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00:00:01 good morning church today's future reading will be taken from The Book of Luke chap 10: 25 to 37 on one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus teacher he asked what must I do to inherit eternal life what is written in the law he replied how do you read it he answered love the Lord your God with all your heart and with with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself you have answered correctly Jesus replied do this and you will
00:00:43 live but he wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus and who is my neighbor in reply Jesus said A man was going down from julum to Jericho and he fell into the hands of robbers they stripped him of his clothes beat him and went away leing leaving him half dead a priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side so too a levite when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side but a Samaritan as he traveled came where the man was and when he saw him he took pity
00:01:24 on him he went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn and took care of him the next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the inkeeper look after him he said and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have which of these three do you think was the neighor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers the expert in the law replied the one who had mercy on him Jesus told him go and do likewise
00:02:01 this is the word of the Lord good morning friends good morning good to see each and every one of you in the house of the Lord and those of you who is joining us online good morning to you as well now before I start next week our preacher will be honor Lim um the manful wisdom of God 3rd of December John Lee characters of Christ Christmas Zacharia and on 10th of December William ya characters of Christmas and the character is on Mary and today the preacher is Raymond Raj friends this morning I'm going to
00:02:54 share with youall on the title that you all know who is my neighbor and we're looking at a story that is familiar to all of us the story from the the story of Christ the parable of the Good Samaritan a parable that is familiar to all of us there's nobody in this room would say that he don't know this Parable even you ask Sunday school children they will tell you it's a powerful teaching of Christ a very familiar par Parable but it's a parable that is often misunderstood and believe me it's a parable that is difficult to
00:03:29 preach on now if you look at the parable uh carefully oops I forgot my clicker now if you look at the parable basically it has um two main points different Scholars different pre Preachers will will speak on either one it challenges um to love others without prejudice or discrimination racism ethnic slurs something that is very common and prevalent for us in Malaysia we can we can identify with this and that is what they also went through loving others somebody who doesn't look like you doesn't smell like
00:04:21 you doesn't worship like you who is different from you but treating them as one like you so it's not easy the second point in this Parable is not to fall into the Trap of self justification like the lawyer where we think that we can earn our way into into our into Heaven by our good deeds and some of us are like that you know uh because I do this I contribute I participate I'm active I volunteer in the church so I can I have earned my good deeds into heaven and that is the danger in this Parable now if you look at the structure
00:05:07 oh boy what did I do okay right now if you look at the structure of the parable the structure is quite straightforward a lot of Scholars will divide it into two but I've put it as one the first part we see a lawyer a teacher of the law asked Jesus a very pertinent question what must I do to inherit eternal life Jesus instead of answering his question directly counters it with another question what is in the law how do you read it the lawyer Answers by quoting two passages from the Old Testament and
00:05:46 we all know that word that just read to us love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus responds and command you have answered correctly do this and you'll live but there was something wrong there seriously wrong there and the neighbors and the lawyer who wanted to put Jesus down now had to ask another question well then who is my neighbor and to answer that question which Jesus didn't answer directly he had to tell tell the story of the Good Samaritan and then after telling the
00:06:24 story he asked the lawyer to decide now you tell me who do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell in the hand of the robbers and the lawyer was caught he couldn't even mention the word Samaritan he hated Samaritans and he said the one who had mercy on him or like how we would say Malian style the one had mercy on him LA and Jesus said go and do likewise friends let us pray Heavenly Father we come before you at this time we humble ourselves before you Lord we know that you are a good God you
00:07:11 are a great God you are a wonderful God more than 2,000 years ago you told the story of the Good Samaritan to answer a wiseth thinking lawyer father as we sit in your holy presence we humble ourselves before you Lord be with me as I Proclaim and declare your word to your children and be with each and every one of us as we hear from you listen to you Lord I pray that you will speak to us open our hearts and Minds to receive your word in Jesus name we pray amen now we all know this passage on one occasion we don't know
00:08:06 what's an occasion now of course when you read the Bible you got to look at the the verses before and the verses after that that's good exeresis but here when Luke talks about this incident he says on one occasion the what happened before that was the disciples came back because the demons submitted to them but Jesus said don't be don't be so proud about that but be happy that your name are in heaven that was that was what was before and after this we know it is a story where Jesus goes to the home of Mary and MAA and
00:08:39 Mary was busy but Ma and MAA was busy but Mary was sit at his feet but this is in between and the lawyer and Luke starts it on one occasion that means it is an isolated event on a certain occasion if he said then then you know that it's connected but it's not on one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus now we know that they were under Roman rule at the time and this is not a lawyer who's well wored in Roman law but he was a lawyer in the Jewish senine like the Sharia the Jewish ruling
00:09:16 Council where had Pharisees and Priests and Aristocrats and when he's a lawyer mean his well wor in the Old Testament law the five books of the Torah the five books of Moses and they they are indeed very intelligent people because they could memorize all the laws and all the verses and can just quote it he stood up to test Jesus now then he was very polite when a rabbi is teaching he acknowledge Jesus as a rabbi and probably he was seated like the others and it was uh theme of the day when a r Rabbi teachers you engage in a
00:09:57 conversation with the rabbi and he showed Jesus respect he stood up he stood up and asked Jesus teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life now it's a good question and it's a question that many people ask what must I do to inherit eternal life is a good question but there was something wrong with that question you know what is wrong with that question what must I do to inherit eternal life now you inherit something when you're born in the right family it's given to you and when you are in the family of
00:10:48 God you inherit salvation there's nothing that we can do to earn salvation there's nothing that we can do because it's already been done for us but for this lawyer and for the Pharisees and for the teachers of the law at that time it is a good deeds that we do the good things we have done we have followed all the laws of Moses we are proud to be the children of Abraham we very careful on what food we eat and what is prohibited and so now he asked what must I do to inherit eternal this was a proud
00:11:31 stalky question a very manipulative question you know we always talk about meritocracy I merited I've done it I deserve it well when you want to go to Heaven There is no meritocracy you cannot Merit your way into heaven if we we need to do something to get into heaven if we going to Merit our way into heaven all of us are doomed cuz none of us will qualify now Jesus does not answer his question directly but counters this question with another question some people get irritated by that but this story was
00:12:25 not and Jesus well what is written in the law you are a lawyer how do you read it how do you interpret it what is written in the law you know um da Carson talks about one of his students Randy Newman who wrote a book questioning evangelism he was he's a converted Jew a Messianic Jew it's not that he questions evangelism but he said in approaching evangelism you you ask questions you don't go direct I'm sure all of us would face I face this problem when you are evangelizing to unbelievers and someone tells you you mean just
00:13:11 because I don't believe in Jesus I'm on the way to hell and if you got family members relatives your father-in-law or mother-in-law who is an unbeliever and you say just because I don't believe in your Jesus I'm on the way to hell is it is that what you're trying to tell me now have have you faced that difficulty and then if you were to tell them well you see according to the Bible Jesus died for us and you go in that way you're going to lose them you're going they're going to be more upset with you
00:13:45 and you're going to lose them but then if you say well I'm not saying that but do you think everybody will go to hell do you think people deserve to go to hell or do you or do you or do you feel um do you think some people ought to go to hell and then probably they will they will tell you well yeah maybe adol Hitler should go to hell or maybe uh those who create nuclear arms those who do this do that they should go to hell then you tell them okay now let's get into let's just talk about this what
00:14:26 is the criteria to go go to hell to go into hell or to heaven now when you go in when you start questioning in that line what do you think who deserves to go to hell you engage in a conversation that is non-threatening and people say okay this guy wants to hear my opinion and we begin to discuss so this book is something like that questioning evangelism Jesus was using the same approach what is in the law how do you interpret it how do you read it and he answers we all know the same this words love the Lord your God with
00:15:08 all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself now when the lawyer answered this wordss love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your mind we know that this verse is actually taken from two parts in the Old Testament two different books one from the book of Deuteronomy the other one from The Book of Leviticus but he made it as one love the Lord your God with all your strength all your soul all your might and love
00:15:54 your neighbor as yourself for most of first the first part may be easy do you love Jesus if I ask a question now how many of you love God oh nobody loves God okay now I'm sure the hands will go up but then when you say how many of you love your neighbor then be very difficult you know once anal Lim preached I heard his sermon and I always think about that sermon you know is he around he's not on I can boldly speak uh he said that um in the camp you know he spoke if you don't like a person even if you don't
00:16:32 like a person but you must be willing to have a meal with him eat with him now this was put a test a few weeks ago a few friends of mine we went out to have lunch one of them got a got a phone call from a person he didn't like and that spoiled everything that day because uh he was upset and we were upset because he's upset and we couldn't eat then I thought to myself my goodness that person who called him if he had come in person what what would have happen probably would have thrown up what we were eating or
00:17:13 lost our appetite it's not it's not easy it is not easy to love God it's easy but to love your neighbor as yourself like how you would love yourself is difficult but it is very important to focus on this and the lawyer was spot on when he quoted these two verses and Jesus quote this words also when talking to another lawyer in Mark 12 when that context was what is the greatest commandment because there was 630 Commandments in the Old Testament what is the greatest and Jesus quotes this love the Lord your God with
00:17:54 all your might all your strength all your soul and your neighbor as yourself why love God with all your might on all your strength because he's the first person who loved us and car truly cares for us now the danger in this thing is that we you and I must realize is whenever we sin against God the first person whenever we sin against anybody the first person we are sinning against is God when we are dishonest when we are not truful when we dishonors in our work we think that you know uh the boss
00:18:50 may be offended or the company may be offended but the first person who is offended Is God When We cheat on our spouse of course when the spouse finds out he or she will be upset will be disappointed but the first person who is disappointed is God anything that we do that is not pleasing to God he is the first person who is offended and it makes it very difficult now that is why we see that oh it's happening again okay if you read psalms 51:4 King David King David sinned but when he confesses his sin in Psalm
00:19:33 51:4 he says against you have I sinned the King James said against you and you only have I sinned and done evil in your sight but when you look at that passage is that David are you being honest here you seduced BBA you knew that a husband was away and you and you brought her in then when you knew she was pregnant you got a husband to come back from from the war and then you had him killed you also corrupted the military leaders to put put him in Fr France so he will die at War you sinned against BBA you sinned
00:20:18 against Ura you sinned against the Army you sinned against the people of Israel they all look up to you as your leader and here you can just say you have sinned against god well my friends yes we we can sin against people but as Believers as the children of God when we do something wrong the first person that you and I sin against is our God and if we truly love him we will not want to hurt him if we truly love our god with our heart and our soul every time we do something wrong that will ring in our mind I'm doing this now will
00:21:00 God be pleased with me I'm speaking like this now when we speak in Pride or when you speak in arrogance or when we are unkind to somebody or we are unfair or we are revengeful you know when we look at God we always say that Christ is my first love where he asked the church in Ephesians efficience you have lost your first love and we all say Christ is my first love then comes my spouse my family and everything but if you love somebody you will not hurt that person and the next is love your neighbor as
00:21:43 yourself now that is important because you realize you are not the center of everything we always think about other people we always consider about other people you know some people live from live for I me and myself as long as my belly is filled I'm happy as long as my family is secured I'm happy you don't care about other people I care but I don't have time it's not easy it's inconvenient it's very difficult but the moment the moment you think about other people and you love them as yourself and put yourself in
00:22:27 their position we do you and I are doing doing what God wants us to do now Jesus responds to this you have answered correctly Jesus replied do this and you will live but you must understand him when Jesus said fine love the Lord your God I love your man your neighbor as yourself do this live this was a sarcastic answer that Christ was giving on that day you have answered correctly Jesus replied do this and you live can you can you can you and I really do this can you and I really do this yes thank you for being
00:23:21 truful it is not easy it's very difficult and if your salvation and your entrance in heaven is going to be based on this we are the most pied people of all but to the lawyer I've done all this then there's a problem here when he asked who is my neighbor he wanted to justify himself and so he asked who is my neighbor okay he fell down he just go and do this he felt he felt very upset he was saying oh goodness I must get back to him I must justify myself must get back to him so oneing just himself he asked so who
00:24:10 is my neighbor now at that time there was a there was a problem in interpreting the word neighbor the original Greek is move MO placon Mo means my something that belongs to me of me it can be of people of my race of my religion of me that's what Mo means place on neighbor my own countrymen somebody is who is near to me there was a confusion here how this word is interpreted at that time the interpretation of law was ambiguous to love a neighbor required clarification because different schools of rabis would
00:25:00 interpret different differently because the context circumstances relationship loss and the multiplicity of other factors have been be have bearing on people how they might interact with others so who is a neighbor might be a good ethical and religious question and so when he asked who is my neighbor difficult to explain to him because because he will say that's how you interpret it but Jesus did something brilliant and he gave us the story of the Good Samaritan in reply to the question who is my
00:25:43 neighbor Jesus said A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers who was this man we don't know we all assume he's a Jew but we really don't know he was stripped of his clothes bitten and went away leaving him half dead now this is the road and you can see Jerusalem and Jericho is about 25 km or 17 Mi and the road even today is still I was told is still still the same thing same like that in the 1960s when Martin Martin Luther King was alive he and his wife drove to this place
00:26:29 and then he writes in his biography no wonder the person was robbed there's no way you can escape in this place Jerusalem is in a high altitude on the sea 25 above sea level but then Jericho is on the lower plane 850 so 50 ft above sea level so when you're going down this path easily you can be attacked and that is why during the time of Jesus it was called the way of blood because many people were were attacked and were killed and moreover during the time of King Herod he did another blunder he
00:27:14 stopped a huge uh oil uh a in that place where they were mining 400,000 people were out of work and all those people to survived became thieves and robbers hiding in the cliffs and the mountains in that place Jesus replied the man who was was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho now this man was robbed he was bitten left half dead then he goes on to say a priest happened to be going down the same road that means the priest was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho probably had finished his Priestly duties in the
00:28:02 temple and he was going back home he saw the man he saw the man he saw the condition of man he passed on this other side but he moved away he didn't want to help him various reasons he didn't want to help him he moved away so to a levite a person who helps the the priest both come from the tribe of Levi and and when he came to the place he saw him and passed by on the other side and now Jesus drops a bombshell but a Samaritan as he travel came where the man was and when he saw him he took pity on him now the lawyer think can you
00:28:48 choose another example must it be a Samaritan the Jews despise the Samaritan Samaritans now if you know the history why the difference Jews of Samaritan was it goes back hundreds of years when the northern when after the time of King Solomon it was divided northern kingdom Southern Kingdom northern kingdom fell first to the Assyrians and then later on the southern Kingdom fell to the Babylonians now the problem with the capts was they took away the brilliant people the aristocrats the edicated to their to different lands
00:29:43 they they occupied and the remnants were left back in Israel the remnants were simple fessant probably not very edicate not not the scribes not the law not the not the lawyers not not the priest and the Bren people from the other lands they had conquered into them and what what happened was these Jews who were there intermarried with the foreigners who came and live in the land only for long they intermarried and by the time of Jesus we realized that the Samaritans had their own Temple they didn't Worship in
00:30:12 Jerusalem they wor In Worship in Mount gism they were half breed they were of A different race and there were problems they attacked the temple they also attacked the Temple of Jerusalem the Samaritans throwing bones in the temple they hated each other and of all the examples Jesus had to quote a Samaritan a race that the Jews despised and the Samaritan became the hero of the story but this is what Christ said as he traveled he came to where the man was and we saw him when he saw him he took pity on
00:31:07 him the word of God say the stri stripp of his clothes he was naked you know why because those days clothes were expensive people were distinguished by what they wore clothes were expensive even Jesus garment the soldiers through cast lots who can get it and so the robbed him of his clothes and everything that he had but most important they robbed him of his dignity as a person he went to him and bandage his wounds and poured oil and wine you know oil to smooth the wound and wine had had effects to to disinfect the wound and
00:31:57 put him on his own donkey now that means he has to walk and brought him to an inn now I don't know if you had faced this kind of situation what would you do say you're coming to church you're coming to FBC and near suban parade you witness a hit and run a person is knocked down a person is hit nobody there Sunday morning if you don't take him to the hospital the person may die he's all bleeding what would you do if you're preaching on that Sunday morning what is oh goodness I got to preach I got to
00:32:42 leave or you say this this person is made in the image of Christ what can I do if I call the ambulance from sjmc it's going to take some time but if I put in my car I was much faster get to the hospital what Would You Do Well a few years ago my wife and I was faced in a situation like this remember that darling yeah sorry I got to tell that the story here today my wife and I I can't remember the year was it 2006 2008 2008 I think we were driving from I was pastoring a church in suai Lake from lake is San we
00:33:29 all know that there's a trunk Road between Su Lake and San it's not a highway it's a byway and both sides at that time it was rubber Estates and oil palm Estates now they've cleared up and houses have come up with and those days it was and so we were driving as we were driving we realized it was dark no Street no street lights in the place at that time but what we saw was a man showing his torch light waving and when I came closer as we drove I realized there was an injured man next to him and he was trying to
00:34:09 stop the traffic and uh being a pastor knowing the story of the Good Samaritan it was already late because giant closed at 10: there's no Giant in Su that time so we we had to go to San I told my wife let me just go see what is happening so I parked my car by the side and I got down and what happened was this Malay family all Brothers they were driving for ran towards suai plake at the corner of the road I think he didn't negotiate the bend the turning and that black proton Vira hatchback took a when it took a turn the
00:34:57 car went upside down and fell down and all of them in the car went flying out and the car was there upside down turned turtle and then so I went to this guy and saw three of them and there was another guy who was saying my brother my brother I said where you are they all are here no there's one more person and nobody wanted to go down so I went down it was it was a ravine on the road RAV had to go down went down and two others came and we found I found this boy I think is about between 8 to 10 years old curled up
00:35:39 against the tree and others were scared I said what are you doing it's already dark mosquitoes and you can't leave the boy here so I carried him I carried him and began to walk I was a bit more mascular that time so I could so I carried him and I begin to walk and when when I came I realized I couldn't climb up but people were all watching up there and I only thing I said and so they helped me and then I lifted this guy up and I he the ambulance was coming and then I got a promise my wife take her to Giants so I
00:36:17 said ambulance is coming people crowd is gathered I got to my car and I left I went to Giants at the payment counter the cashier asked me why is there blood on your shirt are you bleeding only then I realized there was blood on my t-shirt when I carried him now I'm sure you would also have your similar experience of help helping people in need now this person brought to the inn and he took out two dinari and gave it to the inke keeper and said look after him anything extra I will pay when I come
00:37:10 back you know why he said that I'm giving you two dinari now there a day wages probably last about at that time for about a week or two we don't know whether this guy will recover by then but he gave his word I will return and I will reimburse you for anything extra you have spend you know why he said that that mean he says whatever debt this guy has has incurred because staying in your Inn I will pay for it I will cancel his debt I will pay for his debt you know why I said that because at that time they didn't have bankruptcy
00:37:46 laws and all that under the Roman law at the time if you ow a person and you cannot pay you become a slave and he didn't want that to happen and so he said I will pay now now Jesus goes on to ask his trict question which of these three do you think was a neighbor you ask me who was neighbor which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers now the lawyer was caught his definition his interpretation of of of a neighbor was something else someone who looked like him who
00:38:40 worshiped like him you know how a Jewish boy is taught to pray you all know the famous Jewish boys prayer every Jewish boy at the age of 12 they have to say this prayer and he will say God I thank you that I was not born a woman then he'll say Lord I thank you that was not born a dog then he'll say I thank you I was not born a gentile now you know the problem we facing you but that's how he's thought to pray and so when he say my neighbor more placeon my understanding and what now what now Jesus saying is totally
00:39:38 different and all this while I thought by what I am doing by observing the law the law of Moses I'm a good teacher of the law I belong to the senadin I'm a Hebrew I've have not defiled myself in any of the things that the law prohibits I'm as perfect as can be so let me ask this guy what do I how do I inherit salvation how do I inherit what must I do to inherit the kingdom of God you were not even part of the kingdom of God you're not in the kingdom of God now if we think eternal life is inherited then we need to look at the
00:40:36 cross if eternal life is something what what we do then again we need to look at the cross and that is the whole point of the Book of Luke that's what Luke is saying because when you look at Luke on the book from chapter 9 onwards it's Journey towards the cross so the question question was who was a neighbor who is my neighbor Jesus is telling who must I become a neighbor to who must you become a neighbor to now many of us like this lawyer are self-justified you know just like the two men who went
00:41:29 up to pray in Luke 10:18 one went and prayed and said Lord I'm not I'm not like this person I'm not like that person I'm not adulterer some we think like that right we don't commit all these big terrible things this sinful things I'm right before you but the tax collector didn't even look at couldn't even look up but on his knees B child and said Lord have mercy on me a sinner that man went up went went home Justified you know when we say that I've done this I've done that I observe everything I've done my points there's
00:42:09 already sin all the sin the sin of pride of what we are doing and Believers we all we are always very very fast to condemn others just like lawyer now in looking at the story of the Good Samaritan I want to talk to you about another person in this story who is known as the great Samaritan he is the great Samaritan this Samaritan came to save us and this is how he is described in the book of Isaiah Isaiah 53: 2-6 he grew up before him like a tender Sho like a root out of dry ground he had no beauty or Majesty
00:43:26 to attract his to him this is the great Samaritan who came to save you and me he had no beauty or Majesty to us to attract us to him nothing in his appearance that we should desire he was despised and rejected by mankind a man of suffering familiar with pain like one whom people hide their faces from he was despised when he hung on the cross Jesus was ugly if you go to the market to buy meat when you see the butcher hanging the meat and the blood dripping Jesus looked like that like from one of whom people hide
00:44:18 their faces from he was despised and we held him in low esteem surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering and we consider him punished by God stricken by him and Afflicted he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed we all like a sheep have gone astray each of us has turned our own way and the lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all our sin he bore our sin was upon Him Friends the Great Samaritan came to save
00:45:04 us when no one else could save us like that the guy who was bitten by the robber when no one else could help us no one could save us when others pass by when we are hurting when we are crushed when we are defeated when we don't know where to go when we feel helpless and hopeless we we have a great Samaritan who is able to identify with us and understand us even our parents may not understand us your spouse may not understand you your your friends and colleagues may not understand you when you go through the
00:45:40 deepest lonly times in your life who do we turn to for help sometimes we are too proud We are too bitter too angry to ask for help and we may even may even be bitter Ang angry towards God but Jesus the great Samaritan still comes along and picks us up and binds our wound our wounds and all of this is through because he's going to pay the ultimate price on the cross when he was telling the story I know the best thing about this in doing all this Jesus expects us his followers to behave like him he was
00:46:31 despised he was rejected he was accused but he did not retaliate he was going to heaven he told him I'll be leaving your soul and I'll be reading to the father but that is through the death the suffering the death and Resurrection for end of the day Jesus still says to the lawyer go and do likewise for although we trust in Christ and his work that he has done for us on the cross this brings us to repentance and faith and the cross itself becomes a basis on which we are accepted by God and the cross now becomes a model
00:47:27 how how you and I should live and die in this world because in 1 Peter 2: 211 this what Peter says to this you were called because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow his steps now we look at the lawyer who ask this question who is my neighbor after this story Jesus asked him now of these three who do you think is a neighbor is a neighbor is a neighbor to the man who was robbed who do you think definitely not the priest not the levite but it was the Samaritan you know why because he showed
00:48:26 Mercy he showed pity on a person who was helpless and that is what Jesus did to us he showed us Mercy by saving us from the penalty that is due to us he cleanses our physical hurt emotional hurt and from our sinful lifestyle he paid the debt so we will not be adapter he paid the debt giving us eternal life so the question who is is my neighbor the one who had mercy but Jesus is my neighbor he is our neighbor because the great Samaran was a neighbor he is our neighbor because he had mercy on us my
00:49:20 friends is Jesus Christ who we worship the closest person to you today is see the closest person to you today when you are down when you are sad when you are wounded when you are helpless when you are hopeless when you don't know what to do come to Jesus this great Samaritan this neighbor his hand is stretch forth come to me and how are we to reflect this we should tell those who are wounded those who are hurting those are in pain come to FBC don't laugh come to FBC your needs will be met is it psychological you need
00:50:13 counseling you need food you need lodging you got a you got a son or a daughter who is a drug addict alcoholic you don't know where to go come to FBC we don't promise much but we'll do our best to help you because we want to emulate the great Samaritan and we want to be a neighbor to those who need a neighbor because that is what Christ has showed us that's what Christ has taught us friends I want to end with a story do you want to hear a story you said enough L Pastor please finish it now this is a true
00:51:14 story this doctor wrote it down in the in her in her uh Facebook now this is a story of Dr shalani she was driving back after work one day she was in happened in typing in a clinic she was driving back and what happened was um she saw an elderly Malay gentleman who made a urn and somehow he fell from his bike broke his bone the bone raing out it was bleeding being a medical doctor she stopped her car and ran to help him trying to be a Good Samaritan and the Elder uncle the elderly gentleman this m gentleman
00:51:58 looked at him and her and he said you all know that it's a racial slur a derogative term and the other people there and they all told her uh move away move away she was shocked what do you think she should have done being a doctor a health Prof profession professional what she did was she just couldn't go although this man didn't like her didn't want to touch her touch him she couldn't go away he humiliated her she was shocked and others were looking feeling humiliated degraded not because of anything because of her
00:52:48 ethnicity and a skin color she moved to a corner took out her phone and called the ambulance and said an accident here this people person needs help the ambulance came and when the paramedics arrived she briefed them EXA I saw it was what happen this way is injured this what needs to be done and the paramedics began to attend to the elderly gentlemen and while attending to the LLY gentleman the paramedic called out the doctor doctor have you done the initial examination and he said no he didn't
00:53:24 want me to touch me because I'm a king and then the elderly gentleman said Doo I didn't know you are a doctor if a doctor you can touch me this elder man was not even not not just a racist but he was practicing double standard friends you and I we we can have stories to tell but two things are very important here in whatever we face I don't know the talk she was a Christian or not but in whatever situation we faced you and I are called to emulate Christ to be that neighbor to even people who despise us
00:54:16 you know why because our God though he was despised he went all out to help those who didn't like him didn't love him and didn't deserve him let's bow heads and look to the Lord in prayer father we thank you for your word we thank you for your teaching we continue to pray for your help and your strength to be upon us we know Lord that you are the great Samaritan and you are our neighbor we thank you that we have a person like you who we can always run to help us to be your instrument to others in this hurting
00:54:53 world to show love in this painful world and be a neighbor to those who need you in Jesus name amen friends as you remain standing nobody could tell us this powerful story or love your God and love your neighbor through the story of the Good Samaritan which Christ told us and Friends if you want to tell God lord I want to follow you for you have left me given me your life as a model to follow I want to be that great Samaritan like you I want to be a neighbor for you are a neighbor to me I want to be a neighbor to
00:55:47 others I want my life to reflect you and be relevant to the people around me not to be selfish and self-center like the lawyer but I want to be like you Lord my friends if that is your cry and say Lord I want to be the great Samaritan then wherever you're standing just slightly lift up your hand and I'm going to pray for you so you and I can emulate Christ be that great Samaritan and be that neighbor just wherever you are slightly lift up your hand and I'll pray for you Heavenly Father you see the hands that
00:56:29 are up at this time I pray for my brothers I pray for my sisters Lord we know that it's not easy Lord it is not easy to love the Lord with all my heart all my soul and all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself I can't do it My Own Strength father in a in a world that is filled with hatred and racism and where it is a dog in dog world in this world that you place us Lord we want to be just like you we want to be your instruments and a testimony for you Lord and we certainly want to say it is
00:57:10 not by what I do my good works but is what you have done for me on the cross Lord I want to be a neighbor I want to be the person who shows compassion and mercy to those who are in pain those in need and those hurting Lord you see the hands of my brothers and sisters I pray this time that you will give us the strength to be a neighbor to those who need us in Jesus name amen let us do the benediction and now may the love of the Father the grace of the Son and the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit be
00:57:47 with us now and forever more amen thank you and God bless you those of you who need prayer you may come forward the pastors and Elders around and we will pray for you
