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[ Silence ] on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money,

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and beat him up, and left him lying half-dead beside the road. By chance, a Jewish priest came along, And when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.

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A Jewish temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went home. But a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them.

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Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn where he nursed him through the night. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two twenty dollar bills

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and told him to take care of the man. "If his bill runs higher than that," he said, I'll pay the difference the next time I am here. Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the bandit's victim?

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The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same." Read from the Living Bible paraphrase, Gospel according to Luke, the 10th chapter, the 30th through the 37th verses.

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hymn of consecration, congregational hymn number 426, 426, "O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee." May we stand as we sing all stanzas of this hymn. [ Music ] Oh, Master, let me walk with thee in holy boughs of heavenly spring.

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♪ Tell me thy secret, heavy bear ♪ ♪ The train of thought, the thread of care ♪ ♪ Tell me the song of heart to move ♪ ♪ My son, give me ♪

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♪ Inferno gold ♪ ♪ Teach me thy way ♪ ♪ For day to stay ♪ ♪ And I give thee ♪

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♪ The hope of day ♪ ♪ Between the pages still we'll read ♪ ♪ In those sad years ♪ ♪ The dawn would be ♪

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♪ In words like these ♪ ♪ They're sweet and soft ♪ ♪ We've found the quiet corner of the road ♪ ♪ We've overtaken the shining ray ♪

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♪ More than the future's blocking eyes ♪ ♪ God be praised ♪ ♪ In Israel ♪ ♪ Their God and King ♪

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♪ Will be ♪ ♪ All Eschach and Zech ♪ ♪ Be ♪ ♪ Amen ♪

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- Lord God, our Father, we would walk with you in the pilgrimage of life. Feed us on thy word that we may have strength for the journey. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Three ways to walk on the same road. Three ways to walk.

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on the same road. The basis of this message is on a story that Jesus told in the long ago of a traveler

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on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a very hazardous journey, journey fraught with danger, uncertainties.

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It was a winding road, a rather narrow way. It was a road that was dangerous because it provided many places and opportunities where bandits could hide and suddenly attack the travelers.

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This experience which comes to the man who is traveling on this road, is one which well illustrates what happens in the course of our lives. This traveler is attacked by thieves, by robbers, who not only take his property, they not only take all of the money that he has, but they take the clothes that he wears. He is stripped of his clothing. He is left on the road beaten, bruised,

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bleeding and naked. This story illustrates what happens to the family of mankind. We are on a pilgrimage, And in the course of the pilgrimage, the human family has been attacked by forces of oppression,

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Forces that have mutilated the person. Forces that not only have done damage to our being, but forces that have left us half dead. Because that image in which we were created has been been mawed by sin and we find ourselves being the victims of forces that set on our destruction. When ministers preached this sermon years ago, this particular text, there were those

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who pointed out the fact that there were at least several attitudes. They're all on the same road. The bandit, the bandits that attacked and robbed this man on the road, these travelers on the road. There comes a priest, he's on the same road. A Levite on the same road. And then a Samaritan, all on the same road. The significant thing is while they're all

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walking in the same way. It is the way that they walk upon that road. All of us are in the midst of human existence. All of us have life. All of us have opportunities. But the difference is the way in which we make use of these opportunities and how we use our lives. So there are three ways that we may walk upon this road, the same road, three ways. We may

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walk in the way of the bandits. The bandits who robbed this man have this way of walking upon the road, for they look at this man as a victim to be exploited. They see this man as an object of exploitation. When they look at him, they see this man,

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and they think, "Well, what has he got that I can get?" The older ministers used to say that it was the attitude of, "What is thine is mine," to exploit. This is a way of walking on this road.

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We can walk on this road. We can walk in life in such a way that we only look at people in terms of what they can do for us and what we can get out of them.

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What advantage one can take of them. this is what has happened not only to the human family, but this is what has happened to us as we consider the story of the black experience.

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On this road from Jerusalem to Jericho, we have been overtaken by ruthless imperialistic forces. In Africa, our homeland was taken from us and exploited. We were robbed of our freedom.

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We were brought to this country. We were disfranchised. We were called nobodies. We were beaten and left on the road to die.

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And while this is the story of our experience as a people, it's the story of our experience as far as the human race is concerned, it's also the story of each individual for on the the road of life. We are overtaken by oppressive forces. There are robbers on the road. There are those who seek to take our most precious possessions. Now

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those forces in life that would rob us and keep us from being ourselves. In In other words, God made each one of us to be an individual. There's something unique. There's something peculiar.

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There's something precious in a very special way about every one of us. And God wants us to be that person that he has made us to be.

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And yet, there are forces on this road that would exploit us and forces that would mutilate our personalities and keep us from being that unique person that God intends for us to be. Robbers on this road care not about what happens to other people.

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They just want what they want when they want it and they don't care who it hurts. They kills or cripples, robbers on the road, robbers who work on jobs for what they can get rather than what they can give, robbers on this road, robbers who seek only the paycheck, robbers who see people as only dollar signs, robbers on the road

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who some even, you know, you can be in the church and walk on this road. You know, there are three ways you can, you can give your name and have it on the road and somehow walk on this road as a robber. You know, those who become members only from the standpoint of what they can get out of it. and not what they can give. Robbers who talk about what should be done for them

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rather than what they should do for others. They're those who are robbers on this road and and somehow they are robbers because they seek to make others they're victims. They seek to exploit others and they look upon them as means for their own self-aggrandizement. The robber on the road doesn't care about people. He only thinks of them as means and not as ends. Robbers on this road.

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Now this band of bandits leave this traveler wounded and naked, half dead on the road, and there comes a priest that way. Oh, he's walking on the same road. He sees the wounded traveler at a distance.

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See the priest is on his way home. He's been to the temple in Jerusalem. He's participated in the services there, and now he's on his way home. And as he walks down the road, he sees this man in the distance, lying there on the road.

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He hears his agonizing groans. No doubt he sees the blood, but he is on the other side. He stays on the other side of the street. And he just looks over that way.

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And he passes on. After all, he's a priest. And he has, he has to get home. He's in a hurry. He, he doesn't want to,

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to stop because it might mean that if he were to stop and to help that man, that his hands would get bloody. And if his hands became bloody, it would mean that he would have to go through some cleansing rites, because there were certain laws regarding the priest defiling himself by touching one who

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was in such a condition, a man who probably was dead. He didn't know, and he didn't want to find out. So he just stayed on the other side. We don't want to get too close to the problem. Another who's in the same category, so to speak, he's an assistant to the priest, a Levite who comes that way and

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he sees the man also, but he decides to at least go over there and take a good look and analyze the situation, see how serious the man is hurt. But just look and then he too crosses over on the other side keeps on going. I don't know whether this could be the preacher today, it could be the deacon today, it could

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be any member of the church. Somehow seeing human situation, the human situation, seeing it, you know sometimes you have a critical need and we just don't have time. We are in a hurry, just don't have time. Caught up somehow in ritualism and all of the ritualism in which the priest is engaged. Oh he had gone through

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all of the ritualistic service in the temple that's supposed to be concerned with man and God, but when he meets a person in need, he passes by. And here the assistant to the priest, the Levite does likewise.

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Have you ever seen a situation where people come and they want to find out what your problem is? And they ask you question after question and they finally get everything.

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They get a close view of the situation And then they go on away without doing anything about it. They just want to know. He just wanted to see what was there,

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what the situation was, but he passes by on the other side. And this way of walking on the road is to consider the challenging problem

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where people are hurting, to look upon those situations, to look upon people when they are really in a crisis situation, to look upon that somehow as a nuisance to be evaded. That's that way of walking on that road.

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Or you can do that, you can be a school teacher. And all that you may want is to have just the brilliant youngsters. Give me the brilliant ones, you know. When we're passing them out, when we're sorting them out, I want to get in here, some teachers

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just want to get in there and take out the good ones. And if they knew that this one was a problem, and if you got in late to make your selection, you got all those problems. And that's the way some people are in life.

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We'd like to get rid of all the problems and somehow these are nuisances to be evaded. All of the problems, the problems in life, somehow if a person has a problem, well just push that one aside. I'd like to evade that.

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I don't want to get bothered with the problem. And so this is the attitude of the priest and the Levite. people hurting, people crying out in need somehow, that we'll just pass by on the other side,

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we'll look and we'll go on. Lucency to be evaded. I remember once we were having a revival and there was one person that we were considering

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prospect when I was pastoring years ago and we were discussing this person and this one of the members said our brother pastor that may be a good member for some other church but not for our church. In other words we only want the prize pickings we but but but somehow the

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The concern here is that here is a man that's hurting. Here's a man left half dead. Then there comes another along there. He's not a Jew, he's a Samaritan.

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The man who's hurt is a Jew. Jews hated Samaritans. So the Samaritan had every reason, so to speak, according to the social practices of that day.

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He had every reason to pass by on the other side. But here he comes to the man, he comes where he is. He gets off of the donkey, so to speak,

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on which he's riding, and he bends down and lifts him up, having anointed him with oil and poured wine, gave him wine, anointed his wounds with oil and wine, and then took him to an inn. Having done this, he nurses him through the night,

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And this man embraces another way of life, and that is he sees this man as a neighbor to be helped. A neighbor to be helped. All on the same road. Some walk on that road seeing people as victims to be exploited. I just walk on that road looking upon this person as a nuisance to be evaded.

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Here's another who sees this man as a neighbor to be helped. I think Ebenezer needs to look at how we're walking on this road. How are we walking on this road? How, how, after it's all said and done, it's not, it's not how many of us were here at

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service this morning, and that's, that's nice. It's not how well the sermon is delivered, and that's good. It's not so much how well the singing is, and that's all wonderful, but still more important is that is what are we doing to help people?

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And what's our relationship to people where people are hurting? It's not enough. We can somehow, we can somehow become a kind of mutual admiration society. We can just come here each week and we can shake hands with one another and talk about

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what happened, you know, from one Sunday to the other and what's happening on our jobs and have a jolly good time and go home. Somehow God is looking at how we walk on this road in terms of human helpfulness, how we are helping others.

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Somehow the one who comes on that road is one who is despised and rejected of men. There's one who comes on that road that somehow has met every one of us because every one of us in some way has been on that road. Every one of us somehow we have been beaten.

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Our spirits have been crushed. We've been disappointed. We've been oppressed. It's all happened as we walk on that road.

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But somehow as we have walked on that road, there has come one who is despised and rejected, but he has come to us. And he has lifted us up. He lifted up our spirits and enabled us to somehow have a new hope, a new sense of being.

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Because even though our spirits have been wounded, that he's given us the oil of grace. Somehow though your spirit is wounded by the disappointments in life, by the uncertainties that we face, somehow by the sorrows that come. And we find our spirits wounded, but the one who comes on that road anoints our souls with

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all of his grace and gives healing no matter what happens. And even in the midst of the bitter experiences of life, that we're able to accept him. And that's what it really means. That's the gospel of the resurrection.

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He is a man crushed, knocked down, left for dead, but there comes one who raises him up And he has a new spirit and he goes on. He goes on somehow because the one who raises him up goes with him.

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He walks that the man might ride. That's what that stranger from Galilee does. He comes all the way from glory to walk these streets, so to speak, this sin-cursed world.

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And he comes, and as he comes, he lifts up men, and he lifts us up by his spirit and by his redeeming grace. We walk with him. He picks us up.

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That's why we're here today. Somewhere along the way, God picked us up. He picked us up and gave us a new lease on life. Our lives would have had no meaning, no significance at all.

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But somehow, he picks us up, puts us on his beast. And he sort of nurses us. God sort of, through Jesus Christ, nurses us through the night.

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Through our nighttime experiences, he nurses us. And then, you see, he takes him to an inn and he leaves him there, gives the innkeeper two $20 bills and leaves him there.

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And he says, now, whatever else he may need, you take care of him. If there's any more, I'll pay it when I come back by here. Take care of it.

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Be an innkeeper. Take care of it. We're innkeepers. That's our job.

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This is an inn. Ebenezer's an innkeeper. We are innkeepers here at Ebenezer. It's an inn along the way.

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It's a way station for weary travelers. It's a way station for wounded pilgrims of the way, For those who've been cast down in spirit, this is a way station.

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And there, there comes a voice from one who is the Lord of all saying, take care. Take care of him. Take care of him.

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Lift him up. Let him ride on your beast if necessary. Anoint his spirit with the oil of grace and the wine of my spirit.

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Take care of him. Take care of him. And whatever you need, whatever the cost may be, whatever the cost is, I'll pay it. Well, this way of walking, whether these three ways are on the same road,

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the real difference is that those who considered the man as a victim to be exploited, Those who consider the man a nuisance to be evaded, those who really miss the point, but the one who walked along this way and considers him as a neighbor to be helped, this is the one that portrays the spirit of Jesus Christ. And this is the redemptive spirit. This is the spirit that somehow not only redeems us, but it's the spirit that redeems the world.

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And you see, Jesus somehow pays the cost. He pays it all. He has compassion no matter where you go and what has happened to you. You may come this morning with a spirit that's bruised and somehow you've been beaten and

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left down on the road, but somehow Jesus comes and with compassion he's paying the cost, whatever it costs, to restore. Jesus pays it. He pays it all.

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He pays it all to lift us from the depths of degradation and to place us on the mountaintop of hope and holiness. He pays the price. Jesus pays it all.

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All to him I owe. Oh, that wounded traveler, I'm sure he could never forget that day. He could never forget that day when he was picked up

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and when he was restored. He couldn't forget that day. There was something sacred about that experience. He couldn't forget it because he was

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befriended by one who snatched him from the jaws of death. Jesus paid it all. So whatever may be the price that is necessary, he provides us with the strength.

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He pays the bill, so to speak. It's his spirit within us that enables us to overcome. And as the choir leads us in singing that hymn, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

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We invite you to accept him as Lord of your life For the question comes this morning, how are you walking on this road? How do you view life? Are you looking at life as just an opportunity of exploitation,

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an opportunity to evade or avoid difficult problems, either an opportunity of helpfulness for others? How are you walking on that road? The call comes now to walk in that straight and narrow path.

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to walk in the steps of the Master, the Good Samaritan. Jesus paid it all. ♪ I hear ♪ ♪ The Savior ♪

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- Those in the church are open. ♪ As breath ♪ ♪ In need is small ♪ ♪ Shall I witness ♪

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♪ Goodness ♪ ♪ What can break ♪ ♪ The bitter beat ♪ ♪ I know ♪

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♪ In all ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ And lift the praises ♪ ♪ Still the same ♪

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♪ He was ♪ ♪ Still white as snow ♪ ♪ Lord, now ♪ Indeed, I find

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Thy power and thine alone ♪ Can change the leper's spots ♪ ♪ And melt the heart of stone ♪ ♪ For nothing good have I ♪

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♪ Whereby thy grace to claim ♪ ♪ I'll wash my face ♪ ♪ Thy garments white ♪ ♪ In the blood of Calvary's Lamb ♪

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♪ Jesus, reigneth now ♪ ♪ God's reign is done ♪ ♪ All to thee I owe ♪ ♪ Still and now the Prince of Spain ♪

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♪ The grains of steel ♪ ♪ Be washed ♪ ♪ In white ♪ ♪ As snow ♪

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snow. [ Silence ]