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Good morning. Would you please pray with me for just a moment?

 

Father, as we enter in to Your presence, we pray that our hearts

would be drawn closer to You and that we would have ears to hear

what You have to say and hands and feet that are ready to walk in Your

ways for Your Glory. We pray in Christ’s name.

Amen.

 

Many years ago and about a year after I first came to Christ, I was taught how to share my faith. We’d gather in the basement and pray and then head out into the neighborhood going door to door and person to person. We’d strike up a conversation and somehow quickly turn it to the gospel.

 

In doing that for almost two years, we were occasionally cursed; thrown off more than a few porches, and often just ignored or told to go away. But I was being faithful. I was proclaiming the gospel, wasn’t I? This even became the way I approached my friends, my cousins, my parents, my extended family—even how I interacted with people at work. I was becoming a Christian shark. The risk was high and it required a lot of grace, or did it really? The risk was certainly high, but did it really maximize grace in the way God intended it?

 

The more I did it, the more it seemed that the pressure was on me to be able to somehow answer everyone’s questions. I became the Christian salesman. As we revisited neighborhoods over that two year period of time a second or third time, I noticed something: those communities began to label us as fanatics. When they would see us coming, they would go indoors and lock their front door. They would call their neighbors and friends because the next block, they would already be ready.

 

But I just wanted people to know. I wanted them to know and enjoy what I knew and what I enjoyed.

 

Another approach that we used to evangelism was called the survey method. You’d start with a few general questions about life such as these:

 

“How long have you lived in the community?” (And they would answer.)

“What do you like about living here?” (Give them a chance to reply.)

Maybe another question, a third like this: “So, do you like what kind of car you drive?”

And then we’d move in for the kill: “Do you have a relationship with Jesus?” we’d say.

 

I think at the basis of this method is a right heart, but at the core it’s really dishonest. We’d first gain people’s trust and then we’d bring out the club and hit ‘em over the head. Methods like that give Christianity a bad name.

 

Reading a recent book called “The Conspiracy of Kindness” has kind of clarified my thinking on some of this [It’s easier if you see the front of the book!]. I now think that those encounters were actually high risk but really low grace—low grace because the pressure was all on the results, to bring results. The pressure was on the person to respond; it was on the program to somehow produce, and ultimately it was on God.

 

Now I want to say quickly that I don’t want to abandon every method—though I would set aside the survey method. God uses a lot of ways to draw people into the kingdom and my life is clearly an expression of that. But is there a better way to share the Good News?

But as I walked away from that model, I’ve struggled, honestly, to adopt another one consistently. And maybe that’s true of some of you as well.

 

Now, I want to bounce into the present. Many of you know that with Ron Hawkins leaving I’ve jumped into the area of pastoral care and compassion ministry. That’s put a lot of new ministry situations in front of me, and again and again I’m in the role of showing compassion and kindness to a person as I meet them. I’ve been amazed at two things. One, that sometimes doing that, you can get shot just for trying to do what’s right! But more to our point, I’ve been amazed at how many more opportunities I’m getting to talk about Jesus.

 

Just the other evening I got a call from a woman I’d just shown a kindness to outside of even Covenant. She called and she was afraid. Her live-in boyfriend was drunk and she wasn’t sure what to do when and if he came home. So I listened. We talked. I gave her some options for what she might do. And then we naturally moved into a conversation about God’s care and God’s provision, a little bit about Jesus. And then she just leapt at the idea of praying together. I think that’s low risk, high grace—all because I’d first shown a kindness to this woman.

 

The question I’ve been wrestling with as I move around in these ministry areas is this: how do I grow in my love for God and somehow, somehow get close enough to others so some of that spills over onto them helping them in practical ways see the love God, and hopefully, hopefully getting the opportunity to tell them about this Jesus who’s changed my life and wants to love them the way he’s loving me?

 

Here’s one of the problems that I see in my life and I see within the Christian community. We get involved in community through Bible studies and Growth Groups, Discovery Communities, and that takes up what little spare time we think we have. We have a real, vibrant sense of community, but what results is isolation from the outside world and it begins to set us apart just looking to pursue becoming more like Christ but somehow separated from everyone. And I lose sight of my neighbor for one of two reasons. Either because I start to define them in terms that are so, so narrow or I just lose sight of them because of the busyness of my own life.

 

As I thought about how to pull all this together—the call to reach others and then the power of kindness—my mind was literally taken to a passage that was very familiar: one I thought I understood. An interaction happens in this passage between Jesus and an expert in the law. You can find this in Luke Chapter 10 verses 25 through 37 in your pew Bibles, but I forgot to look up the page. So, Luke Chapter 10 verses 25 through 37. It starts like this:

 

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 all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Jesus replied, “You’ve answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

But the man wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers.  They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, 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 on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’”

[Jesus looked at the expert in the law and said] “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

 

The expert in the Law’s questions isn’t so much about how somebody gets saved, or even how to please God. Instead, he’s asking a question about inheritance. “How can I be sure that my inheritance as a Jew will really be mine? How do I know?”

 

The background to his question comes right out of Daniel Chapter 12 verse 2 where we have a mention of eternal life:

 

“Multitudes who sleep [it says] in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

 

Stated another way, he’s asking this question: “What must I do to share in the resurrection of the righteous at the end of my day?”

 

But his intent is to test Jesus. But what’s the test? That’s what we have to keep our eye on in this encounter or the parable becomes just a good story with a moral, a moral calling us to help others and to get beyond ethnic or racial differences—all things that are true, but not the main point.

 

Jesus responds to the man: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

 

Answering the question like this sends the lawyer scrambling back to the Old Testament, their shared source of authority, looking for an answer. And it also then identifies Jesus as not some radical teacher but as someone who wants to ponder, “So, what is God’s heart in a situation for his people?” Third, it avoids the lawyer’s test and puts the onus back on him to answer the question.

 

Sometimes don’t you wish you could actually see these things play out? I’d love to see the faces; I’d love to hear the tones of voice, the pauses, and watch the interaction between the different characters. But we have enough; we have enough to grasp what’s goin’ on.

 

The lawyer answers and not in abstract, legal language, “How is eternal life to be received in the future?” He gives a concrete answer to his own question: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” It’s through love and devotion for others: that’s how you can know you’re going to have eternal life. God and fellow humans are to receive love from us.

 

Now, this isn’t works righteousness, but neither is it faith without works. It’s faith that actually works.

 

Instead, this great commandment—often called two—is really just a unified expression of total allegiance and devotion to God that in other contexts is just called faith.

 

Darrell Bock says it like this:

 

“At the heart [of what it means to] enter the future life is a relationship of devotion, a devotion that places God at the center of one’s spiritual life, and responds then to others then in love.”

 

The four parts are there just to accentuate the depth of this kind of devotion. Each part—the person’s heart, soul, strength, and mind—contribute energy to this one single focused love. The whole person responds.

 

Ultimately that kind of love touches others. And there’s no distinction between an allegiance to God and treatment to others. It really isn’t two commands They go together like hand and glove.

 

Jesus, hearing the lawyer’s reply, responds. “You got it! Do this and you’ll live.”

 

I don’t know about you, but I long to hear words like that from Jesus, at least the first ones: “You got it!” But he never leaves it there: “Do this and live.”

 

Knowledge of what God requires alone is never adequate. To have a heart for God always means you put it into practice.

 

Another way to say it: Love comes from the heart that responds then with the hands. Praise be to God; the good news is the Spirit empowers this kind of living.

 

Notice what Jesus isn’t saying to the lawyer. He isn’t saying that he needs Jesus because he can’t fulfill the law, though that’s true. Jesus knows that if this man truly loves the Father, he’ll respond to Him because Jesus is the Son. That’s the teaching that we’ve just come out of in the verses before.

 

Without really going any further with this now, evangelism then is really about loving God by extending His heart to others with hands willing to serve without any distinction to the persons

 

But that’s just the rub for the lawyer. Luke says he wants to justify himself, so he asks, “Who’s my neighbor?”

 

What’s at stake in this encounter, and what’s the intended test? And how does the question “Who is my neighbor?” get right to the heart of it?

 

Our lawyer is trying to smoke Jesus out, trying to show his heretical views, from his perspective, about God’s much wider plans for the whole world and not just Israel.

 

What’s at stake, in the words of N. T. Wright is just this. What’s at stake “is whether God’s revelation of love and grace will be used to boost our own isolated security and purity, or whether we will see it as a call and challenge to extend that love and grace to the whole world.”

 

In the lawyer’s view and, sadly, in many if not most of the Jewish leaders’ views, and (if I can say honestly), I fear sometimes in my view if you look at the neglect of my life, there was a category called “non-neighbors:” people who didn’t deserve God’s love and grace. Instead, the way to reach eternal life was through national isolation and personal purity.

 

Another way to state it is the lawyer was looking for some way to have minimal obedience, but Jesus required total obedience.

 

What about us? Are there non-neighbors in your world, in my world? Have we defined salvation in ways that make it easy to isolate ourselves from the people around us—trying to keep out their sin, or their way of life—and pursue only personal piety: failing to offer love by engaging in acts of kindness to those who are closest to us?

 

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a direct challenge to my narrow view of God’s rescue intended mission to the world. But the good news is there’s more here than critique. There’s a real sense of direction coming and we need to look for it.

 

It begins in the very next verse, in verse 30. A man is traveling a very dangerous road. In the 17 miles from Jerusalem to Jericho the path drops over 3,300 feet, winds through a desert and is surrounded by caves and crags, all of which made great hideouts for robbers and thieves.

 

The man is robbed. He is beaten and left fighting for his life in the road.

 

The audience has to be saying, “What will happen? Who will respond to this man?”

 

And then along comes a priest and the audience goes, “Ah! A priest is coming. Help is near.” A priest was God’s servant who ministers in the Temple. If anyone was pious, if anyone was doing God’s will, he was.

 

But he passes on the other side. What’s his motive? Why? Typically there are three that have been given. One says that he didn’t want to become unclean by touching a dead body. He had a hesitation to be anywhere near sinners, or he had a fear of being robbed as he stoops down to help.

 

But, honestly, the text doesn’t give us a motive. And there was actually an exception to becoming unclean: if you touch a body that was a neglected corpse.

 

The point’s simple. He could have helped, but he showed no love at all.

 

Next a Levite, in essence a priest’s assistant, comes along. “Surely this guy is going to help.” the crowd thinks, but there’s a second refusal by another supposedly exemplar of the faith.

 

When Jesus pairs these two refusals together, he is speaking a loud condemnation over all of Judaism. And the lawyer and the audience couldn’t possibly have missed it.

 

The tension increases in the crowd and the drama remains. Who’s going to love this dying man? And I’m sure there was maybe an expectation that an Israelite layperson would come forward to save the man, resolve the tension—making the story maybe only anti-clerical.

 

But instead a Samaritan shows love to the man. Samaritans were hated by the Jews for several reasons probably most of which was that they claimed that their mountain, Gerizim, was the proper place of worship and not Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

 

But Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero of the story. Why would he do that?

 

The point’s clear. Being a neighbor is not found in racial or ethnic bonds of identity, not in nationality, not in income, not in commonality, color, religion, gender, or even proximity.

 

Being a neighbor is found in action, meeting a need. Truly being a neighbor is just an extension of what it is to love God, and a neighbor serves whenever a need exists. We’re to be neighbors to those whose needs we can meet. I can’t meet everyone’s needs, but being a neighbor like this opens people’s eyes and hearts and makes them hungry to understand why we love like this. Can you imagine the injured man in the story not wanting to know who loved him and why he loved him in this lavish way?

 

Look at all that he did. He draws near; he binds his wounds; he puts him on his donkey; he takes him to the inn; he pays for his expenses—literally for up to twenty four days worth of expenses—and then offers to pay even more!

 

Jesus asks the lawyer, “So which of the three men (the NIV says “was”)—which of three men was a neighbor to the man?” But actually the translation flows better with “became.”

“Which of the three men became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

 

Jesus’ question makes it clear what being a neighbor is: compassion, sacrifice, extravagant love; that’s what makes a neighbor. More than that though, together they mirror God’s heart for the whole world. And when we live like this, it ignites a hope in everyone who receives it. It ignites a hope!

 

The expert in the law’s response is this: “The one who showed mercy is the one who was his neighbor.” But his response shows that he understands, but it also displays that he’s not willing to yield to the broader neighbor definition. He won’t even utter the name “Samaritan,” the one who showed mercy.

 

Jesus gives just one more response. He says, “Go then and do likewise.” But we have to remember that these words came out of a larger context of the original question about how you secure, how you know that you have eternal life, how can you know if your body and your soul will be resurrected together at the last day with the righteous?

 

Living as Jesus has been talking about doesn’t save us, but not living like this, not progressing in living like this when we look back over maybe a decade of our lives or more brings into question whether we really understand what it is to be the people of God, what it is to do the work of God, and possibly even brings into question the reality of our own salvation.

 

Now, salvation comes when we trust Christ alone. But a life that has been renewed and has been united with Christ—that person, yielded to God’s purposes, demonstrates over time that something new is coursing in their veins. They just long to share the love with others, and these acts bring opportunity to them: reference back the source of that love.

 

I’ve tried to shorten my message just a bit this morning to invite two people to talk about how God has led them into loving others, loving others as an expression of their love for God.

 

The first is Sam Wilson who’s just returning from a New Orleans short-term mission trip. Sam.

 

Sam Wilson:

So, yes a couple weeks ago I got back from New Orleans and it is cool to reflect on what God has done and will continue to do. And so as I look back and think about it I was—just even looking back over the past year thinking about the opportunity that I had to go to Jamaica last summer and Mexico over Christmas break and then New Orleans, and to see how God is growing in me a heart of service and a desire to express what He is doing in me through serving others. And it’s exciting to see that when we begin to step out of where we are—out of our comfort zone—that He will be faithful to meet us there and grow us and make us more like Him.

 

And so I was looking into what I was going to do over spring break, and I was just praying coming into church, “Lord, it’s, you know, coming up in a couple weeks, a month, or whatever. What do you have for me over spring break?” And I sat down in the pew and I opened up the bulletin and “Trip to New Orleans.” And I’m like, okay! And it was that simple, but God used it in cool ways, and so while we were down there we were able to paint. I learned how to put down a linoleum floor. Other group members sanded and tiled and did plumbing. And it’s cool to see how God impacted those down there and how He impacted myself and our team.

 

And I think back to a couple, Garland and Juanita, whose three story house we spent a couple days painting. We didn’t start it; we didn’t finish it. But it was so cool to see how receptive and how encouraged they were by our service. They were brought to tears. They were hugging us. They were thanking us.

 

And as I think about that time, I can’t stand here and tell you that they understood for sure; I’m not sure. They might not have fully understood why it was that we did what we did, but as I think about their house (and I was just thinking about this this morning)—this huge house that has been damaged by the flood water. It’s not how it was intended to be. Something’s been changed. And for us to come in and begin to make it new is a cool testimony to what God is doing in our own lives: that we are not how we were originally intended and that God has come into us as a team that went down there and we’re saying, “He’s making us new. He’s making us more like Him.”

 

And even this morning (I wrote this down) we sang, “Now You’re making all things new by the power of your risen life.”

 

And so it’s cool to give that physical representation, that tangible definition of what God is doing in us and then to look at that and to look at my own life and to see how God is working and to know that as I get to know Him more, I’m going to become more like Him.

 

And just looking at Jesus’ ministry and how the physical and the spiritual were brought hand in hand—that Jesus was forgiving sins and healing. In the New Testament, I John talks about loving and action and in truth and Galatians 5 talks about the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love and James talks about faith and actions working together—about how they go hand in hand. And so I’m encouraged to look at the ways in which God is changing me such that this outflow would be there, that this representation of what He’s doing would be made known, and so as I transition into now, the every day, and thinking about, as David might say, “Making every day the other day.,” my prayer is that I would continue to open my hands up with my time. It’s so easy to be selfish with feeling like I’m busy and that my time is my time and I would like to spend it how I want, but to open my hands and say, “How would You use me in little ways today that would give witness that would bear testimony to what You’re doing in my life?”

 

And so I was thinking of Hebrews 13:20. It says, “May the God of peace who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

 

May it be so.

 

Tom Johnson:

The second couple, people that are coming up, are Lowell and Peg Landrum and they’re going to share how simply responding to the brokenness in their life and not turning inward, but having a heart for others, has and is leading them to a brand new adventure of ministry.

 

Lowell Landrum:

Good morning. We’ve been invited to tell you how God’s been working in our lives. God began to prepare our hearts for the type of service we find ourselves in during the time that our son, James who gave his testimony two weeks ago, was incarcerated.

 

During his sentencing period and incarceration we, along with a number of you and other church members, were encouraging him to be very strong during that time. We were assuring him that God was in charge and that something good would evolve from this.

 

While incarcerated, James met a young man who went to the gym and attended church services with him. James learned that this friend was to be released the day before he was. But his friend had a problem. He didn’t have any place to go and without a place to go, he would have to remain in prison. So James asked if we could help in some way.

 

We contacted the parole officer and offered to find housing for him here in Lafayette. But first we had to understand that these men that are released from prison—unless they have family or friends to help them—all they have are the clothes on their back and whatever toiletries they had used while they were in prison. They needed jobs so that they can pay rent, utilities and groceries plus all the fees that the state imposes for supervision and counseling which can exceed over $6,000 a year. They need a place to live and then just the bare essentials of items necessary to set up housekeeping. They need transportation be it a bicycle, a pass for the bus, or an old car. They need clothing for whatever job that they can find.

 

Now, that’s the fun part for Peg. She likes to shop at the garage sales and thrift stores and places like that. So, she’s had a ball doin’ that.

 

God has gone before us as we look to meet the needs of these men. At one point, we heard of a man that was sellin’ a car. He was on vacation when we called him and told him what we were doing. He said, “Well, he’d call us when he got home.” Well, when he called after he got home, he said, “Well, he had decided that they’d just like to donate the car to the young man.” When we went to pick up the car, we were visiting with him and his wife for a little bit and he asked us, he said, “Why are you doing this kind of thing?”

 

We told him, “Well, our church encourages us to be God’s hands and feet.” He asked, “Well, what church do you attend?” We told him we attended Covenant and he smiled and said that’s where his family attends also. My, how God does work!

 

Peg Landrum:

God allowed our hearts to be broken so He could enter in and change our lives. During the events of our son’s arrest and imprisonment, we were driven to His word more seriously. We chose to believe that He could redeem this dark time and that He could create something good out of it. We saw His grace and mercy through each of you sitting out here. You came along beside us and you brought prayer and consolation and friendship and in receiving mercy, you’re just driven to give mercy.

 

God opened the opportunity for us to come alongside men who are released from prison to start life over with nothing. He’s given us resources and other Christian friends to help these men. Just as we were changed by the grace and mercy shown to us, these men are changed as they receive provision that could only come through the love of God. Why else would total strangers to them desire to help carry their burden?

 

As we bring these men to church, some of whom have not been to church in many years, you’re welcoming them and you’re helping them to feel accepted and you’re showing them God’s love and their hearts are being changed to want to extend that grace to those around them.

 

We’ve spent many hours driving these men around to look for work and the other day one of our men spent his day driving another man around to look for work and together they found him a job. I had the joy of baking the birthday cake for the 63^rd birthday of one of our men. It was the first birthday cake he’d ever received! Isn’t God amazing?

 

When we allow Him to use our hearts and hands and feet, we’re blessed with joy pressed down and overflowing.

 

The need is great and we’ve helped only five men. There are scores of men who are walking alone in this journey. The Lord is moving some of us at Covenant to explore how we can connect with this segment of society who is crying for someone to come alongside them and help them become renewed, successful citizens.

 

In the coming weeks, if your heart is open to being used in this ministry, you’ll be invited to be a part of this extension of God’s love. But if this is not something you’re drawn to, there are so many other ways that you can pass along the joy of knowing Christ.

 

Lowell Landrum:

It’s as Paul said in II Corinthians Chapter 1 verses 3 and 4:

 

Praise be to the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

 

Tom Johnson:

Isn’t God amazing? Just a little act of kindness, just a little bit of yielding our lives to Him and He can do immeasurably more than we could imagine, we could think or even ask.

 

God wants to touch lives through your lives. God wants to impact the world through your love for Him spilled over onto those that are around you. Now, all we need to do is be open: eyes open, hearts open, hands and feet ready and say, “God, show me who it is that I’m to serve and show an act of kindness today.” And God will use this to open hearts and to begin to ignite a hope and a passion within them so that many are going to turn back to you and ask, “So where is the hope that you have within you to live and to love like this?”

 

Now they’re ready. Now they’re ready.

 

Let’s be the people of God and continue to show God’s mercy that we’ve received to others so that the world might know.

 

One last thing. There are several copies of this book back in the back. I think there are still a few, but there is also a signup sheet. This book goes into all kinds of fun, enjoyable ways that you can—just creative ways—that you can jump in with your family, with your small group, by yourself. I don’t ever recommend going out by yourself, but with another person or two finding ways to be creative about showing God’s kindness to the world around you. If you don’t find a copy, there’s a signup sheet back there. You can sign your name, and we will call you when the book is in.

 

But to those of you who might say, “I’d love to have the book, but I don’t have the money.” Go ahead and sign up or pick one up and then just write on the signup sheet or the other, “Tom’s buyin’.” I want you to have it. I want you to have it that seriously. It’s a great book.

 

It’s a great way to end and just say, “God, we want to serve You. We’re Your people. Help us to mirror Your heart for the world.”

 

Let me pray.

 

Father, thank You. Give us hearts for You, hands and feet ready to go

to be Your witness of love to the world so they might know there is a God,

an invisible God, whose love can be seen and a God who can be known.

Thank You in Jesus’ name.

Amen.