Turning On the Lights! Tuesday July 9, 2024 The power of God and the Parable of the Good Samaritan
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters. It is Tuesday the 9th of July. It is HOT, and it is time to talk about the power of God, the love of God, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
After a bit of banter, we get into the power behind the parable – the layers of the parable – and how it actually applies to those who follow Christ and those who don’t/
May God bless you and keep you always and in all ways. We will talk to you Friday, Until then, KEEP LOOKING UP!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. You are looking live at the church town Church of God, the front of the church town Church of God, the sanctuary and the church town Church of God, the altar of the sanctuary at the church town Church of God, there’s the piano, I’m bringing my arm down because it’s getting tired. But there is the altar. There’s the little chair that I’ll be sitting on in a minute. How are you all doing? I’m telling you right now I walked outside this morning and it is like it smells. It smells like a swimming pool outside. It’s crazy. So we got a couple of things happening here at the church town Church of God. Have I said the church town church have got enough yet today? Here is the choir loft which we use for our musicians and over there’s there’s the sanctuary. Oh my yes, I’m gonna tell you what a crazy few days it has been. What a crazy few days it has been. For those of you who were with us on Sunday or heard let me see something got a little off with this on hold on a second there kiddos. I know it got moved. There we go. It got moved around a little bit on Sunday. Because of the musicians. This Sunday, I’m not going to be here. Barbara Maurice. Rice is going to be preaching here at the church because the church I will be leading the church town riders on a four night motorcycle ride. Yeah, men men stuff. We got a couple of men stuff coming up here at the church Thursday night and it says that the weather is going to break a little bit Thursday night. We have a men’s dinner now. We don’t get together like the ladies do and have watercress sandwiches. Watercress sandwiches and some fruit fruit chicken salad. Oh no. I got a ten pound brisket that is thawing out right now. We’re gonna have two pans of smoked macaroni and cheese. We’re gonna have slaw and salads and waters and who knows what else other people will bring. We have a big fire. That’s Thursday night. We got 23 men signed up right now. 23. That’s impressive. There’s room. I don’t know. Maybe you’re out there and you’re like, this is the first time I’m hearing about this. I’m close to the church town church of God. I don’t go there though. Come on down. We’re friendly. Believe it or not, we’re friendly. Come on down and start. I’m said I don’t like the fire around five out of respect for those who work maybe until five or even six. We won’t eat until after six. But we’ll light the fire and do some things. We’ll sit around and it’ll be fun. And then on Saturday morning, 8 AM, kick stands up. We’re out of here. About seven of us right now. We had eight but looks like seven of us are going and we’re going four nights down to Virginia, West Virginia, Southwest Virginia. Tale of the dragon. Claw of the dragon. Have some fun on our motorcycle. So how y’all doing? Father, we pray that this transmission can you even use that word in modern media? This transmission finds everybody well. We pray that your word will go out today and will change hearts and minds. Lord, we pray the prayers of your people will be heard and they will feel your love and comfort in Jesus name. Amen. So here we are. If you were here on Sunday, I don’t think it was on the live broadcast but if you were here on Sunday, then you know that Kelly and I as the kids say today did a thing. We have a long history of rescue animals. Every animal that we’ve ever had with the exception of I think some newts. We had some newts when Olivia was young and maybe our first couple of rats when Olivia was young that came from a pet store. Everything, every animal that we’ve had our rescues and along the way, we’ve had some tough cases. We had a sweet little black lab mix that was tied to a rape tree and just being abused in the middle of town and somehow found her way off of that chain and into our home. And it took about a year before that dog was just adapted. Her personality came out. She was not aggressive to men. It took a long time to rehabilitate her and she turned out to be live 15 years and just to be an awesome dog. There’s a little beagle. Same deal. Somehow that little beagle found it off, found her way off that chain and into our home. Shortly thereafter, she broke her back and that little beagle was paralyzed but then she regained some function but she had to wear diapers for the rest of her life. Kelly and I have a history of rehabilitating animals, three-legged Labrador retriever. Well, we found this little, not little, she’s 42 pounds, American foxhound beagle mix and she just needed us. She was calling to us. She had been running for only God knows how long with the pack, avoiding human beings afraid of humans in general, afraid of men. Men are notorious abusers. So we’re working and she is responding and it is beautiful and she is beautiful and we are going to adopt her. We got the contract just yesterday. Kelly and I are going to adopt her. Her name is Graceline Graceline Graceline Rochelle and she’s awesome. So there’s the story last Friday. I’m telling you it was just I was overwhelmed with things. I had hurt my back. If you were here on Sunday, that’s feeling better. Good morning, Lindsay. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment today. Anyway, it was just a general doctor’s appointment. So we’ll take a look at my back. I’m sure so there we’re all caught up. We’re all caught up with all of the personal stuff. I’m glad that everybody is here today. We are still in for the live stream and the podcast. Good morning. Good morning for the live stream and which is the podcast. If you go to Apple or Spotify, you can look up turning on the lights podcast. Absolutely. May the Lord bless and keep Deb today as she goes through this test in the name of Jesus Christ. We pray your Holy Spirit will simply make all well inside and outside. Amen. Absolutely good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah. So on the live stream podcast, we are we’re still talking about parables. We took celebration Sunday. We talked about parables. The other thread of teaching if you will in the church is wisdom literature and I can’t escape. We’re in Ecclesiastes officially, but you cannot escape proverbs. Also, you’ve you’ve got to take wisdom literature in measure in its full measure. It is designed to work together. And so if you are going to preach or teach from proverbs or Ecclesiastes and you do not reference the other, I think you’re doing a disservice to those whom you’re teaching. Now certainly if you’re focusing on Ecclesiastes, which we were, we opened up with Ecclesia and I said Ecclesiastes one and I said, just read this. I won’t ask for a show of hands, but can you relate? They say, well, I don’t read this because it’s depressing. You’ve never had these thoughts. You’ve never thought that everything is just a vapor, that it’s meaningless, that it has no form, no function, that you’re just on a treadmill. Come on, man. So that’s what we’re doing there and what we did for celebration Sunday. Last Sunday, we got into Ecclesiastes one and we’re going to continue to move forward as I’m here this Sunday. I think Barb is talking about holiness, which is going to be awesome because she’s using Leviticus. Oh, I love me some Leviticus, not only because it’s my grandson’s name, but it is perhaps next to Job. No, Job is next to Leviticus. It is perhaps the most radical theological text ever written. Incredible. Theological text. What? Leviticus. It’s about blood and blood. Oh, it’s world changing. It’s world changing. So today, we’re changing gears. We’re looking at parables and I want to connect the parable of the good Samaritan with, of course, the greatest commandment because the parable of the good Samaritan spins off of the greatest commandment. Now, what is the greatest commandment? If you’re just learning all of this stuff for yourself, I’ll read it to you from Luke chapter ten. Now, the greatest commandment appears all over the gospels and we’re choosing the gospel according to Luke chapter ten. It’s going to be verse twenty-five. One day, an expert. Now, these words are not wasted in scripture. An expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question, “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, the expert answered, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Right,” Jesus told him, “Do this and you will live.” The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, in the gospel of Matthew, this comes across as a little bit more snarky, like the religious leader is trying to trap Jesus by saying, “What is the greatest commandment?” And then Jesus says, “To love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and I would add this and love your neighbor as yourself.” Right? All of the law and the prophets are wrapped up in this. And so then he says, “Well, okay.” So remember, this religious teacher is a smart dude. So he says, “Okay, all right, good answer. Now answer this. Who’s my neighbor?” Because, of course, through these generations, Yahweh has been working with the Hebrew people as his chosen portion. So my only legitimate neighbor, right, would be another Hebrew, would be another Jew. And Jesus is going to take that and blow it up and say, and again, a lot of the parables and a lot of the teachings of Jesus pre-resurrection don’t make all of the sense until post-resurrection. But Jesus is going to take that mindset, right, even, and I know it’s a rabbit trail, but even when we read in Acts the way certain religious, Christian, right, followers of Jesus were still trying to get followers of Jesus to follow the Jewish law as well, because that’s just the way it has been. This is God’s, these are God’s chosen people. Well, Jesus is blowing up that mindset and he’s about to blow it up now with another answer that’s going to blow the mind of the teacher. In Luke, we see the teacher get all of the answer, if you will, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus says, you are right, man. And so then the teacher says, okay, same concept. Who’s my neighbor? And this is, of course, very intentional regarding Jesus’s teaching. And he’s going to say this, and here is the parable. Here is the story that is going to demonstrate all of the above the love of God. What the end, right for us, the way we love God and the way we respond to God’s love by loving our neighbor. Now it’s very important to understand that when it says love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself, we are talking about God’s love. This verse, this law, this text, this passage will be taken completely isolated out of context. It will be snapped off of the definition of God’s love and progressive Christians. That sort of thing will say, look, boom, there it is. It’s right there. Love is love. Love everybody. Yes. Love everybody with the love of God. What does that mean? It means that you are going to preach repentance and you are going to preach turning and laying your life, your sin at the feet of Jesus Christ. It means that you’re preaching the redemptive power of the Christ of God, of the Messiah. You’re not loving somebody for the sake of loving them. You’re loving them for the sake of saving them, or at least introducing the scriptures and the knowledge, introducing them to the power of God’s Holy Spirit for the purposes of salvation. Now, does that mean if they shut me off that I just now I hate them? Absolutely not. I know individuals across the spectrum and they are my friends. The decisions that they have to make are theirs. They are autonomous moral beings. They are free moral agents. And if they know me, then they know they have enough information to make the right decision. If they don’t, I love them still. How would you like it if before you were saved, God said, wow, you’re a lost cause. I’m turning my back on you or after you were saved and you had doubts and maybe you backslid a little bit. Maybe you didn’t go to church for a while. Maybe you just blew it all off and what if God said, okay, fine. You don’t want this. Then I hate you. That’s not what God does, man. And as followers of Jesus Christ, that’s not what we do. And so sure, there are toxic situations when somebody is antagonistic or aggressive, that sort of thing. And I’m not going to seek without those relationships, but the relationships I have with all of the people that I know, they know who I am. They know where I stand. They know what I believe and they know why I believe it. And they know that there you go. You’re a free moral agent, man. I do wish that you would open your heart, repent and allow your heart perhaps to be opened by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. But if you’re not, you’re my friend. So we need to establish that as we read the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus replied with the story, says, who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied with the story. A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along. And when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him going over to him. The Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here. We know the story. Now, which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the bandits? Jesus asked. And the man replied, the expert of Jewish law is put into a position here because if you remember the opening of the parable, a Jewish man is attacked and left for dead. So here’s the expert of Jewish law and he needs to evaluate the moral and ethical decisions of all three of these individuals and what will his response be. Who treated the man, the Jewish man as his neighbor and the expert replied, the one who showed him mercy, very intentionally chosen word, mercy. Then Jesus said, yes, now go and do the same. The one who showed him mercy, you see the first two, the priest and the temple assistant, they had, they had every opportunity to either help him, the Jewish man who had been beaten up or not. That’s what mercy is. I see somebody and I have the authority or the power or the opportunity to serve them and I don’t or I do. Perhaps it can be interpreted as well if you take it up a notch and this is where we are in our God relationship. God is sovereign and has complete authority over the spiritual and the physical of which we are both. So he has complete authority over me. I know that I am completely undeserving of salvation, undeserving of a relationship with him after the things that I have done and the way that I am. And he has the authority to turn his back on me. We talked about that at the beginning and say you blew it like the whole human race blew it. I hate you or okay, so you’re trying to be in relationship with me, but that’s not good enough. I hate you. I’m not going to pay any attention to you or have mercy. He has mercy on me. Mercy in his position of power and authority. He has mercy on me. Undeserved, I will receive his grace. Now when we bring you know and Jesus brings this down to a very practical story where the expert of religious law has no choice in the matter. Maybe if he had made the beaten up man of Samaritan, the expert of religious law could have said, well, here’s the long history of Samaritan of Samaria and Israel and here’s the long history of Samaritans and Jewish people. Maybe if he had made him a Gentile, a Syrian, an outsider, whatever the case may be, then the expert of religious law would go back into the law and say this. Of course, the law says to be merciful in those situations, but perhaps he could have made an argument, but Jesus sealed the deal. A Jewish man is walking around in Jewish territory and is mercilessly attacked and beaten. Person with the expert of religious law, which is you as a priest, right? You’re one of them. Nothing to do with him. Unclean, unclean, not worth my time. That’s your problem. Whatever you did to deserve that, you got what you deserve. Oh my heavens. If God thought that way about his creation. There would be no hope. You did what you did and you got what you deserve and I’m walking away on the other side of the road. Same deal with the temple assistant. Unclean, unclean, you must have done something terrible. You did what you did. You got what you deserve. Nothing I can do about that. And then you have the hated Samaritan who demonstrates mercy. He has the same choices as the two religious leaders, the same choices and he chooses mercy. Now, if this is not a clear demonstration, then I don’t know what could be a clear demonstration of the greatest law. To love God and love your neighbor. Did the Samaritan try to evangelize at that time? I don’t, you know, along the same lines of belief, but I’m just using a metaphor here. Did he try to evangelize at that time? Did he try to teach the Jewish person about his wicked ways and you shouldn’t travel this way or anything of that nature? No. He showed mercy on him, right? And you’re hearing all of these things, right? He treated his wounds. He paid the price for him, giving the innkeeper the coins. Even there’s an allusion to the age to come. If the price is more, I’ll pay you more when I come back. So we hear all of these things that are a part of part and parcel of God’s behavior, God’s character, God’s mercy. And of course, there are many levels to this. Jesus, as he does often, is speaking against the establishment and the power mongering of religion and religious leaders. He wants to try to break down that part of the establishment. He has limited success. Think of Nicodemus and a few others. But he’s speaking and saying, over all of these generations, you guys have developed this warped sense of power because you feel that you are the keepers of God’s mercy. No, you’re not. Look at this Samaritan. He’s demonstrating God’s mercy while you ignore the one in need. You have the same choice as the dreaded Samaritan. You have probably even more resources than the dreaded Samaritan, monetarily, transportation-wise, whatever the case may be. You choose to allow that individual to suffer. The dreaded Samaritan demonstrates the unwarranted, unmerited. He doesn’t know this guy. He should have nothing to do with him. The Jewish folks should have something to do with them. This guy should have nothing to do with him. But he demonstrates the unwarranted, the unmerited grace of God. The love of God for another human being. Are there any strings attached to this? I will only demonstrate the love of God. I will only care about my neighbors. I will only serve church down if you come to this church, you give money to this church, if you convert to Christianity and you… No! It is because our relationship with God is not transactional. And thus our relationship in the power of God’s love is not transactional. Like I said, there are extremes in the margins. And unless God calls me into that fight, so to speak, I’m not going to cast my pearls before swine unless I’m called to. But living in my neighborhood and loving my neighbor regardless demonstrates the way God loves me regardless. It’s not transactional. God doesn’t say, “Brian, if you preach 50 sermons a year and you do this, that, and the other thing, and if you don’t mess up this way, that way, then I will love you. Then I will care about you.” No. It is only by his mercy, by his grace. So there you go. The two are inextricably entwined together, right? The greatest commandment and the parable of the good Samaritan inextricably entwined together. There’s even more that we could get into. Just know that we all have that same decision to make. And quite honestly, we’re speaking from a follower of Christ’s perspective, but every human being has that decision to make. First, every human being has the decision to make to turn to Christ. Secondly, every human being has a decision to make to simply give of themselves and demonstrate mercy unconditionally to other people. Very few people, especially very few people outside of the kingdom of God, do that. “Get me mine. I want mine. My ego must be fulfilled. My life, I see it being filled by things and people and whatever.” And we see that political power, economic power, social status, all of those things. As followers of Christ, we are called simply to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength in mind. And then by the power of God, love our neighbor. Let the love of God be seen through you in the decisions that you make and the behaviors in which you participate, the ways in which you treat other people. Amen? That teaching, I’m telling you, man, it’s kind of like the golden rule, right? The teaching is a foot wide and five miles deep. Like, “I got this. Love God, love your neighbor, piece of cake.” And then your neighbor is, “Ha ha.” Right? Or your relationship with God is, “Okay, I love you, God. I love you, God.” And then you’ve got this diagnosis and you’re like, “I thought you loved me too. Why am I sick?” So things get strained, things get complicated. We preached through an Ecclesiastes last Sunday, said, “This is…” Solomon is expressing where the holy meets the unholy. This is where we live, where the holy meets the unholy. We live in the messy middle ground here of the spiritual and the physical. We are not perfected. We are not glorified. We dwell, we live as spiritual beings in this physical body, indwelled by the very power that raised Christ from the dead. In so doing, that is the best version, if you will, of ourselves that we can be here on earth. All of that is true, but it is not a glorified body. It is not a glorified creation. We do not live in the garden. Things are wrong and things can go wrong morally, ethically, physically, spiritually. And so we are intentional. We keep our eyes up and on Christ. We put one foot in front of the other and we love God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and we love our neighbor as ourselves. And in so doing, our prayer is that along the way, people would say, “Why? Why are you this way? Let me tell you why I am this way, because I am commanded by my God to be this way. And I am empowered by my God to be this way. Let me tell you about God.” Amen. Good stuff. Of course, it’s the direct teachings of Jesus. So Brian Moore sitting here going, “Good stuff.” I’m sure he’s like, “Oh, I’m glad you like it.” But it is. It’s good stuff. It’s amazing and powerful and wonderful. And again, we could probably spend two weeks on the parable of the Good Samaritan and just take off layer after layer after layer after layer after layer. We could spend two weeks on God’s love and take off layer after layer after layer after layer after layer. But just know this, the power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. Do not be afraid appears 365 times in the Bible. I’m sure that’s sheer coincidence. And the commentary, what do you have to be afraid of when the power of God lives in you? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of helping that person or are you choosing not to help that person? These are all get in front of the mirror and figure out where you are questions. So that’s my challenge. Get in front of the mirror, figure out where you are with all of this. Good morning this morning. I hope that you are all managing in the heat. My prayer is that the heat will break a little bit. It’ll go back to normal summer. Can’t wait for Thursday night. Good food. I’m not a bad cook. And then Saturday kickstands up baby. Kickstands up at 8 AM. Head down to Shenandoah National Park Drive ride through it. Spend the night on the other side and then we take off West Virginia and then we loop around to Southwest Virginia. We drive around there for a couple of days and Wednesday we just jump on it. Wednesday is not really like a part of the ride. You know what I mean? Cuz you jump on 81 and just come home. We wanna spend all of our time in the mountains. And so the get home day is not a scenic ride. You’re like that’s boring. Father, we pray that your word will absolutely invade the hearts and minds of individuals today where regardless of where they are, regardless of how they find this, maybe they find the real popping up on a media feed. Maybe they find the podcast if they search for Christian teaching. But we pray that it is your word. Your word. Cuz we know that your word cannot just change hearts and minds. Well, it does and in so doing, Lord, praise God, it changes the world one conversation at a time in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you. God keep you. Good Lord willing and the river don’t rise. I said that last week and then Friday was just too much. But I think this week should be okay. Good Lord willing and the river don’t rise. I’ll see you See you Friday for Turning on the Lights.
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