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Skip Heitzig: Well, in life, sometimes we get stuck and we don't know how to proceed. Paul in Romans put it this way: “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.” I know what I need to be doing, but I have a hard time getting it done. We need help. We need God's help. Fortunately, we have a God who loves to help.

In Psalm 46, the psalmist called Him a very present help in times of trouble. In Hebrews 13, it says we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” And then in the New Testament, four times the Holy Spirit is given a title. What is it? The Helper. Jesus called Him the Helper. “The Helper will come.” Why do we need so much help? Because life is hard.

Everybody agrees with that, life is hard. The Christian life is hard. And one of the hardest areas in the Christian life is loving our neighbor. To put it another way, one of the hardest things in life is other people. Life would be so easy if it weren't for other people. Like Linus said in the Peanuts cartoon, “I love mankind. It's people I can't stand.”

So, we are called to love our neighbor, to love others. When I grew up, I had a rather famous neighbor. He moved into the neighborhood. Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans of movie fame decided to retire and move to where we lived. Not next door to us, but in the neighborhood. And he was a very famous neighbor. I used to pump gas for Dale Evans when she would come into the gas station where I worked.

Everybody in town loved Roy Rogers sightings. “Oh, I saw him today. He was at the grocery store,” or “He was doing this or that.” Everybody loved Roy Rogers. It was all the other people in between the neighbors' houses that people had trouble with. But loving our neighbors is the second greatest commandment. It is foundational to everything.

The entire law can be summed up in two commandments. One is Deuteronomy chapter 6, which says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength.” That's the first and greatest commandment. The second commandment is Leviticus 19, which says, “And you will love your neighbor as yourself.”

And when Jesus was asked which is the first and greatest commandment, His answer was both of those Old Testament scriptures. Love God, love others. And then He said, “On these two hang all the law and the prophets.” It can all be summed up by loving God and loving others. If you love God with all your heart, you will keep the first four commandments in the Ten Commandments. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will keep the second six of those Ten Commandments.

What's remarkable is the man in the story we are about to read in the tenth chapter of Luke has the exact same answer that Jesus had as to what is important in life: loving God and loving others. You will see it. It's all about love. D.L. Moody once said, “A man can be a good doctor without loving his patients. He can be a good lawyer without loving his clients. He can be a good geologist without loving science. But he cannot be a good Christian without love.”

So, why is it that some of us have such a hard time loving other people? How is it that we who have been born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, given a new nature, given a new heart—how can it be that it's so hard to love others? Shouldn't it be much easier than it is? I'm going to give you a break by saying no, it's not supposed to be easy. It is actually supposed to be hard.

Otherwise, why would we need help? Why would we even do a series on help unless we needed help so badly? Think of it. Since when is denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Jesus in Matthew 16 ever easy? Since when is putting to death earthly passions and not letting sin reign over you in Romans chapter 6 ever easy?

Since when is dying every day to sin and personal preference for the sake of others in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 ever easy? Since when is doing nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit but preferring others better than ourselves in Philippians 2 ever easy? Since when is repaying no one evil for evil but seeking to do good to everyone ever an easy task? None of that is easy.

You say, “Yeah, but the Holy Spirit's living in us.” Right. That doesn't mean it's magic and you are instantly, utterly transformed into the most wonderful person in the world. Yes, loving others is possible because the Holy Spirit lives in us, but it is not guaranteed. Well, in Luke chapter 10, we have a man who comes to our Lord, seemingly interrupting the flow of a conversation or a message that He is giving, stands up, and asks Him a question.

It is a man who seems to be struggling with this issue of loving his neighbor because he demands a strict definition from our Lord. What I'd like to do in looking through this very familiar passage of scripture—I know that you know the Good Samaritan story—but we're going to look at and I want to give you four principles that will help you love others. Four guidelines, four principles that will help you love others. So, get ready to write these down.

Number one, learn to hear personally. Learn to hear personally. You know, it's easy to hear for someone else. It's easy to hear something and go, “Oh, I know somebody else who needs to hear this.” Well, that somebody could be you. So we need to learn to hear personally. Verse 25 begins the section: “And behold, a certain lawyer”—I'm going to resist lawyer jokes—“a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’”

What a question. There's probably no more important question on earth than that. We are creatures of eternity. We are going to live forever. That's not a question. The question is where are we going to live forever? So, this man asked the question, a very important question asked by a number of people: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Isn't it interesting? He's asking that question to the very one who is himself eternal life.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” And so he answered and said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength”—that's Deuteronomy chapter 6—“and,” quoting again, “your neighbor as yourself.” That's Leviticus 19. He nailed it. He got the correct answer.

And He, Jesus, said to him, “You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live.” But he, verse 29, but he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, a few words about this lawyer. This is not a lawyer as we know it in a legal sense, but in a religious sense. He is a scribal lawyer. He is part of the religious elite.

He was in the foundational class in Judaism that—he was an expert in Old Testament law, the law of Moses. He comes to Jesus, it says he stood up and he tested Him. He tested Him. It seems that he is trying to trap Him theologically. He wants Jesus to give an answer that technically is not correct that he can use against Him. So he says, “What shall I do?” or “What can I do to inherit eternal life?”

It is not really a sincere question. He doesn't really want to know the answer on a personal level, but simply on an academic level. He has an agenda. He has an ulterior motive. To him, scripture is all academic. It's all philosophical. It's all intellectual. It is not personal. He does not intend to take whatever answer Jesus gives him, whatever information he receives from the Lord, and let that change him. He has no intention of that. This is purely academic, purely intellectual.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, the generosity of friends like you helps make clear, practical Bible teaching available to families who are searching for hope, healing, and God's truth. And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful resource focused on restoring God's design for family.

When you give, you'll receive Reconnecting with Family, Pastor Skip's new book drawn from more than 30 years of biblical teaching and pastoral wisdom. It speaks honestly to the real challenges families face: financial stress, emotional distance, discouragement, and temptation, while pointing you back to God's timeless plan for healthy, God-honoring relationships. We'll send Reconnecting with Family as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support the ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/offer. Now, let's return to today's teaching.

Skip Heitzig: Now, the answer Jesus gives mystifies some of us. It sounds on the surface as if our Lord is telling him that he can get to heaven and be saved by keeping the law. And if you know your New Testament, you know that God never intended the Old Testament law to save anyone. Romans 3 verse 20: “By the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

In other words, the Old Testament law was never intended to save sinners. The Old Testament law was intended to show that you are a sinner, to prove that you are fallen from the ideal. Yet, in verse 28, He says to this man, “Do this”—this, what is this? Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. “Do this and you will live.”

So it sounds like He's saying you can get saved by doing that. No, this is purely hypothetical. The promise of the law is do this and live. But if the law has its intended effect, a person will say, “I can't do that. I need help doing that. I have failed in doing that. I'm guilty,” and it drives you to the mercy of God.

“Do this and live.” And so the man then is getting technical. He, wanting to justify himself—because he knows he can't do it. He knows he's failed in keeping the commandments—wanting to justify himself said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, why would he ask that question?

Because I know to you, your neighbor is the person who lives next door, or the person you're sitting next to in church, or the person you do things with in your circle of friends, but that was not the definition of a neighbor to these Jewish elite individuals. They defined a neighbor as only righteous Jews, excluding all sinners like tax collectors, like prostitutes, like Gentiles, non-Jews, and like Samaritans.

All of those did not qualify as my neighbor. So I don't need to love my neighbor as myself by loving those people. I need to only find righteous Jews like I am and love them. In fact, listen to this, and I'm quoting now. Here's a saying of the Pharisees: “If a Jew sees a Gentile fallen into the sea, let him by no means lift him out, for it is written, ‘Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbor,’ but this man is not thy neighbor.” End quote.

You see a guy dying, you see a Gentile dying, let him die. He's not your neighbor. You don't have to love him. Now, at first, verse 27, this man has the right answer. Love God, love people. He quotes the verses verbatim. Quotes Deuteronomy 6, quotes Leviticus 19. Here's the problem: he failed to apply those verses to himself personally. It was all up here, a philosophical debate.

And have you discovered that our biggest challenge is to live personally what we say we believe intellectually? That's always the hard part of the Christian life, is actually living what we say we believe. Life can be a classroom. Our Christianity can be a classroom. We will discuss poverty. We will discuss job opportunities. We will never personally help feed a hungry family or help somebody find a job.

It's like a little girl who visited her friend and went to her house for dinner one evening. And the mother said to the visiting friend, the little girl—because the vegetables were broccoli, buttered broccoli that night—she said, “Do you like broccoli?” Little girl said, “I love broccoli.”

So they sat down for dinner and the broccoli was passed, and this visiting little girl refused to put any broccoli on her plate, passed it to the next. And the mother said, “I thought you said you loved broccoli.” She said, “I do love broccoli. I just don't love it enough to eat it.”

You know, you can conceptually be okay with broccoli, but then when it comes to eating it, it's a different thing. So, yeah, I love everybody. I just don't love them enough to actually treat them like I love them. If you want transformation in your life, then you and I need to hear the truth on a personal level.

Now, I get it. That's the thing about sermons. That's the thing about Bible teaching. You hear lots of sermons. Every week you come and you hear three points to do this, or four things to do that, or five ways to do this, and that's a lot of information. And pretty soon you have heard so many sermons that you become, shall we say, sermon connoisseurs.

“Yeah, I liked last week's better than this week's.” We start grading them. We give it a point system. We are good at hearing, but we don't hear things personally. Jesus said it this way: “Take heed how you hear,” not just what you hear. How you hear, how you listen. And so this is intentional personalization. Here's a man who has a question about your neighbor and what is the thing to do to inherit eternal life, but it's all up here in the philosophical.

So that's the first: learn to hear personally. Second, learn to judge accurately. Learn to judge accurately. Look at verse 30: “Then Jesus answered and said”—now He tells the story—“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. Here's a guy who's walking, he gets jumped by a group of robbers, they steal everything he has, they beat him to a bloody pulp, and they let 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. Ever heard that? It might be a parable. But we're not sure, because it doesn't say “hear a parable.”

Most parables are introduced as such, and they're very obvious comparison. It might be a parable, but this also could be a news story. This could have actually happened that Jesus is making reference to something that happened because it says he went from Jerusalem to Jericho. And that was a notorious road for robberies. And here's why.

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. So it's very, very steep and narrow and 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 fifth 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. And even in the 1930s, there were reports of robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

So here's a guy who goes from 2,400 feet above sea level down toward the Dead Sea on a very winding 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.

And as the story goes on—and I know you know it—three people encounter him. One, two, three. Priest, Levite, and a Samaritan. And all three notice him, and listen, they make a judgment about him. They make an evaluation. Let's look at the story. “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. 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, 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 what? 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.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember: your generosity helps share God's word with families around the world, offering truth, hope, and encouragement where it's needed most. And this month, we'd like to thank you for your gift of $50 or more by sending you Reconnecting with Family, Pastor Skip's new book focused on restoring God's design for family and relationships.

It's filled with biblical insight and practical encouragement to help families grow stronger, even in challenging seasons. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.