{"id":7313,"date":"2026-09-02T16:51:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T16:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/?p=7313"},"modified":"2026-09-02T17:52:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:52:55","slug":"the-good-samaritan-teaches-law-and-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/the-good-samaritan-teaches-law-and-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good Samaritan Teaches Law and Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: The Good Samaritan Teaches Us the Law and the Gospel: Trinity 13 Sermon\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/1jKvudZAuxxgjSMAnnf65Y?si=245e033a855342b8&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trinity 13| Luke 10:25-37| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| August 30, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTeacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d, the expert in the law asked Jesus. There are so many things wrong with this question! First of all, you do not do anything for an inheritance. An inheritance is by nature a gift. You are either born or adopted into a family, or you are not. A son would not say to his father, \u201cWhat must I do to get my inheritance.\u201d Secondly, Scripture teaches that the inheritance of eternal life is given by promise, as St. Paul explains in Galatians 3, \u201cFor if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.\u201d (vs. 18) and \u201cNow it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for \u2018the righteous shall live by faith.\u2019\u201d (vs. 11) And so, through faith in Christ we become heirs of eternal life, as Paul concludes, \u201cAnd if you are Christ\u2019s, then you are Abraham\u2019s offspring, heirs according to promise.\u201d (Galatians 3:29)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, it is frustrating that this lawyer, this expert in the Law of Moses would not understand this. Yet, some would be frustrated at our Lord\u2019s response. Instead of correcting the man upfront and saying, \u201cYou can do nothing to inherit eternal life, eternal life is a gift given by promise to be received through faith,\u201d Jesus rather says, \u201cWhat is written in the Law?\u201d and the man answers, \u201cYou 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.\u201d To which Jesus responded, \u201cYou have answered correctly; <em>do<\/em> this, and you will live.\u201d Why does Jesus give this response? Because the man asked what he must <em>do<\/em>. And so, he was asking a law question, as St. Paul writes, \u201cBut the law is not of faith, rather, \u2018The one who <em>does<\/em> them shall live by them.\u201d (Galatians 3:12; Lev. 18:5)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet, the lawyer desiring to justify himself by the law asked, \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d Notice he does not ask, \u201cWho is my God?\u201d or \u201cHow can I love God will all my heart, soul, strength, and mind?\u201d He figures he has already accomplished it! He asks who his neighbor is, so that he may narrow the law and limit whom he must love. So, Jesus tells him a brilliant story, a story that applies to everyone. This lawyer was not yet ready to hear the Gospel. He still trusted in his works. He needed to be convinced that everyone who relies on works of the law is under a curse; for it is written, \u201cCursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and <em>do<\/em> them.\u201d (Galatians 3:10; Deut. 27:6) And in this story of the Good Samaritan, all who rely on works of the law are exposed to the curse of the law. Yet, this story also reveals the Savior to all who languish under that curse, and an example to live by to those whom Christ has made whole. The Good Samaritan teaches a lesson to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the story of the man who fell among the robbers, Jesus quickly confronts the man who thinks he loves God with his whole heart, soul, strength, and mind with the priest and the Levite, men devoted to loving and serving God, who fail to love the man on the side of the road. You cannot love God whom you have not seen, if you do not love your brother whom you have seen (1 John 4:20). Do the priest and the Levite reflect the lawyer\u2019s attitude toward his neighbor, seeing he\u2019s trying to limit who his neighbor is. I think the lawyer sees this. Then comes the Samaritan, a man hated by Jews, especially experts in the Law. Samaritans are heretics, syncretists, and half-breeds. Yet, this Samaritan puts the priest and Levite and their company to shame by helping the halfdead man. He inconveniences himself, risks his own safety, spends his own time and money, and dedicates himself to the man\u2019s welfare as if it were his own. You quickly spend your own money when it comes to your own health, but how quick are you to spend for him whom the Law says you must love as yourself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, the Good Samaritan embarrasses the lawyer. Even worse, he condemns him. \u201cGo and do likewise,\u201d Jesus says. \u201cLook how far you are from doing the Law,\u201d Jesus might as well have said. \u201cCursed is everyone who does not abide by <em>all things<\/em> written in the Book of the Law, and <em>do<\/em> them.\u201d (Deut. 27:6) is the passage in the Law the expert in the Law must have then remembered. This is the message the lawyer must get before he can hear the Gospel. He must know that he is under a curse. Only then will he learn to ask the right question and accept a better answer than \u201cDo this and you shall live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But for those who have learned this first lesson and are crushed by the curse of the law hanging over them, the Good Samaritan grants comfort and healing by revealing your Savior. The man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam and all his children who followed him in his fall into sin. Jerusalem is the city of God, the city of peace. Jericho is the city of worldly pleasure and riches, cursed by God (Joshua 6:26). As did Adam, so have we all fallen into the brutal hands of Satan and his demons, who are the robbers in the story. They have left us naked, without any righteousness of our own, lying halfdead on the street, as St. Paul describes us all in Ephesians 2, \u201cAnd you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience\u2014among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.\u201d (vss. 1-3) In this sense, halfdead is worse than dead, because with the little life we do have, we follow the evil prince who rules this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The priest and the Levite represent the Law in this story. They come by, see us in our pathetic state, wallowing in our sin and guilt, but they do not help us. They walk on by. Because the benefits of the Law are not given by promise or received through faith, but the one who <em>does them<\/em> shall live by them. So, all the Law can do for a halfdead man is say, \u201cLive.\u201d And so, should the lawyer realize what help the Law is to him in his pursuit to justify himself. And so should you realize. The Law will not take your sins away. The Law will not save you. You cannot save yourself by doing your best. You desperately need someone to come and save you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this is the Good Samaritan. He is our Savior Jesus Christ. He sees us lying on the side of the road, worse than dead, unhelped by the Law, beaten and robbed by Satan, outside of God\u2019s city and embarrassingly on the road toward fleeting pleasure, which only disappoints. He sees us and does not pass by on the other side, but He has compassion on us. He feels pain seeing us in pain. And so, He takes up our burden. As the Samaritan binds up the man\u2019s wounds, so Christ forgives our sins. As the Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounds, so Christ fills us with His Holy Spirit, so that we may not only receive relief from guilt, but restoration in our soul. He puts him on his own animal, and so Christ bears us, like the shepherd who finds his lost sheep and carries it back to the fold on his shoulders. We cry with the Psalmist, \u201cMy iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.\u201d (Psalm 38:4) yet Isaiah prophecies in chapter 53, \u201cThe Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all.\u201d (vs. 6). Our Good Samaritan doesn\u2019t walk by. He doesn\u2019t just tell us to get up and do better. He carries us. He bears our burden, the burden we could not bear. The Good Samaritan took the man to an inn and commanded the inn keeper to care for the man until he returned, giving him plenty of money to do so, and promising to pay even more when he returned. And so, Christ places us into the Christian Church and He commands His ministers to tend to our wounds, to change the bandages, that is, forgive sins regularly, to pour on oil and wine, that is, to pour out the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments, and to do this until He returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, we learn that the Church on earth is not an ivory tower filled with experts in the Law who have fulfilled every command perfectly, but the Church of God on earth is a hospital of sick and weak sinners, who have been beaten up on account of their own foolishness, who have racked up their own debt, ruined relationships by their own selfishness, who have not loved God with all their heart, soul, strength, or mind, but have only given him token service, who have not loved their neighbor as themselves, but hated their enemies and taken for granted those who loved them. The Church of God on earth is filled with those who were crushed under the heavy burden of the Law because of their own sins, but they are being cared for. They have been treated with Christ\u2019s healing balm. And Jesus has commanded that they be treated until He return. And though the ministers are insufficient of themselves to care for these downtrodden, Christ has supplied them with an inexhaustible source of care. St. Paul writes, \u201cChrist redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us\u2014for it is written, \u2018Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree\u2019 (Deut. 21:23)\u201d (Galatians 3:13)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, not only has Christ fulfilled the demands of the Law by doing them in our stead, but He has borne the curse of the Law that was on us upon Himself. And so, in the Church on earth, that is, in this hostel for cursed sinners, there is an endless supply of balm that removes the curse, removes sin, and makes us whole again. Jesus is our Good Samaritan. And in His Church on earth, we are cared for until He returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, you see the story of the Good Samaritan exposes the curse of the Law to those who think they can be justified by their own works, and it reveals the Savior from that curse to those who realize that they are beaten up on the side of the road and the Law only walks by on the other side without helping. Yet, Jesus does not say, \u201cYou go, and do likewise,\u201d only as a rhetorical device to lead a smug lawyer to realize the curse he\u2019s under. No, Jesus says this to you, who are being cared for in His inn. The bandages with which Jesus binds and the wine and oil which He pours does not only take away your guilt and curse, but it also restores you by the Holy Spirit. Christ indeed makes you whole. And being made whole by Christ, you look at the Law not as a means to justify yourself, because Christ has already justified you and you couldn\u2019t justify yourself by the Law even if you wanted to. But you see the Law in Christ as your example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lawyer saw the Law as only a thing to serve himself, to help him reach his goal of justification and eternal life. But the heir of eternal life sees in the Good Samaritan an example to serve others. The command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind should draw your attention outside of yourself and to your God and His Word. The command to love your neighbor as yourself should draw your attention away from your own needs and wants and to your neighbor\u2019s need. Whoever is in Christ is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10). You go, and do likewise, not in a vain attempt to justify yourself, but to show love to your neighbor, even as Christ has shown love to you. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trinity 13| Luke 10:25-37| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| August 30, 2026 \u201cTeacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d, the expert in the law asked Jesus. There are so many things wrong with this question! First of all, you do not do anything for an inheritance. An inheritance is by nature&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/the-good-samaritan-teaches-law-and-gospel\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,7,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-sermons","category-sermons-by-historical-lectionary","category-sermonsbyrevjamespreus","category-trinity-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7317,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313\/revisions\/7317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}