Hamilton Baptist Sermons
14/7/24 Am The Parable Of The Good Samaritan - Craig Dyer
Look chapter 2, reading from verse 25, as you heard already this morning, the parable of the Good Samaritan. "And 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, 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?' Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers.' He stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, the priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by in the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But the Samaritan, as he jottinged, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion, he went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he sat him in his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, he took out to Denari 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, amen.' Well please sit down, make yourselves comfortable opening your Bibles to the passage that George read to us. Look chapter 10, and we come today to probably the best known, probably the best loved of the parables of the Lord Jesus, it's unique to Luke's gospel, very well known, and yet I have found it this week as I've looked at it and studied it and prepared it for today. It is still capable of packing a punch, just to remind you, so that we carry what we saw last week into this week. We saw in chapter 8 how the Lord Jesus spoke about those who heard his word, but that was all they failed to interact with it, they failed to apply it to their lives, and therefore we discovered in chapter 8 how he developed the policy of speaking in parables which made understanding impossible unless the hearer acted, unless the hearer interacted, unless they asked. And that's all the disciples had to do in chapter 8 was ask the meaning of the parable, and Jesus explained it to them, and that's what others too ought to have done. But today we find the opposite, we find a man, a lawyer, a specialist in the Old Testament law who did have questions to ask, and that's where our section begins. He did engage with the teaching of the Lord Jesus. He had a parable spoken to him, but in the end we wonder if he made any progress or not. So may that not be true of us today that we fail to make progress, that we fail to hear and interact with the Word of God? Well, there are four things I want us to notice from this section that was read to us today and the passage slightly before it. Number one, notice with me the lawyer's approach, the lawyer's approach. And behold, verse 25, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Now just as we settle into the scene, this seems at first like quite a respectful genuine approach that is being made, this man stands to address Jesus. That would imply that they had been sitting and listening to him teaching. And so he stands out of respect and he calls Jesus "Teacher." But look, closes in, doesn't he? That all is not as it may seem. He look tells us that this lawyer was taking it upon himself to put Jesus to the test. He wants to see if Jesus will toe the party line with regards to the way to eternal life. But what I'd never noticed before, I've read this passage many times, I don't think I've ever preached on it as we'll become apparent. But what I'd never noticed before is that the immediate context provides an explanation for his question. It almost struck me as being a bit random that in the middle of this chapter 10, the 72 going out and the water, the underpented cities and Jesus rejoicing in his father's will, all of a sudden this bloke gets up in his hind legs and begins to challenge Jesus and ask questions, always just seemed a little bit random, but actually not. If you just glance at chapter 10 for a moment, you'll see that it begins with the Lord Jesus sending out a mission team of 72 and he sends them out in pairs to the towns that Jesus himself was about to visit and he instructed them they were to go and they were to offer peace. And if the people of these towns accepted the mission teams, then they were to go there and proclaim the nameless of God's kingdom in the person of the Lord Jesus. He was the king of the kingdom, he was the bringer of the kingdom. But even as Jesus sent them out in twos to all these towns and villages in the area where he was about to visit, the Lord anticipated the same kind of mixturespawns that we saw last week to his word in Luke chapter 8. So if you look at chapter 10 verse 16, very strikingly, Jesus told them, "The one who hears you hears me," says Jesus, "and the one who rejects you rejects me and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me." Just a little parenthesis there, isn't it, fascinating? The Lord Jesus has so arranged that when his words is preached, even by someone perfectly ordinary like us, his voice is heard, the one who hears you hears me, the one who goes with the authorized message of the gospel and shares it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the one who does that, "Hears you and hears me," says Jesus. But back to the main point, if the heater rejects the one who shares the gospel, then they are also rejecting the Lord Jesus himself, and indeed, they're rejecting God the Father who sent the Lord Jesus. Now, here's what I hadn't noticed before, our lawyer friend heard all this. He was listening as all this teaching was going on. And when the mission team came back full of stories of the power of God at work, have a look at verse 21 of chapter 10, "In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children, 'Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.'" In other words, similarly to what we saw about the way the parables worked last week in chapter 8. So we discover here in chapter 10, verse 21 is "The Lord Jesus' heart overflows in thanksgiving to his Father." We discover that it was God's will, but the good news of the kingdom of God, which is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, was so straightforward that a child in his or her simplicity and humility could understand and respond to it. But at the same time, if there is a hint among the adults of superiority, of pride and achievement, then the so-called wiser understanding would not be able to grasp it. And if you were listening last week in Mark 8, that will ring bells. See, friends, there is a kind of wisdom and understanding, a pride and accomplishment that leads to spiritual blindness and deafness, that no matter how plain the gospel is, no matter how clear that a child could understand it, those with that kind of wisdom and understanding, that kind of pride in their own presentation and accomplishment will not be able to hear it, will not be able to see it. Knowing God by his son, the Lord Jesus, is the only way to eternal life. And that knowledge, that salvation, cannot be achieved as a prize. It can only be received as a gift. Look at the next verse, 22, that this lawyer hurt. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, said Jesus. And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. The sentences like that really unsettling, because it makes it sound like it's not our decision whether or not we understand the gospel. If you're someone who, as I hope you are, takes opportunities as they arise to talk to your friends about the Lord Jesus and His love for them and what He's done for them in the cross and share the gospel with them, you will encounter people's reaction, which is often a reaction from the position of, "I decide whether or not I'm going to engage with this gospel." I decide. I don't know. Like I said last week about the people who have big, big questions, they answer the big question, then there's another big question, and on and on and on it goes, because actually all they're doing is batting it away, because they think they can do without Jesus, and they can do without the cross, and they don't need all this chat about the forgiveness of sins. But actually, this is very unsettling for people because it makes it pretty clear that ultimately it's not our decision whether we understand the gospel or not, that's exactly right. And I think this is why the lawyer made the approach he did. He was unsettled by what Jesus said about salvation being a gift and not a prize, about it being something that the Son chose to reveal and give us a gift, not to people who deserve it, but to people who don't deserve it, something to be received through God's grace not earned by our effort. So, verse 25, "And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the testing teacher, 'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?'" You see, in our spiritual blindness, every one of us is exactly where this lawyer is. Our default setting is that we can do things. If we believe there is a God, if we believe there is a life after death, if we believe that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun, by default in our spiritual blindness, we believe that we can do things to earn and achieve and merit some kind of paradise experience. And all the major world religions and philosophy support this idea. If you keep to the five pillars or the eight unfolded paths or whatever it may be, if you keep the code, you will build up credits. And in the end, you will get what you deserve, what you've earned. That is deeply entrenched in us as human beings. It's part of our spiritual blindness, and this is why Jesus – this is why what Jesus said in verse 21 and 22 of chapter 10 is so jarring. It seems outrageous to us that peace with God and pleasures forever could only ever be a gift. It seems to us only right that we would earn it because of the blindness of the condition we're in. This is what the Lord Jesus is. It pains to reveal and there is discussion with the lawyer. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? So ignoring what Jesus said about knowing God being a gift of grace in verse 22, the lawyer has set the terms of reference, "What shall I do?" And at first Jesus takes him on at the level of the lawyer's approach, verse 26, he said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" Well, there couldn't have been a better question for this man. So secondly, we come to the lawyer's answer. Verse 27, he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself." He's quoting there from Deuteronomy 6, "That all encompassing love for the Lord." And part of Deuteronomy 6 warns us interestingly against putting the Lord out God to the test, but he doesn't think he's doing that at this point, even though he is. Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, verse 18 about love for God and love for neighbor. He knew his stuff and he must have felt a great joy when verse 28, Jesus said to him, "You have answered correctly, 'Do this and you will live.'" Do you remember that sense of elation? Maybe it was just me because it was such a rare thing for me when the teacher asked the question you and I was able perhaps inadvertently to stumble upon the right answer. I can still remember that feeling. It was a great day, I think it only happened once, but it was a tremendous occasion for me. I got the question right. I could hardly hear anything else for the next ten minutes. Wanted to do a lap of honor. This man's got the question right. In Matthew 22, Jesus says, "On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor and yourself." He has hit the jackpot. Now how do you react to what Jesus says here this morning? Here we ask, "Is the Lord Jesus right to say that keeping even these two commandments of the law would result in someone achieving eternal life?" Well, yes, he is. Technically, this is what you shall do to inherit eternal life if you want to do something. And the man bolded up to Jesus, asked this question, "What must I do? What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" But what you have to do is an absolute impossibility for us, though this lawyer couldn't see for the life of him, for the eternal life of him, he could not see that what he had said was an impossibility. Wonder if you haven't been in the situation where you've been correct, what you've said is right, and then you instantly wished that you hadn't said anything because you realized the personal implications of what you've said. You either land yourself with a job or you put yourself in a bit of a hole. And what's very striking to me in look chapter 10 is that instead of being elated by his correct answer and going on his way rejoicing and loving God and neighbor and looking forward to the eternal life that he knew now was certain for him, he senses that something's not quite right. So thirdly, the lawyer's angle, they always am an angle, don't they? This guy is as sharp as a tack. He built his career on finding loopholes in the law, and he must have sensed that his correct answer wasn't going to be as easy to live out as it was to see. And so rather than leave the conversation there with Jesus, he finds an angle at which to come back at Jesus, verse 29, do you see it? But he desiring to justify himself. There are two things we discover about this man's desires. Number one, he wants to test Jesus, number two, he wants to justify himself. It's worth filing that away in your identi-kit of this man as you're building up a profile of his character and personality. Desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" He's given a good answer. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor yourself, good answer, but he's unsettled. He knows there's a lot resting on this. He knows that his eternal destination hangs in the balance. He doesn't like what Jesus said about the knowledge of God in verse 22 being an undeserved gift. All his life, this lawyer and his colleagues and really all of Israel said and believed like everyone else, that it's your good life that opens the gate when you knock knock knock in heaven's door. And he said it up that way. He doesn't want this idea of a God who comes in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus, and who reveals the father to those to whom he chooses to reveal them, those who come without trying to calculate God and pin him to the mat with their wisdom and their falsehood, but those who come in humility like a little child, he doesn't like that. He doesn't like not being in control. He wants to be in control. He wants to be driving the car of his salvation. He wants to be the one who says, "Yes, it's to do with my ability to keep the law." It's all encompassing love for God that issues and a love for neighbor, but that's a lot of love to commit yourself to if your eternal life depends upon it. So on one level, he has established himself as a very, very capable lawyer, but as a human being dealing with some of the questions of his own heart, now he's in trouble. He got the answer right, but he can't live up to it. So what does he want? He wants Jesus to downwardly define the word neighbor. There are two words for neighbor in the Greek, at least two, but there is the word for your next-door neighbor. That's not the word he uses. The word for neighbor he uses is member of my community. Who are the members of my community who are worthy of my love? He's really asking how few people must I love if I'm going to inherit eternal life. What's the minimum I'd have to do to be able to demonstrate adherence to the law and acceptance with God? I don't want to be great at this. I just want to be okay. I remember being driven at typically here raising speed through the city of Kampala down in Uganda by a great friend of mine, Shadrach, Locwago. Shadrach was one of three brothers. Shadrach, Meshach and Rolfi, that's right. His brother was called Daniel, but Shadrach, Shadrach was driving. We were stopped by the police, and it's even more intimidating than it is here to be stopped by the police. They get out of the jeep, and they surrounded the vehicle and they all stand with the AK-47s. They began to examine the vehicle for any minor defects that might have been. Now I had seen better tires on the harbor wall at Gervin, so I knew this might not go terribly well for us. The senior officer who was leading the soldiers, the police, he came round to the near side. The way that only these guys can do with a quiet, emotionless voice, he just said, "Is this tire okay?" And Sam Oyerwarth, who was sitting in the front seat, shot back with absolute conviction. It is very okay, and that phrase has stayed in my mind and in my life since. It is very okay, and this lawyer wanted to know that he was very okay, just okay, but very okay. Lord Jesus, could you limit the definition of neighbor and I'll go and take care of it. And now we get to the actual parable, Jesus replied, "Verse 30, 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 leave-out when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side." Now these were the religious, publicly endorsed elite of Judaism. They were regarded as those who definitely loved the Lord, their God, with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and loved their neighbor as themselves, as themselves. The priest and the leave-out. And as Jesus tells the story, both men independently saw the desperate state that the victim was in, they saw him. Both men had it within their capacity to offer some assistance, but both men somehow instantly squared it with their conscience not to do anything and hurried on. And I don't know, but I wonder if this was initially good news to the lawyer. Is it possible at this point he was liking the way this analogy was stacking up? The inferred answer to his question in verse 29 at this stage might be, "Well, who's your neighbor?" "Well, you can't be loving everyone you meet. You can't be loving people that you don't really know. It's all very well loving God. There's only one of him. Every June you that loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The Lord your God, the Lord is one, the only one God to love. That's easy. But there's teeming millions of people out there. How are we defining community? How are we defining neighbor? You can't be expected to love them all." And I wonder if this lawyer sharp as he was had picked up on the little detail that the victim, as Jesus told the parable, the victim of the assault had been stripped of his clothing. And if, as we all do in these situations, if the lawyer had been tracking with Jesus and putting himself into the shoes of the person journeying down from Jerusalem to Jericho, he might have realized that naked and bleeding and barely conscious there would have been no way to know which community this man belonged to. All the telltale signs of his clothes or of his dialect that you might have if you entered into conversation that would have identified which community he belonged to, that was all gone. He could have been a Jew, he could have been a Gentile or worse. The lawyer must have been wondering where Jesus was going with this. Was he next going to say that if you can't identify a person as your neighbor, then you don't have to exercise any care towards him? It's the way the legal mind works. Or was this going to be a side swipe against the religious clerics? And as Jesus next going to introduce the hero of the story, just an ordinary Israelite minding his own business, stopping to help this poor guy. Well nothing could have prepared the lawyer for what came next, verse 33. And as Samaritan as he journeyed came to where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion. Now you know this. We could reach for contemporary examples to help emphasize the shock of what Jesus says here. We could talk about the Ukrainian soldier on his way back to bury his family killed in a Russian air attack who has compassion on a Russian airman who survived his plane being shot out of the sky. That's the kind of parallel. We could talk about a Hamas terrorist encountering Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht. You might have heard him on the radio or seen him on the television news. He speaks with a Scottish accent. He left Scotland 30 years ago to go to Israel. He now speaks for the Israeli Defense Force. A Hamas terrorist meets Richard Hecht in a desperate plight and has compassion on him. Or vice versa. A Trump supporter helps a committed American Democrat or vice versa. These may help a little bit, but one writer says this seldom in the history of the world as there being a racist, prejudiced, that was quite so extreme in the intensity of its mutual loathing as that between the Jews and the Samaritans. It was murderous and it was mutual. They hated each other's guts, but this man saw the man who had fallen among the robbers and had compassion on him, verse 34, he went to him. He bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine for cleansing and healing. He set him on his own animal, which meant that he had to do the walking now, brought him to an end and took care of him there. Didn't just bring him to an end and say, "You're on your own for him now, I've done what I can." He took care of him. And then the next day, you're through the worst of it now, "I'm going to head off." No. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Take care of him and whatever more you spend, I'll repay you when I come back." Talk about going the second mile. Second mile after second mile, the Samaritan in the story went on loving his neighbor, his unidentifiable fellow man. And at his own expense, resulting in his own inconvenience, he found ways by his own invention to care and even enlisted others in the care of this man, verse 36, "Which of these three do you think," said Jesus, "to the lawyer, proved to be a neighbor, proved to be a community member to the man who fell among the robbers." And so outraged but cornered was the lawyer that he couldn't bring himself to say the words, "The Samaritan, do you notice?" So he said, verse 37, "The one who showed him mercy." He couldn't even say the word, stuck in his craw. And Jesus said to him, "You go and do likewise." Well, this parable has been embraced around the world and across history. We all know of the life saving organization who advertised their services on the fences at the end of railway platforms to try and prevent people from taking their lives. They take their name from this story. As of hospitals, across the world, named after the hero of this week's story, the phrase the good Samaritan has worked its way into common parlance, as has the phrase "passing by" on the other side. Probably this is the best loved and the best known parable of the Lord Jesus. It has been embraced. And you would think that Jesus was answering the question in verse 25, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Because the world has taken at least the romance of what Jesus said very seriously in this situation. Don't think we've applied it, but we kind of love to identify with that. We kind of love to moralize about these things. And we do it as though this is what our eternal life depended upon. But that's not the question Jesus was answering. Rather, he was defining the lawyer's responsibility to his neighbor, his community. And that's how this parable pact is punch. The lawyer had his clear answer. If you won't humbly receive forgiveness and peace with God as a gift, then earn it by your moral perfection, earn it by boundless love for the God who made you and his likeness, and boundless love for everyone else created in his image. And I can tell you that today as much as back then, there's a market for a gospel that enables me to earn my own way to eternal life and justify myself in the process. There is a huge market for that message, but it's not the biblical gospel. The only thing more offensive to people than what Jesus said to this Jewish lawyer about the Samaritan is to tell them that they are, by nature, sinful to the core and beyond human rescue, beyond human help. And this is why Jesus came to be our Savior. That is so profoundly offensive to people. They are stunned and shocked and appalled that that might be true of them, that anybody could think it was true of them. People hate that. And they react to the exactly as the lawyer did when he reflected for a moment on how impossible it was going to be for him to love God and neighbor. What did he do? He said about redefining actual neighbor. And what do we do? We said about redefining moral failure. We look for the loophole. We give ourselves a pass. Haven't you heard a million times when the discussion turns to where you go when you die? Someone will pipe up. Well, I honestly don't think I've done anyone any harm. And it's fascinating that that is a negative to the positive of Jesus. He says, "Love the Lord your God, heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself." And all we can say at the very best for ourselves, we won't claim that, but we won't claim we haven't done harm. Jesus is not saying, "Don't do harm, he's saying actively love." And yet we all say, "Well, I honestly don't think I've done anyone any harm." And when people say that to me, "I want to say, are you out of your mind?" But what I actually say is, "Really, haven't you? You haven't done anyone any harm I have." And I tell them the terrible truth that when I think about my life, I've done quite a bit of harm, particularly to those I love the most. Not to those that I might want to have harmed. They may well have been harmed, but I've even harmed those I love the most. I've crushed them with my sarcasm. I've confused them with the lies that flew off my tongue to cover my own back. I've frustrated them with my inconsistency. I belittled them with my self-importance. I betrayed them with my selfishness. And that's without me trying to harm them. That's what I've done to those I love the most. So when I hear Jesus call me to sacrificially loving those I might regard as my sworn enemies, I know I'm in trouble. When people say to me, "I've never done anyone any harm, I wish." Now what's the solution? Well, look finally at the lawyer's assumption. He asked about who his neighbour was because he had some sense that it would be a very demanding and difficult thing to love everyone. The Lord graciously showed him the extent of the love that was required. But this guy never once asked what it meant to love God. Look at it. Look at the noose he put around his neck. When Jesus said to him, "How do you read the law in terms of gaining eternal life?" He answered, "You love the Lord your God and look at these holes and feel the noose tightening. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. With all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself." Oh, these words tripped off his tongue and it was the right answer legally. And then he had questions about his neighbour because his assumption was that he was doing right by God. His assumption was that he had loved God like that because there's only one of him and he was a Jew. So he didn't ask what it meant to love God. But the reality is that our love for God is the fuel that enables us to love others. You see, when in verse 28 Jesus says, "Do this and you will live." And in verse 37 after the parable when he says, "You go and do likewise." Not for a millisecond is the Lord Jesus implying that loving deeds can earn as eternal life. But rather he's saying that a loving heart, a heart that loves irrespective of who the recipient of that love is, is the infallible mark of a person who knows and loves the Lord because the truth about their sin and their need for a Savior has transformed them. Whatever we saw last week in chapter 8 about the fertile soil that received the Word and produced an abundant harvest, love for neighbour is that harvest, in soil that has been fertile, that has received the Word of the gospel. Before other gods were forbidden, the first thing the Lord says in Exodus 20 is, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." And if you read Jeremiah 11, the Lord says, "I brought them out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace." What a hell on earth that was and how utterly powerless the people of God were. You see, when you know God who did that for you, when you remember how utterly helpless you were and how stunningly strong he was for you and how merciful he was to you, of course you love him. You don't love him in the abstract. You love him because he first loved you and your eyes are open to that. You see what he's done. And of course you don't miss about the little gods of your own making. And when you love him because he first loved you, that love of him is the fuel that enables us to love anyone else, particularly those who don't deserve your love because you remember that you didn't deserve his love. So where are you in this story as we draw this to a close now? Who are you? Let me suggest you're not the Samaritan. Let me suggest we're not even the innkeeper. Let me suggest we're not even quite the victim. Now I think if we were to try and understand who we really are, we would not be the man who fell among robbers. We would be robbers who fell among robbers. Because we're robbers, we rob God of his glory, we rob God of his rightful place in our lives. I'm coming up to 58 years of age. And I would say I have barely loved him with all that I am, heart, soul, mind and strength. I've barely done that for a few seconds across 58 years, I don't know about you. Never mind loving him with my heart, soul, mind and strength for 58 years, all the time, consistently. I've robbed him of the love that he's due. We are robbers who fell among robbers. Yes, we are victims, but we are also perpetrators. And God sent not the good Samaritan, but his good son. He sent his son for those who robbed him, and we killed his son. But in his love, that was a very means of our eternal rescue. I doubt the lawyer saw it. Sharp, experienced, able, articulate, good on his feet as he was, I don't think he saw it. We're not told anymore. Jesus said to him, "You go and do likewise." On verse 38, they went on their way. We don't know what the man did with that, did he run after Jesus? Did he say, "But I can't." He should have. You won't see it either if you're dependent on your accomplishments to impress God. You won't see it either. You won't see your desperate need of God to reveal himself to you in the person of his son. You won't see it unless you understand the actual reality of your human heart. The solution to our heart problem, the way to eternal life, is to see the awful reality of our sin, and then see the glorious reality of Jesus, our Savior. And be like these little children of whom Jesus spoke in verse 21. Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise in understanding the lawyers with all the answers. Reveal them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. And this morning, we're in you with this. Let's pray together. Our gracious Father, we thank you for this powerful, parable, it's deeply unsettling. We find that it absolutely splits us open. It shows the pretense, the naivety of our own estimate of ourselves. It's very sobering, but we thank you for that sobriety. We ask our gracious Heavenly Father that we would see now, the glorious provision you have made of us Savior. We ask our gracious Heavenly Father that that wonderful peace that you offered to the people of the cities and the towns and the villages, that day some of whom rejected the messengers, others of whom accepted it. We pray that we would hear that this morning, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life, not earned, but received as a gift of grace. And then grant that our hearts would be the soil in which your word takes root so that this fruit is produced. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers. Oh, Father, grant us that fruit in our lives we pray, grant us that infallible mark of knowing your transforming love and grace for the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus we pray.