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Skip Heitzig: Learn to judge accurately. Look at verse 30. Then Jesus answered and said, "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." You get the picture. There is a guy who is walking, he gets jumped by a group of robbers, they steal everything he has, they beat him to a bloody pulp, and they leave him alone on the road. There he is, laying there half dead.

Now, just a note about this story. This is typically called the parable of the good Samaritan. It might be a parable, but we're not sure because it doesn't say "he told them a parable." Most parables are introduced as such and they are very obvious comparisons. It might be a parable, but this also could be a news story. This could have actually happened that Jesus is making reference to.

Jerusalem is 2,400 feet above sea level. Jericho is down by the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is 1,290 feet below sea level. That's a 3,600-foot decline in 17 miles. It's very steep, narrow, winding, and slow-moving, with all sorts of rocks and hills in between. It's a perfect place for robbers to hide and to stage an attack.

In the 5th century, this same road was called the Bloody Way. In the 19th century, you had to pay off local leaders to travel on this road because of the thievery. Even in the 1930s, there were reports of robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

So here is a guy who goes from 2,400 feet above sea level down toward the Dead Sea on a very windy road alone. Most people would say he's a fool because if you travel that road, most people would look for others traveling that road as well. It's called a caravan. They want to join the caravan for safety's sake. So here's a guy who ventures out alone, which is a foolhardy endeavor. He gets beat up, robbed, he's bleeding, and he's laying on the road dying.

As the story goes on, three people encounter him: a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. All three notice him, and they make a judgment about him. They make an evaluation. "A certain man went from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, they stripped him of his clothes, wounded him, departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a certain priest came down that road going from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite when he arrived at the place came and looked and passed by on the other side."

Let's stop there. Jericho was one of the main cities that priests lived in. It is 17 miles away from Jerusalem. It is sort of like living in Phoenix. It's very wonderful to live in in the wintertime. It's horrible to live in in the summertime. So priests would live there, would work up in Jerusalem, they would do their stint in temple service and then go back home.

Here's a priest. Obviously, he lived in Jericho. He had been all week in Jerusalem at the temple. He's coming back, he notices this guy lying on the road, and he has to make some kind of a judgment. We don't know what it is, but let me guess a little bit. If you see a guy lying on the side of the road not moving, you might think he's dead. And if you're a priest and there's a dead body over there, you can't touch it. Why? You'll be defiled.

That's Leviticus 21. You cannot touch a dead body or you'll be defiled, and priests don't want defilement. So perhaps to preserve legal cleanliness, he passed by on the other side, breaking the entire second part of the Ten Commandments, which is to love your neighbor. That's the priest.

Next is the Levite. Now the Levite is not as high-ranking as the priest, though he oversaw temple services and temple liturgy, sort of helped out the priest. The text seems to indicate that the Levite actually went a little bit closer because notice it says "likewise a Levite when he arrived at the place came and looked and then passed by on the other side." So he went a little bit closer, checked him out, and then he went to the other side.

Why did he do that? Again, we're not told, but let me guess a little bit. If this guy is beat up and robbed, I can see he's still alive. That guy on the road might be the bait. There still may be robbers lurking in the area. If I bend down and help him, I'm also prey. So that guy's the bait, and I'm just not going to take any chances on getting jumped like this guy did. It's not my fault that he got attacked. Besides, other people are traveling this road. Somebody else can stop. Somebody else can help that guy out.

Here is a point I want to make. Life can be very, very hard for some people. When you meet a person, you don't know what they've been through. You do not know all the facts. You will make an evaluation. We all do. The Bible says man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. You will see a person in a situation, but you don't know when you meet someone the pain they carry, the loss they've suffered, or the people who might have abused them.

Seeing a guy lying by the side of the road might bring up all sorts of misjudgments, like, "What a lazy bum sleeping all day long. Why don't these people get a job?" Jesus in John 7 said, "Do not judge according to outward appearance, but judge a righteous judgment." It's hard to do when you don't know the facts of the person's background. Don't judge according to appearance, but judge a righteous judgment.

Learn to judge accurately. Did you know that assumption is the lowest form of communication? You see something, you see someone, you look at how they're dressed, you look at what they might appear like if they have tattoos or they're wearing certain kinds of jewelry, and you make an evaluation. You just don't know. You're not smart enough, neither am I, to know. There's a story behind every person. Love will find out that story and act to help.

So we have two principles so far: learn to hear personally, learn to judge accurately. Here's a third: learn to see differently. Learn to see people differently than you see them now. I want to take you back to the text. I'd like you to notice something in verse 31, 32, and 33. All three of these men—priest, Levite, and Samaritan—all of them saw this man, but they saw differently.

Look at verse 31. "By chance a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him, he passed by." Verse 32, "Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by." Verse 33, "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him..." Notice the next phrase: "...he had compassion."

He saw with compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, "Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you."

The first two people in the story who saw this victim, priest and Levite, they saw with concern. But the third, the Samaritan, saw with compassion. "I'm concerned with what I see. I don't know what that is or what I should do if I'll get defiled or if I'll get robbed." They had a concern, but the third saw with compassion. If you are ever going to love people, especially those you don't necessarily like, you need to learn to see them differently than you do now.

Guest (Female): This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Your support helps reach people every day with biblical truth that speaks into real life. This month, we'd like to thank you for your gift with a meaningful resource designed to encourage restoration and connection in your home and family relationships. When you give today, you'll receive Reconnecting with Family, a powerful book from Pastor Skip that addresses the pressures families face today and offers practical, Scripture-based guidance for navigating life together with grace, wisdom, and hope. Your gift helps extend the reach of Connect with Skip Heitzig, connecting more people and families to God's unchanging truth. Request Reconnecting with Family when you give $50 or more at connectwithskip.com/offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: Now, let's get back into the story. As Jesus tells this story, the lawyer is not expecting the story to go the way it goes. He does not expect the ending to include a Samaritan as the good guy. He expects a typical Semitic threefold form of storytelling that would say something like, "You know, you had this clergyman and then this other clergyman and nobody likes and trusts them, but then this average Jewish layman came by and helped him." That's what he expected to hear. That's what most people expected to hear because scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, all the religious clergymen were not loved by most people in those days. They were unhappy with their clergy, and they thought that Jesus was going to say just this average Jewish man came and helped.

Instead, Jesus said, "Then a certain Samaritan came." I know, even though it's not in the text, I can just guess that they all said, "Ugh." It's not what they expected, especially to make the Samaritan the hero of the story.

Now, here's something you need to know. Jews and Samaritans had a long history of hating each other, not getting along. Let me give you a quick history. The first king of Israel was King Saul. The second king was David. The third king was Solomon. After Solomon, the kingdom split. As the kingdom split, a guy by the name of Jeroboam put a golden calf up in the Samaria region, up in Bethel. He told people to worship it, inaugurated a feast day to it, and told people, "Don't bother going down to Jerusalem to worship." So now you have a rival religion going on in the region of Samaria.

Then in 722 BC, the Assyrians came and took the northern kingdom, including Samaria, captive. They repopulated the area with other people they had taken from other conquered areas. The people that moved in married the people of the land. So now you have an intermarriage of Jew and Gentile, so the bloodlines are not pure any longer. When the Jews returned from captivity to build the temple in Jerusalem and the Samaritans offered to help rebuild the temple, the Jews down south in Judah in Jerusalem said, "We don't want your help. You are not welcomed here."

Well, that further caused a division so that in the year 330 BC, the Samaritans built their own rival temple in that area of Samaria to compete with the temple in Jerusalem. That's why there's such a hatred and a rift, a longstanding animosity. This is why when Jesus goes to Samaria, remember what the Samaritan woman said? She said, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? Why are you even talking to me?" Because the text says the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.

In John chapter 8, when the enemies of our Lord want to insult him, they say, "Do we not rightly say that you're a Samaritan and have a demon?" It was the worst thing they could think of. You Samaritan! Now, in the story that we are reading, this is not a Jew helping a Samaritan. It's not even a Jew helping a Jew. It's a Samaritan helping a Jewish man. A Jewish man who has been ignored by Jewish people, by Jewish clergymen. It's a Samaritan who is willing to risk his life, spend his money, and in this story, he is the hero.

Why? Because he saw with compassion. He saw with compassion very much like Jesus. It says when he saw the crowd, he was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep having no shepherd, weary and scattered. That's how he saw them. Love begins by how we see people and their condition. So often we don't see them. We are too nearsighted. We can't see past ourselves. We've got our own stuff, our own problems, our own issues. We don't see and have compassion.

I'm going to tell you something based on years of pastoral experience. Most everyone you meet in life is overburdened and under-encouraged. Did you know that? I want you to think that through. Let that settle on you. Most people you meet in life are overburdened and under-encouraged. The cashier at the store, the bank teller, the person who cut you off on the way to church this morning on that road. They feel overburdened and under-encouraged.

Also remember this: they're made in the image of God. They are creatures of eternity. They have the stamp of their creator in them. I know it might be hard to see it with some, but I just want to tell you and tell me, let's become the hero of their story by seeing them with compassion. Because when you see this way, you stop asking the question like this guy asked: "Who is my neighbor?" and you start thinking, "How can I be a neighbor to that person?"

I know you meet broken people all the time, and I know I'm speaking to a room full of us broken people. But I've always loved the story that I read by an artist who wrote this little tidbit of knowledge. He said when the Japanese mend broken objects, they often accentuate the damage caused by the break by filling the cracks with gold. Why? Because they say when something has been damaged, it now has a history and it's even more beautiful. Think of you being the gold that fills the cracks with the mercy and love and compassion of Christ. That person with a broken past and history now becomes more valuable, more beautiful.

So learn to hear personally, learn to judge accurately, learn to see differently, and I'll close with a fourth: learn to act immediately. Do it now. Do something now. Verse 36, Jesus concludes by saying, "So which of these three do you think was neighbor?" You're asking for a definition of a neighbor. Here is the story. "Which do you think is the neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?" And the lawyer, the scribal expert, said, "He who showed mercy on him."

Now, notice what Jesus says. He concludes: Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." I'm guessing this man did not expect that as a response. I'm thinking that when the man answered correctly who is the neighbor and he got it right, Jesus could have gone, "Congratulations, you just got an A on your theology exam." But he said, "Go do it." It's in the present active imperative in the Greek. It means go and keep on doing it likewise.

This goes back to the first point. The first point is hear personally. After you hear personally, now it's time to act on what you hear. So Jesus tells this lawyer who is fond of intellectualizing the truth, "Hey, buddy, it's time for you to start living the truth. Go and do likewise."

Remember when Jesus washed his disciples' feet? Remember that at the Last Supper? They were all like, "You can't wash my feet! What are you doing? You're the Lord." He said, "I'm being a servant to you." And then he said, "You should love one another like I've loved you." Then he said this: "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." Do them. Not if you know these things, happy are you if you know these things. It's awesome to know stuff, but if you know stuff, do stuff. Do these things.

The happiness comes not in the knowing of the truth, but in the doing of the truth. J.I. Packer wrote a great book I've quoted often called Knowing God, and he said whenever we study God's book, the Bible, we need to ask ourselves the question, "What is my ultimate aim in studying this book? What will I do with the knowledge once I have gotten it?" For he says this: "If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it's bound to go bad on us."

Something else that might just set you free a little bit and cause you to go "Phew." One reason it's hard to love others is we don't have a good definition of what love really is. We confuse loving and liking. You can choose to treat somebody with love even if you don't like them. I don't think that the people that tortured Jesus and killed him that he particularly liked, but he loved them and he died for them.

This is a kind of love in the New Testament called agape love. Agape love, as some of you know, is a Greek word. Agape love is the love of the will, not the emotions. It's virtually a New Testament invention. The word wasn't even around in most writings until the New Testament, then it became popularized. It's a love not of the emotion; it is a love of the will. So if you are waiting around for feelings of love to arise in your heart for that other person, you're going to wait until you die because it ain't coming. You will fail. It's a choice. It's a choice. Go do likewise.

Paul Tournier is not a name I suppose you're familiar with. He died back in the '80s, but he was a Swiss medical doctor, a physician, and a Christian. As a doctor, he knew the intricacies of the body; as a Christian, he understood the Word of God. He is probably best known, most of his books, for pastoral counseling. He had a brilliant breadth of writing material.

This is what he said. "I'm convinced," this medical doctor, this Christian medical doctor, "I am convinced that nine out of every ten people seeing a psychiatrist do not need one. They need somebody who will love them with God's love and they will get well. They will get well." Just remember those two words: overburdened, under-encouraged. Most people you meet: overburdened, under-encouraged. So go be the hero of their story by seeing them with compassion.

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Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on his Word. Make a connection, connection.

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