JESUS SHOWED MERCY!!! Why can't you?

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints Podcast with your host, Dan Willis. Welcome back, Saints. It's a new day. We are halfway through the week, and I am excited to get back into Luke with you guys today. Uh, we're continuing to truck through. Thank you so much for all of you guys that are listening, uh, those of you that have left reviews, given feedback. It helps me so much to know where to go with the program and how to grow. I greatly appreciate you. I hope you guys are enjoying the walkthrough Luke. If you guys are new to the program, don't worry, you can hop in at any time. But at the same time, if you're one of those that likes to start at the beginning and work your way through, you can also go back to Luke 1 and work your way from Luke 1 all the way back to where we are here at Luke 10. I leave that to you. But for today, we are going to continue moving forward through Luke. So if you have your Bible handy, great. If not, take a second, hit pause. Run and grab it if you can. Let's go. So guys, I am going to be reading from the ESV. You are welcome to follow along in whatever translation paraphrase that you prefer, but I I am always going to read from the ESV. For those of you that are out on the road, you're commuting, you're not able to listen to this right now for or you're not able to have a Bible handy right now as you listen to this for whatever reason, don't worry. I'm going to read the entire passage and then we'll break it down together. So let's get started here. It's Luke ten. Verse 25 is where we're gonna get started. Behold, 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, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. And he said to him— But he— sorry. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, 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, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, 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 sent him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out 2 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 3 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. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. All right, back to the parables. It has been a hot minute since we had a parable, so today we're getting the parable of the Good Samaritan. And a lot of people are fairly familiar with this. And before we dive into it, this is one of the cautions that I have. Often when we hear certain stories in scripture that are a little bit more common, a little bit more well-known, we tend to gloss over. We tend to, oh yeah, I've read this since I was a A little kid, or I've heard this a dozen times, or there's you know VeggieTales about this that I've seen at some point when I was four. So I I get this. I know this. And so just a word of caution before we get started here: that just because you've read it a thousand times doesn't mean that it doesn't hold some value. It doesn't hold some meaning. So we're gonna we're gonna take a look at this parable first, and then we're gonna deal with Mary and Martha afterwards. Okay? So again, somebody's there. They're trying to put. Christ to the test. They throw it out there. Jesus gives him the scriptures and says, you tell me what the scriptures say. And goes, it's this. Great. So you have the knowledge. How do you practically apply that? That's the next debate they get into. Okay, great. Yeah, I agree that that's what the law says that we are supposed to do. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. But who is your neighbor then? Let's just clarify that. Who is your neighbor? And this one is particularly telling. And the The nice thing with this one is Christ has very much set the example. All along the way, we've seen examples of him speaking to both Jew and Gentile. He's there; he is happy to do both. He speaks to Samaritans and Jews. There is no distinction. It's those that he comes across he speaks to. But in this story, he breaks down. Very clearly for this guy that there are those who have their posterity, there are those who have the ability to help and choose not to, and then there are those who seem unlikely to be those who would help and care and love and go the extra mile, and yet there they are. That's exactly what they're doing. And it's interesting for us because often we operate on these ideas of Whether it's denomination or just Christian as a whole, right? So the Samaritans, the Samaritans, if you had asked them, "Are you Jewish?" They would say, "Well, we're not Israelites. We're Samaritans, but we have a place that we worship the Lord, which is Mount Sinai." And you know that that's kind of the big difference is we we worship on a mountain over there instead of the temple over there. But that was enough to to divide them. If that doesn't sound familiar to you, it should. Because in all reality, it is the same thing that we're going through with denominations in many ways. You have denominations that are of a variety, of a variety, of a variety, and the discrepancies between them are minute. They're, they're, they're minor differences. In some cases they're larger, but for the most part, they're minor differences one to the next. Um, The interesting thing with this is the focus that Christ put on this was not the qualification of the person. It was not their title, their their heritage, their position in life. There, it was none of those things. The thing that Christ focused on was where was their heart, right? The it it wasn't the conclusion of the parable is not the one who. Put him on his donkey, the one who picked him up, the one who took him to the inn, the one who paid for his medical bills. It wasn't the the conclusion was the one who showed him mercy. Christ brings it back to a heart thing. Where where's the condition of your heart? Is your heart full of mercy for the person next to you? That's where it should be. Is there a person showing you mercy? Keep your eyes out for that because that person could be doing an amazing good for you. It could be something that is completely out of left field, somebody you wouldn't expect, but you should take note of that. But you're also called as a Christian doubly accountable because Christ is calling you to go in mercy, to go show mercy to all of those that are out there: the rich, the poor, the healthy, the lame, the Baptist, the Presbyterian. It doesn't matter. What matters is Christ told you to be merciful. Now we move on to the story of Mary and Martha. You've got 2 ladies sitting at a house. One lady's hustling and bustling, feeding everybody that showed up. Jesus brought this whole gang and they must be fed. So she's scurrying around and Mary's just sitting there fixated. It's, it's a Netflix binge on Jesus's teaching. She can't get up. She won't get up. She's just gonna sit there and soak in as much as she can. Mary looks over frustrated at what the other has and says, hey, come on, Jesus, I, I shouldn't be the only one working here. Tell Mary to get up and get going. And surprisingly, for Martha anyway, Jesus' answer is, you are so worried about everything. You're worried about the, the people being fed. You're worried about running around and getting this and that done. Yeah. You're even worried about your sister Doing something that you aren't, but the only thing that is necessary, Mary is doing, and I'm not going to take that away from her. This is going to be the one that we take the— well, we'll take both of them for the day, but the challenge that I'm going to give you here today, guys, is both. Focus on the thing that the Lord has put in front of you. That's the Mary and Martha. There's a good thing to be done. And if you're listening to this, I applaud you because you're taking the time to sit down and try to wrestle with the Lord's word just for a little bit, even just for a little bit. You want to hear what Christ has to say. You want to wrestle with the word. You're going to come to your own conclusions about what these, these lessons are, but you're listening to God's word and that is of value. The other side of this is, guys, as you go out into the world, apply the word. Apply the word. Don't, don't just listen and then go off and do whatever you want. Take the things that you're learning in the word and then continue to move forward. Continue to work in the gospel. Show that mercy. Show that compassion. Show the good news that you've been given. It's gonna make all the difference in the world. It's gonna make the difference between hypocritical Christians. It's gonna make the difference between nominal Christians. It's gonna make the difference between non-believers if you are out in the world. And you have done all you can to soak in the word as well as you can, and then you go and practice it, showing mercy and compassion to the world around you regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, wealth— if you go into the world and you love unconditionally the people around you, even when it's hardest— and believe me, we all have our challenges as men. I know that there are people out there that that's hard to do. But that's the purpose of that parable of the Good Samaritan. It wouldn't have been easy for a Samaritan to pick up a Jew and care for him and pay for him, but he did it anyway. So today, go out. You've got the word. Listen to it. Keep it in your heart. And as you go through your walk, watch for those that are in need that you can show some mercy and compassion to. That's it for today. Let's get down to prayer here, guys. I'm going to pray for you guys. As always, if you guys have prayer requests, please do not hesitate to send them through social media. All the links are down below as well. You can reach out to me directly. There's an email there that you can reach out to, and I'm more than happy to take a look. Speaking of mercy and compassion, guys, today's session of prayer is going to be dedicated and focused to one little saint. There was a young man who has come to the attention of the podcast, and I have asked for permission from the father to pray for this child. So we are going to dedicate our time to that today. Please, please, please hold this little brother up in your hearts throughout the day. Lord, I lift up Waylon to you. We are in a time and we are in a season that is difficult. And full of challenges for Waylon. The doctors have said that they seem unlikely that he's gonna make it through, but you are the great physician. You are the great healer, Lord. You are in control, and I I lift up Waylon to you. I lift up his family to you, Lord, that they would continue to turn to you in prayer, that they would trust in you. They trust that you can be a healer, that you can give life where we wouldn't see life. Pray that the physicians would not have an attitude of having been defeated before they see what the Lord can do. I pray that through their hard work, through prayer, Waylon would survive this, Lord, and he would grow in you. He'd be a powerful young man. He would know the Lord and he would cling to you. You are the Great Physician. You are the Great Healer, Lord. We've seen you all throughout your gospel, your ability to heal, your ability to even bring from the dead. So the doctors have declared that this looks like that's where that's going. That still doesn't stop you, Lord. You have the ability. You have the ability to give life, and I pray for Waylon. I pray for his family that that would be where you go here, Lord. Regardless in this trial, Lord, I pray that you give strength to the mother and the father. Pray that you give strength to those that love this little man. Be with them, Lord. It's never easy. Be with them. In your name we pray. Thank you so much, guys, for stopping by. I hope you have an amazing day, and I will catch you tomorrow with another episode. Take it easy. Thank you for listening to the Iron Saints Podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all until next time.