How to Get More Love in Your Life |02.09.25| Made For More pt.2

There are days that are amazing from the moment you wake up. You feel rested, you have energy. The weather is exactly what you hoped for, and you have anticipation for the incredible things in front of you.

And then there are “other” days. I had one of those “other” days earlier this week. You know the kind. I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep, and as I’m getting my outfit together, I couldn’t find one of my shoes.

Then I went to the kitchen to make coffee, and you guessed it, fresh out of coffee!

And in that moment, I had a choice. I could sloth my way into the rest of the day, ruminating on how awful things are, or…I could lean in, naming my need to my friends and family and God.

I struggle with naming my needs. So it was difficult for me to name out loud to Megan or to Jesus that I was tired and feeling off and just needed comfort and connection.

It’s hard for me to name those things because I’ve got a belief that I need to get myself together. I need to be self-sufficient. I shouldn’t need help.

The biggest problem with that type of thinking, though, is that not only do I struggle to admit my need for help from others, but I also struggle to admit my need to God. And so I march on, trying to overcome my own limitations. Trying to become the type of man I know I’m supposed to be.

Trying harder.

And maybe burning myself out. Maybe missing the opportunities to receive help and healing from God.

Until I’m spent, hurt, and not doing great.

And if you’ve ever felt that way before, I think that today’s passage from Scripture might be helpful to you.

Now, this isn’t going to be a message on how to ask for help, although, maybe that SHOULD be a message at some point. This is actually a message about showing love and growing in love.

Because we’ve all had the experience where we’ve wondered if there is more to life than just getting through the day. We’ve all experienced rough seasons and wondered if there was something deeper, richer, and more meaningful waiting for us.

And here at New Life, we’ve just begun a new message series that helps us realize that, YES, we were made for more. We were made for more love, and joy, and peace, and patience in our lives. We were created to become more and more like Jesus, and when we follow his way of life, God actually works in us to transform us to become more like Jesus.

And in that process, we find the more we’ve been searching for.

And last week, I encouraged you to think back to a year ago, or 5 years ago, and ask if you are more loving, more patient, more kind NOW than 5 years ago. And we’re beginning to ask ourselves, do I want to grow in these things over the next year?

Today, we’re looking at LOVE as one of the things that God wants to grow in you as you spend more time with Jesus.

[2 Scripture Ref]

So open your Bibles with me to Luke ch 10, which can be found on p54 of the NT in the black, seat-back Bibles. And as you’re finding it, this might be a familiar story for some of you, called the Good Samaritan.

And if you already have heard this story many times, I’m going to ask you to try and read it with fresh eyes today, because I think God wants to unlock something for you.

And as we read, I want you to be asking this question: How is God inviting me to grow in love this year?

Let’s read together…

[LUKE 10:25-37]

[3 v25]

Our story starts with such a juicy set-up, doesn’t it? A religious expert wanted to “test” Jesus, or entrap Jesus. He wants to get Jesus to say something that will jeopardize his following. So he asks him THE question, the question that everyone has been asking for all of time in all religions and all belief systems:

What’s the point of this life? Where is it all headed? And how can I make sure that my life is headed toward the GOOD type of ending?

Specifically, this guy mentions “inheriting eternal life,” because there are a few spots in the OT that mention a type of eternal, everlasting inheritance that you can POSSESS.

And so the guy is like, “Hey Jesus, you’re super smart and have a huge following, so you MUST have answers…how about the answer to THE question everyone is really wondering???”

[4 v26]

And notice that Jesus doesn’t answer right away. He actually turns the guy’s question back on him: “Well, you’re mentioning the eternal inheritance promised in the Torah, in the Hebrew Bible…and you’re a expert in the law. What do you read as the path to that inheritance?”

And something that I hadn’t noticed before in all the times I’ve read this, but it stuck out this time: is that Jesus chooses CURIOSITY as a way to connect with people, even people he disagrees with.

Jesus asks questions all the time. Questions and curiosity create connection. So Jesus is showing LOVE to this guy, trying to connect with him, even though the guy was trying to set him up to discredit him.

[5 v27]

In any regard, the religious expert answers by quoting two different sections of the Hebrew Bible: Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. First, he quotes Deut 6, which is the Jewish “Shema”: “Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength, and mind.”

That’s what the guy says here in Luke, but in the other biographies of Jesus in the gospels, Jesus quotes this and calls it the “First and greatest commandment”.

Then the guy quotes a section of Leviticus, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And if you’ve been around any church for any amount of time, this seems pretty foundational. The point of believing in God is to love God and love your neighbor. Some churches even have this as their mission statement: Love God, Love People, Make Disciples…or something like that.

[6 v28]

And Jesus agrees with the guy—he’s got the right answer! ‘Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.’

…But then Jesus says something wild: ‘Do this and you will LIVE.’

Not ‘do this and you will get to heaven.’ Not ‘do this and you will inherit eternal life someday.’

Do this and you will live—right now. But put a pin in that, because we’ll come back to that.

[7 v29]

But this next thing the guy says in verse 29 is just so relatable. I’m sure the religious expert is half feeling proud because this Jesus guy who is super famous and super influential has just said he got an answer right.

But he’s also now feeling the weight of what that means. “Love God and love my neighbor? Okay, well I have a pretty good handle on loving God. I’m an expert in all the religious laws, so I’m doing a pretty good job following them, and I read Scripture all the time. I feel like I’m doing the right things to love God.

So the last step is love my neighbor? Great! …who is my neighbor?

And we’ve got to pause, because it’s not like this guy doesn’t know who lives on his street, and it’s not like he’s asking for Jesus to give him directions to find someone to show love to.

He’s not asking WHO he’s supposed to love.

If we notice at the beginning of v29, the guy is trying to “justify” himself. He’s wanting to vindicate himself. So he’s not asking for who he’s supposed to show love to, he’s actually asking for the limit to his love.

He’s trying to figure out who is in the IN group that count as the people God wants him to show love to. That way, he can figure out who is part of the OUT group.

Who are the people that I DON’T have to show love to? Who am I allowed to ignore? Who am I allowed to hate?

…I do this, don’t you do this? Yeah God, I know I’m supposed to love people, but WHICH people? Certainly not THAT person! Certainly not the type of people that do such-and-such a thing that I vehemently disagree with.

Those types of people are the ones I feel completely justified ignoring. Those are the type of people I feel completely justified hating. I feel completely justified HURTING those types of people.

…is that right, God?

[8 v30]

And again, Jesus doesn’t answer directly, but he launches into story time. And it seems like he tells this story directly because of the suggestion that “non-neighbor” is a category that exists.

Now, like I said before, this story hit different this time around, and I think I have been missing the point Jesus is trying to make all the other times I’ve read this story.

But Jesus tells a gripping story to make a point: there’s a guy travelling from Jerusalem, up in the hills, DOWN to Jericho in the valley. It’s a highly trafficked route, and it’s also one that is known to have robbers stake out more isolated sections of the road.

And wouldn’t you know it, the traveller got mugged. And it’s awful. Beaten, stripped, left half dead. And so the people listening are wondering: who will help? Will he die?

[9 v31-32]

And as luck would have it, some other people show up, but they don’t help. First, it’s a priest. If he’s travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, he’s probably just finished his seasonal “shift” at the temple, so maybe he’s going home to his family.

Maybe he thinks the guy is already dead. Maybe he’s in a rush. We’re not told the reason, but someone who serves God has shown up, but…he passes by.

Then a Levite shows up next. This is a guy who is from the tribe of Levi, and they also work at the temple. They follow stricter rules than the rest of the Jews. Here’s another guy, just like the priest, who MUST be someone who is following God right. He must be someone we’re supposed to emulate.

But…he passes by as well. And the master story-teller Jesus has ramped us up for the third person, because great stories are always told in threes. But Jesus’ original listeners would have been surprised by who shows up next.

[10 v33]

Because it’s a Samaritan. Samaritans were from Samaria, which was a county just north of Jerusalem, probably a full 24 hours of walking from Jerusalem. Samaritans could trace their ancestors back to ancient Israel before the exile, but they were part of the group that stayed in the land when Assyria and Babylon came in and took over and carried away all the upper class Jews as prisoners.

And they ended up intermarrying with other tribes of people who had been relocated by the Babylonian and Persian empires. So, when the Jews who had been in exile got back, they looked down on the Samaritans, because they weren’t “pure Jewish” anymore.

They are ethnically different, AND by the time of Jesus, Samaritans had started worshiping Yahweh on a mountain top in Samaria, rather than recognizing the site of Jerusalem and the temple.

So here’s a guy who is travelling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, but he’s outside of his area. He’s an outsider who is viewed by the Jews as being on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the train tracks, the wrong side of God.

And THIS is the guy who shows up to find the half-dead traveller after the priest and the Levite have already passed him by. Anyone listening to Jesus would have thought the traveller is a goner!

If the priest and the Levite didn’t help him, there’s NO WAY a dirty Samaritan would help him. He’s probably come to finish the job!

But that’s not how Jesus tells the story: “But a Samaritan while travelling, came upon him, and when he SAW him he was MOVED with compassion.”

[11 v34]

“He WENT to him and BANDAGED his wounds, treating them with oil & wine.”

The Samaritan, the outsider, the one that the Jews wouldn’t have trusted as far as they could’ve thrown him… SAW and WAS MOVED and WENT to him.

And this could have been a bad situation for the Samaritan, don’t you think? What if the half-dead guy was a trap to lure in kind people and there were more robbers hiding nearby?

What if he walked up to the guy just when some other travellers came by and they saw a Samaritan standing over a half-dead guy and they assumed HE was the one who attacked him?

But Jesus doesn’t give us the sense that there was any hesitation in the guy because he uses these ACTIVE verbs to describe what the Samaritan did: he GOES to him, BANDAGES him, pours oil and wine on the bandages like a medicinal compress, PUTS him up on his own donkey, CARRIES him to the inn, TAKES CARE of him, and then OPENS a tab to make sure he’ll get the help he needs.

[12 v36-37]

And then Jesus turns the question back on the religious expert: “What do YOU think? Which one was a neighbor?”

And the Jewish guy can’t even mention the ethnicity of the guy, and instead just calls him “the one who showed him mercy.”

And Jesus ends by dropping the mic and telling him “Go and do likewise.”

And every time I’ve read this story before, I take that last line as my marching orders, and I say to myself, “Yep, Drew, Jesus is telling you to go care for someone. You’d better go help somebody. Because you don’t want to be like the priest or the levite! No, you’d better try and find somebody to help, because that’s what Christians should do.”

“You’d better.” “Should.” “Try harder.”

And just like that, I’ve taken this story from Jesus and I’ve turned it into law and now I’m carrying it around like I’m supposed to be able to act perfectly so that I can inherit eternal life, just like the religious expert.

But this time I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. I noticed that Jesus never answered the guy’s question!

[blank]

The guy originally asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” What do I have to do to EARN a reward from God?

And Jesus turns it back and points to the phrasing of “love God and love your neighbor” and says, “do this, and you will live.”

Wait, is Jesus saying that it’s not about doing a certain thing to GET a certain reward later? Is he saying “living a certain way is LIFE?”

And then I saw that the guy is still trying to figure out who he HAS to love and who he doesn’t have to love, and he asks “who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus tells this whole story and ends by saying “Who WAS the neighbor to the wounded traveller?”

Jesus didn’t tell the religious expert which type of person to show love to. He told a story all about BECOMING a person OF love. Did you see it? “Which of these, do you think, WAS a neighbor to the man?”

If you read this passage in the Message translation, it actually says, “Which of the three BECAME a neighbor to the man?”

According to Jesus, the goal of life isn’t to figure out who we’re supposed to love, and who we don’t have to show love to. The goal of life is to BECOME a person of love. To be transformed by the actions we take into people who show love.

[13 Showing love…]

Jesus knows that the best way to become a person of love is to practice showing love. Because showing love helps us grow in love.

And if the point of life is to continually grow as a person who loves God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others as ourselves, Jesus says “grow as a person of love, because THAT’S how you experience life. Eternal, abundant life. Not later…NOW!

Showing love helps us grow in love. Doing mercy helps us grow in mercy.

Acting like Jesus helps us BECOME like Jesus.

And this isn’t a case of “fake it ‘til you make it.” This is more like “do the work until it works on you.”

And we know this is other areas of life: we don’t accidentally grow. Even if you happen to be naturally good at something, you don’t STUMBLE into a lifestyle of success.

And KNOWING the right things doesn’t automatically change us either. The religious expert had correctly answered that the Bible says the main point of life is to love God and to love people. And Jesus says, “yep, do that!” Because Jesus knows how easy it is for us to have correct beliefs that stay passive and pointless.

Jesus knows that we can “believe” the right things, but the fruit of our lives doesn’t automatically match it unless we start DOing it.

Just this week, I was talking with a friend at the gym about different philosophies of working out, and he hit me with a truth that I had been avoiding. He said, “Drew, you’re really good at analyzing all the best ways to workout and you’ve researched a lot about fitness regimens, but none of it matters unless you show up and actually do them.”

Ouch, but he was right! I know that if I want to lose weight healthily, I need to make intentional choices about what I eat and then CONSISTENTLY FOLLOW THROUGH on that plan.

We all understand that if we want to learn a new skill or learn a new language, we must actually put in the work to PRACTICE so that it becomes more natural.

But why do we assume there is any difference with our faith? If we want to understand the Bible more, if we want to hear God’s voice more, we should spend intentional, regular time reading the Bible and praying.

If we want to have more confidence and boldness with our faith, we should practice talking about our faith more.

And this isn’t to EARN our place with God. It’s to PARTNER with God so that he can work in us and through us. Because Jesus knows growing in love is the best way to experience life the way we were created for.

Because you were made for more. You were made to experience more love in your life. And showing love helps us grow in love.

And this all reinforced by one of Jesus’ closest followers, the disciple named John. This is what he wrote in the letter that’s called 1st John:

[1 John 4:7-16]

[14 Showing Love…]

We have a choice. We can live as if we’re only looking out for ourselves. As if we need to take care of ourselves. As if we need to try harder to muster up a better life for ourselves.

And when we do that, we usually look at other people and ask, “Do I have to love them? What will it cost me? Will they take care of me in return?”

And we’re just like the religious expert, trying to figure out who he OWES love to as a duty to earn love from God.

But we just read it: God IS love. And he has ALREADY given us his love. He has ALREADY given us HIMSELF when Jesus came to show us how to live and to secure the path for us by beating death.

And BECAUSE of God’s love for us, we GET TO show love to others. Because showing love IS HOW WE GROW in love. And as we grow in love, we experience more and more life the way we were created for.

[15 Choose one act…]

And so I DO want to challenge you this week, in light of what we’ve been discussing: I want to challenge you to apply this to your life, and choose one act of sacrificial love that you can show to someone else this week.

And this isn’t because we HAVE TO. It’s because Jesus wants you to experience LIFE. And when we grow in love, we experience more of the life he is offering to us.

As we grow in love, we grow in our experience of God at work in our lives. As we show love, we grow in our capacity to experience and receive love.

So what is one act of sacrificial love you can show to someone else this week?

Since God is desiring to grow our capacity for love, our experience of love, he’s going to be constantly giving us opportunities and invitations to try, to join him, to be a part of his work so that we can both spread his presence in the world and increase his presence in our hearts, in our lives.

So let’s hear Jesus’ invitation today: do this, and you will LIVE. Isn’t that good news?