Dr. David Anderson, president of Maranatha Baptist University, spoke on loving your neighbor with a Christlike love. He retells the story of the Good Samaritan, stating this as Jesus’ opportunity to reach the young lawyer with God’s Word, sharing the application of the greatest commandments being to love God and love people. Dr. Anderson shows that the young lawyer understood Jesus and equated loving God and loving others with a selfless and merciful kind of love.

Scripture Texts

Luke 8:4-21; Luke 10:25-42

Main Points or Ideas

The Lawyer's Question and Jesus' Response (verses 25-28)

• A lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, attempting to trick Jesus
• Jesus redirects the question back to the lawyer, who correctly answers: love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself
• Jesus affirms this answer and says "this do, and thou shalt live"
• This is not works salvation but demonstrates that true faith produces works—faith without works is dead
• Only those indwelt by the Spirit can truly love their neighbor with God's love

The Parable of the Good Samaritan (verses 29-37)

• When the lawyer asks "who is my neighbor?" Jesus tells the parable
• A man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed, beaten, and left half dead
• A priest passes by without helping, demonstrating he does not truly love God
• A Levite also passes by, showing the same lack of genuine faith
• A Samaritan (unlikely hero in this Jewish context) stops to help with compassion, taking significant risk and going above and beyond to care for the wounded man
• The Samaritan demonstrates what it means to truly love your neighbor—interrupting your life, going out of your way, and sacrificing your own resources
• Jesus commands: "Go, and do thou likewise"

Martha and Mary (verses 38-42)

• Jesus visits Martha and Mary's home
• Martha busily serves while Mary sits at Jesus' feet listening to His word
• Martha becomes frustrated that Mary isn't helping and asks Jesus to tell her sister to serve
• Jesus gently corrects Martha: she is careful (self-promoting) and troubled about many things
• Mary has chosen "that good part" by prioritizing time with Jesus and His Word
• The lesson: loving God must come first before loving your neighbor
• Service done without first loving God comes from a wrong heart and won't be done rightly

Conclusion

Believers must love God first by spending time in His Word and sitting at His feet, and then love their neighbor sacrificially and abundantly as an outgrowth of that relationship. Getting this order reversed leads to service that is self-promoting rather than God-honouring.