The Good Samaritan ( Sunday Sermon Review )

Sunday August 25, 2013

Our speaker today was Jacob Friesen from Winnipeg. His text was the story of The Good Samaritan and he spoke of how to practically love our new neighbors.

The Good Samaritan helps the man fallen by the wayside.
picture from vimeo.com

The Story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37 reads as follows:

25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?

27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

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.

31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,

34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

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.

36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

Here are my notes from the sermon and also some of my thoughts.

*In the Old Testament we see how the people are always on the move. In our day and time we see many people on the move and foreigners, refugees and displaced peoples making their home in Canada.

*God is in the midst of all that is happening. He is working in the lives of people across the globe - both in the lives of people who know and love Him and He is also moving in the lives of those who do not know Him yet - reaching out to them to bring them to Himself.

*Our neighborhoods are changing.

*In our text an expert in the law comes to Jesus to test Him. He asks Jesus a very important question "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus responds with a question - "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" The lawyer responds using the Old Testament to answer. Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. and Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.

Jesus tells him that he has answered correctly and then instructs him to do this. But the lawyer is looking to justify himself and so asks the question " And who is my neighbour?" So Jesus tells a story.

We ask ourselves the same question. "Who is my neighbor?" Does Jesus mean it includes more than our friends and family and those living in close proximity to us? Does it include those who are suffering in far off places such as Egypt and Syria? 

*The Jews did not like the Samaritans. The Samaritans had willingly chosen to live outside God's directions. Therefore the Jews rejected them. But in our story today a Samaritan comes to the aid of a Jew ( a man who normally would reject all Samaritans )

We are to do as this Samaritan did. We are to go to people who are not like us, people who do not look like us, even to people who believe in false religions. We can show the love of Jesus to all people regardless of background or position in life.

*Everyday we see opportunities to participate in what God is doing all around us. Often we become overwhelmed and do not know where to begin. We feel that the small impact we could make would be but a drop in the bucket of the overwhelming needs of those near and far. This should never stop us from doing a small kindness. We need to respond where and however we can as the opportunities present themselves.

* We need to be careful to not pass by the needs of those close by.

* We are conditioned to be neighborly to certain people, people who are like us but we must begin to step outside of our normal circle of friends and outside of our comfort zone.

*Jesus says to love our enemies.

*Let's stop passing by people who really need our encouragement, people who need a friendly "hello" or "how are you". Remember to always make the next right and loving choice.

*When we do the hard stuff we will experience the love and grace of God in our own lives.

*God is faithful, God is at work!

*We must not stay within our own little bubble - be open to God's leading, and obey His leading!

Dellie - A Friend to All!

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

In this post, I would like to remember a very special person named Dellie. Dellie was a very nice single older lady in the community where I grew up. She was about ten years older than my mother but she was a really good friend to our entire family as well as everyone in the community regardless of ones's age or ethnicity. My earliest memories of Dellie would be of her at around 50 years of age.
 Dellie's life had kind of an odd start. She was born somewhere around 1915 and would celebrate her birthday in February. The woman who would become known as "Mother" to her  found her in a ditch when Dellie was just a very tiny baby, so she had no idea who her birth parents were. Dellie was raised by this elderly woman whom she called Mother. There was also a sister in the family named Chrissie who was about twenty years older than our friend Dellie. I never got to know the Mother or Chrissie though my parents did know them also.
Dellie lived all alone in a very old house that was located on the edge of my parents property. She also had 80 acres of land that was mostly bush. Her property sat right between property that was owned by my parents so she was our closest neighbor. Before Dellie's Mother passed away, the Mother made an agreement with my Dad that Dellie could continue living in that house ( the house was on my parents property) free of charge with no rent or any expense of any kind for 30 years. So the 30 years all passed by and after the time was up Dellie was able to continue living there without ever asking if the 30 year agreemet could be extended. It just was never mentioned.
Dellie was everyone's friend. She didn't have much as far as worldly possessions go but she did have friends. She didn't have hydro electricity in her house for many years but she did always have a telephone. She didn't have a car so she walked to all the neighbors places within two miles in each direction from her house. She had 2 or 3 cows and a few chickens on her little farm. She milked her cows by hand, separated the cream and  would sell cream to the local creamry and that is how she made her living. In the summer she would pick berries ( saskatoons, wild raspberries, currants, chokecherries) in the bush and make fruit preserves. The fruit preserves together with the homemade bread she baked was her main food supply for the winter. I remember our school bus driver would bring out her mail from the post office as well as some groceries and she'd get them right off the school bus. That way she didn't need to get a ride to town.

Dellie was hard working. She would cut and chop a lot of her wood that she needed for the winters. She used a bucksaw to cut the wood. She heated her house with wood and also used wood for cooking her food.
Dellie would come over to our home often for meals and for coffee breaks and snacks. It was so good to have her over and share meals with her. Sometimes she would come for morning coffee and snack, stay for lunch and then stay for afternoon snack. She was such a good friend.

Dellie loved dogs. She had a big German Shepherd dog named Shep. He was so big, I was afraid of him. One day when another neighbor lady walked over to Dellie's for a visit, Shep attacked the lady and she was hospitalized for a time. Shep had to be tied up for safety reasons after this. In later years Dellie got a little black poodle named Benji. Benji was a house dog but one day when he was outdoors for a bit he got away. Benji was lost for some time and we put out advertisements to help Dellie find Benji. One day, many weeks later a phone call came that Benji had been found. So my sister drove out there with Dellie to get Benji back home again.
Since Dellie was really good friends with everyone, she got invited to a lot of homes and places. She would celebrate Christmas with her English friends but then every year she would also get invited to our Ukranian neighbors for their Christmas which was on January 6 and 7. The same with other holidays like Thanksgiving or New Years, Dellie knew she would be invited over to somebody's house for the celebrations.
As I mentioned earlier, Dellie was very poor. She did not have a car until her sister Chrissie's husband passed away and then Chrissie gave their car ( a small pink Rambler)  to Dellie. Dellie did have her drivers license because back in those days you could purchase your license without any test. You simply purchased it as you would a jug of milk today. So when Dellie received this little pink Rambler she was able to get out and about more to visit friends and go to town.
I remember when Dellie turned 65 years of age. As you know, here in Canada seniors receive their pensions from the government beginning at age 65. When Dellie got her first pension cheque, the first thing she did was to buy a pail of ice cream, bring it over to our home and we celebrated together with her. She was so happy that now finally she would have money coming in regularly. Shortly after this, she also got hydro electricity installed in her house and life became easier for her.
I do not know if Dellie ever accepted Christ as her Savior or not. My family witnessed to her on various occasions, and the other Christian neighbors around did also. Dellie would go to Bible coffee with some of the neighbors. My parents brought her to revival services and she was invited to many programs at churches in the area. I remember one time when Dellie got a really bad nosebleed. It just wouldn't stop. We brought her over to our house to help her. My Mom wanted to bring her to the hospital but the hospital refused to take her. So Dellie stayed at our house. My Dad read the entire chapter of John 3 where the way of salvation is clearly explained. Dellie spent the night at our house and we were all so glad when she got well again . She didn't seem to reject the gospel at all and she was always respectful of our family's faith practices.
Dellie passed away several years ago. I have such fond memories of her. I so hope that I will see her in Heaven some day. It would be so good to get together with her and talk again.

My friend Nettie...

In this post I would like to tell you about my friend Nettie. We became friends at school when we were in grade 8.  After finishing grade six at Graysville, I had now moved on to a bigger school in the next town. My friend Kathy stopped coming to our school after grade 7 so the Lord knew what he was doing when He sent Nettie into my life as a school friend. We shared a locker, and were together all the time at school. Together we endured the teasing/bullying of the older boys. I suppose we were teased because of us being Christians -it was then just as it is in today's world Christians are often not popular. Nettie came from a large family with many struggles. So when I got to know her she was living with her foster family. Praise God for all the Christian foster parents out there that open up their homes to children in need.  She would tell me of her time spent on weekends with her Dad and siblings. She knew even as a young teenager how to make homemade bread from scratch which she did whenever she would go home to her Dad and brothers and sisters. She had done it for them so often she didn't even need a recipe anymore. She loved going to church with her foster family. They went to the Pentecostal church. Her faith was real and it challenged me to become real with the Lord in my own faith. She would often talk about how she so was longing to be raptured and to go and be with Jesus. She was a dear friend indeed. As school was drawing to a close for us and we knew we would be parting ways, we made a promise to each other - a very girl-type promise. She promised me that no matter where life would have taken us in our different paths we would remember each other. She promised to invite me to her wedding if she ever got married and I promised her that I would invite her to my wedding if I ever got married. Neither of us were in a relationship with any guy at the time.
As time passed, she moved to the city and I stayed closer to home and got a job at the local nursing home. This was well before the time of texting, or emails so we did not stay in touch. Then one day ( we were in our twenties then) I got a terrible phone call from one of Nettie's sisters. She had been murdered by an x-boyfriend in the city and so Nettie's sister was inviting me to her funeral. That was very shocking. We had promised to invite each other for weddings but now she was gone and I was being invited to her funeral. I honestly cannot remember much beyond that. I know my parents came to the funeral too as they had got to know her as well.
In high school already,  Nettie was waiting for Jesus, but now she was taken way too soon in such a senseless and cruel way. Someday in Heaven, I'll see Nettie again. We'll sit down and talk "friend to friend".