Jesus’s Compassion Command : Excerpts from Timothy Keller

Jesus’s Compassion Command, Excerpts from Timothy Keller

This post is presented in three sections.

First is Keller’s 2003 sermon on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Second is a collection of excerpts from the most recent edition Keller’s 1989 book, Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road. And finally there is a quotation germane to the subject of former texts taken from another source.

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1) Timothy J. Keller, “Neighbors,” February 23, 2003; transcript (edited for publication): 7133 words

We’re looking at the life of Jesus as we find it in the gospel of Luke. We’ve already said that the first nine chapters of Luke are really all about: Who is Jesus? But the next nine chapters, from chapter 9 to about chapter 18, are about: What does it mean to follow Jesus? Chapter 10 begins to answer that question: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

The first part of chapter 10 says that all disciples are messengers. We looked at this last week – being messengers. Messengers. Every disciple is given the gospel as a message that they’re supposed to communicate to everyone and to urge them all to believe it.

But now, at the last part of chapter 10, we have the other side of being a disciple. Here, instead of gospel messaging, we’re called to gospel neighboring. Instead of just being called messengers, we’re also called to be neighbors.

To be messengers means to take the gospel to everyone and urge them to believe it, but gospel neighboring is a mandate to meet the needs of all the people around you whether they believe the message or not.

Gospel messaging, gospel neighboring: they absolutely have to be understood as going together. In fact, gospel neighboring in some ways is just a non-verbal form of gospel messaging. They’re intrinsic in Jesus’s mind, though in most of our minds, they’re not. They intrinsically go together.

So, let’s take a look at what we mean by this term, “gospel neighboring.” There’s four things we learn from the passage and the text. We learn about its mandate, that it’s required; its magnitude, the dimensions of it; its motivation, where do we get the dynamic for it?

A few things about method, how to do it -- First: mandate. In this parable, there is an interaction between Jesus and what’s called here a “law expert.” Now, when you and I think about a law expert we think a civil law, but this law expert would have been an expert in religious law or Biblical law. This is a religious scholar.

And this guy asks a question. . . . And here’s why he asks it.

You see, it says he set up to test Jesus, to trap him. Now, why would he want to do that? Well, you see, Jesus is always welcoming people that disobey the law. He’s always welcoming sinners. He’s so friendly to them, so open to people that religious folks call “sinners” because they’re not obeying the law of God.

So, the religious scholar has some suspicion, and he wants to expose Jesus as someone who does not really respect the law of God, does not really respect the importance of obeying the moral law. So, he asks Jesus the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to become saved or accepted by God?”

The law expert expects Jesus -- because of his attitude toward quote, unquote sinners -- to say something like: “It doesn’t really matter how you live; God accepts everyone. Just go to him and He will love you.” He expects Jesus to say that, and trap him, and expose him. But Jesus himself has a trap; Jesus’s trap is a trap of love. -- It’s all right to be trapped by Jesus.

Jesus comes back at the guy – and, by the way, just keep this in mind: when someone’s trying to trap you with a question, always come back with another question. It works every time – well, not every time – but Jesus shows the way here, OK?  He comes back with a question and says: “Well, what’s in the law? How do you read it?”

Now, there are only two ways to answer a question like that: ”What’s in the law?” You either get out of it by reading all 700 rules, or the entire Torah, or you give a summary. And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying when he says, “How do you read it?” which is a way of saying, “Give me a summary.”

And, of course, he gets the summary that Jesus most probably expected. Because this answer was actually typical. This guy didn’t think this up. We know that, at the time, law experts had studied the law, the moral law of God, and had come up with these basic two principles: “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul, strength and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” Now just think of this for a second, because it is critical to what Jesus is doing.

“Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.” What does that mean?

My favorite explanation of that – Archbishop William Temple once put it this way: “Your religion is what you do in your solitude.” And what he’s saying is this: “When you’re standing on a corner for hours, for some reason, and you’re waiting, and you have literally nothing to read, nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, and nothing to do, when your mind is completely unfettered and it’s not forced to think of anything, where does it go naturally? Where does it go instinctively? Where does it love to dwell? Is it God? Is it his attributes? Is it his excellencies? Is it his beauty? Is that where your mind automatically goes when it is free to go?”

The answer is: of course not. That something else is, Archbishop Temple said, your real religion. That’s your deity. That’s is really your ultimate concern. That’s your faith.

Therefore, the first test of the law is to love God so that he dominates your solitude. Love God so much that you are content in any circumstances because you always have what you most want. And that’s the first rule. There’s one more to go. And the second one is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And what does this mean? Well, think about it: meet the needs of your neighbor with all of the force, with all the joy, with all the speed, with all the power that you meet your own. Meet the needs of your neighbor with all the joy, the speed, the power, the force with which you meet your own with. Be as happy for them when their needs are met as you would be for your own, because you put their happiness inside your happiness, so that what makes you happy is what makes them happy.

Oh, is that all? Do you feel the force of it? You see, when you’re looking at the laws, if you look at enough laws, when you break it down into six or seven hundred, and you look, and you’re ticking them off every day, when you’re doing it you can feel like a pretty good person. But when you need to look at what the law is after, the character it’s after.

Jesus replies to the answer, “You have answered rightly. Do that and you will be saved,” and this is brilliant.

Because, on the one hand, what Jesus is saying is the law outlines a way of life that is right. That’s how we ought to live. That law, certainly it’s absolutely right. You should love God at that level because it is only equitable to treat the being that has given you everything and sustains you every second like that. And you should love your neighbor at that level because it is only fair to require from yourself what you require from them, which is the Golden Rule.

So, he says, you should be living this kind of life -- doing the things that the law demands you should be doing. But, Jesus tells him, “Sure, obey that, completely fulfil the law of God and, of course, you’ll be saved.” What Jesus is saying is, “Though the law is a way of life, it’s not the way to life. You should live that way, but you’ll never be saved that way. And I’m trying to show you: go ahead, live that, sure, if you want to be saved.”

But, you see, the religious scholar immediately senses what Jesus is doing. The scholar wanted to justify himself, so he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” See what’s going on? Why does he say: “OK, let’s be reasonable here? You don’t mean just anybody, do you? Let’s whittle this thing down so it’s reasonable and doable.” Why is he doing that?

Because the premise of his life, as Luke shows us here, is: God will accept me if I am virtuous enough. That’s the premise of his life. And he senses Jesus is knocking him off, because Jesus says “Give me a summary of the law and as soon as he summarizes the law – it’s an impossible thing to accomplish.” And Jesus says, “Sure, go ahead.” I mean it’s brilliant, because, on the one hand, he’s saying: “Yes, that’s how you ought to live, but if you think that’s how inherit eternal life, that’s silly.”

And of course the man feels it. And he says, “OK, OK, wait a minute. You’re not going to – he fights back – you’re not going to push me off the main thing – the main premise – for my entire life. And he says, “You don’t mean I have to love anybody. Who is my neighbor? Tell me in the minimum standard, Jesus. Tell me the minimum standard for salvation. What is the basic outline for, let us say, ‘minimum standard humanity’ that God wants.”

Jesus replies, “That reminds me of a story,” and he tells him a parable. In the story, we have a protagonist, the hero. And you see what the hero does: he meets basic human needs by deeds. It’s incredibly costly, as we are going to see. It’s incredibly sacrificial; it’s incredibly dangerous. But the hero meets a whole range of needs in what’s called “Holistic ministry” -- meeting emotional needs, as well as medical needs, as well as financial needs, as well as medical needs, as well as transportation needs.

And you have to realize that this story is, you say, you know, “Isn’t that wonderful?” but realize what this story is the answer to; realize the question this story is the answer to. The question is: “What is the absolute core of what God means when he says “love they neighbor?” What is the bare minimum standard?” And Jesus Christ says, “to meet the needs of people around you, even people who don’t believe what you believe at all.” (Samaritans and Jews had two different religions, and each one thought the other was blasphemous.)

Jesus is saying, “I want you to look out there and look at people you ordinarily despise. I want you to look out there and see people who don’t believe what you believe, and I want you to meet their needs with such concreteness and such sacrificial love that it will astonish people.”

That is why we’re calling it “Gospel neighboring.”

What is gospel neighboring? It is to meet the needs, the concrete needs, the human needs, of all the people whether they believe like you do or no not, with such costliness and such sacrificiality that people will need to hear the gospel, just to make some sense of your life because you are so inexplicable.

The question is just, “Give me the bare minimum of what God requires in loving the neighbor.” Yet Jesus replies with an example of what we’d call today “social work.” This is the core, he says, of what it means to be my disciple. This is the core: feeding, sheltering, protecting the weak, liberating the oppressed. This is the essence of what it means to be a disciple. This is the essence of what it means to love my neighbor.

This is it. And this is pretty astounding.

In fact, this is not the only place Jesus tells a parable – well, it’s not a parable, it’s like a parable – on this subject. in Matthew chapter 25 Jesus says in the last days the Great Shepherd, the Judge, will have to separate the sheep from the goats. Now, that’s something shepherds had to do because they, every so often, there were other white animals that would enter the flock and they looked like sheep but, hey, they’re not sheep, they’re goats. You don’t shear a goat. So, every so often, what would happen is the sheep – the shepherd – would have to sort of weed out – it’s kind of a mixed metaphor, isn’t it –but anyway, weed out the goats from the sheep and Jesus says, “on the last day that’s what we’re going to have to do.”

The Judge of the Universe is going to look down on all the people who say they are believers and he’s going to have to take some nominal people out, and declare: “You say you’re a believer and you really aren’t. But you, over here, you’ve experienced the supernatural grace of God.”

Well, how do they know the difference? How will the Judge know the difference? Jesus’s answer is --

“On that day the Judge will say: ‘You’re the goats. And they ask Why?’ I will say: ‘I was hungry and you didn’t feed me. I was naked and you didn’t clothe me. I was shelterless and you didn’t bring me in. I was sick and didn’t care for me. I was in in prison and you didn’t visit me.’”

And they’re going to say to the Judge, “Lord, when did we see you in that condition? And Jesus will tell them it was “that day when you failed to do it to me.”

Now, that is astounding.

Think of it this way: Jesus is always saying “by their fruit you will know them.” Here are two trees: here is a tree in June filled with fruit and leaves; and here’s a tree in June with no fruit and no leaves on it. Which one’s dead and which one’s alive? Does the fruit give the tree life? No. The fruit tells you that it’s alive.

Jesus has the audacity to say, “Here’s how I know the difference between the person who just says they believe and a person who’s actually experienced my supernatural grace. A life poured out in deeds and service, especially to the poor, is an inevitable sign that you’ve experienced my salvation. It may come later, it may come sooner, but it will always come. It does not give you life, but it proves that you have met me.”

This is the mandate of gospel neighboring. Did you hear that, everybody? Did you hear that? Don’t you start to sympathize with the law expert, a little bit? Don’t you want to start to say, “Well, Jesus, let’s be reasonable about this. Please, you could certainly put some limits on this thing, because I’m feeling really guilty? Would you? Would it be alright if you just put some limits on it?” But Jesus won’t.

There are three ways, in this passage, in which Jesus shows, the magnitude -- not just the mandate for gospel neighboring -- but the magnitude of what he’s asking, what he’s calling disciples to do. And he says there are three ways that we tend to limit it, and try to limit it, and he won’t let us do it, and the passage shows he won’t. The first way we try to limit gospel neighboring is we try to limit the who; secondly, we try to limit the when; thirdly, we try to limit the how much.

Firstly, we try to limit the who. Now, it’s natural to want to give to and aid and help people who are like you, and who you like, and who like you. For example – and I’m not, in no way saying this is wrong – is if you were unemployed and the Deaconal fund here, and the Deacons or Deaconesses helped you through that, and now you got a job, and you’re back on your feet, you’re going to be a pretty generous donor, I think, to the Deaconal fund. This is one of the reasons why I think, as years have gone by, it’s become a better and greater and more widely subscribed to ministry, because people have tasted the graciousness of it. And you give because it’s probably going to be somebody like you – another young professional person, in the middle of, possibly Manhattan, who’s gotten down in their misfortune, and so on. It’s natural to give to people you can identify with because they are just like you, and you know what they’ve gone through.

But Jesus says, “Watch out!” because, he says, “Let me tell you who is your neighbor.” And in the story, the only two main characters in here are a Jew and a Samaritan. And these two racial groups were utter, bitter enemies at this time. Jesus deliberately does this. Why? Because he’s saying, “Your neighbor is anybody in need. Absolutely anyone.”

The protagonist reaches across an enormous racial barrier in order to help. It’s Jesus’s way of saying, “Don’t you dare try to limit this. Don’t you dare.”

So we tend to limit the who. Secondly, we try to limit the when. See, it’s very typical. It was in my church in Virginia where I first started trying to work through the implications of this passage. Studying this from 1979 to 1982 changed my life. I wouldn’t be in New York – I never would have thought of coming – if I hadn’t figured out what this parable is about.

When I was first trying to help my own folks in Virginia come to grips with this -- gospel neighboring -- one of the things that often came up was people said, “Well, look, there are certain kinds of people I don’t mind helping. You know, lightning strikes their house and it burned down. All right. That wasn’t their fault. But these people over here, I know something about that family. And they’re irresponsible and they’re stupid and they’re reckless and they’re always in trouble and it’s their fault. I don’t mind helping when it’s not their fault, when they deserve it.”

Well, one of the problems with this thinking is that when the character in Jesus’s parable, the Samaritan, discovers the person in the road he would (if you understand something about the historical context), absolutely believe the guy who is dying deserves it.

Absolutely, because that was not an individualistic society back then. You have two groups of people: one group said, “You’re oppressing us”; the other said, “No, you’re oppressing us.” And because they weren’t individualistic, when they would see a member of the oppressor group, they would say, “You deserve what you are getting.” So, Jesus gives us a person who looks at someone who absolutely -- in his own context, in his own way of thinking -- would absolutely say that this person deserves what is happening, and yet he reaches down. “Don’t you dare limit the when, whether they deserve it or not.”

Jonathan Edwards, who was a pastor in New England in the 1740s, wrote a fascinating treatise called The Duty of Charity to the Poor, because members of his own congregation were giving him all these excuses why they didn’t want to do it. And here’s a couple of examples. He made lists of all the excuses – and Gospel answers.

Here’s one excuse: “But you say, ‘They are not truly poor. I only have to help people when they are truly destitute and poor.” And Edwards’ answer: “We should relieve our neighbors only in extreme destitution? That is not agreeable to the rule of ‘love our neighbors as ourselves.’ We get concerned about our situation long before we become destitute. We know something about our situation long before we become destitute. So, we should love our neighbors as ourselves.”

Here’s the second excuse: “But they brought on their troubles themselves.” And Jonathan Edwards writes this, “But Christ loved you, pitied you and greatly laid himself out to relieve you from all that want and misery you brought on yourself by your folly. Should we not love others as Christ loved us?  In other words, Edwards is saying, “Jesus looked down from Heaven and if he’d said, “I only want to save the deserving poor with my blood,” he could have saved a trip. Because there isn’t anybody down here who deserves it.

So, we tend to limit the who, and Jesus says “Don’t you dare;” we tend to limit the when, Jesus says “Don’t you dare;” and the third thing is we tend to limit the how much. We have a tendency to say, “Now look, if I were doing well, maybe, but I can hardly make ends meet myself. I can’t afford to help people like that. I can’t afford to do it.”

Jesus, deliberately even though he’s making this story up – it’s a parable – he puts the story on a stretch of road everybody knew about. He didn’t just say “on the road, the robber got him.” Jesus put him on a particularly dangerous stretch of road, between Jerusalem and Jericho – lots of hills, lots of caves. There’s a pass on that road called, literally, The Pass of Blood. So many people get jumped and robbed there it’s called The Pass of Blood.  And so, what happens is likely the guy has been destroyed at the Pass of Blood and he’s dying; along came the priest, along comes the Levite. (Now, we’re going to get back to them in a second.)

So, when the Samaritan stops, he is risking everything. It is an incredible sacrifice. And of course, he opens his purse up and he doesn’t just say, “Here’s  two denarii, but he says, “I will pay for any amount of time it takes for this man to get better. And Jesus is communicating, “I want radical costliness.” See, Jonathan Edwards in his treatise deals with a person who says, “I cannot afford to help people in need. I cannot afford.”

And here’s what Edwards says in response: “Remember Colossians 6:2. Bear one another’s burdens.” Edwards goes on, “We may by the rules of the Gospel be obliged to give to others when we cannot do it without suffering ourselves. Else how is that rule of bearing one another’s burdens fulfilled? If we never are obliged to relieve others’ burdens except when we can do it without being burdened ourselves, how do you bear your neighbor’s burdens when you only do it when you bear no burden at all?”

Now, that is Edwards thinking like this: When people say “I can’t afford to give,” what they mean is I can’t afford to give to the poor without it burdening me, without it hurting my standard of living, without it really making me radically sacrifice. And Jesus says, “Yes. That’s it. There’s no such thing as a person who cannot afford to help. In fact, if you can afford to help, you are not helping enough. Jesus Christ says, “Let me tell you the magnitude of what I am calling my disciples to do: gospel neighboring.

Let me tell you how radical it is. You are to help even people that ordinarily you would hate the sight of. You are to help them, when people who have brought this on themselves. And you are to help them to the place where some of the burden falls on you, so that, to some degree, you experience some of theirs, because you’re giving that heavily. And Jesus says, “That is what I call you to. That is the magnitude of Gospel neighboring.”

Well, let me ask you a question. How do you get anybody to live like this? Is anybody going to say people shouldn’t do that? Of course not. I think anybody, if they know where there are two people living like this, they would want to move into their neighborhood. But nobody lives like this. So, how do you get people to live like this?

That brings us to the third question, the question of motivation. Where do you get the power to live like this? Where do you get the dynamic to live like this? Where does it come from? And there are only two possible ways to get people to live like this. Jesus shows us both of them – one of which is inadequate, one of which is all adequate; one of which is insufficient, one of which is all sufficient.

The first way that you can try to get people to live like this is through morality, secular or religious. For example, the secular version goes like this: You say, if you are an enlightened person, a progressive person. Then if you are a liberal person, if you are a decent person, if you are a civic-minded person, you’ll be concerned for the poor and you will vote for policies that help them, and you will give of yourself and you’ll volunteer your time through work and your money. And, of course, you have to be very, very concerned for the poor because you are an enlightened and progressive person. That’s the secular version.

The religious version is that you must give to the poor because the Bible commands it, or the Koran commands it, or the Torah commands it, or whatever. There’s no religion I know in the world, no major religion, that doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on helping the poor. And so you see, you have a religious version and you have a secular moral version. But they both basically motivate you through guilt:

“You have so much and they have so little, don’t you feel bad? Give it away.”

And you know what? Jesus puts into the parable, very unnecessarily, unless you understand his point, two people who are extremely moral, extremely religious: a priest and a Levite. The irony of the thing is that the priest and the Levite, it was their job. He could have chosen some other kind of people, a Pharisee or something, but the priest and the Levite were people who gave to the poor. They distributed the alms to the poor.

What is Jesus trying to show us? He is trying to show us that people who, out of a duty, who out of morality, who out of simple conscience, ordinarily do help the poor, when it comes to the radical costliness, when it’s going to cost them something, when it’s going to made them risk their life, when they’re going to have to lay themselves out in the radical way that Jesus is demanding, radical Gospel neighboring, they can’t do it.

Jesus is saying morality can’t take you very far. It can make you a little bit generous, make you feel bad about the way you are living, but it can’t take you very far. It doesn’t really change your life.

Let me ask you a quick question. Is there anybody feeling guilty about their lack of involvement, their lack of generosity, their lack of concern for the people in need around? Is anyone here feeling guilty? Stop, because it won’t take you where Jesus wants you to go. Even Jesus is not trying  make the lawyer feel guilty. He’s not trying to say how bad you are that you are not helping the poor.

Don’t forget what his original problem was. Here’s what Jesus Christ says is the only way to get the power to do this. The key to the parable is where the religious scholar has been placed by Jesus inside the story. If Jesus Christ had told the story like this:

“A man (an Israelite just like you) was riding along on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. In the road he saw a Samaritan on the road, who had been robbed and beaten and was almost dead. But that man (just like you), although the wounded man was a Samaritan, got off his steed and he went over to the wounded man poured oil on his wounds, sacrificing himself, risking his life, and gave to this man. Go and do likewise.”

What if that’s how it was?: a man like you, in the saddle, Samaritan on the ground -- the hated Samaritan, the loser, the oppressor. But he overcame all those terrible racial and class and barriers and such things, went down and helped him. “Go and do likewise.”

What would the guy have done? He would have laughed at Jesus. He would have said, “Are you kidding? I’m not a traitor of my people. That’s the weirdest story I ever heard. No self-respecting Israelite would do something like that. I would have just trampled on him and put him out of his misery. I would have ridden over him a couple of times.” He’d say, “You do not inspire me, Jesus. You do not move me, Jesus. This is the most ridiculous thing in the world.” And it’s true. That’s exactly what would have happened.

But Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus puts the Israelite into the road and he puts the hated Samaritan on the steed, in the saddle. And here’s the question he’s asking the man: “What if you were in the road” What if your life were ebbing out? What if you were bleeding to death? And what if your only hope was an act of free grace to you from an enemy who doesn’t owe you any mercy, but, in fact, owes you the opposite? What if your only hope was an act of free grace from someone, an act of radical neighbor-love from someone who in no way owes you neighbor-love, at all. What if that were the situation? Would you want grace? What if that were the situation?

Do you realize what Jesus is doing? If He had said, “You are in the saddle, the Samaritan is on the ground; reach across the barriers. Don’t be a racist and don’t be a classist and be generous,” He would have been saying, “I’m giving you a ‘Do it’ – a rule.” And even if the man agreed he would just be complying. It would not change his heart. But Jesus was not giving him a “Do it,” he was giving him a dynamic.

He’s just not saying, “You’re in the saddle and he’s on the ground.” He’s saying, “What if you’re on the ground? He’s saying, “What if you had an experience of radical grace? What if you were shockingly saved, but by someone who owed you nothing but rejection?”

Only if that had happened to you, would you get up and begin looking at everyone differently. Only then would you become a radical lover. Only then would you become a radical neighbor. Only then would you look at people who, in the past, you despised – the wrong race, the wrong class – people who you didn’t think were responsible. And you would look at them and say, “But I was no different. I was saved by someone who didn’t owe me that. I was saved from someone who had been an enemy. I was saved from someone who that I had rejected and resisted myself. I have been saved by radical grace and that would change me.”

This would get rid of the moralism. It would get rid of the pride that makes you look down and laugh at all the other people who are not just like you. That’s what would happen.

And Jesus is saying, “You will never be a neighbor until you get a neighbor.” In other words, “You will never be a radical neighbor until you are radically neighbored. You will never be able to have the kind of ministry to the people around you until you are the recipient of radical neighbor grace.” Now, you will have to ask yourself where would you get something like that?” You know how Jesus turned it around. He started asking the question, “Who is my neighbor?” But at the very end, look at Jesus’s question, he changed it. “Who was neighbor to you? Who was neighbor to the man in need?” And the guy has to choke out -- he can’t even use the word Samaritan -- but he gets it.

He answers, “the one who showed mercy.”

What has Jesus done? He says, “Until you get that,” he says, “the rule won’t happen. There’s a no-racism rule. Sure, it’s wrong to be racist. There’s a no-selfishness rule. Sure, you shouldn’t spend all the money on yourself. But I’m not giving you a rule; that wouldn’t change your heart. You need a dynamic.”

Well, where do you get that dynamic? Everyone who embraces the Gospel of Jesus Christ gets exactly what they need. Here’s what the Gospel says: “We’re all self-justifiers. Every one of us, Everyone. We’re – we all want to justify ourselves. And when you are a self-justifier, do you know how that beats you up?”

If you say, “Well, I’m OK. I’m good. I’m justified. I’m significant because of this or that whatever you set your heart on.” Becky Pipert says, “If you set your heart on power, you’re controlled by power. If you set your heart on human approval, you’re being controlled by the people you want to please. If you set your heart on family, you’re completely controlled by your family, and, whatever you try to justify yourself with, if it’s not God, it’s a master that will ensnare you, will beat you up, will fill you with fears, will fill you with discouragement over the years and eventually you’ll be in the road and you’ll be dying spiritually.” But the Gospel says Jesus Christ came into the world; He came onto our road. And, of course, He owes us nothing but rejection. Because He’s the Creator we owe Him everything. But we’ve been trying to be our own masters for all of our lives. Yet when He came to our place in the road, He had compassion on us.

And this word, “compassion” -- at verses 33 and 34 -- is the word that is used more about Jesus Christ’s emotional life than any other world in the Bible: “He had compassion on him.” When Jesus Christ saw us, he knew that making a stop wouldn’t just risk his life, it would cost his life. But he did it. For Jesus to get down from his steed, and come to us and put us up in his place on His saddle, cost His life. “God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” But he did it. And if you see him as your Good Samaritan, if you see him as your radical neighbor, if you see him as having done that changes you forever and you can do this. You can. You can begin.

You see, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ demands the love that cannot be demanded. He requires the love that cannot be required. You know what I’m saying? In other words, Jesus Christ says, “Radical Gospel neighboring requires a love that cannot be a response to a requirement, but a response to free grace. And only when you see the true neighbor and what he’s done for you. Well, you become a true neighbor for others.

In closing, for the sake of method and application, I’ll point out a couple of things we learned here. We are  three things that we’re taught in this passage about how to go about being a Gospel neighbor. First: you have to “re-neighbor” yourself.

Note that the Levite and the priest really were in the vicinity. You know, they crossed over to the other side of the road. It’s almost ludicrous, as if to say, “He’s not really in my path.” Of course, he was. But notice, the three guys, the Levite, the priest, the Samaritan, all see him – notice the word “saw”? The Levite saw him, the priest saw him, the Samaritan saw him. But here are two things the priest and the Levite didn’t do. They didn’t think about the injured man and they didn’t contact him. In other words, they didn’t look twice; they looked once and looked away. But the Samaritan looked at him, felt his misery, was filled with compassion. So, the first thing is, the Samaritan thought about the needs of the man. The others were too busy. And the Samaritan contacted the man, touched the man, came to be where he was. The other two guys went as far away from that mess they possibly could.

Now, listen. When you live in a city in which 25% of the kids under 18 are living in poverty – 25% – and you stay in your professional enclaves, and you spend all your money on yourself, you’re the priest and the Levite, let’s face it. You’re a geographic neighbor to them, you’re not a true neighbor to them. How do you change yourself from being a geographic neighbor to being a true neighbor? You have to “re-neighbor” yourself two ways: you have to think, and you have to contact. You have to spend time thinking about the other’s needs and you have to actually be in contact. And there’s no better way to do that than to begin with the Hope for New York ministry fair today. No better way.

So you have to re-neighbor yourself. Secondly, we have to re-weave the message and the neighboring: the gospel message where we say to people, “please believe this,” and Gospel neighboring, where we say, “I’m going to love you whether you believe it or not.”

Now, let me tell you something. When you hear Luke chapter 10, notice how he weaves these things together. When Jesus says, “I want you to be the fearless proclaimers of the message of the Gospel,” conservatives feel good and liberals feel nervous. And when Jesus says, “I want you to radically pull yourself out as a neighbor for the needs of the poor, liberals feel good and conservatives get nervous. But Jesus has no trouble. He completely weaves them together.

Consider this: in history, whenever Christianity has flourished, they’ve been utterly together: concern for the body and for the soul. And that’s the reason there’s this great letter from one of the Roman emperors, Julian, who was so upset with how Christianity growing and paganism was shrinking. Julian writes a letter about why it’s happening to a friend of his --

“You know, the religion of the Greeks does not prosper,” he says, “Why do we not observe how the charity of Christians to strangers has done most to advance their cause. It is disgraceful that these Christians support our poor in addition to our own, while everyone is able to see that our co-religionists lack aid from us.”

What he is saying is, “You know, the Greeks take care of the Greek poor, he says, the Romans take care of the Roman poor, others take care of their own poor, but the Christians are promiscuous about this: they take care of their own poor, and they take care of everybody else’s poor. There’s never been a group of people like this in the history of the world. And that’s true up to that time. You have to re-weave the two things [word and deed]. So, re-neighbor, re-weave.

I have to say one other thing, quickly, about racial reconciliation. This is a great racial reconciliation passage – and I want you to keep this in mind, when Jesus is dealing with a man who bears a self-justifying heart. In other words, here’s a guy who doesn’t believe the Gospel. He’s religious, but he doesn’t believe the Gospel. In other words, he’s trying to justify himself and Jesus assumes he’s a racist – but putting into this situation a man who would ordinarily be hated, because of his different race. I think this is what it means.

You know, nobody thinks they are racist. When I look at my own church, for example, there’s only two kinds of race consciousness. You have white people who went to college, and you have people of racial minorities. Now, the white people who went to college say, “Well, I’m not a racist. I took all those courses, you know.” The minority says, “I can’t be a racist, because I’ve been a victim of racism.” So nobody’s a racist; where’s the problem, then?

Jesus assumes that racism is part of self-righteousness. It’s part of the way the heart decides – until it understands the Gospel. The heart says, “I’ve got to make myself feel like I’m a pretty good person. And the best way to do that is to look at people who are different culturally and say I’m better than them.” Jesus sees racism as very closely aligned to the heart that doesn’t understand the Gospel. Therefore we should all look into our hearts and assume it is in there somewhere.

So, if we’re going to become radical neighbors, we must re-neighbor ourselves and re-weave the body and soul. We must work on racial reconciliation, repentance for the racism you still find in your heart. Listen, is there anyone here who still feels guilty? “So, I just feel guilty; I don’t think I can live this way.” Well, all right, but do what Jesus wants you to do with the guilt.

Until you have been crushed by the sight of the mercy God requires from you, you will not be humble enough to receive the mercy God offers you. And he offers it to you in the Great Samaritan, as it were: Jesus Christ. When you see what He did at the cost of his life to save you, when that penetrates your heart and you can begin to sing, “Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me,” then you’ll be able to go and do likewise.”

Let’s pray. Thank You, Father, for giving us an understanding of this passage strong enough to make us radical neighbors, we pray that Your Holy Spirit would give us the experience of grace Jesus told this man he needed to have. In some of our cases, you need to give us a deeper experience of the grace we already have. In some cases, you need to give us an experience we don’t have. But we pray that You would do it – so we truly can walk in the steps of the one who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life in ransom for many. In His name, we pray. Amen.

SERMON - Timothy J. Keller, “Neighbors,” from series: “The Meaning of Jesus,” Part 2; “Following Him,” February 23, 2003; (43:13) 2:37-43:13; Scripture: Luke 10:25-37.

https://gospelinlife.com/downloads/neighbors-5308/

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2) Timothy Keller, excerpts from Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road.

Pages 13-15

The phrase “ministry of mercy,” which we will use throughout this book, comes from verse 37, where Jesus commands us to provide shelter, finances, medical care, and friendship to people who lack them. We have nothing less than an order from our Lord in the most categorical of terms. “Go and do likewise!” Our paradigm is the Samaritan, who risked his safety, destroyed his schedule, and became dirty and bloody through personal involvement with a needy person of another race and social class. Are we as Christians obeying this command personally? Are we as a church obeying this command corporately?

~ QUESTIONS RAISED ~ The parable of the Good Samaritan is nothing if not provocative. To begin with, it is a reverse trap. A law expert sought to trap Jesus into saying something derogatory about the Law, but Jesus showed him that the Jewish leaders are the ones who do not really keep the Law at all. Our Lord attacks the complacency of comfortably religious people who protect themselves from the needs of others. The points he makes are no less shattering to us today, and his teaching instantly raises many questions.

First, there is the question of the necessity of mercy to our very existence as Christians. We must not miss the fact that this parable is an answer to the question “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by pointing the law expert to the example of the Good Samaritan, who cared for the physical and economic needs of the man in the road. Bear in mind that Jesus was posed the very same question in Mark 10:17 by the rich young ruler. There, too, Jesus concludes by saying, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor” (v. 21). It appears that Jesus sees care for the poor as part of the essence of being a Christian.

How can this be? In Matthew 25:31ff. we see Jesus judging people on the basis of their ministry to the hungry, naked, homeless, sick, and imprisoned. Does he mean that only the social workers are going to heaven? Aren’t we saved by faith in Christ alone? Then why does the ministry of mercy appear to be so central to the very definition of a Christian?

Second, there is the question of the scope and dimension of the ministry of mercy. Remember that the law expert did not deny the requirement to care for those in need. Virtually no one in the world does! But still he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” We can see him as the typical Westerner, saying:

“Oh come on, now, Lord, let’s be reasonable. We know we are to help out the unfortunate, but just how far do we have to go?”

“You don’t mean we should pour ourselves out for anyone! Doesn’t charity begin at home?”

“You don’t mean every Christian must get deeply involved with hurting and needy people. I am not very good in that kind of work; it’s not my gift.”

“I have a busy schedule and I am extremely active in my evangelical church. Isn’t this sort of thing the government’s job, anyway?”

“I barely have enough money for myself!”

“Aren’t many of the poor simply irresponsible?”

When he shows us the indifferent priest and Levite, Jesus unmasks the many false limits that religious people put on the command to “love your neighbor.” In the Samaritan himself, Jesus shows us that the neighbor to whom we must render aid is anyone at all in need, even an enemy. Any person reading this parable begins to feel trapped by its logic. But isn’t it unrealistic? Aren’t the needs of the world’s poor too overwhelming? Is Jesus saying that we must all assume a life of voluntary poverty and move in with the downtrodden? Are we ready to make no distinctions between the deserving and the undeserving poor?

Third, there is the question of the motive or dynamic of the ministry of mercy. Israel had God’s Law, which clearly demanded mercy to one’s neighbor, but Jesus shows that the experts in the Law had interpreted it in a way that frustrated its basic purposes. It is not enough to simply know one’s duty. The priest and the Levite had all the biblical knowledge, all the ethical principles, and all the ethnic affinity with the man in the road. It was not enough. The Samaritan had none of these things, but he had compassion. It was enough! What will really make the church merciful? It will not be enough to manipulate American Christians to feel guilty because they are so “rich.” Then what will make the church powerful to heal the deep hurts, fill the deep needs, and transform the surrounding society?

For decades, evangelicals have avoided the radical nature of the teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan. At most, we have heard it telling us to prepare a fruit basket for the needy each Christmas, or to give money to relief agencies when there is a famine or earthquake in a distant nation. But it is time to listen more closely, because the world, which never was “safe” to live in, is becoming even less so. We are finally beginning to wonder why there are suddenly hundreds of thousands “stripped and lying half dead” in the streets of our own cities.

Page 39

Evangelical Christians today are by no means against helping the needy and hurting. Yet “social relief work” is generally looked at as a secondary duty. It is something we get to if there is time and money in the budget, after we are satisfied with our educational and evangelistic ministries.

This parable shatters that set of priorities. Jesus uses the work of mercy to show us the essence of the righteousness God requires in our relationships. By no means is this an isolated example. In James 2:15–16 and 1 John 3:17–18 Christians are charged to meet physical and economic needs among the brethren. This is not optional. If a professing Christian does not do so, “how can the love of God be in him?” The striking truth is that the work of mercy is fundamental to being a Christian.

Page 72

God requires not only a significant expenditure of our substance on the needy. We are obligated to spend our hearts and minds as well. Psalm 41:1 says, “Blessed is he who considers the poor” (RSV). One commentator notes, “The word considers is striking, in that it usually describes the practical wisdom of the man of affairs, and so implies giving careful thought to this person’s situation, rather than perfunctory help.” We are to ponder the condition of the poor and seek ways to bring them to self-sufficiency. This takes a personal investment of time and of mental and emotional energy. God looks for a willing, generous heart, which freely helps those in need, and what we give with our hands is not acceptable without it. (2 Cor.9:7).

Page 89

[T]here is the concept of loving our “neighbor” as ourselves. Some have said that Luke 10:25-37 only teaches that we should help non-Christians in unusual emergency situations. But that interpretation ignores the context. . . . The parable of the Good Samaritan clearly defines our “neighbor” as anyone at all -- relative, friend, acquaintance, stranger, or enemy -- whose need we see. Not all men are my brothers, but every man is my neighbor.

Page 91

~ GOD’S MERCY AND OURS ~ A fourth reason for extending mercy to the needy of the world is the pattern of God’s own saving mercy. His salvation comes to the unworthy, the unexpecting, the enemies of God (Rom. 3:9-18). Paul says that he was shown mercy, as the worst of sinners, to exhibit Christ’s unlimited patience. When the New Testament calls ministry to physical needs “mercy” as well, are we to believe that our mercy is to operate on a completely different principle that the mercy of God? Or are we not to offer mercy to unbelievers and enemies?

We must remember that God offers his mercy to rebellious people to make them responsible and whole. So, we should render our aid with that aim in view. But must we only offer it to friends and relatives? That is not God’s pattern of mercy. Also, the example of God’s grace indicates that we should not passively sit and wait for the needy to beg. Rather, we should study, find, and meet basic human needs. Did Christ sit in heaven and wait for us to beg for his mercy? No, Christ sought us and found us.

A fifth reason encouraging us to extend mercy to the needy of the world is the definition of love. We are commanded to “abound in love . . . toward all men” (1 Thess, 3:12KJV). We are told that love must always be given with loving deeds (1 John 3:17-19) and not in word only. John is, of course, telling his readers to love Christian brothers in deed and in truth.  But are we then to assume we can love unbelievers by telling them the gospel (loving “in truth”) but not by providing for physical and economic needs? Are we to believe that our love to nonbelievers has an entirely different definition than our love to believers? No. to love all people must mean to love them in deed as well as in word.

Pages 190-1

When we talk of mercy ministry we think of soup kitchens and clothing stores instead of changing the social conditions which bring about much of the ministry. Why do so many evangelical Christians become very nervous when discussing the responsibility for social reform?

~ MIDDLE-CLASS CAPTIVITY ~ One reason is simply our “class captivity.” Most evangelicals are middle class, and we cannot see our own involvement in social systems. Raymond Bakke tells of a meeting in which a member expressed his disapproval of Christians becoming involved in social action. “It sounds like a social gospel to me,” he concluded. Bakke asked the man where he lived and why. He answered that he moved to his neighborhood because it was a safe environment with good schools and reasonable housing costs. In other words, he moved there because the social system of the community was just! Bakke pointed out that the believer was quite “socially involved”; he had committed his life and family to the place where his social values could be realized. How, then, could

Anybody who deliberately located in a community with good schools and employment really criticize those who work to rehabilitate social systems where they do not work? Those who say,” Let’s just preach the simple gospel,” usually live where good working social systems are already in place.

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3) Additional Keller Quote:

“In short, [Jonathan] Edwards teaches that the gospel requires us to be involved in the life of the poor not only financially, but personally and emotionally. Our giving must not be token, but so radical that it brings a measure of suffering into our own lives. And we should be very patiently and non-paternalistically open-handed to those whose behavior has caused or aggravated their poverty. These attitudes and dimensions of ministry to the poor proceed not simply from general biblical ethical principles but from the gospel itself. [Tim Keller, “The Gospel and the Poor,” Themelios, Dec. 2008 (33-3)]

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Illustration: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872), engraving.

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