If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 10. If you’re looking at the pew Bibles you can find that on page 869. Luke chapter 10.
A friend of mine who has worked in the food service industry for a number of years told me the other day that one of the worst shifts of the week is waiting on the after church crowd. He said the kids are wild, the parents can be difficult, and tips can be hard to come by. But the worst is when, instead of a tip, the person leaves a Gospel tract that is disguised as a million dollar bill or something like that! I’m sure the person had good intentions, but that’s just not right. And it’s probably more of a turn-off to the Gospel than it is an attraction to it.
Well we’re taking several weeks to focus on evangelism as we study this section of Luke’s gospel. Evangelism is simply telling someone the good news about Jesus. It’s sharing the message about the gift of God’s love and forgiveness and grace and the eternal life that comes by faith in Jesus and because of His work on the cross, His death, and resurrection. But how we share that message matters. My hope for this series over the next few weeks is that we would move towards those around us in regular day to day life, not in a programmatic way but in an intentional way and in the natural course of our relationships, so that we can be obedient to Christ’s commission to go and make disciples for Him.
But I think it’s also important for us to realize that we need to be careful that we carry out the great commission by also following the great commandment. In other words, a life of evangelism must take place by the love of God and the love of our neighbor. The second half of Luke chapter 10 challenges us with just what that really means. We’re going to see in these verses the demand of God’s Law, but we’re also going to see the need for Christ and for His salvation. This is basic Gospel. It’s the simple good news. And there are implications that we could make into every part of our lives because of that, but we’re going to look specifically at evangelism and to see how sharing our faith is to be done while we do to others as we would have them do to us – like not with a fake million dollar bill.
So with that in mind, we’ll take this passage in two parts. Number one is – two things to do. And number two is – the one thing necessary. Two things to do and the one thing necessary. Before we read God’s Word, let’s ask His blessing on it. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the clarity and the simplicity of Your commands, but also of the Gospel, the simple message of faith and repentance. So we ask that You would help us tonight to trust Your Word, to turn from our selfish ways and our sinful ways, that You would, by Your Spirit, open our hearts to understand and to apply Your message to us tonight, that You would help us to be faithful and obedient to it out of gratitude and joy for all that You have done for us in Jesus. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25:
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?’ And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.’
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.’
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Both of these encounters with Jesus, the interaction with the lawyer and the conversation with Martha, are about the same thing – doing. They’re both about doing good and being right. The lawyer comes to Jesus to put Him to the test. He was an expert in the Law, and the question was one for which he already knew the answer. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Now Martha, in her own way, was also putting Jesus to the test. She was busy with much serving and she was right. She went up to Jesus and she said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” You see, the first test is all about keeping to the law of Moses. The second is about keeping the law of Martha. But both of them are about being self-righteous and about being busy in one way or the other.
Take the case of the lawyer. Something that Jesus had said, he wasn’t going to let it go. You can look back in verse 20, something that Jesus said in the previous passage that we looked at last Sunday, Jesus said, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Now what qualified the disciples to have their names written in heaven? That’s what gets the man thinking about eternal life. That phrase, “eternal life,” is rare in the Old Testament, but in Daniel chapter 12, Daniel is given a message about a time of trouble that was coming. And the messenger said to Daniel, he said, “But at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.” And in the very next verse, Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 says this, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting contempt.” That phrase in Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 in the Greek Old Testament or the Septuigent, is the same phrase that’s found in the lawyer’s question. It’s the Greek word, “zōēn aiōnion” – “eternal life.” In fact, that is the only place in the Greek Old Testament where that phrase is found.
But there was a question in this day, in Jesus’ time, there was a question in Judaism around this time about whether eternal life was for all of the people of Israel or if it was only for the righteous or the pious among the people of Israel. Now where did the lawyer stand on that question? It’s obvious what he thought. Eternal life, to him, was a matter of obedience to God’s Law. And he asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Now there’s something about that question in and of itself that is flawed on some way, but to inherit something is to what – it is to receive a gift. And inheritance is not based on something that you do. It’s more based on what you are, who you are. It’s sort of like some schools, it reminds me of the way schools will give service awards. And if you record enough hours of service time then you’ll get an award at the end of the year. But if you are recording your service hours to the tenth of the hour in order to get an award at the end of the year, is that still considered service or is that more like a self-service award?
Well similar to what’s going on here. If there is something that you can do to receive an inheritance, is it still considered an inheritance at that point? Well Jesus doesn’t say all that. Instead, what does He do? He asks a question. And answering a question with a question is a classic Jewish teaching method. Someone asked the Jewish writer, Elie Wiesel, why Jews so often answer questions with questions. And he said, “Why not?” There’s something about it, though, that gets people engaged. It gets the questioner to think about the reason for his own question. And Jesus did the very same thing. In response to the lawyer’s question, Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” You see what Jesus was doing? He was engaging the man on his own terms. This man was an expert in the Law and he was asking what is required in the Law in order to receive eternal life. Well what does the Law say? That’s what Jesus is doing. He says, “Tell me. You tell me what you know so well. You tell me what the Law says.”
Two Things to Do
As a matter of fact, the lawyer knows exactly what the Law says. “This is what the Law requires – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He could not have said it better if he was reciting the answer to a catechism question. In fact, that is the answer to a catechism question. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Number 42 says, “What is the sum of the Ten Commandments? The sum of the Ten Commandments is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” This lawyer gives a perfectly orthodox answer to Jesus’ question and Jesus affirms him for it. He says, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Then you will fulfill the Law. Then you will have eternal life.”
But that’s an impossible standard to obtain. It’s too demanding. And yet notice how the lawyer responds. He asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Luke tells us in verse 29 that the lawyer was trying to justify himself. And really, I think his question, the question itself gives himself away. He reveals more about himself than he intended just by the question that he asked. I was trying to think of an example of this. I think it’s sort of like when we’re going somewhere and I ask Molly if she’s ready to go when she’s clearly not ready to go yet. I’m not really looking for an answer. I’m just revealing my own impatience in that moment! Well this lawyer, when he asks, “Who is my neighbor?”, he is revealing something about himself. He is implying that if he can define who his neighbor is, then he can fulfill the standards of the Law by loving those neighbors. But what’s he leaving out? What’s he taking for granted? It’s like he’s taking it as a given that he can love God with all of his heart, soul, strength and mind, and nobody can do that. No one can love God that completely.
I was listening to an interview the other day where two people were talking about neuroscience and one of them was saying that neuroscience is such a relatively new discipline. He said that it’s so new that there are a lot of disagreements among researchers and that if you get two neuroscientists together, you are going to get four conflicting opinions. We don’t know how our minds work completely. How can we love God with our minds completely? We don’t know about our hearts and our souls and even our strength. We barely understand those either, and we are constantly serving God with mixed motives and with half-hearted desires.
But again, Jesus doesn’t say any of that to the lawyer. What he does though is He engages them, He engages the man on his own terms. He goes to the question about, “Who is your neighbor?” and He tells him a story. It’s a story we know well. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, I think the phrase, “Good Samaritan,” is probably the most common Biblical reference in our language today, because any time, so often as you read a news story about a stranger helping someone, that person is called a Good Samaritan. It pops up in news stories all the time. And that’s basically what this parable is about. And the point, the point is, that the stranger is actually a neighbor. See, when this man fell in among robbers, he was stripped, he was beaten, he was left for dead. It wasn’t the priest or the Levite who proved to be a neighbor to the man who was in need. And I think it goes without saying that the robbers weren’t very neighborly either to this man. But it was the Samaritan. It was a Samaritan who was on a journey through unfamiliar and inhospitable territory who went out of his way to help the injured man and to help him abundantly.
You see, the people who had the most natural affinities to the injured man, the people who really bore the greatest responsibility to him because they were fellow citizens, they were neighbors to him, and they were the ones who ignored him. But it was the Samaritan. And you remember that Samaritans and Jews were not friendly with one another, but it was the Samaritan who interrupted his journey, he got his hands dirty, he broke a sweat in order to take care of the man’s injuries. He even put his money on the line in order to make sure that he received the care that he needed to receive. And so at the end of the story, Jesus asks the question, “Which one of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Verse 37, the lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy.”
So what Jesus is doing with this story is He is challenging the notion of what it means to be a neighbor and what it means to love our neighbors. And a neighbor is not just someone we know or someone who is nearby. A neighbor includes those who are strangers. It includes those who are just passing through. And loving neighbor means showing mercy that is inconvenient and it’s costly and it comes with no strings attached. So you got it? Do you understand what it means to be and to love a neighbor? Now go and do likewise. Now go do that.
A few days ago, a stray dog came up our driveway and Molly sent me a picture and the dog looked awful. It had like one pink eye and so it looked like it hard one red eye and one blue eye and one eye looked bigger than the other and it sort of had this crazy stare. It was pitiful. We gave it some water, tried to find a home for it online. We couldn’t keep the dog, though. We already have two cats – Princess Buttercup and Reeses! They wouldn’t like the little dog! And we just have too much going on to take care of this dog too, so we kind of nudged it along to a neighbor to let the neighbor take care of the dog for a little while and see if she could find the owner. We couldn’t take care of the dog that needed help. How do you think we’re doing with the people that we see in Jackson who need a meal and a place to stay? How many of us love our neighbors as ourselves? Think about the way we take care of ourselves. We take care of ourselves willingly, generously, unconditionally. But even when we help others, how often do we do it begrudgingly or because it makes us feel better about ourselves in some way?
Do you see what Jesus is doing, what He’s trying to get this lawyer to understand? Do you see what He’s trying to get us to understand from this story? When He says, “Go and do likewise,” He’s trying to make him realize none of us love our neighbors like this. None of us can go and do likewise. And if we don’t love our neighbor like we are supposed to, how much less do we love God like we are supposed to? And you see, the Law gives us two things to do – love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And none of us can do that. None of us can do anything to inherit eternal life.
The One Thing Necessary
And that’s where the conversation ends. It leaves off right there. And then Jesus keeps going. “And as they went on their way,” verse 38, “Jesus entered a village.” And it’s here in this village that we see the one thing necessary. Verse 38 says, “Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.” And here we meet Martha. And Martha gets a bad rap, doesn’t she? We’re oftentimes tempted to caricature Martha in much the same way as we caricature Jesus’ disciples. She is often talked about like she is the Biblical version of a “Karen.” You know, the type of person who has righteous indignation and a strong opinion to express it. And we say things, you hear things about Martha – “Don’t be a Martha. We need more Mary and less Martha in our lives.” But there’s actually more to commend about Martha than we often give her credit for. For one thing, notice what she is doing in this passage. Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. When so many other villages did not receive Him, Martha welcomed Him into her home. And when we read about Martha in John chapter 11, we found that she makes several remarkable confessions of faith to Jesus. She says, “Lord, I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” And she says that, “I know that he, Lazarus, my brother, will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” And she says, “Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” So let’s not be too hard on Martha. She was a remarkable woman.
But Luke tells us that she was “distracted with much serving” while her sister Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to His teaching.” And when Martha went up to Jesus, she said to Him, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” See, she was busy and she was busy doing and serving. She was concerned with what needed to be done while Mary was more concerned with Jesus Himself. And Jesus said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” You see, it’s not the doing that needs to be done. The one thing necessary is to sit at Jesus’ feet and to listen to Him. The one thing necessary is to bow before Jesus in humility and to trust in adoration and in wonder. The one thing necessary is to come to Jesus in faith. That’s it. Nothing else will do. Nothing else will secure eternal life. The only way to have eternal life and all that that means – peace with God, glory in His presence, His favor forever – the only way to have eternal life is not by doing the right thing, it’s not by keeping the Law, it is not by loving God and loving our neighbor perfectly. The only way to have eternal life is to come to Jesus with the posture of Mary and to receive the grace that comes from faith in Him. That is the reason that Jesus came. That is the reason for His life and His death and His resurrection. It is so that for those of us who have not kept the Law, who have not loved God and not love our neighbor, Jesus took the penalty for our sin on the cross, He took the punishment that our sin deserved, and by faith in Him, we now receive the righteousness that we need to stand before God forever in order to have eternal life. This is the whole reason that Jesus came. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Now we’ve been asking, “What can we learn about evangelism from these passages in Luke’s gospel?” It’s really very simple. Our telling others about Jesus has to come from the heart that cherishes Jesus. We can’t tell someone else about Jesus if we don’t know Him ourselves. And we have to keep a close watch on our hearts to be careful for other things vying for our attention and our affections. Things like sin and self, things like worldliness and pleasure and success. Paul tells us in Colossians chapter 3 verse 1, “Seek the things above where Christ is.” Seek the things above through reading God’s Word, reading Scripture and praying to God, worshiping Him and meditating upon the glories and the wonders of Jesus Christ. The one thing necessary that we need in order to tell others about Jesus is Jesus. He needs to grip our hearts and grip our affections – that we love Him and we recognize Him as the one thing necessary, and that from that, we want to go out and tell others about Him. And if that’s the case, if we are right with Christ, if we have that one thing necessary, then we are going to want to live a life that is pleasing to God in every way. If we have received God’s grace in Christ, then we are going to want to obey God’s Law; we are going to want to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And that includes in our evangelism. And there are two mistakes that we have to look out for. And one is viewing evangelism as our righteousness or as something that we can do to inherit eternal life. Evangelism can never be something that we do pridefully or judgmentally or self- righteously, but it must always come out of an overflowing love for God Himself, the One who so graciously and freely and abundantly first loved us. So one, evangelism comes out of love for God, and then the second mistake to avoid is sharing the Gospel with someone while treating them as a project or as a statistic. We engage others as we would want to be treated. And we are to treat them with love and compassion as a neighbor, listening to them, caring for them, praying for them, helping them in practical ways when the need comes up. In other words, we seek to lead someone to the feet of Jesus, according to the will of God. What is the will of God? “Love the Lord your God with all your hearts, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Let that be the way of our evangelism. Let that be the Law of sharing the Good News of Christ Jesus.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we thank You for Your grace that has brought us to Yourself in Christ. We pray for the grace to send us out, to share that same love with others. Would You be so pleased and gracious to use us in our conversations, our interactions, to engage with the unbelievers around us with love and with honesty and to answer the questions that come our way. And would You be pleased to lead them to faith in Christ even through our weak efforts? Would You receive all the glory for it. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.