Who Is My Neighbor?

You already heard a couple inspiring numbers behind the Delight Conference. You know about the 300 plus ladies that got to attend. You know about the 56 churches that were there. You may not know about a $4,000 check that the attendees through their combined efforts wrote to Star Gospel Mission downtown. There’s one number I guarantee you don’t know. It’s two. I know that there were two people at that conference that served in various roles that are not followers of Jesus.

You see, we’ve developed language here at Sauldam. Who’s your one? Who’s the one person that you know? Who’s the one person you have a relationship with that does not have a relationship with Jesus? If you were one of the ladies at the conference, you may have seen a woman taking pictures. That lady is one of the leaders of the conference. Does not know Jesus, does not have a walk with Christ, is not engaged in a local church, but she sat through hours of good Jesus-centered teaching. She heard songs about Jesus being sung. She saw the prayers. She saw all these different ages from man. Y’all, y’all don’t know this if you weren’t there. You had teenage women with octogenarians worshiping together, receiving the word together. And this photographer who does not know the Lord, she saw all of that.

And then my one came to help us park cars on Friday night. Al, I didn’t tell you this, but when he left that night, he texted me and he said, “Hey, that the older gentleman that stopped me, he said tall, dark, and handsome, but I think he meant older.” He said, “That’s your pastor. That’s like one of your guys, right?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Man, he knows how to make a guy feel welcome. He felt so loved by you.” He’s my one. I know there were two ones at that conference.

We’ve been praying for our ones for a year now. So, I want to give you another opportunity this month. And this morning, we’re going to pray for your one. I hope you have a face in your mind. You have a name in your mind of somebody that does not know the Lord. And we’re going to spend a few moments just buddying up with a neighbor, praying for them by name. So, you take it away. You pray for your one and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Thank you guys.

Holy Spirit, I can’t possibly decipher all the words that were just prayed, but You do. It’s not overwhelming to You. It’s not bewildering to You to hear all of our prayers and You know the name and the place and the life of every single person that was just prayed for. Lord, for all I know, somebody’s one might be sitting in this room right now. I know that I used to be Luke Harden’s one. I know that he prayed for me. I know he cried to You for me. I know that he so clearly saw that though I thought I knew You, I was so far from You. He loved me despite all the offense I caused him. He loved me despite my self-righteousness and my religion, and he shared the gospel with me. I’m sure more than once, but I remember, God, the night that it took. Thank You that I was his one.

Lord, thank You for bringing mine and April’s ones to the conference. God, please bring them into Your family. Please bring them to Yourself. Don’t just bring them to a gathering on a Friday and Saturday, Lord, that as great as it was, it’s over now. Lord, bring them into a family that has no end because You will never end and the power of the gospel will never end and Your word will never end. God, please bring them into that.

God, I pray for all the ones that were just prayed for. I’m begging that You would save them soon, God. That they, whether it’s our baptistry or it’s some other baptistry, it’s a stream or it’s the ocean, whatever, I don’t care the place, but that they would meet You and they would make that faith in You public through baptism, God, so that we can all behold You and say, “Thank You, Jesus. To God be the glory for great things that He has done.” God, the power to do this is not in us, but it is in You.

Holy Spirit, do something with this sermon right now. Get a hold of me and my words. Lord, I pray that we would be good soil and the truth of Your Word would root down deep in us and bear fruit. For anybody in the room, God, that doesn’t know You as Master and Rescuer, would You get a hold of them right now? God, would You preach a better sermon to Sauldam than the one I’m going to deliver? We love You and it’s in Your name we pray. Amen. Amen.

May I want to ask you, what is it like when someone that you never expected showed you mercy? What’s it like when someone you never expect shows you mercy? Or if I ask it a different way, have you ever had a moment where an enemy treated you like a friend? And they weren’t just pretending. They weren’t just trying to win you over. They had truly had a change of heart toward you.

I got to experience that in high school. You see, my buddy Luke shared the gospel with me on a Wednesday evening when I was in my sophomore year of high school. I met Jesus in this old beat-up Nissan. You know, one of those things where like the the what do you call this thing? >> The seat belt. The seat belt was attached to the door. Do y’all remember those? >> I had no idea how to deal with that. I felt like an Olympic gymnast trying to get into that vehicle, you know, getting over stuff and doing things. And it was in that car that I met Jesus.

A year and a half before I met Jesus, I met a girl. And that relationship with her that was southfast. You see what had happened was we our high school was fed by two middle schools. So every ninth grade there’s always this kind of exciting week, the first week of school where you got to meet the other half of your student body, you know. And whenever that happened, inevitably relationships ended and some relationships formed. That’s what happened to me and this girl. She had been dating this guy for a couple years. Middle school relationship, whatever, doesn’t matter. But I will tell you, her new ex-boyfriend was raging against me.

Me and some buddies, we would play football on Saturdays, just kind of passing the time. And one of my friends had become friends with him and had invited him to come play football with us. It was two-hand touch. This guy’s version of two-hand touch was a little chippier than my version. We get to the end of that football game and all of our other little buddies are dispersing and I’m noticing that Brandon hasn’t left yet. Brandon’s got some words for me. Brandon eventually had some fists for me. I’ve been in one fight in my life and I did not win. So, there we are. That might surprise some of y’all. So, me and him, we had our little scuffle things separated, whatever.

A couple months go by and things cool down between he and I. And then a year happens and we just kind of tolerate each other. We get to junior year of high school. I’ve met the Lord. Now that relationship that caused that fight has ended. Brandon approaches me one day. He says, “Jeremy, man, I’m so sorry. I feel like a jerk for what I did to you. You want to come with me to Darlington? and we go watch a race together. Y’all, that for me, I didn’t even know what Darlington meant. So, we hop in his car some Saturday and he takes me to, you know, a little NASCAR race. He pays my way. He buys my dinner at the thing. He is like whining and ding me. It was great. We had a great time. And I got to experience personally what it’s like when an enemy treated me like a friend. I’ve got no idea what caused that for him. No idea if he met the Lord too and felt conviction for sin or if he just felt like a crummy guy.

But I’m curious, have you ever had an enemy treat you like a friend? What’s it like when someone you least expect shows you mercy? If you’ve got your copy of God’s Word, I want you to open it up to Luke chapter 10 as we’re going to see Jesus teach about this very thing. Luke chapter 10. We’re continuing in our series called Stories That Shape Us. This is just a brief introduction to the parables. You know, the parables are these kind of spiritual heavenly stories told through an earthly lens. Sometimes the parables helped people understand the nature of the kingdom. Sometimes they hid the nature of the kingdom from people. It depended completely on the condition of the heart of the listeners. Jesus told this parable to teach about mercy, to teach about what it’s like when enemies treat people like friends. This morning, my prayer and my hope is that you will learn how you can treat others like friends, even if they are not yet your friends, and why the way we treat others says more about us than anything we could know out of the Bible or church history or theology.

Today’s parable is extremely well-known. It has a place in our culture. It’s even been codified in some of our laws. It is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Before we jump into the parable itself, let’s look at the moment that provoked the parable. This is chapter 10 of Luke, 25 through 29. Look at it with me. It’ll be on the screens if you’re not there yet.

“Then an expert in the law stood up to test Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘Well, what’s written in the law?’ Jesus asked him back. ‘How do you read it?’”

The law expert answers. Hm. “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,” Jesus said. “Do that and you’ll live.”

Wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Man, what a moment. This guy, he is in this crowd of people listening to Jesus teach. And it explicitly tells us, Luke knows this. The author knows this. He is an expert in the law and he wants to test Jesus. So, he lobs the heaviest softball to Jesus he could ever throw. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?

If we are being honest, that question is why most of us are here today. What do I have to do to have eternal life? That question drives the religious pursuits of billions of people around the world. Humanity is consumed with a thirst for eternal life. We may not put it in those terms, but Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has written eternity on the hearts of men. And while people may not voice it that way, I choose to believe that the Bible is accurate. That God has hardwired a desire for the divine in every single person you interact with.

So, you see, it’s not just a question of how do I not die? Though we in America are obsessed with not dying and not aging, it’s a question: How do I live forever? And not just live, but how do I have peace with God forever?

Jesus is not afraid of any big question you could ever throw at Him. No matter what you are dealing with, no matter what you experience in life, you’re not supposed to be able to understand it. You’re not supposed to have all the answers. What you’re supposed to do is take your huge question and give it back to the Lord and say, “God, please help me understand.”

Jesus is not afraid of this question, but instead of answering it head-on, He forces this law expert to give his own answer. Maybe because Jesus, God in the flesh, knew the man didn’t really care. He just wanted to test Him. So Jesus says, “How do you read the law? If you’re such an expert, what do you think?” And the guy gives the right answer. He quotes Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:5.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, when Jesus is asked, “Hey, what’s the most important command? What’s core to following God?” Jesus cites these verses. Jesus says, “This is the heart of knowing Me. The heart of following Me is to love God this way and to love people this way.” These passages were bedrock scriptures for Jewish people and culture and religion. The law expert knew it. Jesus knew that he knew it. Yet Jesus wanted to get at something a little deeper than what this guy knew.

And to be honest, Jesus’s response, look at verse 28. That doesn’t comfort me. “You’ve answered correctly.” He said, “Do this and you’ll live.”

Think about it. Jesus confirms all you have to do to have eternal life, to be right with God, to have peace with a holy God, to go to heaven, to see Jesus face to face, all you have to do is to be perfect. All you have to do is to love God with all of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. All you have to do is to have the right emotions toward everything, to have the right thoughts at all times, to give your body to the right work at all times, to dwell on the right things always at all times. That’s all you have to do. Oh, and you have to love people as yourself. So, every desire, every drive, every need you feel for you, you’ve got to always be meeting for other people. That’s all you have to do. All you have to do to have eternal life is to love God with every fiber of your entire being, every second for the rest of your days, and to love people the way you would want them to love you. That’s all you have to do.

What gives? Who can stand up to that? Who can hold up under that standard? Who can obey this? It’s not me. It’s not you. None of us are perfect. None of us can just do this and live Jesus. We fail every day. I wish I loved God the way some of y’all think I do. Some of y’all, I think, have me just below Jesus. Man, I’m so much lower. I wish I gave all of my minds to serve the Lord the way He deserves. I wish I treated my enemies the way I would want my best friend to treat me. I don’t. If I’m being honest, I don’t think you do either. None of us love God the way He deserves. None of us love people the way God tells us to. No one is perfect.

And when Jesus says, “Do this and you’ll live,” this law expert understands, because Luke tells us he wants to justify himself. He wants to declare himself righteous. He wants to vindicate himself. All he wants to do is to say, “Huh, I’m guilty. How can I make myself innocent? I’m not that good. How can I make myself better than I actually am?” You see, this man wants to defend himself. He wants to position himself as if he does obey all these requirements. He wants to show that he’s perfect or at least good enough. But to do that, he’d have to change the rules. He would have to water down the standard. You see, when it comes to perfection, none of us can raise our performance. All we can do is lower the bar.

Because you and I both know we’re going to leave here today and before our head hits the pillow tonight, we’re going to screw something up. And I’m not talking about non-moral mistakes like you’re going to knock over the water at lunch or you’re going to forget to set the timer for your alarm clock and that’s going to make you late tomorrow. We’re going to mess up. We’re going to mouth off at somebody. We’re going to think the wrong things about somebody. We’re not going to give our body to serving others the way we’re supposed to. We’re all going to do that. Jesus says just just be perfect. The man understands I can’t be perfect. He wants to justify himself. So he asks Jesus, “All right, Jesus, I’ll do that. Now, who’s my neighbor?” He tries to put Jesus in this corner. Who is my neighbor? So to justify himself, he’s just trying to lower the bar. Maybe it’s my best friends. Maybe it’s the other religious people I can impress.

That’s why Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. Look at verses 30 through 35. Let’s read this parable together. Jesus takes up the question and he says, “A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, they beat him up, they fled and they left him half dead.” Other translations say they left him to die. A priest happened to be going by on the road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Huh. Verse 32. In the same way, a Levite when he arrived at the place sees him and passes by on the other side. But a Samaritan. Hey, say it with me as if it’s the name of your worst enemy. Samaritan, a Samaritan on his journey came up on him. When he seized the man, he had compassion. He went over to the man. He bandaged his wounds, poured on olive oil and wine, then put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Then the next day he took out two Daenerai, gave them to the inkeeper and said, “Take care of them, and when I come back, I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.”

The man asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds again, not with a direct answer, but this time with a parable. This parable, if you grew up in church, man, this is so familiar. You know this like the back of your hands. If you didn’t grow up in church, chances are you’ve heard some version of this before. If you’ve never heard this before, buckle up because this is incredible.

This parable has three relatable qualities: a desperate man, a surprising hero, and a complete rescue. The desperate man, he’s this guy that’s making the journey from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Little Bible nerd trivia facts for you: Jerusalem, it’s almost 2,000 feet above sea level. So to go anywhere, you’re always going down. You’re going down to Jericho. That’s about a 17-mile hike down the mountain from Jerusalem to the city of Jericho. 17 miles of you hugging the side of a cliff to make sure you don’t fall off the other side. 17 miles of caves, of cracks, nooks, and crannies. 17 miles of you trying to focus on not losing your footing. All the while, you are extremely vulnerable.

You see, this is a parable, which means it’s a story that Jesus told that didn’t really happen, but it’s based off of real life details. All the time, people making the journey from Jerusalem down to Jericho would fall into the hands of robbers, people just waiting to prey on the vulnerable. That’s this man’s situation. He’s just trying to get down to Jericho for whatever he’s got to do. And robbers jump on him. They mug him. They beat him up and they leave him for dead.

This man is totally helpless. He is truly desperate. He can’t do anything for himself. Let that sink in. He’s on some mountain trail in the middle of the Middle East. Vultures flying overhead. The buzzing of cicadas going off in his ears. The ringing of his head from just being pummeled and stripped and all of his stuff taken. Bleeding from his head and from his lips. Can’t get up. Passing in and out of consciousness. That’s his situation. Truly, utterly desperate.

Then steps a surprising hero. And it’s not the heroes of Jewish culture, but it is the hero of the story. You see, both the priest and the Levite were too preoccupied either with their own safety or their own ceremonies to stop and help this man. You see, if you are on a mountain pass that you know where robbers like to sit and wait and take advantage of the vulnerable and you see somebody that’s been beat up, you’re probably thinking, “Huh, those guys that did that might still be here.” You would not want to stay there very long. You’d want to get yourself out of the dangerous situation as soon as possible.

I want to give these guys a little bit of credit and say they had some families to get home to. They had people to take care of and they did not want to put themselves in a dangerous situation. However, you also have to wonder, man, these are the leaders of the religious system. These are supposed to be the most god-fearing, the most holy, the most spiritual people of their day. And when they see somebody in need, they don’t address it. They literally walk around it pretending it’s not there, and they scurry right along. That’s their situation.

But you have this surprising hero. Say it with me again. Samaritan. That’s not nearly biting enough. I need you to really say it. Samaritan. A little bit of Bible trivia for you. Not trivia, just information. There was deep hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. I don’t have time to unpack it all right now, but eventually in the course of the Jewish history, there’s this pocket of Israel, the land that had not just ethnic Jews, but also foreigners living together, marrying each other, and their faiths started intertwining. So, the pure blood, the pure religion Jews would have looked down on the Samaritans as somehow half-half status, half human even. There would have been incredible hatred from the Jews to the Samaritans. And naturally, the Samaritans would have returned that in kind. They would have hated the Jews right back. It would have been a butt of a joke to be called a Samaritan.

But in this moment, when Jesus wants to tout the spirituality and the god-fearing character of a hero, He goes to the Samaritan. The Samaritan in this moment is the surprising hero and the hero gives a complete rescue. This Samaritan completely rescues this desperate man. Look at it again in verses 33 through 35. The Samaritan on his journey came upon him and when he sees the man, he’s got compassion. As part of this rescue, the Samaritan Takes care of all the immediate needs. He pours oil on the wounds which would have soothed them. He pours wine on the wounds which would have disinfected them. He puts the man on his own animal to escort him and give him safety, give him the presence of another human being. Once he gets to the next town, he stops at an inn. He doesn’t handle his own business, the reason he’s on his journey. He makes the man the business. He gets him to an inn. He puts him up to be taken care of. And he pays the innkeeper two denarii. Y’all, the mo or the the fee to stay in an inn at that time was 1/12th of a denarius. One denarius would have bought you 12 days of room and bed. One denarius would have taken care of you for almost two weeks at a hotel. The Samaritan gives him two 24 days of care. 24 days of being taken care of. One moment this man is left for dead. The next he’s brought to a hotel room hospital with everything being taken care of. This is a complete rescue.

So when Jesus hears the question, who’s my neighbor? He tells this parable and he makes his point so clear because look at verses 36 and 37. Jesus finishes the parable, pops out of it, and asks, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor? Which was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” And verse 37, this expert in the law, this holy roller understood, it’s the one that showed mercy to him. He couldn’t even bring himself to say the Samaritan. The one who showed mercy, Jesus. Then Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” Jesus finishes the parable and asks the final question. Now remember the law expert asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor? Who do I get to love on my terms?” Jesus says, “It’s not about who you get to pick and choose. It’s about how you act as a neighbor.”

Let me say this, and this ought to offend somebody. Jesus was not concerned with the lawyer knowing the right things. He was concerned with the lawyer doing right things. I think, man, I I just have to say this. You You have to get this somewhere. True Christianity is not about knowing all the doctrines of the faith, being able to spout off the 66 books of the Bible in perfect order, knowing all the church history, and being able to articulate the doctrines with extreme accuracy. The essence of following Jesus is living like Jesus where He’s put you. James would say, “It’s not about hearing the word, it’s about doing the word.” God every time would rather have someone know a little bit about the Bible but do it completely than have somebody who knows a lot about the Bible and not do anything with it whatsoever.

Perhaps the reason that the Southern Baptist Convention loses over a thousand churches every year is because they are filled with people who know a lot about the Bible but don’t live like the Bible. Can I say that in church? Can I say sometimes that we care a little too much about getting this right? That our hands never do anything. Our feet never take us anywhere to meet anybody in need. Our hearts are never burning for the the the burdens of the lost and the dying around us. We ought to be mourning the fact that there are three billion people in this world who will go from death or who will go from birth to death to eternal death without never hearing the name of Jesus Christ in their own language. We ought to hate that. We want to learn so much. We want to amass so much. We never do anything with it.

I’m not trying to poo poo our culture or our time, but man, Christians in America have never had more access to the Bible and biblical teaching and have done less with it. We’ve never, man, we’ve never lived in this time. I go to my office, I’ve got hundreds of books on the shelves. I never open them. You want to know why? Because I open my laptop and I’ve got tens of thousands of resources to study the Bible. Man, I’ve got I’ve got libraries at my fingertips that pastors would have drooled over 50 years ago. They would have paid fortunes to have. But it’s not about how many books I’ve read. It’s not about all the things I possess, man. It’s about tomorrow morning. Am I going to share the gospel with the guy at the sauna at The YMCA or not? It’s about Thursday when somebody cuts me off in traffic and causes me inconvenience. Am I going to rail against them? It’s about Friday when you go to the grocery store and you see that same beggar on the outside asking for money or pocket change. Not if you are able to articulate how justification and sanctification are different. It’s about are you going to introduce yourself and pray for them and give them some of the pocket change you don’t need. That’s what Jesus is getting at. It’s not about who do you get to love on your terms. It’s about who do you treat the same way that Christ treats you.

So, who are we in the parable? I’ll just say it. We’re the dead guy. Jesus is the hero. Jesus is the Samaritan. Stacy read it for us. We are in the desperate situation, dead in our sin and trespasses, without hope and without God in the world. We are utterly ravaged by the bullies of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Unable to do any good on our own. Who is good? No, not one. Who does anything righteous? Not a single soul. That’s who we are. Continually making our lives more and more chaotic and dark of a mistake. No matter how buttoned up we like to pretend we are, that’s who we are.

And Jesus steps in and absorbs the full cost of your rescue by handling your immediate and eternal needs. Jesus is the one that cleans your life. Jesus is the one that soothes the wounds of your soul. Jesus Jesus is the one who gives you the new birth and makes you into a new creation. And not only does He transform your life here and now, but He secures an eternal future and home for you. So that no matter what you go into, no matter what robers you fall into, you can know that I am secure in Christ. The robbers of debt and death and disease and cancer cannot take away what God can give you, which is hope and security and salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.

The man in the parable has compassion, mercy. Those are extremely rare terms in the Bible. They’re only used 11 and 27 times, respectively, in all of the New Testament. And every single time they are used for God. We are not the hero of our lives. If your life is a movie, you’re not the main character. You’re not the hero. You are the damsel in distress. Maybe even better, you’re the enemy. But Jesus flips the script by rescuing you and making an enemy into His friend. That’s what Jesus does for us. He is the hero that restores and and saves us.

So, there’s one big truth I want you to take away from this. Mercy receivers become mercy givers. Man, to have eternal life, to live with God forever, you have got to receive God’s mercy, which He only offers to us in Jesus Christ. There is no other way for you to inherit eternal life than to be saved by God in Jesus. But once you receive mercy, Jesus is saying you’re supposed to give it away. Mercy is this gift that every time you give it away, it grows. Mercy, man, it’s this unstoppable force of the heart of God through your hands. Mercy, the love of God in action.

You see, imagine water flowing along the banks of a stream. giving life, producing fruit, making everything green where it goes. God’s mercy is like that. It’s supposed to flow through the banks of your life. Your life is not supposed to become a stagnant, beautiful pond in your backyard with a fountain and all the shrubbery that you can point to and say, “Look how pretty this is.” But it never actually does anything. Your life is supposed to be like a river or like a stream where God’s love goes through you and it brings life to others in its path. Are you a pond or a stream? Jesus says that He puts living water inside of the hearts of those who are reborn in Him. Is that living water living in someone else?

Now, I am here today because Luke Harden, when I was a sophomore, loved me despite me. And the living water of God flowed from him into my life. Is your life like are you giving away what God has given you? Mercy receivers become mercy givers. That means mercy crosses boundaries. Imagine the boundaries that were put up between the Samaritan and that guy in pain in the parable. Mercy crossed those boundaries of race, nationality, economic status, family name, religion, education level, background. When you taste the mercy of God, it’s supposed to drive you into the lives of people that don’t look like you, that you don’t like. The Samaritan crossed every social, racial, and religious boundary to love a man who hated Him. God crossed every boundary to restore and to save people who the Bible says hate God. God showed mercy to us. And if you’ve received mercy from Jesus, you can’t put limits on who you give that mercy to later.

The bully at school that keeps running your name in the muck. You don’t get to pick and choose if you give mercy to them. The neighbor who hates you and keeps [inaudible] doing junk on your lawn and on your property. You don’t get to pick and choose if you’ve got mercy on them. The person in this church that continually derides you and cuts you out. You don’t get to pick and choose if you’ve got mercy on them. The immigrant that comes into our community because they need a better future that you don’t like. Regardless of what our government says about immigration, you as a follower of Jesus don’t get to pick and choose if you’ve got mercy on them.

We have a higher calling as followers of God to do what God has done for us, for others through the empowerment of God through us. If God has put the living water of the gospel inside of you, then you ought to cross boundaries to give to others what God has given to you.

What boundary is God calling you to cross this week? Some of us are supposed to forgive someone who has wronged you. Some of us are supposed to pray a blessing over those who curse us. Others are supposed to approach someone who’s been ignoring and hating you.

Mercy crosses boundaries. Mercy also takes action. If you’ve received mercy from God, that is supposed to come with action. Mercy is like God’s love with human hands. You see, God is not looking for religious performers. God is looking for repentant worshippers who embrace His mercy and then give it away. The priest and the Levite professed a love for God and others that they did not possess. Are you professing a love for God that you don’t possess? We can all see it based off of how you treat people you don’t like. Let’s not pretend. Let’s not perform. God’s not looking for performers. The priest and the Levites said they loved God and others, but only the Samaritan actually did it.

You see, true mercy does not stay in words and feelings. “Oh, I hope you’re better. Go be warmed. Be filled.” Man, that’s so bad. Bless their hearts. Mercy doesn’t live in that. Mercy lives in action. Mercy doesn’t live in you well-wishing people out of your inconvenience. Mercy doesn’t live in you managing the schedule of your life to the utmost perfection and you are mitigating any type of distraction out of it. Mercy lives in action. It shows up in costly, tangible acts of love.

I’ll say it again. God is looking for flowing streams, not stagnant ponds. God is not looking for you to clean yourself up or to get your life buttoned up to perfection. What God is looking for is for you to give others what He has given to you. For you to be a channel of God’s living water into the lives of dead people around you.

How can you take action this week? Maybe it’s one of those 400 Operation Christmas Child boxes, showing the love of God to a kid and a family halfway around the world you may never meet, but telling them there’s a Christian in Charleston, South Carolina that loves them and wants to show the love of Jesus to them. Maybe an act of mercy this week is to put something in that blessing box outside. The weather’s been awesome this week, right? It’s like the best time we’ve ever been threatened by a hurricane ever. All that cool air coming in onto the coast from the storms. I’ve been sitting outside when I work here at the office under the portico. Every day I’m out there, it’s a dozen plus cars stopping looking for some food. What would it be like this week whenever you go to Publix or Aldi or Walmart just to get a few more things and on your way home you just stick it in the blessing box? What would it be like this week for you whenever you go to the grocery store to buy an extra box of protein bars and an extra sleeve of Gatorades and you keep Those in your car? And when you’re going into town and you’re about the 526 interchange area and you start seeing the people with cardboard signs, you might feel a little weird about giving them money. So, you give them a protein bar and a Gatorade instead. Say, “Hey, God loves you. Here’s just a little something to get you along the way.” What action of mercy is God calling you to this week? It might be calling your one. You invite them out to coffee and you just share the story of how you met Jesus with them. You tell them, “Hey, I love you. You are headed for an eternity without the love of God. But God so loved so loved you that He sent His only begotten Son so that you could have eternal life in Him. If you would just claim this for yourself, then you could have a future with God. You could be loved by God forever. You could be saved and you would actually invite them to believe it. You’d say, “Hey, Phil, do you want to believe this? Mercy receivers become mercy givers. Mercy crosses boundaries. Mercy takes actions. I’ve got to ask you the final question. How is God calling you to show mercy? In fact, we do this every now and then. I want to invite you to do it one more time. If you’re curious about showing the mercy of God to somebody else this week, would you just take your hands, palm up, and put them in your lap? When you do this, you signify two things to the Lord. You’re one signifying that you are giving your life to Him. He can do with your life whatever He thinks is best and He always knows best. It also signifies that you’re ready to receive from God whatever He wants you to do. If you are interested like I am and who I’m supposed to show mercy to this week, would you just pray this prayer after me? God, who am I supposed to show mercy to? I really believe God speaks. If you feel like He’s speaking to you and it’s just not quite clear, you just say, “God, can you you clear it up for me, please? Who am I supposed to show mercy to now?” You just say, “God, give me the strength to do it.” Lord, you’re not so concerned about me knowing all the right things. Yeah, God, I got to watch my doctrine. I got to know the right stuff. Me to be able to in my own calling to feed this church, but Lord, it’s it’s so much bigger than me just knowing the right facts about theology or about church or whatever it is, God. It’s about me doing something, Lord. It’s about me giving others what You’ve given me. And in Jesus Christ, God, You have given me mercy, divine love with action. God, please give me the strength to carry out my calling of mercy this week. Give our people the strength to do that. Please, Lord. I pray that that blessing box would never sit empty on our account. I pray that these 400 Operation Christmas Child boxes would be just a drop in the bucket of what we give. I pray that we would pray bold prayers of forgiveness and blessing on the folks that we know don’t like us. I pray that we would cross boundaries to go and take Your Your kindness and Your grace to somebody this week. I pray that we would absorb the cost of somebody else’s issue and their situation and we would show them the unfathomable mercy of God in our lives. I pray that our lives will be flowing streams for the living water of the gospel, not stagnant ponds. God, we love You and it’s in Your name we pray. Amen.