Greetings everyone and thanks for joining me for this edition of our Sunday School preview. This Sunday’s lesson is entitled “Loving Your Neighbor” and is found in Luke 10:25-37.
A few weeks ago I preached a sermon entitled “Learning the Eternal Lesson”. If you haven’t heard it or forgotten it, you can click the title to listen to it. But the eternal lesson is about having mercy. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain or receive mercy”.
Mercy is that which alleviates suffering. Jesus has much to say on the subject of mercy. Mercy is a key to eternal life as seen through a well-known parable of Jesus about a good Samaritan. The parable arose after a question from a scholar of the Jewish law was directed to Jesus. The question was “What must he do to receive or inherit eternal life?”.
This next point is very important for all who would be Christians and inherit eternal life. Jesus acknowledged that there is something to be done to inherit eternal life. There are some who say they want eternal life but aren’t doing what needs to be done.
Jesus asked the scholar lawyer “what does the Law say about it and how do you understand what it means?”. The lawyer’s answer was love God with our all and our neighbor as ourself. Jesus said he was correct and if we do this, we shall live. So then there is something we can and must do.
Then the lawyer wanted to know who qualifies as his neighbor. And in order to answer this question, Jesus tells the famous parable about the good Samaritan. There are two points that Jesus makes in the parable that I want to mention.
The first point I want to mention is that Jesus didn’t identify the injured man in any way other than to say he was hurt and left for dead. That means he could be anybody, even you or me. The second point is seeing others as ourself. If you were suffering and someone came along who was able to alleviate your suffering, wouldn’t you want them to do it? This is where mercy comes in.
When we put the two points together, we see that God wants us to alleviate human suffering regardless of who the person is. Not only those who look like us, think like us, live like us and in any matter we may find or have something in common.
As far as the parable goes, the injured man and the Samaritan had nothing in common except their humanity and that they were travelling on the same road. Oh, how far America, and the world, is from being neighborly to each other as Jesus taught.
People are divided by so many superficial things and self-absorbed that they refuse to behave merciful toward others based on nothing more than our common humanity. Because of our lack of mercy and failure to treat others the way we would want to be treated, we are confronted with most of the social problems in our society.
The lack of love and mercy can destroy a society and accounts for much suffering as everyone looks inward at their own needs and not at the needs of others. There is enough to go around so that no one is in need of anything.
But without the love and mercy of God, we selfishly turn our back on others and only concern ourselves with our own needs and those we have something in common with. People don’t believe much in eternity anymore if some ever did. But for those who still do and will, Jesus leaves us with an important lesson.
The parable arose from what began as a question about eternity. It ended with showing us to see ourselves in others on the basis of their humanity alone and to help them if and when we can. By doing so, we are helping others as we help ourselves and doing what is required to inherit eternal life.
Well, I hope you will be able to attend SS this coming Sunday. Invite someone to come and share your thoughts with the class. Sunday School at Flag Branch will begin at 9:00 am and you are invited to join us at www.fbmbc.org and clicking the online services link. I look forward to giving the lesson highlights and addressing questions that arose during the lesson. If you have any comments or questions before then, be sure to place them in the comment section of this preview and I will get back to you. So, as always remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
