Who Is My Neighbor? A Message on Mercy in Motion

Pastor Michael Hopkins, Jehovah Saints

Opening Prayer

Let us pray.

Jehovah, You who see every person we pass by, open our eyes this morning. Where we have grown numb, make us tender again. Where we have grown busy, slow us down. Teach us not just to know who our neighbor is, but to become one. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Introduction

There's a road I want you to walk with me this morning. It's an old road — about seventeen miles, winding down through rocky, narrow passes, dropping over three thousand feet in elevation from Jerusalem to Jericho. In the first century, this road had a nickname. They called it "the Way of Blood," because it was so notorious for robbers and ambushes that travelers rarely walked it alone.

It's on this road that Jesus sets one of the most famous stories He ever told. And I want to walk through it with you slowly this morning, because I think we've heard it so many times that we've stopped letting it ask us the question it's actually asking.

Scripture Reading

Turn with me to Luke chapter 10, beginning at verse 30. A certain lawyer had just asked Jesus, "who is my neighbor?" — trying, Scripture tells us, to justify himself. And Jesus answered him with this story:

"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him."

I. Three People Saw Him — Only One Stopped

Notice something important here. All three men saw the wounded traveler. The priest saw him. The Levite saw him. The Samaritan saw him. Seeing was not the problem. The problem was what each of them did after they saw.

The priest and the Levite were not bad men by the world's standards. They were religious men — men whose entire lives were built around temple service, ritual purity, the study and teaching of God's law. And yet Scripture tells us plainly: they saw him, and they passed by on the other side.

We don't know exactly why. Maybe they were afraid — a man lying in the road could be a trap, a decoy for robbers waiting in the rocks above. Maybe they were worried about ritual defilement — touching a corpse, or what looked like one, would have made a priest ceremonially unclean and unable to perform his temple duties. Maybe they were simply in a hurry, telling themselves someone else would help.

Whatever the reason, notice this: their religious position did not translate into mercy. It's possible to know the law of God perfectly, to serve in His house faithfully, to be entirely correct in doctrine — and still walk past a wounded man in the road. Head knowledge of God is not the same thing as the compassion of God alive in us.

II. The Unexpected Neighbor

Now here's where the story gets its sting. Jesus doesn't have a fellow Jew, a common layperson, come along and save the day. He has a Samaritan.

You have to understand what that meant to His original audience. Jews and Samaritans despised one another. There was centuries of religious, ethnic, and political hostility between them — Samaritans were considered by many Jews to be ritually unclean, theologically corrupt, not even worth speaking to. For Jesus to make the hero of this story a Samaritan was not a neutral literary choice. It was a deliberate, pointed challenge to His listeners' prejudice.

Jesus is saying: the person you have written off as unworthy, as other, as beneath you — that person may be exactly the one who shows you what real mercy looks like. And the person you assumed would be merciful, because of their position or title or religious pedigree, may be exactly the one who walks past.

This should humble every single one of us. Compassion is not a matter of what group we belong to. It's a matter of the heart.

III. What Mercy Actually Costs

Let's look closely at what the Samaritan actually did, because it's more than just feeling sorry for the man. Compassion, in this story, is not an emotion — it's a series of actions, each one costing the Samaritan something.

He went to him.

He interrupted his own journey. He moved toward the danger and the mess instead of away from it.

He bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.

He used his own supplies — the wine and oil he was carrying for himself — and gave them to a stranger.

He set him on his own beast.

That meant the Samaritan himself walked the rest of the way, giving up his own comfort and transportation for a man he had never met.

He brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Verse 34 goes on to tell us he stayed the night, tending to him personally.

And he paid for it.

Verse 35 tells us he gave the innkeeper two silver coins — roughly two days' wages — and promised to cover whatever more it cost when he returned.

Church, this is what real mercy looks like. It is not a kind thought. It is not a sympathetic feeling that passes as quickly as it came. It is time given, resources spent, comfort surrendered, and a promise to keep caring even after the initial crisis has passed. The Samaritan didn't just patch the man up and leave. He stayed invested in his recovery.

IV. Jesus Turns the Question Around

Remember, the lawyer's original question was "who is my neighbor?" — he wanted a definition, a boundary line, a category he could use to know exactly how far his obligation to love extended and no further.

But look at how Jesus ends the story. Verse 36 and 37:

"Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise."

Jesus doesn't answer the question the lawyer asked. He flips it entirely. The lawyer wanted to know who qualifies to receive his love. Jesus redirects him to ask instead: who is he called to become? Not "who deserves my mercy," but "will I be the one who shows it?"

That's the whole sermon in four words: go, and do likewise. Not go, and feel likewise. Not go, and believe correctly about mercy. Go — and do.

V. Who Is Lying on Our Road?

So let's bring this to where we live, because Jesus never told a story just to be admired — He told stories to be obeyed.

Who is the person on the road in your life right now? It might be the person you drive past on the way to church, holding a sign at the intersection. It might be a family a few streets over that nobody talks about, quietly struggling. It might be someone in this very room, wounded in ways you can't see, waiting to find out if anyone here will stop.

And here is the hard, necessary question this story asks each of us: are we the priest, hurrying past because we have somewhere important to be? Are we the Levite, pausing just long enough to look, and then walking on anyway? Or will we be the Samaritan — the one who was least expected, least credentialed, and most willing?

This is the heart behind everything this ministry does — the shelters, the meals sent to Pakistan, the outreach in Kenya and Liberia and beyond. It is the Good Samaritan story lived out on a global scale: seeing the wounded traveler that the world has walked past, and choosing to stop, to bind up wounds, to spend what we have, and to stay invested for the long haul, not just the moment of crisis.

But this story is not only about far-off mission fields. It's about the road you drive every single day. Mercy that only travels overseas but never crosses the street is not yet the mercy Jesus is describing.

Closing Charge

So here is my charge to you this morning, and I bring it to myself as much as to you:

Stop asking, "who qualifies as my neighbor?" Start asking, "who is wounded on the road in front of me, and will I be the one who stops?"

Let mercy cost you something this week — your time, your comfort, your resources — the way it cost the Samaritan.

And when you've helped once, stay invested, the way he did at the inn. Real mercy doesn't just patch a wound and walk away. It stays until healing is underway.

Go, and do thou likewise.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray.

Jehovah, forgive us for the times we have seen the wounded and passed by on the other side — out of fear, out of busyness, out of prejudice we didn't even know we were carrying. Give us the eyes of the Samaritan and the willing feet to stop. Teach us that mercy is not a feeling we have, but a road we walk toward the very people the world walks past. Make us, and make this whole church, a people who go, and do likewise. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.