Understanding God’s Call Through the Parable of the Samaritan

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Today on Real Life Radio.

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You ever look through the newspaper and you see people that have suffered an accident or injury? That’s an opportunity. Maybe you can call the city or the newspaper to find out where do they live? Or is there a drop-off point where we can help? What about the homeless in L.A.? You say, well, you know, there’s people called to that. That’s a problem. We’re called to that. To care for things of all, it’s critical.

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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible.

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Well, friends, listen, it’s been two years here at The Real Life Network, and God has been so good to us. God put it on our hearts to create a network that would be cancel-free, censorship-free, uncompromising, so that we could bring the truth to anyone, anywhere. God has been so good to us these last two years, everybody, and we want to thank all of you. So today, we are amazed that over 70 million people minutes of biblical worldview truth has been on our programming and viewed by you, the audience, on The Real Life Network. Every piece of our content on The Real Life Network is rooted in God’s Word so that it’s safe, it’s secure. So listen, spread the word with us, will you? Encourage friends and family to join The Real Life Network and that we might grow together this community of believers all around the world.

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So if you haven’t checked it out already, that’s The Real Life Network, streaming the best in Christian and conservative content. Sign up and start streaming today for free at reallifenetwork.com. That’s reallifenetwork.com. on today’s edition of real life radio pastor jack continues his series now called the parables of jesus and a message titled parable of the good samaritan now whenever jesus spoke to the crowds he often spoke using relatable stories with common everyday themes and the bible calls them parables Now, in this famous parable, Jesus is teaching us about kindness, good works, and compassion. Now, you see, the act of doing good, that’s not a strange event for a Christian, making us responsible for our own conduct. Our response to this parable exposes what is really going on in our own minds and hearts and our prejudice towards others. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that our God-given moral code or law has a bottom line that Jesus asks of all of us, to go and do likewise by extending love and care for others as we would for ourselves. But see, we don’t have eternal life because of this. We do this because we have eternal life. Now, with his message called Parable of the Good Samaritan, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

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With all that’s going on in the world, why don’t you see nations with different worldviews responding like this Judeo-Christian nation’s foundation has taught us to respond? Why is it that when something happens, you see Israel, Europe, and the United States, or say United States, North America, predominantly US and Canada, respond to a global issue, why? Do you think it has nothing to do with politics? It’s a worldview. When the Middle East has a catastrophe, don’t you think all the trillion dollars of oil money would come from those nations to help their own brothers? Guess what? It doesn’t. You ever think about that? Don’t believe what I’m telling you. Go look and see. It’s very interesting. Where does that come from? Because our savior cares and is concerned about suffering. Hospitals around the world. operate and do and care and love for the suffering, an overwhelming amount of them do it under the cross of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that interesting? You become like the doctrine you believe in. That’s a very powerful truth. The second thing in verse 31 is the heart of God, if he dwells in me, I should, he should, he is serious about justice. Jesus says in verse 31, now by chance a certain priest came down. Now this is key. You may think this is a big deal. I think this is a big deal. Does it say the certain priest went up the road or down the road? It says down the road. You know why it says down the road? He’s coming from Jerusalem to Jericho. Many of the priests lived in Jericho. They would go for a two-week ministry stint at the temple. The priest, in a moment you’re gonna read about the Levi, they’re going down back home. What does that mean? Where did they come from, people? Jerusalem, but where were they working? At the temple. They just left the worship of God. They just left church, as it were. They’re going home. And it’s downhill. They’ve done their time, you see? Did they leave God at the temple when they left? Interesting, huh? Think of it. But God’s concerned about justice. He’s serious about it. And Jesus says there’s a certain priest who came down the road and when he watched this saw, he passed by on the other side. He saw the man wounded, bleeding, and half dead. By the way, the word half dead means unconscious. It’s like, you know, mostly dead, half dead. The word means he’s unconscious. The priest, after doing his God work, his God duty, sees this guy in great peril and passes on the other side of the road. Why? Well, look. He’s a priest. If he goes over there, if the guy’s dead, watch, according to the law, if the guy’s dead, he can’t come within, what is it, four cubits, so like, I don’t know, six, seven feet of a dead body. He’s got to go ahead and be purified. He’s got to change his clothes. He’s got to go back to the temple, make a sacrifice. Oh, man. Watch this. You ever feel like that in life? I mean, we laugh, but come on. You know this happens to us when we see something we should get involved in and we conveniently, it’s funny, it doesn’t matter if people are with us or not, we’ll conveniently look the other way. We deceive ourselves. You know what I’m talking about? Don’t look at me like that. We have all done this. It’s like you’re going down the street here and you see a… a car with a Christian sticker on the window, and they have a flat tire, and there’s a mom out there trying to change the tire with seven kids hanging around her, and you go, oh, oh, what a nice sunset over there. You rat. What are we doing? We’re being exactly like this priest. Oh, man, I mean, I’m late to In-N-Out. What? Lord, bring someone by to help her with her flat tire. Don’t even pray that prayer. Back up. He’s serious about justice. And Jesus gets the attention of everyone. He says, a certain priest. Huh? What did he say? A priest? Pass by on the other side. This is a very key thing. The priest, we know the heart of God, you and I do. God’s not concerned about the law. He’s concerned about people. Remember what Jesus said? Don’t think for a moment the law, the man was created for the law. The law was created for man. What’s more important to God, the law or human life? Human life. Look at verse 32. God’s intolerant, I love it. He’s intolerant about hypocrisy. Makes him sick. Verse 32, likewise the Levite, ooh. When he arrived at the place, he came and he looked and he passed by on the other side. Now watch this, watch. The priest goes like this. Hey, that looks like a body up there. Oh gosh. And he goes around, he just. The Levite almost gets involved It’s like people that are almost a Christian. I’ve been going to church here for years. Yeah, but do you know Jesus? Well, I told you, I’ve been coming here for years. But are you going to heaven? Well, I’m going to tell God how I came here for years. That’s not the answer. Can you imagine? Hi, God. You know, I put up with that guy for years down there. The Levite goes like this. Whoa. This guy has really gotten the snot beat out of him. Poor, unfortunate soul. He is really in trouble. Whoa. Whoa. Almost, almost cared. Got close. My thought is this, can you imagine the guy laying there and half his teeth are missing, the guy’s eyeballs hanging out, he’s almost dead, and he looks up, and well, imagine what’s in his mind. Now, this is not in the Bible. I’m making this part up right now. Imagine, though, he sees the priest walk by, and he’s thinking, oh, and then he hears footsteps again, and a Levite, and he must think, oh, thank you, God. I’m rescued. And with the one eye there, you know, he looks at the Levi’s face and feet at the same time. And hope walks away. And he leaves. Well, you know, I was intending to do something about that. Same thing with us. I was intending to, you know, I was going to do something about that. Why don’t you just not talk about it, please? Well, I was going to say something. Really? Do you think anybody believes you when you say that? Come on, let’s go say something. And then it’s remedied and you go, I was just fixing to do something about that. Everybody knows you weren’t. Well, you know, God, God hates hypocrisy. He just hates it.

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You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.

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You know the symbols of the Screen Actors Guild? Do you know what it is? The hypocrite. What’s the hypocrite? The one mask that has a smiley face, like the Joker, that face, and the other face is sad. It’s called the hypocrite. God hates that. Third and final thing, we’ll end with this. Verse 33 to 37. The parable of the Good Samaritan, we learn the love of God through me. The world is going to learn about the love of God through you and I. Did you know that? You guys know this. It’s very important. I’m gonna go really fast because we’re out of time. So hang on to your seat. The love of God through you and I means this, that we care for the things of God. The things that God cares for, we’re supposed to care for. Jesus blows the whole thing up in amazing ways with verse 33. It’s shocking. If you’re Jewish tonight, you’re like going, oh my goodness, he didn’t. Are you kidding me? Jesus said that? No way. Yep. Yep. Verse 33, but a certain Samaritan. You don’t talk about Samaritans to Jews. They can’t stand each other. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. The word means stood in the same place as the wounded man. We can say that he put his shoes on, so to speak. You know the thing about don’t criticize somebody unless you walk in their own shoes? This guy comes right up. Cast caution to the wind. Oh my goodness, this guy’s hurt. The Samaritan goes right there. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him. The word compassion, circle the word. The word in Greek means, the word means bowels were moved. Bowels. His torso, his midsection was so grieved over that man’s condition that it made him sick. It made him sick. That’s what the word means. The man became sick to his stomach. You say, what’s the big deal about the Samaritan thing? It’s a big deal. The Samaritans, The Samaritans were half-breeds. In the days of Israel’s rebellion and the kingdoms were divided, the Assyrian Empire came. You can read this in your Old Testament, and captured the Jews and led them into captivity, and some of the Jews were sold by the Assyrians to the Babylonian kingdom. They were put in exile there in Babylon. You’ve heard of the Babylonian captivity? And then after God had drawn them or brought them out of Babylon, they came back. But some of the Jews now had married Assyrian husbands or wives and produced children that were half-breeds. Samaritans were known as half-breeds. They were half Hebrew and half Gentile. They were despised by the Orthodox Jews. It’s an amazing situation because in Samaria, When Nehemiah came to rebuild the street and the walls to get the temple going again, remember they came to Nehemiah and they said, this is awesome, we wanna join with you. And they said, no, you can’t. You’re not pure, you’re not all Hebrew. And they were so upset, they were so grieved. And there was the temple in Jerusalem, and do you remember, listen, I’m now fast forwarding centuries. Fast forward, do you remember when Jesus came in John’s Gospel? Jesus came to Jacob’s well to get a drink of water and the disciples went into a town to get some food and a woman was there at the well. Do you remember what her ethnic background was? She was a Samaritan. And Jesus said, can you give me some water? And she goes, how is it that you, a Jew, speaks to me, a Samaritan? You have no dealings with us. Remember that? They had their own temple in Samaria. Did you know that? They weren’t allowed to come into Jerusalem, so they built their own temple. They had their own worship system. You can take an archeological trip and visit the old foundations of their ancient temple today. They were despised. What is Jesus doing here? I mean, you know the book, like, you know, How to Influence People and Win Them as Friends, or whatever the name of that book is? Didn’t Jesus read this? I mean, this is gonna put gasoline on the fire here. It’s very interesting, isn’t it? What’s he saying? He’s saying you need to care for the things that God cares for and don’t get bound up in religion. They want to talk about word of worship and we’re this group and you’re that group. We don’t associate with each other. Does that happen today? We’re Baptist, we’re Lutheran, we’re Methodist. We can’t talk to you guys. Is Jesus Lord? Yes. Did he die on the cross for our sins? Yeah. Did he rise again from the dead? Yes. Is he the one true God? Yes. Virgin born? Yes. Coming again? Yes. Are you with me? Do you hear that? We start parsing things out. Well, you know what? This guy, this and that. Is it a hill to die on? Were you blessed by John Lennox last Sunday? Well, what if he would have said, I can’t go there. I mean, I’m a PhD many times over. I got a streak to only PhDs. What if he would have done that? Could he? He could have. But he didn’t. I think that’s kind of cool. What if Jesus would have said, I’m not going down there. Those people are mean to each other. He didn’t. We need to care about the things that God cares about. The next, look, verses 34 to 35, and I’ll hurry up. We need to care for the things of man. So he went to him, that is the Samaritan, and bandaged up this guy’s wounds so he touches him. the priest and the Levite would never touch. Pour oil and wine, and he sent him on his own animal and brought him to an inn, that’s probably in Jericho, by the way, and took care of him. And on the next day, when he, that is the Samaritan, departed, he took two denarii, two days wages, and 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. And that is an awesome thing to realize. That is so like Jesus. This is the standard of God dwelling in a person’s heart Proper doctrine, living it out. Now look, I hope I made it clear at the beginning. We should all take care of each other regardless of what people believe and their lifestyle, whatever. If someone’s hurt and you bless, you take care of them, period. I’m not compromising doctrine here. What I’m saying is, remember, good works are awesome, but they don’t save you. But those of us who are saved should have good works. Why? Because that’s exactly what our God has shown us to do. You may do amazing good works, but you’re going to be in heaven because of the blood of Jesus. Okay? And we end in verses 34 to 35 or 37 here. It’s this. Care for the things of all. So which of these three, Jesus asked the man, which of these three do you think was neighbor? to him who fell among thieves. And the man said, this is kind of, every scholar you read, they laugh at this, verse 37. And he, the man said, he who showed mercy on him. You wanna know why he answered that way? Because a Jew would not say Samaritan. They were so hated. Who did the right thing? That guy. And Jesus said, go do likewise. The word means go be like him. Whoa! Steam coming out of the ears. Have you noticed when God speaks to you sometimes, it gets steam going out of your ears? What? And then you calm down and God’s always right. Church, this is good stuff for our hearts. We have a lot of opportunities. We have the needs within our own body to reach. We have needs in the community. You ever looked at the newspaper and you see people that have suffered an accident or injury? That’s an opportunity. Maybe you can call the city or the newspaper to find out where do they live? Or is there a drop-off point where we can help? What about the homeless in LA? You say, well, you know, there’s people called to that. That’s a problem. We’re called to that. to care for things of all. It’s critical. Father, we thank you for your word to us. It is strong, it is direct, it is hard, it is true, it’s real. And Father, I pray in Jesus’ name that for all of us we would see to it that we are doing what we learned in the life of the Samaritan. Is it a parable or is it not? It doesn’t matter. It’s how we’re supposed to live. And Lord, when our eyes are too fixed on ourselves, we care about how we feel. We care about what we think. Our opinions are so paramount to us in that terrible condition. While we think about and defend and promote and prop up ourselves, we drive by a world of hurt. Jesus, you said it so perfectly true. We need to be dead to ourselves. We need to pick up our cross daily and follow you. So Lord, I pray that as we go from this place, we, I completely depend upon your Holy Spirit to bring these things to reality in our lives. May we do your word, not just talk about it. May we not preach it and teach it without doing it. So Lord Jesus, lead us. We ask in Jesus’ name, oh God. In his name we pray and all God’s people said. Amen.

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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio, and his message called Parable of the Good Samaritan. You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was walking here on this earth, and will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you’d like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That’s K-N-O-W God. And there you’ll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you’ll find in knowing God. Don’t miss out. That’s the know God tab at jackhibbs.com.

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Pastor Jack, this month’s featured resource, it’s called When Culture Hates You. It’s written by Natasha Crane. You really like Natasha, right?

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I do, Davey. And the reason is, is Natasha is one of the great defenders of the faith that we have today. She is on a continuous speaking circuit defending the truth from the word of God and into the culture, she’s fearless. In fact, I’ve always often joked with a mutual friend of Natasha, Dr. Frank Turek, and I’ve always told Dr. Frank Turek, if we had more men like Natasha, the church would be a lot better off because she’s fearless and she’s all about truth. And she’s written a tremendous book, When Culture Hates You. I love the title because if we’re gonna be actual followers of Jesus Christ, the culture will hate us. It must hate us. And so it’s a great book. I don’t want anybody to be scared by the title, But you really need to know, in fact, listen to this, persevering for the common good as Christians in a hostile public square. That’s exactly where we live.

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And her book will help you be equipped to do exactly that. So if listeners were to take away just one key point from this book, what would you hope that point would be?

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Yeah, evaluation, self-evaluation. Who am I? Is this really a life that describes me as a believer? Am I hitting those points? the evidences that Jesus talked about whereby I’m actually a real Christian. I have these kinds of friends that are for me, and I have these kinds of enemies who are against me. And that may sound like a strange thing for people to hear, but Jesus said, if you love me, the world’s going to hate you. And so the big question comes to us is, is my witness effective enough to where people love it and people hate it? And that’s an important, very deep probing question that we have to ask ourselves in the 21st century as we name the name of Christ.

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When Culture Hates You, written by Natasha Crane. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. One more time, jackhibbs.com slash real radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.