generation stories have shaped the world not just by entertaining us but by changing the way we think live and believe around campfires on movie screens across history because when you want to change people you don't just give instructions you tell a story   And that's exactly what Jesus did.  When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom.  A kingdom where the last are first.  Where mercy triumphs over judgment.  Where greatness looks like serving.   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.   Thanks for those of you who joined, and just for all of the people who have made things like the carpet, even though, yes, insurance helped, but so many of you have helped not only take care of the needs in this place, but so much more.  And we're going to share some testimony later today in this message, and I hope that you will just...   eagerly be listening to what God is doing, because no matter who you are, no matter if you came in this morning and you're like, this is the best season of my life right now, or I'm walking through something really hard, the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 18 is gonna speak to all of us in a different and unique way.  And I think it might be the simplest parable that Jesus teaches.  We're gonna look and read it in a second, so you'll know what I mean.  But before we read it, I wanna ask us a question today.   What do you do when the Christian life gets hard?  What do you do when the Christian life gets hard?  When you've been praying for weeks, for months, for years, and nothing seems to be changing?  When the diagnosis doesn't change?  When your child still is walking away or in rebellion?  When the relationship stays broken?  When anxiety keeps greeting you every morning?  What do you do then?   Well Jesus, he gives us an answer to that in our text for today because he tells us the story about a widow who goes and is crying out to this judge for justice.  She's crying out, she's continuing to do that, and she's doing, in many ways, exactly what God's people have always done and what he's asked them to do, which is to keep crying out in the midst of suffering.  She brings her pain, she brings her questions, she brings her doubt,   And the Bible has a word for this.  The word is lament.  Lament.  Have you heard that word before?  Let's say that together.  Lament.  The Bible has a special word for that word.  Over 40% of the Psalms, the prayers right in the middle of your Bible, if you open up the middle, you'll find the Psalms.  Over 40% of them are prayers of lament.  Prayers like, how long, oh Lord?  Why have you hidden your face?  Why do the wicked prosper?   Why have you forsaken me?  Now God didn't remove these prayers from scripture because he knew that his people, you and I, would need them.  He knows that life in this broken world scarred by sin is hard when justice seems like it's delayed.  Prayers seem like they're going unanswered and suffering is right in front of us.   And this morning, Jesus is gonna show us where faith goes.  So turn your Bible with me.  We've got Bibles in the back if you wanna raise your hand.  They'll give you one if you wanna open up your phone.  It's just simple eight verses from Luke chapter 18.  Let's read this parable together.  And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.  He said...   In a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.  And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him saying, give me justice against my adversary.  For a while he refused.  But afterwards he said, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down with her continual coming.   And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night?  Will he delay long over them?  I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.   Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?  Let's pray.  Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your word.  Thank you that we can know it is true and it comes from you.  But Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would give us insight to believe what you're telling us, to ask you to speak to us even now in these next few minutes that you would show us how we can have faith like this widow.  Amen.   Amen.  Well, did you see why this parable might be a little simpler to understand than some other ones?  Because Jesus says what he's doing right from the beginning.  I love that there's no mystery really to it.  Luke tells us that the point of the story is   that Jesus wants them to keep praying.  Right in verse one, if you look back there.  And then Jesus explains it again at the end.  There's no hidden symbols to decode.  There's no characters you're trying to figure out who's who.  He's not trying to explain every mystery of suffering or answer all the philosophical questions that we might have.  He's trying to teach his disciples how to live faithfully while evil and injustice are still existing in the world.   In a world where justice has not fully come yet, God's kingdom has not fully arrived in all of its glory, which we know and cry out one day it will, right?  Jesus even says when the Son of Man returns, he's pointing to that day.  But Jesus says keep praying and don't lose heart.   Now Jesus, he's not saying that God is an unjust judge.  He's actually making the exact opposite point.  He's saying even if an unjust and selfish judge answers this persistent cry for justice, how much more will our loving heavenly father hear the cries of his own children?   And the widow in this parable, she's not presented as some extraordinary faithful character.  She's just somebody who has no power, right?  In that culture, a widow would have no power, no influence, but she has a voice that she keeps bringing.  And Jesus says this, this is what faith looks like.  Faith keeps bringing its laments to this father because there's nowhere else to go.  There's no better place to go.   every desperate plea that we have for a friend or a spouse or a loved one in this broken world, every prayer for someone who's sick or dying or struggling, and every tear in the face of the grave, Jesus says, keep bringing them.  Keep bringing them.   And the question isn't whether God hears them.  Jesus already answered that.  He hears them.  The question is whether we will keep bringing the prayers while we wait for an answer.  Did you see what Jesus says?  He says, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?  Notice what he didn't ask.  He doesn't ask, will he find people who got everything that they prayed for?  That's not what he asks.   He says, will thee find faith on earth?  Will he find a people who keep coming to the Father, keep praying, and refuse to give up, even when the Christian life gets hard?  Now this morning, I wanna do something a little bit different.  I wanna show you, illustrate, because I know that many of you have had prayers like this persistent widow.  I know I have.   And there are ups and downs in that relationship.  There are times when we want to give up.  We don't know if God, I don't know if I have another prayer left in me.  Lord, you haven't answered that prayer.   But there are other times, there are other stories and testimonies and I've even heard from you, God's answered prayers in a miraculous way.  And that gives us faith, that gives us boldness.  So I want to bring Pastor Cyril up, my good brother in Christ.  He and I have built a close friendship.  You can come on up.  We're gonna sit back here for a little bit and we're gonna share some testimony.   from his own life, a life that God has answered prayers in powerful ways, but he's also had prayers that God didn't answer in the way he wanted.  And as you listen to these stories, testimonies, I want you to think about this parable, about the widow.   and about how you and I can keep calling to God in prayer.  So let's do that now.  Pastor Cyril, how are you?  Is the chair comfortable back there?  Yeah, very comfortable.  It is?  Great.  All right, well, I got us some water, and we're going to share for, I don't know, maybe about 10 minutes, and then I think there's some wrap-up.  But I want, we met about seven, eight years ago, almost.  Yeah.   And from the moment that you and I met, I knew that God had done something in your life I was looking to build, which is a life of prayer.  Now, you have a testimony you've shared about how God brought you from maybe not surrendering and following him closely to a powerful experience near death.  But...   Let's go a little farther than that into when did God really just start to show you the power of prayer?  Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it all started with when my mom said these words to me, said, Cyril, you could talk to him.  I think that changed what prayer looks like for me.  It was having a conversation with him and understanding that if I could talk to him, that meant he's hearing me out, right?   And that just changed the landscape to hear that I have a God that hears me and I can communicate to.  Yeah.  Yeah, and so we know that, right?  That's the theory, and it's true.  But when were some times early on in your journey with prayer that God just showed you, hey...   I'm not only listening, but I want to, like the parable said, he will give them justice.  You had a heart for the broken, right?  The refugees.  I met you when I was meeting you first, you were doing ministry with refugees in North St.  Louis, right?  You worked in housing.  So there was a heart for the poor.  I remember you told me one story about God just showing you something as you were praying that was a miracle.  Would you share that?   Yeah, no, it's amazing when you start talking to God what begins to happen, right?  Your faith increases, your trust in him increases.  So it was interesting up in North City, you know, you test the Lord, right?  The Lord says that scripture tests me and see, like, if I am God.  And interestingly, that day in North City, I was just like...   God, you sent me here.  I don't know what it is.  And then he put in my heart throughout this, I had a dream.  And in that dream, so I'm in bed, and in the dream, the Lord shows me and this young man reading the Bible together.  I'm like, God, okay, this is like a 300-plus apartment complex, and I'm reading with the persona that fits basically everybody, right?  But   God takes me out of here.  So I'm like, okay, God, you showed me this.  Let me go out by faith and see what this is.  I go in that neighborhood, and it's a hot St.  Louis day, like it usually is 110.  It's like burning up.  You don't want to be outside.  And I'm like, okay, I don't know where this young man is.  I can't find him.  But I remembered what God said.  I remembered in my conversation with God, God placed in me there the heart cry to say.  So I went to God in the simplest prayer.  I said, Lord, if you've called me here, show me him.   And I was walking out the gate.  So at this time, I'm like, okay, it's hot.  Nobody's going to come out.  I don't know where he lives.  I'm going to walk out the gate.  And as I'm walking out the gate, I promise you, this young man and his cousins come right behind me riding their bike.   And I said, God, this is you.  God has answered this prayer.  And I said, okay, God, let me get my nervousness out.  Let's play soccer, right?  And getting that nervousness out, I'm like, I just told a young man, I said, God laid in my heart and showed you and I reading the Bible together.  Can we read the Bible?   And that's how that ministry all started.  God placed it in my heart.  I went to God in prayer asking God, if you're real, show me this.  Show me how to do it.  And in a unique way, we started reading the Bible together.  And the next thing is, it grew as the Lord only can grow.  Wow.  So you're going to prayer.  He's giving you things like this in ministry to say, hey, I'm answering.  But there are other things, prayers that you prayed for a long time.   that were slow, slow in coming, right?  I'm sure for many years you prayed for a wife, right?  And your wedding was beautiful.  It was hot, too.  There's a theme here.  It was very hot.  I was sweating.  But you also prayed for a child, right?  So when you were going to God with that prayer with your wife, did he seem slow?  Did he seem fast enough?   Yeah, man, that's a great question.  So, you know, the humanness in us wants the answers right away and we want the answers we want.  And me and my wife got married and we're excited to start growing our family.  While we're seeking God, praying to God, the first child, we lost our first child.   And we're going to God again.  We're seeking God.  We don't know if we'll ever be really able to have a child.  And we're crying out to God, but it doesn't seem like God has answered.  We've cried out to God at our prayer time.  We've asked our family members to cry out to God.  I see my wife's heart crying out.  My heart's crying out.  And something that's so amazing, Faith, like this is what happened.  Pastor John said,   had my wife and i sharing this story and that day i don't know what happened but pastor john was moved and he asked my wife and i he prayed and he asked all the faith family members to stretch their hand out and pray for us and i kid you not brother we have been waiting for over almost like three years we went for like three years we lost our child and everything like that but at that moment   After Pastor John prayed, we went over to Randy Lohmeyer's house.  And then on the way back, my husband was like, you know what?  The church prayed.  Let's just go get a test.  No symptoms at all.  And brother, we went, we get the test, and we find out that we're expecting our child.  Wow.  The same day, church.  Can you believe that?  When I heard that story.   This was in 2023.  I remember I was singing.  I came up right after that.  And you were sharing powerfully.  Her story is powerful.  If you haven't watched that, go back into the.  There was another question series in 2023.  And God used that prayer to confirm a request that you had been praying for years.  That you had gone through.  And I'm sure when it happened the first time.   which is an experience.  Crying out to God.  Because we do a good part, and it's a celebration, but what was that moment like?  Well, you're hurt, right?   our emotions, and that's just going there and saying, Lord, we know your promise, but Lord, why would you let this happen?  Like, why would you let this happen?  What is going on?  What is wrong, Lord, with this situation?  Going out and lamenting and crying out, saying, Lord, please, please, please, and just consistently going to him and believing in what he says.  But it was not just an everyday, it was a   constant mode in our lives that we will go to god asking god for this yeah and god showed up and it's interesting you said that because in one of those quiet times this is again how god works uh my daughter's name is joy if you all know joy around here she loves to worship but the lord gave me her name in the quiet time   Even before Pastor John prayed, he said, you will have a child.  And that child, you should call that child joy.  And I believe with all my heart that it was.  It was a persistent brokenness and feeling like a failure, but knowing that, God, you're faithful no matter how long it takes.  Lord, I'm just trusting you.  My part is to just believe and have faith in you, and you do what you can do.   Yeah.  Amen.  Amen.  And so he delivered.  That was a celebration.  I will never forget when you told me the news and I was just like, wow, our church one day needs to hear that.  So here we are three years later telling, so thank you for praying.  Thank you for always bringing the prayers of the church forward.  Because even Friday night as we were praying, we're blessed when we get to pray for people, but we are also blessed when   You pray for us.  And I know so many of you do that for the pastors here, for the staff.  So thank you for doing that.  One more testimony before you go because I don't want to leave this time and keep going with the message without getting into the real fact that we have all had those prayers that God did not answer in the way we wanted, right?  And so after this testimony,   You've got a wonderful father and mother.  I knew your father before you.  Tell us about your prayers and even our prayers for what happened with your dad.  Yeah, so it's interesting.  You know, my dad got ill.  And I've seen God do miracles.  And if you've been hearing it, yes, yes, yes.  So we're praying for my dad to be healed.  He's in a sick bed, death bed.  And we're praying, Dad, you know,   to be healed.  We're believing.  We're calling on every pastor, every person, the faith family.  We're just asking to pray for my dad.  We know what God can do.  And if he has done it in all the situation, why wouldn't he do it now?  And we're praying so hard, brother.  I'm telling you, like every time I'm just believing, reading scriptures, being in this hospital bed, just crying out for him.  Everybody is.   And, you know, it's so interesting because, fortunately, the answer that I was hoping for, my family was hoping for, is that he would be alive, that he would be alive today.  But it's so interesting what happened that, unfortunately, he passed away.  But I believe it was interesting.   It was what God at that season wanted because he fulfilled something in me by saying this.  After my dad passed away and I'm saying dad's going to be healed, he's not healed in this physical world, I had a dream.  And in this dream, the Lord shows my dad getting up from the grave in his 30s.   In the age of 30, something I never saw.  My dad had me when I was older.  Something I never saw.  So I saw the resurrection of what Jesus Christ promises in his well body and well state in heaven.  And for me, that was all the peace I needed to know that God did exactly what he wanted to do.  And my prayer was answered, but it was answered the way the Lord knows that was best for him and for our family.   Amen.  Amen.  You know, that's our hope, right?  That hope in a resurrected body.  And I remember, you know, when you shared that with me the first time, and it was hard.  This, on the other side of years, and I'm sure it's still emotional for your family, but you've trusted that God will answer ultimately.  Can we thank Pastor Cyril for sharing some of this with us today?  Thank you.   You know, I wanted, when I was prepping for this message, I had a couple stories in my mind, a couple of my favorite books that I have read that have just powerful stories of prayer, and I was thinking, man,   What's a way, if Jesus is calling us to cry out to him in faith and be persistent, one of the ways that we can do that and build that trust and faith is hearing when he's answered, right?  But also hearing how the church answers when God answers in a different way than we'd want.   But then now that Cyril and I, we share an office and we were talking, I was just thinking of all the times in our relationship that God's answered prayers and thought it would be better to hear from him than a book.  So thank you so much.  And maybe this morning you're thinking, that's awesome.  That's great.  But I've been praying a prayer for 20 years, 30 years.   And that person hasn't recovered.  I buried that person.  That marriage that I prayed for, it still ended.  That mental health struggle I've been having, it's still there.  And I've been praying and praying.  And if that's where you are, I just want you to know Jesus isn't disappointed in you.  Jesus isn't disappointed in you.  In fact, I think he gave us this parable because he knew that you and I, we would find ourself right in this place.   We would find ourselves feeling like God must be an unfair judge and that justice will never come.  And if you felt that way, like I have, we need to remember something about who our God is.  He's a God who didn't just send a man into the world to tell us stories about suffering people.   No, he sent a man to join them in their suffering.  Jesus entered the same broken world that we lived, and as a baby, he entered that world in flesh, fully God, fully man, and he lived 30 years experiencing brokenness, experiencing a normal life and just dealing with all of it, losing loved ones, living under Roman oppression, probably living in poverty.   And even when his ministry began, after he was baptized, what happened?  For his three years of ministry, right after he's baptized, he gets sent into the wilderness to face temptation, hunger.  And over the next three years of his ministry, he experiences opposition, rejection from his own family, and ultimately betrayal from one of his closest friends.  Jesus joins us in our suffering.   And the God who told us to pray in spite of suffering is a God who was willing to become that man of prayer in the midst of it himself.  The one who judges all of creation, the ultimate judge of heaven and earth became the one who was on trial for us.  He went to experience the ultimate pain even though he was innocent.   The only man who ever lived a sinless life took on our guilt so that we could be declared righteous.  And one of the most remarkable things to me is when he was in, on that night, whipped, beaten, mocked, tormented, and hung on a cross, he prays a prayer.   But it's not a new prayer.  It's not something that we wouldn't be able to pray.  He prays a psalm of lament from Psalm 22.  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?   So if you've ever wondered if you can bring your hardest questions, your hardest prayers to God, Jesus is showing us you can.  He cries out to God in anguish.  Even before that, he's crying out with tears and with blood saying, Lord, would you take this cup from me?  He's asking God in prayer.   He knows what it is to suffer.  He knows what it is to surrender himself to the Father even when the cross of suffering was right in front of him.  But Jesus didn't just come to enter our suffering.  He did, but he also came to defeat it.  Amen?   See, scripture, it never asks us to pretend that suffering or that evil is good.  Death is still the enemy.  Disease is still a part of fallen creation.  Injustice is still evil.  And when Jesus stood outside of Lazarus's tomb, he didn't say that it was good.  He doesn't say that when we lose someone on this earth that that's good.  No, Jesus wept.  And when we lose someone to death, we weep because that is not how the Father created it to be.   But as our seminarian Owen preached so succinctly last week, this is a result of sin.  This is a result of sin and a fallen world.  So Jesus, he went to that cross carrying the weight of sin so that he could defeat it.  So that Satan, sin, and death would no longer have the final word in this world.   But even after Jesus went to the cross and three days later we know he rose and defeated death, he still bore those scars from the cross.  And they're no longer signs of defeat though, of pain and of suffering, but they're signs of victory.  And in the same way, Christ, he promises to redeem our suffering and our pain in this world one day.  And that day, we pray, will come soon.  But what do we do while we wait?   What do we do while we wait?  We do exactly what the widow did in this parable.  We keep coming to the Father.  We keep crying out for justice.  We keep praying, Lord, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, not because every prayer is answered right away or exactly as how we want it to, but because Jesus has told us the end of the story.  We have hope that one day his kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.   And in this parable, he says, it will come speedily.  So all of the church for 2,000 years has been saying, Lord, would you come?  We're waiting for your return.  And his delay is not absence.  His delay is not an unanswered prayer.  His delay is actually patience.  His delay is mercy so that more people will know they have a Savior.  When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?   And as he waits, we get to share the message of faith and hope in a resurrection.  So I'll invite the band forward as we close this time.  But as we wait, we're not waiting alone.  Romans chapter 8, it says the Holy Spirit intercedes, right?  We groan.  There's something inside of us that grieves.  Even when words fail us because grief is heavy, we cry out to God by the Holy Spirit's power.   Sometimes that's all faith can look like because that's all we have.  This is what the church does as we wait.  Like the widow, we keep crying out.  We keep praying.  Even when we pray words that we don't see the fulfillment in this lifetime.   We say, Lord, bring your justice.  Make all things new.  Lord, finish what you began.  Bring faith.  And we know that Christ has brought the ultimate victory because of his death and resurrection.  And one day, we will see that.   John, in the book of Revelation, gives us a glimpse of that.  In Revelation 21, we see a multitude from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and they're worshiping the Lamb.  And he hears the promise of God himself that he will dwell with us again.  And what does it say?  There will be no more tears.  There will be no more pain.  There will be no more mourning because all things will be made new.   That means that all those prayers that we have, every disappointment, every heartbreak, will be redeemed.  It will be made new.  And just like Cyril's dad, just like John, we will be in the flesh seeing a God who loves us.  Why don't you stand?  We're gonna worship to a song called Welcome Home.  It's a song about that day, about when heaven comes in all of its fullness.   And I just want you to worship with that song, experiencing it.  Before we do, let's bow our head and pray.  Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for being a God who always hears us.  Thank you for being a God who answers every prayer, maybe not in the timing we'd want, maybe not in the way we'd want, but you answer us.  And you're calling us to cry out to you by faith, knowing that you love us, that you want what's best for us, that you want to show us who you are.   I pray that even now, this time would encourage us in prayer that we would keep coming so that when you come again, you will find faith on this earth.  In Jesus' name, amen.

stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe.  Around campfires, on movie screens, across history.  Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story.   and that's exactly what jesus did when people expected simple answers jesus told stories that challenged assumptions flipped expectations and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom a kingdom where the last are first where mercy triumphs over judgment where greatness looks like serving   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.   All right, well, good morning.  As I was introduced, my name is Owen Erickson.  I'm your seminary student.  I go to school at the local Lutheran Seminary just over in Clayton here.  I just wrapped up my first year in the fall and pumped to start year two in the spring.  So if you don't know me, I'd love to get to know you.  Just find me after the service today.  All right.   But year one of seminary, it was pretty sweet.  So I got to spend countless hours just soaking up our Lutheran theology.  No, I wasn't paid to say that.  And I got placed here at Faith.  So I'd say it was a pretty good year overall.   But throughout that year, I faced a little bit of a challenge.  And it was, to be honest, a little bit of a challenge of identity.  When I first arrived on campus, I thought I knew what it looked like to be Lutheran, and I thought I knew what it looked like to be a Lutheran pastor.  I mean, after all, that's kind of the whole point of the seminary, isn't it?  Just forming and shaping the next generation of Lutheran pastors.   But what I thought I knew going in, well, they totally broke down.  So they could form me and shape me into the kind of person that they want to ship out of there in a few years.  And as you might expect, there's a little bit of resistance in that process, but there's also pressures.  Pressures like, am I keeping up with my classmates?  Do I look like an authentic Lutheran?   Or really, do I even belong here?  I think it's fair to say that I was suffering from a little bit of an identity crisis.  And over the course of the year, I talked with a lot of my classmates and found out they too, many of them often felt the same way.  Not sure if they were cut out for this role, not sure if they were worthy to be there.  We all kind of had a bit of an identity crisis.   And so that was my identity crisis.  I'm sure some of you can relate to that feeling here today.  But even if you can't relate to that, from the moment that we are born, we all suffer from an identity crisis.  It's an identity of sin.  From the moment that sin entered into the world through Adam, all of us have been plagued with an identity of sin.   I want to turn our attention now to Romans chapter 5, verse 12.  It might pop up on the screen.  We'll see.  But it reads, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.   Our identity crisis, our identity of sin, it condemns all of us.  We are all deserving of death because we all have sinned.  From the moment that you and I were born, we have all suffered from immediate identity crisis.   Now you might be thinking, who gave this kid a mic?  He's just up there just like swinging right away this morning like, this isn't fun.  I don't know, they hand me a mic so I get up there and do it like, you're up today.  But no, the reason why I bring this up is because our text for today, well, it's all about identity.  Over the course of this summer, we've been going through a message series called The Upside Down Kingdom where we look at Jesus' parables   and how his message was counter-cultural to his time and both ours now today.  And so let's turn our attention to our text for today.  It's from Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 12.  You can follow along on the screen or pull out your Bibles.  Again, that's Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 12.  It's the parable of two identities.   So there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day.  And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell on the rich man's table.   Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.  The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.  The rich man also died and was buried.  And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.   And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me.  And sent Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and to cool my tongue.  For I am in anguish in this flame.   But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus and like man are bad things.  But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.  And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.   And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send them to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.  But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets.  Let them hear them.  And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.   He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.  So I told you that this parable is all about identity.   But where is it?  That was my initial thought when I got assigned this text.  It's like, dude, come on, you really just saved the hardest parable for the seminary steward, like any other parable.  And Pastor Matt, who I know is watching this online, be honest, dude, I was thinking, like, please, Matt, any other text.   But I knew that my one year of seminary training wasn't for nothing.  So I did exactly what I was taught to do.  When you're given or confronted with a really challenging text, go to someone who's much smarter than you.  And so that's exactly what I did.  I whipped out my commentaries and started reading.   I remember reading through these commentaries, you kind of just have to sift through a lot of details, but I remember this really subtle detail.  The rich man is unnamed, and Lazarus is named.  This parable was about two different identities.   And, well, there's an immediate problem in this parable.  And it lies entirely in the rich man.  See, the rich man's identity, it is wrapped up entirely in his wealth.  He is stuck in his identity of sin.  And now I want to be clear about what this parable is not saying.  This parable is not saying that you have to be poor to go to heaven.  It's not saying that.   Neither is the parable saying that if you're wealthy, you're going to hell.  It's also not saying that.  Rather, what the parable is saying, the problem that Jesus is pointing out is that our identity crisis, our identity of sin, it condemns us.  It is a serious, major problem.   But why is sin such a problem?  Why is sin, or this identity of sin and identity crisis, why is this a problem?  Well, let's take a moment to take a break for a parable and let's go back all the way, all the way to the beginning of the Bible, back in the book of Genesis.   We read about our God, who is a relational God.  He's three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but they're all dwelling together in perfect relation and unity with one another.  And at the beginning of creation, when God created man, he created man in the image of God.   That was man's original identity, created in the image of God.  And God desired to have a relationship with man.  He desired a relationship with his creation.  We read in Genesis that God walked in the midst of the garden, in the midst of the man, that he had a relationship with this man.   But when this man sinned, his original identity, well, it was forever corrupted by this new identity, an identity of sin.  And ever since, all of humanity has been plagued with an identity of sin.  And this identity crisis, it forsakes the relationship that God so desired to have with each one of us   Remember what we read in Romans 5.12 earlier.  All have sinned and all deserve death.  Our identity of sin has forsaken our relationship with God and it is a serious identity crisis.  This is exactly what we see in our parable for today.  The rich man, well, he's not named.   If anything, he's named according to his wealth.  He's named according to what he's put his identity in.  In verse 19, Jesus tells us that he feasts daily, he's clothed in purple, a sign of his royalty and wealth, and that he lives quite comfortably.  But by placing his identity and trust in his wealth, he has forsaken his relationship with God.  He has an identity crisis.   And this problem that Jesus speaks of, it doesn't just happen in the text, it happens in our world today too.  Our world leans in to all of our identities of sin.  Our world tells us to be whoever it is you want to be, to make your own identity.  If you desire to be a successful businessman, the world tells you to be consumed by that identity.   If you desire to be a big time athlete, the world tells you to be completely consumed by that identity.  And if you want to stay living in your life of sin, the world tells you to be consumed by that identity.  Be consumed by your sin.  Make it who you are.   Our identity of sin forsakes the relationship that God so desired to have with us.  It is a serious crisis and it condemns all of us to death.  That's the consequence of an identity crisis.  It condemns us to death.  We see this very plainly in the text.  The rich man who once had a life of comfort   It is now replaced with eternal anguish, pain, and suffering in verse 23.  His life of comfort has been replaced with eternal thirst.  He desires just a drop of water to quench his thirst, but there's no mercy left for him.  He's suffering in the eternal fires of hell.   And this is the same reality for everyone's identity of sin.  We too all face this weight of this identity.  An identity crisis, an identity of sin, it is a major problem with an eternal consequence.  Well, now what?   We're all stuck in this identity of sin.  We have all forsaken the relationship that God desired to have with us.  Now what?  Well, God himself has offered us the solution.  God desired to have a relationship with you and I so much that he became man and   leaving his heavenly kingdom for this lowly earth.  And this man, while he was on this earth, he performed many miracles.  The blind could see, the lame could walk, and he taught boldly and profusely, declaring that I am the way, the truth, and the life, that I am the narrow gate, that no one comes to the Father except through me.   And to back up everything he taught and did, he died and rose again.  This man is Jesus Christ, our Lord, who desires to give each of you a new identity, who desires to replace your old identity of sin with a new identity in him.  So what is the solution God offered?  Well...   The solution to our identity of sin is a new identity in Christ.  And we see this, well, exactly in our parable.  Remember Lazarus.   It's a subtle detail, but he is named, not according to his sin, although he's born into sin just like anyone else, but he is truly named.  And after death, his miserable life is replaced with a life of eternal comfort.  Lazarus's new identity, Christ, has saved him.   So now, I want you to do this with me.  Take a moment.  Look around the whole church, right?  Look around.  Look at all these people sitting in these chairs.  Everyone filling up all these chairs.  Who do you see?  What are their identities?   Well, I'll tell you what God sees.  God sees a people gathered here together to worship, praise, thank, and adore him for all that he has done for you.  God sees a people clothed with their new identity in Christ, people who have been bought back from their old identity of sin.   and are destined for a new eternal life with him.  You all have a new identity in Christ.  You all have the solution to your identity crisis.  And if you're sitting here today thinking, oh, gee, I've put too much time or attention into my finances or career or anything else, I want you to know that   that your repentant mind, your repentant attitude is a sign of your new identity in Christ.  You all have a new identity in Christ.  And this irreplaceable, unshakable new identity, well, it even stands firm in the face of death.  Our Lord Jesus Christ's entire ministry was centered around his journey to the cross.   And in the face of the cross, in the face of death, he did not waver in any way but stayed firm in his identity.  And it's according to the cross that we identify ourselves as Christians.  And it's according to his identity, Jesus Christ crucified, that you and I will die and rise with him to live and reign in eternity forever.  Amen.   Now, just as the problem of an identity crisis had its own consequence, so too does a new identity in Christ have its own benefits.  But believe me, the benefits abound all the more.   We see this played out in the parable.  Lazarus, who once lived in his deplorable state, living and sleeping with the dogs, desiring just a scrap of food, his new identity has a firm hold on him, even in his deplorable state.  And yours and I's new identity in Christ, it has a firm hold on us and our identity of sin.   And Lazarus, after he dies, his life of pain and suffering, well, is replaced with a life of comfort.  Lazarus is now strutting down the golden streets of heaven, dwelling with all of the saints.  This is the glorious eternity that awaits even you when Jesus Christ welcomes you home with outstretched arms, the same arms he stretched out for you on the cross.   The solution to our identity crisis is a new identity in Christ.  Well, now what?  What are we going to do with this new identity in the meantime?  Are we going to live this one out?   But remember in our parable for today that the rich man who was condemned to hell, he implores that someone be sent back to his family.  He says he has five brothers and he knows that they too have an identity of sin.  They too stand to be condemned to death.   This rich man even implores that someone might be raised from the dead so that they might believe.  And he gets a reply that they have Moses and the prophets.  Moses and the prophets.  And no, this wasn't just like some snarky comment.  It's because Moses and the prophets, they all attest to the same thing.   They attest to the need for a new identity in Christ.  The word that we teach, preach, and share among each other all attest to the same thing.  The need for Christ.  The need for a Savior.  The need for a new, restored identity.  So...   What are you going to do as redeemed people of Christ, this new identity?  Well, I think we ought to do what the rich man desires.  You and I all have the means to testify to our Lord Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead and has given all of you an irreplaceable, unshakable new identity in him.   Well, when you look around this world today, I don't know about you, but I see a lot of people in need of that.  People stuck in their desire for wealth, just like the rich man.  People consumed by sports.   people consumed by lusts, anything else, you and I all have the means to share Jesus Christ with them who has given all of us and even desires to give them a new, unshakable, irreplaceable identity.  Please bow your heads and pray with me.   Heavenly Father, we thank you this day that you have given us the greatest gift we could ever ask for.  We thank you, God, that you have redeemed us from our old identity of sin, our identity crisis, and that you have given us a new identity in Christ.   Help us live this day with this new identity and help us to hold on to this identity until we face the fight, face life everlasting.  In your name we pray.  Amen.

In every generation, stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe.  Around campfires, on movie screens, across history.  Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story.   And that's exactly what Jesus did.  When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom.  A kingdom where the last are first.  Where mercy triumphs over judgment.  Where greatness looks like serving.   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.  Well, good morning again, faith family.   I hope you're doing well this morning.  I just got a text while we were in the middle of communion from our student mission team where Pastor Sam, they're traveling back.  So I should have told Cyril, hey, let's lift them up in prayers there.  We're praying for their safe travels.  We're praying for Pastor Matt, his family.   as they're getting away for a few weeks.  And Pastor Sam, after this trip, which is hard work, I've already heard some stories, he's going to take some time with his family.  So Pastor Cyril and myself, we're looking forward to being here, holding down the fort for the next couple weeks.  So buckle up.  We're going to be in for a longer...   I won't say that.  We're gonna be in God's word for a long time this morning.  So I'd encourage you, pull out your Bible, pull out the phone app if you've got that.  If you need a Bible, you just raise your hand, we'll bring you a physical copy.  And we're gonna be in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 39.  So if you need a Bible, raise your hand.  That's where we're going.  Because we've been in this parable series talking about the stories that Jesus told during his earthly ministry.   And stories are powerful, aren't they?  Because I know this as a father, I've learned this, that stories can be used as a tool to teach.  So one of those ways in our household that I like to use is by having this archetype of a very troubled boy, okay?  Because I have five boys and we struggle with, you know, lessons as everybody does, but the archetype is named Rodney.   So if your name's Rodney, I'm sorry.  We just picked a random name.  It could have been anything.  But what happens, these stories, they've evolved over the years, but they start as an illustration of a negative behavior, right, that the kids may be struggling with, like fighting, disobeying, hitting, manipulating a younger brother into trading Pokemon cards.  These are not real examples, though.   And I'm sure none of your kids would ever struggle with some of these things, but in our case, we tell a story about Rodney who exhibits these characteristics at an over-exaggerated, hyperbolic level, and then he doesn't learn his lesson.  And at a certain point, they start to realize, oh, maybe this story isn't only about Rodney, but also about me.  You know, Jesus, he does that in parables.   He does this in the parable of the Good Samaritan that we're gonna read today.  One of the most famous parables, but it doesn't just teach us about God, it exposes something about ourself and our own heart.  In Luke chapter 10, this is probably the most famous of the parables, if I were to just say from Christian and like culture in general.  I mean, we've got organizations who use that word.  Hospitals are named after it.  If you change someone's tire on the side of the highway, you'd likely be called a what?   A good Samaritan, right?  But I wonder if our familiarity with this parable is making us, when we just think about it, miss some of the shock of what Jesus was actually saying to that audience in that day.  Because he's not simply telling a story about being a nice person.  He's telling a story in response to a man who asks him a question that we all ask, what must I do to inherit eternal life?   So I'm gonna do something a little bit different.  I'm not gonna read the entire text up front.  We're gonna walk through it like two verses at a time.  So let's pray, let's bow our heads, and then let's jump into the first verses.  So we say, Lord, we lift up this morning to you.  We give you this time.  Would you teach us from your word by the power of your Holy Spirit?  Would you get our distractions out of the way?  Would you get myself out of the way and just show us what you want us to see from your word this morning?  In Jesus' name, amen.   All right, so if you'd pick up with me, we're gonna start in verse 25 and read until 29.  Here's how it starts.  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, with all your soul, and with all your strength, 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, that's the teacher, the lawyer, sorry, desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?  We'll pause there.   So the first thing we should notice here is who are these characters?  Luke tells us, the gospel writer Luke tells us this is a lawyer.  But don't think of like a courtroom lawyer in our setting.  Think an expert in God's law, a teacher of the law.  He knows God's commandments perfectly.  He knows how to apply them in that day.  He knows all the Jewish customs around the law and how to synthesize the Old Testament together.  He even does it in his response.   He knows what God requires of people.  And Luke also, he tells us something about this guy.  He tells us his motive.  He doesn't simply ask Jesus this question because he's curious and he really wants to know.  How does it start?  It says he stood up trying to put him to the test.  That's important, right?  But then what question does he ask?  What shall I do to inherit eternal life?   Now, people throughout the Gospels have asked Jesus this question.  Think about the rich young ruler, right?  I think it's in the Gospel of Mark.  He says, what must I do, right?  Again and again, people ask Jesus this question, and we should ask Jesus this question.  We should know the answer to this question because it is the most ultimate question.  If we truly are eternal beings with a soul, we want to live an eternal life.   And what Jesus answers is fascinating to me because he doesn't lower the standard.  He doesn't say, hey, you know what, you need me.  I am the way.  That's not how he responds in this interaction.  He doesn't start with grace.  First he says, what is written in the law?  How do you read it?   and the lawyer answers by weaving two passages together that every good and faithful jew would know deuteronomy 6 love the lord your god we sang it in that song with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind your strength and then from leviticus 19 which sums up the ultimate law love your neighbor as yourself what does jesus say to this jesus actually says this is the right answer   This lawyer, he gets his theology exactly right.  Jesus just says, do this and live.  Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with every affection, with every desire, with every thought.  Go ahead, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.   And that should have ended the conversation, right?  Because the only answer to that question, to that response, should have been the lawyer saying, you got me, Jesus, right?  I can't do that, I haven't done that.  I haven't loved my neighbor the same way that I naturally care and love and put myself first.  I haven't loved God with everything I am.  But the lawyer doesn't do that either.   He gives us one of the most important phrases in this account to understand it, to understand the story that's about to follow of the Good Samaritan.  It says, but he desiring to justify himself.  The lawyer doesn't confess.   He doesn't repent.  He looks for a loophole which is far more familiar in our own sinful hearts, in my sinful heart, than I'd like to admit.  I wish I would have just said at that moment, I wish I could say I would have done a different response or that any of us would have.  But how often in our own heart do we, instead of trying to be righteous and to say, Lord, you know what?  I can't follow that.   We want to define what righteousness is.  This lawyer, he would rather define the boundaries of love than admit how often he's failed to love.  We know the command of God, don't we, just like this lawyer, to love God with all our heart, love our neighbor, but instead of acknowledging that we can't keep it, we start to ask where that ends so that we can try to feel better about our attempt to follow it.  Because we naturally extend compassion to people who are like us,   but quietly excuse when we ignore people who are different, who are difficult, and who are hard to love.  So what does Jesus do with this situation?  With all of us and the lawyer who naturally want to justify ourself by asking the question, who is my neighbor?   He tells a story.  So let's pick up in verses that are following.  Verses 29, sorry, verses 26, 30, 32.  There we go, 30 through 32.  I've got it right here.  Jesus replied.  Start with Jesus replied.  A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  He fell among robbers.   who stripped him, 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 Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by the other side.  Pause.  So Jesus answered the lawyer's question with a story.   The story that started on a road that everyone listening would have known.  This road from Jericho to Jerusalem, you could travel it both ways, but going from Jerusalem down to Jericho was a steep descent.  A lot of altitude through mountains, through rocks, dangerous road.  A road where robbers could hide behind the rocks, come out and steal and then be gone before you knew what happened.   This is a road, even though it's a parable, that everyone hearing is recognizing, is familiar with, right?  And a good story does that.  It grounds you in a context that you can relate to.   So what happens?  This man, he's beaten and stripped.  He's left for dead.  And I think there's a detail here that I often pass by.  I didn't see this before studying for this message.  The question of the lawyer was, who is my neighbor, right?  But what does Jesus do?  He strips this man of everything that might allow us to categorize him.  He just says a man, right?   We can't tell if he's rich or poor.  We don't know his occupation.  We don't know his name.  We don't know if he's Jew, Gentile, or Samaritan.  He doesn't allow the lawyer to categorize him.  His clothing's gone, his body's broken, and he's unable to speak for himself.  Jesus gives us this man without qualifications, without categories, I believe on purpose, so that all we can see is his need.  Now, I don't know about you, but that's convicting for me.   Because how many of us want to know the story before we extend mercy to someone, right?  We want to know why they're homeless.  We want to know why they're in debt.  We want to know if they're here legally.  We want to know if they've done everything they could to try hard enough before we extend mercy.   We want to know if it's someone else's bad decisions that's caused suffering before we decide if compassion is appropriate.  Now hear me carefully because this doesn't mean that discernment isn't important.  Wisdom matters, right?  Christians are called not to enable destructive behavior or ignore truth, but there's a difference between exercising wisdom and demanding that someone justify their own suffering before we extend mercy, right?   Now we may get a little more into that later, but here Jesus simply says, this man's broken.  He's lying on the side of the road.  And two men come along who should have understood exactly what the law required, right?  A priest and a Levite.  But they didn't stop.  They passed by on the other side.   Now people have debated for centuries why they did that.  Was it because they were afraid of getting beaten and robbed too?  Was it because they were worried about ceremonial uncleanliness?  Were they just in a hurry?  The Bible and Jesus doesn't answer that question because their excuses are not what's important here.  What's important here is for us to look at why we pass by on the other side.   Right?  We all know how to explain why we've kept walking.  We don't have time.  Someone else is gonna help.  I wouldn't even know what to do, right?  But that's what makes this sin that Jesus is getting at so tricky.   Because the sin here is not loving God and our neighbor with our whole heart.  It's not a sin of commission.  They're committing something.  It's a sin of omission.  They're walking by the other side.  It's for what they failed to do that Jesus is giving this illustration.  The lawyer asked, who is my neighbor?  And Jesus has already begun answering by saying, your neighbor is often the person who interrupts your life.   who gets in the way of what you think should be getting done, who makes it hard for you.  Let's see how he continues the story.  Pick up in verse 33.  But a Samaritan, but a Samaritan.   As he journeyed, he 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 set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii and gave it to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever you spend, I will repay you when I come back.  Let's stop there.   Now, I wish I could have seen the lawyer at the crowd's face when Jesus said, but a Samaritan, right?  Because this is exactly where Jesus' story would have been like those Rodney stories that I tell the lawyer starts to realize in an instant.  All right, this story, it's   He's talking to me because Jesus, knowing this man's heart, just like he knows all of ours, he's found his boundary of who he wants to be a neighbor.  You see, the hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans had gone back hundreds of years, descending from disagreements over ancestry, what constitutes true worship.   of God, and the bitterness ran so deep.  We see it in other accounts in the Gospels.  In Luke chapter 9, just the chapter before, James and John, Jesus' own disciples, asked Jesus if he'll call fire to destroy a Samaritan village.   In John chapter 8, you see the Pharisees insulting Jesus by calling him a Samaritan and demon-possessed.  So this is great hostility, right, between these two people groups.  Everyone listening to this story when he says, but a Samaritan is thinking, all right, this is going to get uncomfortable, right?  And who would Jesus put in that story if he were talking to you?   if he was talking to me?  Who would he have put but a, who is it or what group is it that you've quietly placed outside the boundaries of your compassion or love?  Now maybe it isn't someone you hate.  Maybe that's not the challenge.  Maybe it's someone that you've just stopped seeing.   or have decided they're too difficult to love, too far gone, Jesus reaches right into that place and says, who is that for you?  Unlike the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan doesn't see the wounded man, only he sees him, and it says he has compassion.  He has compassion.   He cares for him through the night.  He puts him on his own animal.  He dresses his wounds and he pays two denarii, two days wages, right?  This isn't just throwing 20 bucks.  This is two days wages and says, I will pay you whatever it costs, unlimited, when I come back.  Here we see in the scripture that having compassion should lead to actions that cost us something, right?  It's not easy.   Now let's pick up the final verses and see how Jesus ends the parable.  Verses 36 and 37.  Jesus said, 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.   Now, Jesus, he does something remarkable here, right?  The lawyer, he asked him, who is my neighbor?  But instead of answering that question directly, Jesus asks another one to the man.  Which of these prove to be a neighbor?   The lawyer wanted Jesus to define the object of his love.  Tell me who counts.  Tell me who's in and out.  Where's the line?  And Jesus flips the question entirely and says the neighbor isn't simply someone you choose to love.  It's the person God puts in your path no matter who they are.  And the question is will you be a neighbor to them?  And did you notice something else in these few verses?  The lawyer, he can't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan, can he?   He simply answers with the one who showed mercy.  Even after hearing this story, hearing that Jesus has made this person the hero of the story, Jesus answers the question.  Your neighbor is precisely the one who you don't want to be in your heart.  That's who your neighbor is.   And Jesus is answering, you can't love in the way that would make you inherit eternal life.  We can't do this on our own.  We all have those people in our heart, in our life.  Maybe it's not the hard people to love.  Maybe you don't have some of those things.  Maybe you struggle loving the people who can't love those others.   I know for me, often growing up in a household where we did missions, it was easier, honestly, because of how I was raised, to love those people different, but to judge and to struggle to have love like God's love for people who didn't love those.  That's, if you were to put someone in for me, that would be the person who ignores, right?  Who is it for you?   But Jesus, he is telling this lawyer, this is the command of God.  Love with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.  This is how you inherit eternal life.  And then at the end he says, go and do likewise.  Those are the bookends to the story if we reflect on it.  It begins with that question and the law and it ends with Jesus giving him that law.  So where does it leave us this morning?   The purpose of this parable firstly should be to show us our incredible need for mercy, right?  Because we've not loved this way.  The purpose of this parable isn't simply to tell us, go be a better neighbor.  We can try, but first we need to see the one who has been that good Samaritan to us in our brokenness, in our sin, in our imperfection, in our failure to love.   And that's exactly where Jesus wants the lawyer and us to end.  Not trusting in ourselves, but recognizing what he is about to do.  Because before we can become a neighbor who shows mercy to others, we need to be shown and receive that mercy by our Savior.  Think of that first question again.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?   It really answers it itself.  You can't do anything to inherit something.  You inherit something because of the family that you belong to, amen?  And what family is that that we belong to, church?  It's the family of God, because he's given us our identity in baptism, because he called us his own children.  Galatians 4 tells us that Christ was born under the law to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as God's children.   The good news of the gospel is that internal life is not inherited by perfect love for God and neighbor, but by God's perfect love for you and me.   He did what none of us could do.  He alone fulfilled this commandment.  He alone loved his father with his whole heart.  He alone loved his father with everything that he had and loved every neighbor that God put in front of him.  Think about it.  The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the Pharisees, Jesus loved even them and even the ones who nailed him to the cross.  Jesus loved every neighbor that God put in front of him.   And on that cross, he saved us.  And what I love about this parable, what I loved about studying this parable, and if you listen back to Ben's song that he wrote, he shows us this in the song.  But unlike most parables where God is just one, you see him as one character, you see us, this parable is unique.   Because yes, we need a God who is the true good Samaritan, who comes to us when we're helpless and has compassion, who binds us our wounds and pays the debt that we couldn't repay.  Yes, we need that God.   But how does that God do that?  How does he accomplish it?  But by becoming the man on the side of the road who's beaten, who's mocked, who takes on death itself.  He wasn't left half dead.  He was left for dead, forsaken by his heavenly father so that you and I would not have to experience that, which is what we deserved.   So Jesus, he is our good Samaritan by becoming the man who's dead on the road.  And by his wounds we are healed, amen?  Through his resurrection we are given the gift of new life.  And before we end this message talking about how we can live differently in light of this parable, how we can love by the power of the Holy Spirit those who God's called us to love,   Before we go there, I know that many of us, it's our natural bent, will want to walk away from this message and just hear, you know, I got to go be a better neighbor.  I got to start looking for people and feel that guilt.  That's not what I want you to hear from this sermon today.  If all you hear from this sermon today is love your neighbor better, then I haven't preached it well.  I haven't preached the gospel from it.   Because if you know what this says today, love your neighbor as yourself.  We so often forget that part at the end.  God calls us to love our neighbor as ourself, which means for so many of you, you forget that you have a God who created you worthy of his love.  That commandment assumes that you are a child created to receive God's love.   And it's only because you receive that love because of what Christ has done that you can say, I'm gonna give away compassion and mercy and extravagant grace.  You are worthy of love.  The cross has settled that question forever.   So if you ever wonder if God thinks what you're worth or if you're worthy of that, don't look at your life, don't look at how well you're loving other people, but look to the cross to see how deeply God has loved you.  Look to the heavenly father who was willing to give his own son to make you his child.  We love because he first loved us, right?  That's so important.  We love because he first loved us.  So as we close today,   what would that life of mercy look like?  Because I don't think most of us wake up and we just think, today, I'm gonna be like the priest.  I'm gonna pass by on the other side.  I don't think we intentionally think that.  But so many of our rhythms, so many of our habits are built around a life that just simply isn't on the road with people.   Think about it, we pull into the garage after work, we close the door behind us, our evenings are filled with work and practices and meetings and activities.  We spend long weeks surrounded by people but never really having the opportunity to love our neighbor.  Loving your neighbor begins by making time, by making space around the table, in conversation, inviting people in.   Look at the life of Jesus, how he does this.  Being willing to be interrupted on the road when you're in the middle of going somewhere or doing something, but saying, who is God putting in front of me to love?  Proximity, it really matters, right?   Now God, he isn't asking you, I said we maybe mention this later, but God isn't asking you to save everyone, all right?  I think that's important.  It's not just we give away needlessly in terms of everything that we have and we just throw it out to anybody.  We need to have wisdom and discernment and God himself, Jesus on his earthly ministry, he modeled Sabbath rest, getting away, spending time with God.  He modeled discernment.   He helped some on his way, but he didn't go out of his way to save everyone on his three years of earthly ministry, did he?  That reminder for somebody in ministry and for people, we have a church who wants to be in ministry.  I'm excited to see that all the time in my week as missions pastor.  I see people serving.  I see people giving.  But we shouldn't have that guilt or fear of, I need to do it all.   Who has God called you to?  I love our vision statement because it makes it so applicable.  Where we live, work, learn, and play.  Right around you.  You don't have to save everyone.  You don't have to heal everyone on your own.  But who is God putting in your life that you can love?   I want us to spend a couple moments just thinking about that as our worship team comes forward.  I'll invite them to play.  They're gonna play the final song, but I'll leave you with one more thought on this question of who is my neighbor and how can we love that neighbor.  In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to his disciples and they're talking about the end.  They're talking about eternal life.  Who will inherit eternal life, right?  And he talks about the sheep and the goats.  He prophesies about the end times and then he says,   As you did for one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it unto me.  Do you remember that passage?  When the disciples are saying, when did we feed you, Lord?  When did we clothe you?  When did we visit you?  And Jesus says, however you love the least among you, you did that unto me.   So this morning as we close this message time, I want us to sit not thinking of the guilt of what this parable can bring.  If we do it like the lawyer, we failed, right?  But if we do it with a gospel motivation of we are invited to love Jesus because everyone around us has been created in the image of God and Jesus and his image is in people.  And so when we go out and love our kids, our families, our coworkers,   our neighbors, we're loving a God who on the end, I love that parable that we read, Pastor Matt preached, we'll be able to say, good, well done, good and faithful servant, right?  So would you stand and would you pray with me as we close?  Lord, thank you for this morning, giving us a parable that is so familiar to us, but I pray that you've given us different eyes to see something this morning.   that you would answer in our own heart that question of who is the neighbor who's been tough to love?  And that by your Holy Spirit's power, that you would get us out of the way and show your love to that person, not perfectly, not in a way that has to fix everything, but Lord, that you would be glorified as we go out this morning and love those around us.   Lord, I pray against the enemy.  I pray against the distraction.  I pray against the guilt that would come upon us by his accusation that we're not good enough, that we don't love God well enough, that we don't love our neighbor well enough, and that we would be able to say, that's true.  That we wouldn't seek to justify ourself, but we would say, I have a God who's loved me perfectly.   who calls me his child, and who's sending me out to love others in his name.  In Jesus' name, amen.  Amen.  Let's sing as we close.

Every generation, stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe. Around campfires, on movie screens, across history. Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story. And that's exactly what Jesus did. When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom. A kingdom where the last are first. Where mercy triumphs over judgment. Where greatness looks like serving. An upside down kingdom. Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.
Well, please pray with me. Dear Lord, we thank you so much that we could be here in this place. God, I pray that you would allow your word to sink deeply and root deeply into our hearts, God, that you would allow us to be able to experience the love and the grace that comes through that, Lord, and then to be a witness to that and be able to share that wherever we're going, God. May my words be your words, not one word more or one word less. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.
So in May of the year 2000, on an outdoor lawn in Memphis, Tennessee, 40,000 college students gathered together for a day of prayer and worship and teaching for their Passion One Day Conference. And it was at this conference that a message was shared that changed the trajectory for so many of those young people's lives. And I remember re-watching it because it came from the most unlikely speaker. You've got all these college-age students, anywhere from 18 to 24 years old, 40,000 of them gathered on a lawn. And who stands up to speak? Not the trendy college-age pastor, but a guy who was old enough to be their dad in a button-down dress shirt tucked into his khaki pants.
But he went on to share a message with an image that would radically change many in that generation. An image of some seashells. And as he stood up to share this message, he had a simple prayer. His prayer was that a generation would answer one simple and yet pivotal question: How will you invest your life?
Now, when John Piper was preparing to stand up and share this message, about three weeks earlier, two women from his congregation were on a mission trip. Ruby Eliason, 80 years old, spent a career as a nurse, and now she's on a medical mission in Cameroon, alongside Laura Edwards, also 80 years old, who spent a career as a doctor. These two women in their retirement decided to go to Cameroon to give people medical care they couldn't find on their own and use it to share the gospel. And as they were there, driving from one city to the next, the brakes on the car went out. They careened over the side of a cliff to their death.
And John Piper, in that moment, looked out on 40,000 students and he asked a simple question: Is this a tragedy? Is this a tragedy? And then he looked at those students, to their shock, and he said, "No." He said, "This is the tragedy."
And he pulled out an article from a magazine most of them would never read. You wouldn't find it sitting there on the coffee table in somebody's dorm room. It was a magazine some of you may know: Reader's Digest. A 1998 article, and the title of the article was this: Start Now, Retire Early.
It told the story of 59-year-old Bob and 51-year-old Penny. Bob had spent a career in the Northeast in finance, and he had earned enough to be able to retire early. So at 59 and 51 years old, they found themselves in Punta Gorda, Florida, trolling on their 30-foot cruiser, walking, playing softball, and collecting seashells on the seashore.
John Piper looked out and he said, "This, this is the tragedy." He said, not the 80-year-olds who are investing their retirement years in mission, but the person who works so hard to do nothing more than invest in themselves. And John Piper said, "This is the tragedy. And there are people in this country spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. And I have 40 minutes to plead with you. Don't buy it."
Now, this is what John Piper was saying. He was not saying retirement is wrong because now John Piper is retired. He still preaches, probably doesn't pick up seashells, but he preaches. What he was saying was this: This life we've been given is a gift. And it doesn't matter what you've been given. How will you invest that gift in the kingdom of God?
And what John Piper was doing is what we sometimes see the parables do. In fact, the story was so locked in my mind because for the past several weeks I've been reading this parable from Matthew chapter 25. One of the things the parables do is they simply share with you what the kingdom of God is. They expose you to the concept of God's kingdom.
Another thing the parables do—and we've heard parables like this—is they teach you what the kingdom of God looks like and how to live and move in the kingdom of God and how to live out the kingdom of God in your own life. Those are fun messages to preach.
But the third thing the parables do—these are the parables that tend to be the most uncomfortable—is they look at you and ask a pivotal and critical question: How will you respond to the message of the kingdom of God?
And this is what Jesus is doing today in our parable. He tells a parable that asks the very simple question: How will you invest the gifts of grace and life you have been given in the kingdom of God?
And so, to show you what I'm talking about, let's open up to Matthew chapter 25. So if you have a Bible, it's the first Gospel. If you don't have one, raise your hand. We've got one there for you that is our gift to you. And of course, if you don't have a paper Bible in front of you, you can always pull out your smartphone, open up the YouVersion Bible app or the Faith Oakville app, and we've got the Bible in there.
I'm going to be in Matthew chapter 25, starting at verse 14 in the English Standard Version. It says this:
"For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away."
Now, really important, Jesus is telling, once again, a series of stories. And so the "for it will be like" he's talking about is the kingdom of God because he's just told a parable in which the reference was the kingdom of God. So you could read it like this: "For the kingdom of God will be like a man going on a journey..."
Now here's what you need to understand. This was a normal practice back then. Somebody would go on a journey. In Luke it calls him a king. In this one it calls him a wealthy master. They would go on a journey, and when they were on that journey, they would hand some of their resources to their servants and have their servants invest them and do business on their behalf.
Now, you don't give a lot of instructions when that happens. Why? Because travel is not like travel is today. In the first century, travel was a lot different than the 21st century. Some of you have taken vacations. You know what I'm talking about. When you're going to go somewhere, you know exactly when you're leaving, when you'll arrive, how long you'll stay, and when you'll return. Give or take a few hours, maybe a day if you're incredibly unlucky.
But travel was not like that in the first century. Even the best-laid trip plans were tentative. You weren't exactly sure when you'd get there. You weren't exactly sure when you'd come back. So when a master left, they left, and nobody knew the timeline.
So of course you don't add a lot of parameters around what you want them to do with the investment you're about to give them because things could change, and there's no way to communicate quickly. So you give wide parameters, which is what this master did.
Now, you may be asking yourself the question, how much is a talent? Because isn't that the confusing and frustrating thing when you're reading the Bible? We have no clue how much money they're talking about.
Well, I looked it up, and many commentators differ on their conversions, and I remembered very quickly that I am a pastor and not a financial analyst. But one thing they said consistently was this: One talent was worth about 6,000 days' wages for the average laborer.
So I went to my friend ChatGPT and asked, "How many days will somebody work in a working lifetime?" If you work for 40 years consistently, taking normal vacations and time off, you'll work anywhere from 9,500 to 10,000 days in a working lifetime.
So literally, if you are the one-talent servant, you were given about half a lifetime's worth of wages to invest. Not an insignificant amount.
And it also says—and this is important—that the master gave each according to his ability. He gave the five-talent servant five talents because he figured he could use five talents well. The two-talent servant got two because he could use two well. The one-talent servant got one because he could use that well.
Then this is what happened:
"He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money..."
After a long time, the master returned and settled accounts. The five-talent servant presented ten talents total. The master said, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."
The two-talent servant received the exact same commendation.
Then the one-talent servant came forward and said, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man... so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground."
The master answered, "You wicked and slothful servant... You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest."
Now, first, it sounds harsh. But here's another interesting thing I learned this week: the banking system back then was pretty safe, and because of how interest worked, he could have earned around a 50% return just by depositing it. The other servants' returns weren't extraordinary. He simply refused to do anything.
You've got three servants, three different amounts, but really only two outcomes: "Well done, good and faithful servant," or "wicked and slothful servant."
So what's the difference?
The difference is simple: What did you do with what you were given? Two servants invested it. One did not.
So what does this mean for us today?
The master is God—specifically Jesus. The servants are Jesus' followers.
And that's important because it would be easy to read this as though God is telling people to earn their salvation. That's not what's happening. The only people given talents were already servants of the master. This is about those whom God has already brought into His kingdom and entrusted with gifts.
This is not about earning salvation. Everything we have is given as a gift from God. But when God gives gifts, He expects us to use them.
So what is a talent?
I spent two weeks wrestling with that. Is it God's grace? Is it literal money? Is it our abilities? Is it our very lives?
My answer was: Yes.
It's everything.
Anything and everything we have is a gift from God. Every breath we take is a gift. Nothing we have is deserved. Nothing we have is earned. It is all a gift from the giver of all good things.
So when Jesus talks about talents, He's talking about the gifts He gives us.
Paul says we were dead in our trespasses and sins and made alive in Christ. God gives us physical life and spiritual life. Everything we have has been entrusted to us by Him.
The question is: How will you invest it in the work of God?
The world spends billions of dollars telling you, "Everything you have is yours. Use it for yourself."
God says, "Everything you have is Mine. How will you invest what I've entrusted to you?"
So what does investing look like?
Peter writes in 1 Peter:
"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace... in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ."
Peter says you've been given gifts so you can serve others.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit. God isn't expecting your gifts to be my gifts or mine to be yours. If He's given you the ability to speak, then speak. If He's given you hospitality, then show hospitality. If He's given you mercy, then show mercy.
Your gifts are not lesser than someone else's. God simply asks you to use what He's given you.
Romans 12 says:
"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them."
And at this point, some of us start feeling that holy guilt. We think, "I'm not even sure how to use my gifts."
Years ago, I felt the same way.
So I prayed, "God, You've given me gifts, and You're going to hold me accountable for them. Please show me how to use them."
And you know what?
God will.
He's not trying to set you up for failure. He gave each servant according to his ability. He will show you where to use what He's already given you.
And when you do, your life becomes a picture of God's glory.
Sometimes we think only pastors invest in the kingdom. But often it's much simpler than that.
The other day my kids wanted to play pickleball. It was hot, and honestly, I wanted to stay inside. We got to the courts, and a younger kid pressed his face against the fence and asked, "Can I play?"
My first thought was no.
Then I wondered, "Is this an opportunity?"
So I told him, "Finish this game with us afterward." He and his friend joined us. We taught them how to play. They stayed for about 20 minutes.
Later, my oldest son said, "Dad, that was really cool."
I thought he meant one of my shots.
He said, "That you let those kids play."
And I realized something.
It wasn't really about pickleball.
It was about teaching my kids what the hospitality of Jesus looks like.
God gives us little opportunities every day to invest in His kingdom. Sometimes you'll realize it. Sometimes you won't.
One day you'll stand before the Father, and He'll say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. I gave you grace, and you shared grace. I gave you forgiveness, and you shared forgiveness. I gave you resources, and you shared resources. I gave you health, and you used it to help others."
Not because you lived someone else's life, but because you faithfully lived the one He gave you.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said:
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The more you invest in God's kingdom, the more your heart grows in love with the God who first loved you.
Don't worry about what He's given someone else to do. Worry about what He's given you.
Because you cannot out-give God.
He will always pour more into your life.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, we thank You so much that You allow us to be in this place. Thank You for giving us the opportunity to invest in others the way You've invested in us. Help us share the grace, love, and every good gift You've given us with a world that desperately needs You. Strengthen us and open our eyes to see where we can invest in Your work. It's in Your name, Lord Jesus, and by Your strength that we pray. Amen.