tells us, "Do this," and our response is, "Sure, for how long?" God tells us, "Forgive," and our response is, "Okay, but how many times do I have to forgive?" God says, "Don't gossip," and our response is, "Could you define gossip for me?" Right?

For this expert in the law, God says, through his Son, "Love your neighbor." And his response is, of course, "But who is my neighbor?" Now the answer to this question was debated amongst the Jews of that day. So if you think about a spectrum, the strictest Jews understood the word neighbor as only referring to Yahweh‑fearing, Torah‑keeping Jews.

The average Jew understood the word neighbor as limited only to Jews, and then the most liberal Jews would understand this category to refer, of course, to Jews, but also fully converted Gentiles—Gentiles who had been circumcised and were following the law. No Jew would have understood the word neighbor to include unconverted Gentiles or Samaritans. None.

They would have looked back at the verse that the expert in the law quoted from Leviticus 19, which says, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself." And they would have said, "See right there, the neighbors are only the sons of our people, just Jews." If you ever read through the book of Exodus you might get to this section where there are laws about what to do if your ox hurts someone else's ox. Guess what the exceptions were to these laws taught by the experts in the Torah. If your ox hurt the ox of a Samaritan, it didn't matter. If your ox hurt or killed the ox of a foreigner, it didn't matter.

If your ox gored and hurt the ox of a resident alien in Israel, it didn't matter. If your ox hurt or killed the oxen of any of those people, you were taught no restitution at all was required, because those people were not your neighbors. That's what's at the heart of this man's question.

Who is my neighbor? And to answer that question, Jesus tells a story. Now, the story that Jesus tells is pretty familiar, I'm sure, to most, if not all of you. It's pretty self‑explanatory.

A man is depicted as leaving Jerusalem and going to Jericho. It's about a 16‑mile journey. It's not stated explicitly, but it is pretty clear by implication that this man who is making this journey is understood to be a Jew. And it's likely that he was in Jerusalem because he was there to offer sacrifices in the temple.

And as he makes this 16 mile journey, he is violently accosted by robbers who strip him of his clothes, who mercilessly beat him and leave him half dead by the side of the road. And then we're told that on two different occasions, two different men come to him. The first is a priest and the second is a Levite. Now, it's important to note that in the Jewish mind these two men represented two different classes of clergy in Israel The priests were understood as kind of the highest class of clergy They were the ones who would serve God directly specifically in offering sacrifices while the Levites were understood as serving God by serving the priests.

They were the musicians, the gatekeepers, the groundskeepers, and the janitors in the temple complex. So maybe to translate it today: the priests, that's Pastor John, and then the interns that serve Pastor John, that's the Levites, the janitors and the groundskeepers and the gatekeepers. Now, there are two main reasons that Bible scholars have come up with as to why these two men don't stop to help their Jewish kinsmen.

Some have argued that perhaps these men feared for their own lives, thinking that these violent robbers were still nearby. Others have argued that these men did not want to chance becoming ceremonially unclean by touching this man who was in the process of dying. At the end of the day those are just educated speculations What we know is that this man was one of their Jewish kinsmen their undisputed neighbor in every sense of the word, and he is in great and dire need, and that if no one stops and helps him, what's going to happen to him on the side of that road? He's going to die.

And this brings us to a third pastor buyer. Now, in many Old Testament passages—I'm only going to give you one—but in many Old Testament passages, there's this kind of three-part organization or categorization of the Jewish people. You have priests, Levites, and then the people. So, listen to this passage from 2 Chronicles 34:30.

3430. It says, and the king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites and all the people great and small. So priests, Levites, and then the rest of the people. So when we get to this part of Jesus's story, Who do you think that the expert in the law and the audience expected the third passerbier to be?

Because we already got the priest. We already got the Levite. They would have expected a Jew, right? Just a normal Jew.

Normal Jew. So imagine their shock when Jesus says,

But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion.

— Luke 10:33 (CSB)

The contrast would have been shocking between what was expected and what was said. This isn't a Jewish layman who has compassion on his Jewish brother, but this is a Samaritan. Now, the relationship between Jews and Samaritans was a relationship marked by genuine, deep‑seated generational hatred. And it was hatred rooted in two things: in race and in religion.

So it was hatred rooted in race because Samaritans were basically, for lack of a better phrase, half‑breeds. They were Israelites who had been mixed with people that the Assyrian Empire had sent into the northern kingdom. So they were half‑Jewish and half‑pagan Gentile. And it was also a hatred rooted in religion because Samaritans claimed to worship Yahweh, but they did so in the wrong place, in the wrong temple, and in a completely inappropriate way, at least in the minds of those from the southern kingdom of Judah.

I think it's sad and ironic that so much of the hatred we see in the world today stems from these same two soils, race and religion. And yet the story is about to get even more shocking in verses 34 and 35. Let's just track what this man does. This Samaritan comes to the dying Jew, and instead of crossing to the other side of the road, he bends down to bind up—or bandage—this man's wounds. He pours wine on the wounds to cleanse them. He pours olive oil on the wounds to soothe them. And then he puts the injured Jew on his own animal, meaning that he himself is walking.

It's a 16‑mile journey. It also means that if robbers attack them, who is the most vulnerable, the one on the animal or the one walking? The one walking. So he puts himself in harm's way.

Then he brings him to an inn, but notice that he spends the entire evening caring for him. Because we read that he took care of them, and then the next day is when he leaves. When he leaves, he gives the innkeeper two denarii to continue to care for this man. one scholar notes that this amount of money, two denarii, would have likely paid for one to two months of stay at that inn, including food and medicine and everything he needed.

On top of all this, the Samaritan says, “Anything you spend extra I pay back.” But how is he going to pay it back? He’s not going to zeal it. He’s not going to send him a check. He says, “I will pay it back when I return,” meaning he’s going to come back physically to check on this Jewish man to make sure he's okay. This is shocking. This Samaritan man is not caring for a family member.

We could understand that, right? We would do this for a family member. He's not caring for his father or his brother. He's not even caring for a fellow Samaritan.

He is caring for a Jew, his sworn enemy. The compassion that this Samaritan shows is selfless. It's sacrificial. It's over the top.

The Staggering Standard and Call to Action

It's shocking. That's the second point. And this shocking story then sets up our third and final point, a staggering standard. Once again, Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer and he asks him a question.

He says in verse 36 to this expert in the law,

“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

— Luke 10:36 (CSB)

Notice that Jesus has changed this expert's original question. The original question is, “Who is my neighbor?” i.e., to whom am I required to show love and to whom am I not required to show love? And the parable answers his question. The parable says no one.

There is no one to whom you are not required to show love. One commentator helpfully writes this: the lawyer's question itself implies that there is such a thing as a non‑neighbor. The parable says that there is no such person.

And if that's the case, then guess what? This lawyer has no grounds on which to justify himself. But now Jesus introduces a new question. It's not “Who is my neighbor?” but “Who is the good neighbor?”

Who is the compassionate neighbor? Who is the Torah‑keeping neighbor? And the expert in the law, you can almost imagine him, through gritted teeth, says, the one who showed mercy to him. Notice, he can't even bring himself to say the Samaritan, for even that would be offensive to him.

And Jesus, with one final jab, right, says, "Go and do the same." Go, don't be like the priest, don't be like the Levite, go and be like the Samaritan. Can you imagine how offensive that would have been to not only the lawyer but the Jewish audience that likely was there listening as well? Be like the Samaritan—be like the Samaritan who saw his enemy suffering, dying, helpless, and instead of ignoring him and avoiding him, pursued him. Be like the Samaritan who put himself in harm's way to care for his enemy. Be like the Samaritan who gave selflessly, sacrificially, generously to aid his enemy.

Be like the Samaritan who was full of the compassionate love that the Torah, the law, exemplifies and demands. Now, what I'm about to say is somewhat contested. Many in the early church understood this good or compassionate Samaritan to be pointing to Jesus himself. Later scholars of the New Testament, especially those that came after the Reformation, disagreed with this interpretation, arguing that it was an illegitimate allegorizing of the parable.

But I think I would submit to you that if we zoom out and consider the entire book of Luke and the rest of the Gospels, that this is not only a legitimate interpretation, but a necessary one. That word "compassion" I started the sermon with, talking about compassion. It is used in verse 33 of our passage. It's not the same word that's translated as "mercy" at the end of the passage. That word "mercy" is more common. This word "compassion" is rarer.

It's only used twelve times total in all of the Gospels. In nine of those twelve instances, it is explicitly used of Jesus. Jesus has compassion on the crowds. Jesus has compassion on the blind men.

Jesus has compassion on the widow. In two of those instances, it's used in parables—one about a master showing compassion to his slaves and the father showing compassion to his prodigal son. Which means that in eleven of its uses, it is clearly used to describe God.

Twice to point to the compassion of God the Father. Nine times to talk about the compassion of Jesus the Son while he was on earth. I look at that evidence and I don't think it's an accident that Luke describes this Samaritan as being full of compassion for his enemy, being full of compassion that spills over in selflessness and lavish generosity, compassion that pursues the dying and the helpless, compassion that washes, anoints, and binds his wounds, compassion that carries the wounded to a place of rest and recovery, and compassion that supplies all that he needs until he is restored to full health and wholeness.

It can't be a coincidence, right? That Luke describes the Samaritan as overflowing with compassionate love and him not have Jesus in mind. Dear friends, the good, the compassionate Samaritan is meant to point us to Jesus. Jesus is the perfect, compassionate law keeper.

Jesus is the one who perfectly loves his heavenly Father with all his heart and soul and mind and strength and loves his neighbor. Jesus is the one who, in compassion, steps into our suffering. Jesus is the one who, in compassion, pursues us in our utter helplessness. In compassion, he gives of himself—not denarii, but he gives of his own life.

On Calvary's tree. In compassion, he supplies all that we need in order that we might be eternally healed and restored and made new. Friends, we cannot understand this passage until we see Jesus in it. I'm a guest here this morning, but I wonder if perhaps any of you here are not Christians.

Application: Living Out Compassion

You're not trusting in Christ for forgiveness of your sins. And my question for you, if I can be so bold, is: what are you waiting for? Do you not see in this passage a compassion and a love that is so compelling and beautiful and inviting? Why would you not turn from your sin to Jesus, the compassionate one? Turn to the one who loved his enemies to the point of dying for them on a cross, to the point of receiving their judgment in his body.

The first and most important application this morning is actually for you, and the application is this. If you're here and you're not a Christian, you need to realize your desperate need and look to the compassionate one for his help. The man on the road is left half dead by robbers, But dear friends, you, we are not half dead in our sins and trespasses. No, apart from Christ, we are fully dead.

Fully dead in our sins and our trespasses. We are not in need of wine to cleanse our wounds and oil to solve them and bandages to bind them. No, we are in need of a spiritual heart transplant; we require the One who can make the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead rise, and Jesus is that One. He is the one who came to seek and save the helpless and the lost, the blind, the lame, the imprisoned, the dead.

So if I'm describing you this morning, friend, humble yourself. Realize your desperate need. Don't try to justify yourself like the lawyer, but realize your need and then look to Jesus, the compassionate One. A second application this morning for those of you who are trusting in Christ for forgiveness.

You are a believer. We must not realize our desperate need, but we must remember that the compassion which saves us is transforming us. We need to remember that the compassion that saves us is transforming us. The word compassion we find in our passage has this synonym in the New Testament.

The word in verse 33 in our passage speaks of how one heart is moved with compassion. One kind of inner being is moved with sorrow at the sorrow and the pain of another. But there is another New Testament word that speaks of how that compassion takes action. When one's heart is moved with sorrow, it produces provision and care. It acts.

That synonym is the word that we find in Romans 12:1—sure many of you know that passage, right? I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. In reality, that verse is kind of a parallel to what we see here: offering your bodies as a living sacrifice to God is essentially loving God with all your soul, your heart, your strength, and your mind. But notice that when Paul writes that, he roots it in something. He says, "by the mercies of God." That's our synonym.

The power source for us showing the compassion modeled by the Good Samaritan is the very compassion or mercy which saved us. Friends, the standard that we see in this parable, and more importantly, the standard of compassion that we see in Jesus Himself, is staggeringly high. In fact, it is impossibly high. We cannot, in and of ourselves, love like that.

But the God who saved us did not leave us to ourselves. We live, we love, and we show this type of staggering compassion by the mercies of God. So if you're struggling this morning to show compassion—perhaps to a spouse, to a child, to a parent, to a friend, to someone in this church, to a co‑worker—if you're struggling to show compassion, then take hope and remember that the compassion that saved you is also in the process of transforming you. Third, final application: we need not only to recognize our need and remember that the compassion that saved us is transforming us, but we need to recognize our neighbors, their needs, and the responsibility we have to love them. The parable is clear, isn't it?

There is no limit to that word "neighbor." Social lines do not apply. Racial lines do not apply. Even religious lines do not apply.

Your neighbors aren't just the people who look like you, talk like you, like the same foods that you do, have the same skin color that you have. Your neighbors aren't just the people you like and get along with naturally. Those of us who have been saved by the compassion of Christ and who are being transformed by the compassion of Christ have a responsibility to recognize our neighbors, to recognize their needs, and then to step into those needs with that very same compassionate love we see in our passage. And we must recognize that, unlike the parable, their greatest needs are not ultimately wine and oil and bandages for their wounds or a safe place to stay or even denarii, money, money to help them along. Don't mishear me.

Those things are important and they have their place. But the greatest need of our neighbors is to, through us, meet the compassionate One Himself—to meet the One who stepped into our fallen world, into their fallen world; to meet the One who Himself was wounded for our sins; to meet the One who bore their cross to Calvary's hill; to meet the One who died in their place for their sins.

So, friends, have eyes to see your neighbors—neighbors in your own home, neighbors in your actual neighborhood, neighbors at work and at school, neighbors here in this church who are very much unlike you. Have eyes to see your neighbors and their needs. And then, like Jesus says in our passage, go and do the same. Let's pray: Father, we thank You for how this passage points us to Jesus; we thank You for how this passage points us to the compassionate One who loved His enemies to the point of death—even death on a cross. Father, we pray that You would transform our hearts with this compassion, that You would give us eyes to see our neighbors and their needs.

And that you would give us boldness and love to step into those needs with the same love and compassion that you have shown us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.