The Parable of the Good Samaritan: On Love | Luke 10: 25-37
Brian Hedges | February 20, 2022
Let’s turn in God’s word together. We’re going to be in Luke 10, and if you want to follow along in one of the Bibles provided there in the chairs in front of you it’s going to be page 869. Luke 10:25-37.
Have you ever seen a movie that had a plot twist at the end, a surprise that was so significant that as soon as you saw it you felt like you needed to watch the whole film all over again and see the film from another point of view? Maybe the best example of this is that old Bruce Willis movie The Sixth Sense. You get to the end of the movie and all of a sudden you see the whole film from a different perspective.
I think sometimes the teaching of Jesus is like that. The stories of Jesus, the parables of Jesus have a surprising plot twist, an unexpected turn in the story. Sometimes it’s a surprising hero, a person who comes out as the hero of the story, and it would have been a person that nobody in the original audience would have expected. It’s only when we grasp that and we really hear these stories in the way that the original audience would have heard that we can really grasp the impact of what Jesus is saying.
That’s especially true with the story we’re going to look at today. It’s the parable of the good Samaritan. Here’s the deal. When all of us hear that phrase “good Samaritan,” we immediately think of a good neighbor. We think about the man or the woman who’s going to help the person on the side of the road, because we know the story. We’ve heard the story many times, and whether you’ve grown up in church or even outside of the church, when that phrase “good Samaritan” is used it’s always a positive thing. We think of good Samaritans as good people.
That is not how the original audience would have thought of a Samaritan in the story. Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience, and Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans. Samaritans were considered to be impure, not true Israelites, they were racially mixed because of the Assyrians and Samaritans centuries before in that region of Palestine; they had worshiped at a different temple, they had forsaken the true worship of God. They were not considered heroes by any stretch of the imagination. So in this story, when the Samaritans ends up being the good neighbor, that was a complete surprise.
If we retold the story, it would be something like this. If we said a man was traveling down the road and he was beaten up and robbed and left for dead, and a Catholic priest saw him but passed by, and an evangelical Protestant pastor saw him and passed on by; and then a member of Al Qaeda saw him and offered help, and was actually the neighbor to him. I mean, that’s shocking, right, to think that the terrorist or the Muslim, the person who seems completely outside of the faith and outside of anything we would consider being a follower of God or Christ, to think that that person is the neighbor. That’s how shocking it would be for Jesus’ original hearers.
We need to know that as we go into the story this morning, and as we read it together, what I want you to see is that the main point of the story is love. It’s all about love; it’s about loving our neighbors as ourselves. That’s the practical focus, and every week in these stories, these parables of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, we’ve been trying to look at a practical aspect of the life of faith, the life of discipleship, and focus on one practical thing. Today that practical thing is love.
As we work through it, we’re going to see three things, and these three things relate to the law, the gospel, and discipleship. We’re going to see:
1. What God Requires of Us (The Law)
2. What God Does for Us (The Gospel)
3 What God Calls Us to Do for Others (Discipleship)
1. What God Requires of Us (The Law)
That’s the structure of the message, and rather than read through it all at once I’m going to read the setting. This is what brings about this parable; it’s the context into which Jesus speaks in verses 25-29, and then here in a few minutes we’ll read the parable together. But we need to get the context right. This is all under the heading “What God Requires of Us (The Law).” As I read verses 25-29, notice the underlined words on the screen, and I want you to see that this has to do with the law.
Verse 25: “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test . . .” Now the lawyer here is not an attorney at law, as we think of today, it’s a theologian. This is a Bible scholar, a student of the law of God.
So, “a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?’ And he answered, ‘You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.’
“But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”
In answer to that question, Jesus will tell this parable.
Now, we have to understand what’s going on here. The whole story of the good Samaritan is told by Jesus in the context on this conversation as a student of the law, a scholar of the Old Testament law, comes and asks Jesus this question. So there’s a conversation. I want you to notice here the motive for the question, and then the question itself.
The motive, verse 25 says, is to put him to the text. Here’s someone who’s not sincerely seeking eternal life as much as he’s trying to draw Jesus into a debate. He’s putting Jesus to the test. So he asks this question (it would have been a very common question in Judaism at that time), “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Eternal life, in the mind of a first-century Jew, would have been life in the age to come, life in the age of resurrection. Daniel 12:2: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” That’s what he’s looking for; life in the kingdom of God, life in the age to come, resurrection life. Life forever.
Jesus, knowing this man and knowing his heart, responds by pointing him to the law of God in verse 26. He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
Then this man gives a summary of the law of God, and it’s actually a really good summary. Verse 27, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” He’s actually conflating together two passages of Scripture, Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18; and he’s then giving this twofold summary of the law God. Really, all that God’s law required could be boiled down into these two basic commands: love God supremely (that’s first), and then love your neighbor as yourself.
This is a good answer. Jesus even says, “You have answered correctly.” In other contexts, when Jesus is talking about the law of God, Jesus gives this same summary. For example, in Matthew 22, once again a lawyer comes to him and asks a question. “Teacher, which is the great commandment of the law?” Jesus answers in this way: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
So Jesus agrees with the answer. He says, “You have answered correctly.” This is verse 28. “Do this and you will live.”
Underline that; we’re going to come back to that in a minute. This is key, I think, to understanding what Jesus is doing here. “Do this and you will live.”
But then look at verse 29. “But he [that is, the lawyer, the theologian, the Bible scholar], desiring to justify himself [there’s the motive], said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” It’s in answer to that question that Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan.
I think Jesus is doing two things in this parable. I want you to see these two things.
(1) The first thing he’s doing in telling this parable is expounding what the law requires. Let’s look at this as we read it in verses 30-37. Jesus is answering the question, “Who is my neighbor?” and the way he answers it expounds the requirement of the law.
“Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho [a steep downhill journey, about 17 miles], and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite [these are two religious professionals, right?], when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan [there’s the surprise; a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews], as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.” Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.’”
What is Jesus doing with this story? He is expounding the comprehensive requirements of the law, the full scope of what the law required.
Now, what the man probably would have expected when Jesus said these three men saw the man on the side of the road, he probably would have thought, “Okay, the priest, the Levite, and then a normal layman.” A normal Israelite layman. So it would have been a story then that just would have exposed the hypocrisy of the religious establishment. That wouldn’t have been that surprising. But what Jesus does is utterly surprising, because the hero of the story is a Samaritan; it’s an enemy! So what Jesus is showing here is that the requirement of neighbor love is not just loving your fellow Jew, your fellow countryman, your brother, your kinsman according to the flesh. The requirement of the law is that you actually love your enemy, and that you love your enemy in this comprehensive way.
Just notice the comprehensive scope of the love that the Samaritan shows to this man in need in the story. I don’t know if you noticed this as we were reading it, but beginning in verse 33 there’s verb after verb after verb. I counted them; I think there are eleven verbs, at least in English—eleven verbs here describing what the Samaritan does for this man. This isn’t love as a sentimental feeling, this is love in action. This is practical deeds of mercy and compassion.
The Samaritan as he journeyed came to where he was—there’s physical presence. When he saw him, he had compassion—there’s empathy, sympathy, emotional connection. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine—there’s medical care. Then he set him on his animal and brought him to an inn—there’s transportation as well as providing shelter—and took care of him, and the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him; I’ll pay the bill.” There’s financial aid.
That’s love. It’s love that is meeting all of those needs, and doing so at great cost to himself. What Jesus is showing this Bible study who’s concerned about the law of God, what he’s showing him is that his understanding of the law of God was terribly insufficient. Jesus is expounding for him the true requirement of the law. This is what God requires; it’s this kind of love, this kind of self-sacrificial love, this kind of costly love, this kind of love even for your enemy.
(2) The second thing Jesus is doing here is exposing the impossibility of self-justification. He not only expounds the law, but he exposes the impossible project of justifying oneself. That’s what this man wants, right? “In order to justify himself,” he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” He’s trying to figure out what are the limits of the law, and Jesus tells the story to show him.
I think the key to understanding this is really in verse 28, when Jesus says in response to this man’s summary of the law of God, love for God and love for neighbor, Jesus says, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
The word “do” there is present active imperative. That means it’s a command that demands an active, ongoing, continues response of obedience. It is almost a quotation of Leviticus 18:5, which says, “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord.”
Right there, in that verse, you have the basic principle of the law. The law says, “Do this and you will live.” That’s what Jesus says. “Do this and you will live.”
The apostle Paul uses that verse, Leviticus 18:5, in two different places, and in both places he’s doing it as he is contrasting righteousness through the law with righteousness that comes through faith. You have it in Romans 10:5-10 and in Galatians 3. Let me read the Galatians passage, and listen to what Paul says in Galatians 3:10. He says, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.’” The curse is on those who do not continually obey the law.
Then in verse 11 he says, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith; rather, ‘the one who does them shall live by them’” (Leviticus 18:5). Then verse 13: “But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”
Now, Jesus in this passage doesn’t quite get to the gospel, but what he is doing in telling this story and in saying, “Do this, and you will live,” what he is doing is applying the law of God to the heart of this man who is seeking self-justification, and he’s showing him the impossibility of justifying himself by his works. So this passage shows us what God requires of us. It shows us the law and the full scope of the law, the comprehensive requirement of the law.
God requires that of you. He requires that of me. He requires that of all of us. We are required to love God with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and we are required to love our neighbors as ourselves. But here’s the deal: if you are seeking eternal life by law-keeping, if you’re trying to get to heaven by being a good Samaritan, you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble, because none of us have done it. Nobody has lived like this—nobody except one.
2. What God Does for Us (The Gospel)
So we also need to see, not only that this passage shows us what God requires of us, we also need to see that it shows us what God does for us. It shows us not only the law, it also shows us the gospel.
This is a key interpretive principle in Scripture. We interpret Scripture rightly when we can distinguish between law and gospel. Nobody said it better, perhaps, than Martin Luther. This is the Heidelberg Disputation Thesis 26. Luther said, “The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done; grace says, ‘Believe in this one,’ and everything has been done. The law says do; the gospel says done.”
Don’t misunderstand; the law comes from God, and so does the gospel. The word of God contains both law and gospel. God commands, and he also promises. We have to see both of those. The command to love, that is God’s requirement. But God also promises to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
The question, then, is, is this passage teaching us law or gospel? I would suggest that ultimately it does both, because it not only expounds the full requirement of the law, and it not only exposes the impossibility of self-justification, but it also powerfully illustrates the kind of love that Jesus displays to us, his enemies, in saving us from our sins.
In fact, many of the older interpreters, that’s how they view this parable. They basically allegorized the parable, which we probably don’t want to go so far as that, but they viewed the parable as being a parable that pointed to Christ. Really, it all depends on which character in the story you identify yourself with.
If you identify yourself with the good Samaritan, you’re probably somewhat self-delusional, because you’re not actually living that way. Most of us will read and will probably feel somewhat like the priest or the Levite, and we can think of times when we’ve been the guy that passed by and didn’t actually take care of somebody’s need.
But what if you identify yourself as the victim in the story, the man who is left dead on the side of the road? What do you need? You need someone to come alongside you and help you, to rescue you, to save you. In that situation, Jesus is that person.
One commentator who read the story in this way, perhaps the most famous of all commentators, is Matthew Henry, a great Puritan commentary. I want you to listen to what Matthew Henry said. This isn’t all he says, but this is part of what he says.
He says, “Now this parable is applicable to another purpose than that for which it was intended, and does excellently set for the kindness and love of God our Savior towards sinful, miserable man. We were like this poor, distressed traveler. Satan, our enemy, has robbed us, stripped us, wounded us. Such is the mischief that sin has done on us, we were by nature more than half dead, twice dead in trespasses and sins, utterly unable to help ourselves, for we were without strength. The law of Moses, like the priest and Levite, the ministers of the law, looks upon us but has no compassion on us, gives us no relief, passes by on the other side, as having neither pity nor power to help us. But then comes the blessed Jesus, that good Samaritan. They said of him by way of reproach, ‘He is a Samaritan.’ He has compassion on us; he binds up our bleeding wounds, pours in not oil and wine, but that which is infinitely more precious, his own blood. He takes care of us and bids us put all the expenses of our cure upon his account. And all this, though he was none of us, till he was pleased by his voluntary condescension to make himself so, but infinitely above us. This magnifies the riches of his love and obliges us all to say, ‘How much are we indebted, and what shall we render?’”
Why is it important for us to grasp this? Let me give you two reasons.
(1) I think this is important to grasp, first of all, in order to guard us from the burden of legalism and moralism. If you read this story of the good Samaritan, as well as the many other ethical, moral teachings of Jesus about loving your neighbor and giving to the poor and caring for those in need—if you read them as being so many rules to follow and laws to keep in order to be sure that you go to heaven when you die, in order to get eternal life, you will live with an unbearable burden on your back. You will. You’ll be like Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
He’s seeking for eternal life—do you remember this?—he’s running from the City of Destruction, he’s plugging his fingers in his ears so that he can’t hear the voices of those who are telling him he’s crazy, and he’s crying out, “Life! Life! Eternal life!” He’s looking for the way to life, and he has this burden of sin on his back, and he’s looking for how he can be released from the burden of sin.
There’s a man named Evangelist, preacher of the gospel, who tells him, “There’s a narrow gate, and if you go through that narrow gate you’ll find the cross, and there your burden can be released.” So Christian is heading that way, but he meets another man, a man named Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Mr. Worldly Wiseman tells him, “I can tell you how to get rid of that burden. You need to go to a man named Legality, who lives in the village of Morality. If you’ll go to him, he will help you with your burden.”
So Christian heads toward this village, but on the way there he comes to a mountain, and the mountain is tall, it’s dark, there’s lightning and thunder, and that mountain looks like it’s hanging right over his head and is going to fall on him and crush him. You know what the mountain is? It’s Mount Sinai. It’s the mountain where the Ten Commandments, the law of God was given.
Christian never makes it to the village of Morality. He’s only rescued when Evangelist comes to him again and gets him back on the right path, and he finally comes to the cross, and at the foot of the cross the burden rolls from his shoulders, straight into an empty tomb.
The only way that the burden of guilt and sin will be released from your shoulders is at the cross of Christ, and we have to grasp the gospel here, or we will live under this unbearable burden of legalism, of moralism.
The apostle Paul, in the first sermon ever recorded of the apostle Paul, in Acts 13:38-39, preaching to a synagogue full of Jews, says, “Let it be known you therefore, brothers, that through this man [Jesus] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”
There’s no eternal life through law-keeping—not because the law isn’t good, but because you can’t keep it. That’s the problem. You can’t keep it.
(2) The second reason we need to understand this is because we need genuine transformation, and it’s only as we see Christ as the great fulfillment of the law that that transformation comes about in our lives. But when we see Jesus as the one who truly fulfills the law, then we’re deeply transformed, and transformed so deeply that we begin to want to be like this. We want to be like this, because we want to be more like Jesus.
Do you remember those words of William Cowper?
To see the law by Christ fulfilled,
To hear his pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
Have you seen the law of God fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ? Have you seen that? Have you seen Christ as your righteousness, as your justification, as the one who came to rescue you and to set you free? If you have, seeing that changes the motivational structures of our hearts, so that we want to follow him, we want to be like him.
3. What God Calls Us to Do for Others (Discipleship)
That leads to point number three, what God calls us to do for others. This passage shows us what God requires of us in his law; what he requires is love. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It shows us what God does for us in the gospel as Christ comes and loves us, laying down his life for us; and it shows us what God calls us to do for others in the life of discipleship. Once again, it’s love. The heart of discipleship is love. Discipleship is simply following Jesus in the power of the Spirit, in partnership with other believers, and we do that as we love one another.
You remember the words of Jesus in John 13:34. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Brothers and sisters, I would suggest to you that every responsibility we have as individual Christians and as the church, every responsibility we have can be summed up in that one word “love.” Our responsibility is to care for people spiritually and physically. It’s all bound up in love. Spiritually, as we share the good news, because we love them and we want to see people brought to Christ and saved; and physically, as we do good deeds, not to climb our way to heaven, but as we do good deeds in order to actually meet the needs of people, because we love them and we care for them. They both boil down to love. So we should obey the teaching of Jesus here, we should live like good Samaritans, but we do so out of the overflow of love and gratitude in our hearts, as we think about what Christ has done for us.
How do we go about that? Let me suggest three application questions as we draw this to a close. Here are three questions you can ask yourself that maybe will help in just thinking through the application of this teaching to our lives.
(1) Number one: Why do I do what I do? Think about your good works, think about your charitable giving, think about your volunteer service in church, outside of the church. Why do I do what I do? Ask yourself that.
Is it out of love for God and others, or is it from a desire to justify yourself? Are you trying to earn your salvation? Abandon that effort and trust Christ alone, and then follow him as a disciple out of love and gratitude. Let that be your motive, but check the motive. Why do you do what you do? The motive should be genuine love for God and for others.
(2) Secondly, ask yourself this question: Do I have the character of a neighbor? Did you notice how the story goes? The lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He’s looking for the limits of the love command. What are the limits of that? “Who is my neighbor?”
But the way Jesus answers the question isn’t to say who your neighbor, but to show him what a neighbor is, because Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan, and then Jesus asks the question, “Which of these three, the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, was the neighbor to the man in need?” He shows us what a neighbor is, he shows us how a neighbor behaves. He shows us that at the heart of being neighbor is this character of love and of compassion and of mercy towards others.
Gary Enrig in his book on the parables of Jesus says, “Love is not a sentimental feeling; rather, it is sacrificial action. It means interrupting my schedule, expending my money, risking my reputation, ruining my property, even for a stranger, so that I can do what is best for him. Love is the compassion that feels, the care that involves, and the commitment that endures. Love originates in the Giver of love, not the object of love; love initiates, taking the first step in reaching out to those in need. Love pays the ultimate price, going to extraordinary lengths to help the hurting.” That’s the character of a neighbor: sacrificial action for the sake of others.
(3) Ask, “Why do I do what I do?” Ask, “Do I have the character of a neighbor?” And then number three, ask, “Where do I see people in need?” Think about yourself individually, your own circle of friends, neighbors, acquaintances, the needs that you are aware of. This is different for every one of us. There are different people in need in our lives who cross our paths.
I think we have to extend the application of this parable beyond the person on the side of the road. Obviously, if someone’s on the side of the road, we should be willing to help if we’re in a position to offer help. If somebody has a broken down car, I’m probably not the guy to help fix the car, because I have zero mechanical skills. But maybe it’s being able to call and get help for someone. Certainly if we see someone beaten and left half dead we should call 911; we should help them get medical attention, those kinds of things.
But we have to think beyond that when we think about this parable. We have to think about people in need in our world, in our community, in our society. Let me give you some categories.
Think about children. I said last week that 20,000 children die of starvation a day. There are ways to feed those children. There are ministries and organizations like Compassion International or Samaritan’s Purse, where your dollars help feed children.
You might also think about the needs of children in our own country, and considering, as many of you have and are actively involved in, fostering children or adopting children. You might think of becoming a big brother or a big sister in a local public school. I mean, these are ways to serve children and help meet their needs.
Think about the elderly. Sometimes the elderly are the forgotten in our society, but there are ways to serve them, to encourage them, to visit them, to be present, maybe to help them in practical ways with a house project or with transportation.
Think about immigrants and refugees. Immigrants are flooding into our country by the thousands, and especially right now from Afghanistan. Some of them are coming into our own communities. What do these people need? I mean, they’re running from their war-torn homelands. What do they need? They need the practical help of settling into life in a new country.
Maybe help by teaching English as a second language, getting involved in a program that helps get them settled and provides for some of their needs, providing friendship and support.
Think about the poor and the homeless. Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,” and even in our own country, with all the wealth we have, it’s not a classless society. There are still poor and homeless people among us. How do we help them?
You might think of ministries like Hope Ministries or Salvation Army, contributing, serving alongside, serving in a soup kitchen, giving, finding ways to help meet those needs.
Think about single parents, especially single moms or women in a crisis pregnancy. How do you help them? How do you help them choose life? How do you help them get hope in what feels like a hopeless situation? Consider volunteering with a ministry like LIfePlan, or giving generously to LifePlan, serving as a counselor or offering financial support.
Those are just a handful of ways. If you sat down for a few minutes and just tried to think creatively and think about the needs that you are aware of and became aware of the organizations and the ministries, both in and outside the church, that try to meet these needs, and you are willing to put some of your dollars and some of your time into it, you can make a difference.
Brothers and sisters, that’s what we’re called to as disciples. That is the life of love. God calls us to do this for others.
Final question: How do we do it? How do we do it spiritually? Where do we find this strength, the resources to do it? The answer, of course, is we find it through Christ himself. Having seen what Christ does for us in the gospel, and then now being indwelt by his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of love, we do it in the strength that he supplies.
I quoted Luther before; listen to Luther again. This is also from the Heidelberg Disputation. Luther said, “While Christ lives in us through faith, he now moves us to do good works through that living faith in his works. For the works that he does are for us fulfillment given through faith of God’s commands.”
It’s almost what Paul said, isn’t it, in Romans 8. “Christ has done what the law . . . could not do.” He died for us, he paid the sacrifice for our sins, but he did it in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. We serve as we are empowered by the Spirit of Christ living within us. That’s what we’re called to, brothers and sisters. Let’s commit ourselves to it; let’s pray.
Father, this passage is a challenging passage in every way, as it confronts us with the requirements of your holy and righteous law, as it exposes our futile attempts at self-justification. It shows us our need, it shows us our sins, but it also illustrates for us the beauty and the glory of what Jesus Christ, our Savior, has done. He’s come to us in our need, he’s rescued us, he’s redeemed us.
My prayer this morning is that seeing that would make a difference in our hearts; that seeing what Christ has done for us, seeing the wonder of his love, would so change us and so transform us that the natural impulse of our hearts would be to share that same kind of love with others as we follow Christ. We cannot do that in our own strength; we can only do that in the strength and the grace of your Spirit. So we pray that your Spirit would come in great power and apply the law and the gospel to our hearts. Help us embrace and follow the teaching of Jesus, and bring about the needed changes and transformation in our lives.
As we come to the table this morning, may we come with faith in our hearts as we think about the sacrifice of Christ and what Christ has done for us. May we come believing the gospel, and may we leave this place this morning in the strength of the gospel, to go out and share this love with others. So draw near to us in these final moments of worship; be glorified in this place, we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
