D-O or D-O-N-E?

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
—Luke 10:25

The greatest evidence of your relationship to Jesus Christ is how you treat other people, especially people who are in need. That is the theme of the parable we are going to look at this week.

We will conclude our study of the parables by looking at one of the best-known parables of Jesus. It’s a story we often call the parable of the good Samaritan. But this parable is actually a story within a story. The good Samaritan parable was told to answer a question in a real-life situation. And we see, beginning in Luke 10:25, the occasion that caused Jesus to tell this story.

“A lawyer stood up and put Jesus to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” (Luke 10:25). Now we read this at first glance and say, “Finally a lawyer who has his priorities straight!” He is not concerned with what kind of car he is driving or how many billable hours he can charge his clients. He is thinking about eternal things. But our favorable attitude toward the lawyer is tempered somewhat when we realize that he asked this question in order to test Jesus. You see, in Jesus’ day, lawyers were called “scribes.” They were experts in the Old Testament law. And this lawyer knew that Jesus came with a whole new way of teaching. Jesus was saying, “A person cannot be made right with God by keeping the law. In fact, the law was given to show that we are sinful and in need of a Savior.” And so this lawyer, this scribe, was hoping to trap Jesus into publicly setting aside the Old Testament law, therefore making Him guilty of blasphemy.

He tries to trap Jesus by asking, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” By the way, notice that word “do.” That is the basis of all religions in the world. There are not thousands of religions in the world; there are only two. All the other religions of the world are spelled D-O. Do this or do that and you can have eternal life. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism—they all say, “Do this or do that and you can have eternal life.” Every other religion is spelled D-O. Only Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E. God has already done it for us. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves by sending Christ to die for us.

Nevertheless, we need to give the lawyer a little credit for asking the question, “What must I do to have eternal life?” How many people have ever come up to you on the street and said, “Tell me, what do I need to do to be saved?” How many people in your sphere of influence, your friends or family members who are lost, have ever said to you, “Please tell me what I need to do to be saved.” Most people don’t ask that question because most people don’t understand that they need to be saved. Most people are not pursuing salvation today because they have no understanding that they are lost. All of us are sinners, from the president to the prostitute. Every one of us is guilty before God. Every one of us has fallen short of God’s plan for our life.

Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, not even one.” We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (v. 23). We each have to ask the question: what must I do to be saved?

***
Today’s devotion is excerpted from “A Lesson in Workman’s Compensation” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

 

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