Luke 10:25-29
You Can’t Get There from Here
This passage has caused confusion for many sincere Bible believers.
The man comes with a great question. It is the question that every
human being needs to ask and answer very early in life. The man then
answered his own question and the answer he gave was a good one—it
just did not apply to him. I will explain why, but look at his
answer.
Luke 10:27 …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.
There is no reference to sin, no reference to faith, and no reference
to repentance. Yet Jesus said
Luke 10:28 And he said unto him, Thou hast
answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
How can this be? Let us consider it this morning with three
thoughts.
I. A Perfect Man Doesn’t Need Salvation
A. Let me just jump directly to the truth you need to start
understanding what this passage is about.
1. The man’s answer is the perfect man’s way to go to heaven.
a. The perfect does not need to repent of sins.
b. The perfect does not need to trust what Jesus did on
the cross.
c. The perfect does not need to do these things because
the perfect man would also be the sinless man.
2. I am not saying that is man thought he was perfect,
because I do not know his heart.
a. But he was approaching salvation from the prospective
that he was GOOD ENOUGH to EARN it.
b. So all the perfect man needs to do is to love God with
all of his heart, mind, and soul, and love others as
himself.
B. The problem was neither this man nor any other is perfect.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none
righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is
none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are
together become unprofitable; there is none that
doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short
of the glory of God;
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
1. This is God describing man and God called all sinners.
2. He goes on to state that we do not understand God nor
seek after Him.
3. For those people, merely loving God is not sufficient.
C. Why not?
1. Because sinful people cannot love God with ALL of their
heart, soul, and mind.
2. Most people misquote Jesus’ statement. \\#Deut 6:5\\
a. They say that Jesus said, "To inherit eternal life,
you must love God and your neighbor."
b. That is not what Jesus said.
c. He said you must love God with ALL of your heart,
soul, and mind.
d. God said sinful man neither understands, not seeks,
nor does the right things.
3. Sinful man is not even capable of loving other people with
all of their heart, soul, and mind.
a. We cannot even love our families with all of our heart,
soul, and mind.
(1) More than half of the marriages in the US end in
a divorce.
(2) Children OFTEN rebel against their parents.
(3) Parents OFTEN abuse or even abandon their own
children.
(4) And as for our fellow man, the world is filled
with hate.
b. No. The Bible is correct. Man is not capable of even
seeking after God on His own, let alone loving God
with all of his heart, soul, and mind.
D. A perfect man does not need salvation. He can just love God
and others, but none of us are perfect—and neither was this
man.
E. Then why didn’t Jesus correct the man?
II. An arrogant man will not be taught about salvation.
A. We have looked at the command now let’s look at the man.
Luke 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood
up, and tempted him…
1. He was not sincere when he came to Jesus but tempting Him.
a. The Bible reveals that he entered this conversation
not to learn the truth but to find a fault with Jesus.
b. He was tempting Jesus, trying to find some reason NOT
to trust Jesus as his Savior.
c. That is the way a specific group of people approach
Jesus, the arrogant.
2. \\#25\\ He was a lawyer.
a. That is not civil attorney but a student of the Old
Testament law.
b. That might not mean much to you but the remainder of
the gospels tell us plainly that most of the
religious people in Israel wanted to find a reason
to kill Jesus.
c. This man was probably of that crowd, a Pharisee, or
scribe, or Sadducee.
B. We can speculate on some addition thoughts:
1. Probably, the man was lost.
a. By lost, I mean he was separated from God by his sin as
all human being are born. The condition that Romans
3 (above) described.
b. Not only was he lost, he probably had no thought of
ever listening to Jesus.
2. Probably, the man had developed his own self-righteous
philosophy.
a. Self-righteous means they believe they have it all
figured out and somehow, they will be okay.
b. Do you know the top two reasons most people will go to
hell for eternity?
(1) They are too ignorant to get saved.
(2) They are too self-righteous to learn how to be
saved.
3. Probably, the man was more interested in debating than in
learning.
a. Debating and arguing is not the same thing as
listening and learning.
b. Jesus never argued and debated.
C. This might be hard for some to understand, but more times than
not, when Jesus meet these types of people, He left them still
lost.
1. Jesus left the blind in heart blind.
John 9:39…Are we blind also?
41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye
should have no sin: but now ye say, We see;
therefore your sin remaineth.
2. Jesus left the know-it-alls without knowledge.
Matt 13:10 And the disciples came, and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in
parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because
they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not,
neither do they understand.
3. Jesus taught His disciples not to try to help some people.
Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the
dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet, and turn
again and rend you.
D. There is a warning and lesson here to those who think they
know it all!
1. Because of where they started, they could not get to where
Jesus wanted them to be.
2. If you are determined to go to hell, God will let you.
E. So why didn’t Jesus correct the man? The arrogant will not be
taught.
III. A humble man can receive salvation.
A. Yet, Jesus dealt with this man as far as the man was willing
to be dealt with.
1. Jesus knew the man’s heart and the reason he had come.
2. The very fact that the man thought he could lay a trap for
Jesus meant he thought he knew more than Jesus.
3. Since the lawyer thought he knew more than Jesus, Jesus
let the man do the teaching.
Luke 10:26 He said unto him, What is written
in the law? how readest thou?
a. The man’s field of expertise was the law, so Jesus
asked his opinion.
b. \\#27\\ His answers were sound—for a perfect person.
a. Love God perfectly.
b. Love man perfectly.
B. Jesus did not argue or debate with this man. Jesus never did!
1. Jesus did not argue with the woman at the well (John 4).
2. Jesus did not argue with the men who brought the
adulterous woman (John 8).
3. Jesus let people listen as long as they were willing.
a. Even when they turned the conversation, Jesus
continued to teach (John 4).
b. But when they stopped listening, Jesus stopped
teaching.
c. Remember the rich, young ruler.
Matt 19:22 But when the young man heard that
saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had
great possessions.
d. Jesus did not argue, try to stop the man from leaving,
or run after him.
C. \\#29\\ Notice that something started to happen to this man.
Luke 10:29 But he, willing to justify himself…
1. A person justifies himself when he feels there is a need,
when he knows that something he has said or done was not
right.
2. Something happened to make this man realize that he had
not lived up to his own statement concerning salvation.
a. Have you ever said something and while the words were
coming out of your mouth, you realized how foolish
they made you look?
b. This man now felt that he must excuse or explain why
He had failed in even living up to his own believes
about salvation.
c. I think the convicting Holy Spirit of God just showed
up!
3. What was happening to this lawyer was the same thing that
happened to the woman at the well and the men who brought
the adulterous woman to Jesus.
a. Conviction was kicking in and he was close to
salvation.
(1) Why had he come? To tempt (trap) Jesus!
(2) Is that loving your neighbor as yourself?
b. But instead of allowing conviction to bring him to
Christ he decided to justify himself.
c. His explanation would have been, "I have reasons for
not loving my neighbors."
d. If pushed hard enough, he would have had reasons for
not loving God too.
e. What he needed was the humility to say, "I don’t love
others as I should. I don’t love God like I should.
I can’t. So what do I do?
That’s when we give them our answer. Repent of your sin and trust
Jesus Christ. That simple act of repentance and faith will produce
the miracle of the new birth. I pray you will let it do so in your
life today.
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