Most people think the Parable of the Good Samaritan is simply a story about helping others. But look closer—and you’ll find something far more convicting, and far more freeing, than a lesson in neighborliness.

In this message from Luke 10:25–37, we trace the confrontation between Jesus and a lawyer who wanted to justify himself before God. Through the parable Jesus tells, we come face to face with the full demand of God’s Law—love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself—and our complete failure to meet it.

But here is the gospel: we are not primarily the Samaritan in this story. We are the wounded man. Broken by sin, helpless, unable to save ourselves. And Jesus is the true and better Neighbor—the One who came to us when we were half dead in our trespasses, who did not pass us by, who bound our wounds through His death and resurrection, and who paid the full price of our rescue.

Because He came to us, we now go to others