Luke chapter number 10, the title of this soul winning tip is, what are we doing?
What are we doing? If someone were to ask you, what are you doing on a Saturday morning,
what would you tell them? Luke chapter number 10, we're going to be looking at verse 30.
And what's going on here is Jesus is talking to the lawyer here.
The lawyer asked Jesus in verse 25, master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
And, of course, Jesus responds, what is written in the law, how root is thou?
And he talks about, you know, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and thy neighbor as thyself. And Jesus says in verse 28, thou has answered right,
this too, and thou shalt live. Verse 29, he says, but he willing to justify himself,
said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor? So what are we doing when we're going out
soul winning? We're going to find that out in this passage. Look at verse 30,
and Jesus answering said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves,
which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.
This individual represents the lost soul. The people that are not saved, the way that
God sees them, the way that they are spiritually, is that they're poor, they've had everything
stolen from them, they've been stripped of their raiment, they're naked, they're wounded,
and they're half dead. Now, obviously, people who are not saved, they're dead spiritually, right?
Paul said, the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And God said unto Adam, he said,
you know, the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die. Now, he didn't die physically that
day, he died spiritually. So the people that we're trying to reach are these half dead people,
and we're trying to reach them before they're full dead, whether that's they become a reprobate
or they die physically. And so these are the people that we're trying to reach,
are the people that are spiritually dead, the people that are poor, destitute, naked,
and wounded. Look at verse 31. And by chance, there came down a certain priest that way.
And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite, when he was at the
place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side. Now, some people would look at this
and say, hey, you know, that's the Mormon and the Jehovah's Witness, right? They're out trying to do
some sort of work for God. They're not getting anybody saved. They're the false prophets.
But I don't really, I wouldn't really agree with that. What I would say is that these people,
the priests and the Levite, represents lazy Christians. Okay, why? Because we're priests,
right? The Bible calls us kings and priests. You know, if we serve in the house of God,
you're basically like a Levite. You know, you're working for the Lord in his house. And these
people, they're Christians who are just lazy, right? They don't get to the work of God. And
I don't know about you, but you know, when I see people that are lazy, it really gets on my nerves,
okay? Whether it's at work or just around, you know, my life, I just don't like it. I don't jive
with lazy people, okay? And I feel that, you know, God is the same way. You know, when God sees
Christians who don't do the work that they're called to do, I think that irritates God a little
bit. As you can see, he points these people out. The priests and the Levite, they're the ones who
are supposed to be doing the work. They're the leadership, and yet they're not actually helping
out and doing their job, okay? So God points that out to us for a reason. So the lazy Christians
are the ones that don't get anybody saved. They don't participate in soul winning. Don't be one
of those, all right? I'm sorry, I'm a little just to the point this morning, but look at verse 33.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, notice he had
compassion on him. So this is the first step to being a soul winner is having compassion, okay?
And if you struggle with that, just think that, you know what, both you and I, before a soul
winner came to our door, before a soul winner came to your door, you were half dead. You were wounded,
you know, you were naked, and a soul winner came to your door and gave you the gospel.
Or you heard it online, you got saved. Somebody did some sort of work to reach out to you
to get you saved. So that should stir your heart a little bit that, you know what,
I was naked, I was ashamed, I was poor, I was wounded, and I couldn't help myself because I
was half dead lying on the side of the road. Someone came and helped me and got me saved.
So you know what, maybe I should go do that for someone else, okay? Have compassion.
Look at verse 34. And because he had compassion, it says he went to him. Notice that word he went.
You know, that half dead person is not going to have the ability to go find you, right?
They can't help themselves because they're injured. So what do we have to do? We have to go
to them. We have to get up on a Saturday morning. We have to go knock on the door
and give them the opportunity to be saved because they're not going to come to us.
You know, it's not often that unsafe people come into this church building, right? You can't just
say, you know, well, you know, we'll just wait and just attract, you know, people to come to our
church. That's not how it works, okay? That's the mentality that the liberal churches use, right?
With their lights and the music and all that sort of thing to try to attract the world into
their church. But that's not how it works. We're supposed to go out into the world,
out into the highways and the byways to reach those who need the gospel, okay? So if you think,
well, it's hard for me. It's hard for me to knock on someone's door because I'm nervous or I'm not
good with words. It's difficult. You know, I've got to remember the verses. You know, it might be hard
for you, but you know what was harder was dying on the cross for the world's sins, was shedding,
you know, Jesus shedding his blood for you. That was way harder, way more difficult. In fact, Jesus
in his humanity didn't even want to do it, but he did it anyways because it was God's will.
We need to have that same mentality even though it's hard and difficult sometimes.
We don't want to do it. We should do it out of duty at the end of the day. But we should go beyond
that. It shouldn't just be duty. It should be compassion, right? It should be something from our
heart. So verse 34 again, and went to him and bound up his wounds. So here's the thing. When
someone believes on Christ, their wounds become bound, right? The Bible says in Isaiah 53 that by
his stripes we are healed, okay? He was beaten for us so that we could be healed. So when someone
receives the gospel, they receive that healing. And then after he bound up his wounds, it says
pouring in oil. What does that represent? That represents the Holy Spirit, right? When someone
gets saved, they receive the Holy Ghost. They're sealed into the day of redemption. And then it
says, and wine. Well, what is wine? Well, wine represents fellowship, right? Communion with God.
We can have when a person gets saved, they can now have fellowship with God. They can have communion
with God and also other believers, right? Because we don't really fellowship with unbelievers,
right? Well, we shouldn't be. We can't relate to them on that spiritual level. But once they
get saved, we can fellowship with them now. So they can, once they get saved, they can have
fellowship with God and with man. And then look again in verse 34, continuing on, and set him in
on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. You know what? Sometimes
to get people into church, you got to set them on your own beast, you know, and bring them here.
Sometimes you just offer them rides. Hey, I can come pick you up. You want to come to church?
So it doesn't end there. It doesn't just, you know, you're not just going to bind them up,
bind their wounds up and just leave them on the side of the street. No, you want to bring them
in the inn. You want to bring them to church. And sometimes you might have to set them on your own
beast, okay? And just bring them yourself, okay? And then look at verse 35, and on the morrow,
when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto him,
take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
So what this is showing is that, you know what, sometimes it's going to cost us something,
right? We're not just called, although we are called to go share the gospel,
we're called to make disciples. And so sometimes that's going to cost us something,
whether it's financially, you know, sometimes it helps to bring somebody a gift or it's going to
cost you gas money to go out of your way to bring them to church. It could just cost you something,
but you know what? It doesn't matter when you have compassion. It doesn't matter when you
realize that they have wounds in their lives that need to be healed, like in their marriages,
you know, in their child rearing, in their lives, that only the word of God can heal.
And that only by bringing them into church, that's the only way that those wounds are truly
going to heal over time, right? And so finally, verse 36, it says,
Now which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?
So when somebody asks you, what are you doing today on Saturday morning? You could say,
I'm loving my neighbor. So let's just try to be that, right? Let's just try to, you know what,
have compassion. Let's try to remember that, you know what, we were half dead,
just as the people we are reaching, you know, we used to be naked and poor and wounded. So let's
bring the gospel to them so that they could be healed also. Amen. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your word this morning. I pray that you would help us to
have compassion as we go out soul-willing, Lord, and to reach the lost. And I pray for just all the
this weekend, Lord, and just the special service tomorrow, that you would bless it,
Lord, and bring many people into your house. In Jesus' name. Amen.