I’ll put this on the screen just to remind you where we’ve been and where we’re going. The framework that the Barefoot Disciple uses is five habits that he works through. Each habit has a different number of steps in it for you to think through. In fact, the first two habits which we’ve already done both only have one step. There are 10 steps all up. So you can see we’re going to start picking up some pace through the book as we go through the rest of the chapters. We’re going to cover them all in just two sermons. So, two sermons for two steps, two sermons for the remaining eight steps. The book moves less away from theology and more into practice. So, as we go through the sermons, we felt like it was helpful to slow down at the start and speed up towards the end. So, we’re going to look at habit three, spending missionally.
We said this two weeks ago, but if you read the book, most people’s experience has been the first two chapters are the most difficult for people to align with. It feels a bit like the author takes a bit of a sledgehammer to your life in the first two chapters. In the first chapter, he says, “I suspect you’re probably living in more luxury than you should, and you’re living with more wealth than you should, and maybe you should think about that.” In the second chapter, giving habitually says, “And just start giving something away.” Most people wrestle with that a fair bit. As he goes on, we start to see more creative ideas on how to do that, more nuance in unpacking what that might look like. The same thing is true as we unpack this ourselves, moving through it. But also, we want to bring ourselves constantly back to the Bible and find that as our platform before we move into practice.
We’re going to look at this story of the good Samaritan this morning, which isn’t typically a story you think about for talking about money. Jesus gives many parables directly and only about money. This has some components in it, but it’s not entirely that. But I think it is helpful for us to think about what it looks like to spend missionally—to spend and use our money on mission for God. As we think about the mission that we see in this story, one of the challenges of the story of the good Samaritan is that it’s an extremely well-known, maybe one of the best-known parables that Jesus tells. But one of the challenges with it is that this story says nothing of what it seems to say. It says nothing of what it seems to say, but also like Jesus’ parables often do, it also at the same time says everything that it seemed to have said. Does that make sense? No. Good. Work through it with me.
This story says nothing of what it seems to say, but also like Jesus’ parables often do, it also at the same time says everything that it seemed to have said.
The Parable Says Nothing Of What It Seems To Say
This parable says nothing of what it seems to say because what it seems to say is just this story about you needing to do good to others and that’s how you will please God. That is not what it says. That’s not what it’s saying is the way that you’re going to find your right place before God. We get clues that it doesn’t say that right from the beginning.
The Wrong Question
First thing we get is the wrong question. This man, we’re told he’s an expert in the religious law, so he’s a religious lawyer. This lawyer comes to Jesus and he asks the wrong question. He asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We know that’s the wrong question because every time someone asks that question to Jesus, he challenges that idea of what must I do to inherit eternal life. Every time he’s challenging that idea. When the disciples say, “Who then can be saved?” Matthew tells us in Matthew 19, he says that Jesus replies, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. It’s impossible for us to do anything to be saved.”
Or John tells us that Jesus gives this illustration of the vine and the branches connected. He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” And then he says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Or another time in John, earlier in John, people are asking him what they need to do and he says, “This is the only work God wants you to do.” This is John chapter 5. “Believe in the one he has sent me.” So the only thing you need to do is not a doing at all. It’s a believing thing. We know it’s the wrong question straight away when he says, “What must I do?” If it’s not our biblical knowledge that gives us that, Luke tells us. He gives us the hint. He says he said it to test Jesus. So he asks the wrong question.
The Wrong Answer
He gives the wrong answer. Jesus turns it back onto him and says, “What does the law say?” And he gives the wrong answer. He gives this great phrase. He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Such a beautifully succinct summary of the law from this lawyer. But we know it’s the wrong question, a wrong answer because what he describes here is perfectly impossible. In fact, you can’t hear the sarcasm in Jesus’ words because they’re written for us. But Jesus responds to that saying, “Right, do this and you’ll live.” He says, “Right, okay, good answer. You want to get eternal life, just do those things. Just love God perfectly. Easy, right? Just your whole heart. Don’t allow anything else ever to come in your heart. Never get in the way between you and God. Just perfectly love God with every part of your heart. But not just that, also just love God eternally with every part of your soul, your spiritual being. Make sure that is also perfectly in align with God. But not just that, let’s also make sure that you entirely love God with your strength. Everything you do all the time, just make sure that’s consistent with God. Or just completely love God with your whole mind. Never let your mind stray to anything but the purposes of God and his glory and his goodness. You’re right. You’re right. That is the right answer. You want to get eternal life. If there’s something you can do to get eternal life, that’s it.”
The answer is it is perfectly impossible. It reminds me of the great freedom speech from Braveheart where William Wallace says to them, “Will you fight?” And they reply, “No, we will run and we will live.” And William Wallace says, “Fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live, at least for a while.” That’s the picture we get. Sure, Jesus says, “Right, do it and you’ll live,” but there’s a caveat to that, right? It’s not going to be possible for you to do that. So, he’s got the wrong question. He’s got the wrong answer.
The Wrong Attitude
He’s got the wrong attitude. He turns it and he says, “Well, explain it to me then. Who is my neighbor?” Once again, Luke gives us the hint. Luke says he’s trying to justify his actions. Here, I think we perfectly diagnose something that we do ourselves and we often see in our world around us. That is trying to set up the standards by which we want God to judge us. Trying to say, “Okay, I can’t do that. That’s perfectly impossible. Unless… unless I reshape what it means to love God. Unless I reshape what it means to love my neighbor or maybe who is my neighbor.”
I think we see this all the time. The idea that people say it’s not fair that God judges me by some kind of ancient law that he set up. It’s not fair that God judges me by what he thinks I should do and how he thinks I should live my life. A loving God surely will judge me according to my authenticity and my intentions. I think on one level we would resonate with some of that. Of course God will judge us on our authenticity. We’re told that God judges the heart. We’re told that God knows our true intentions and what we desire in our deepest pit of our heart. So, of course, but of course, unless our intentions are to remove God from the picture, unless we’re authentically removing God out and saying, “Well, let me define the rules,” or unless we are redefining God, authentically intentioned redefining of a God that we think he should be and how we think he should govern this world and how we think we should live up to that. Or if we’re redefining what good is, what we think is the right way to do things and how we think the ideal way to align ourselves. Or we’re redefining love to match the desires that we have and what we want to love. And surely a God of love can appreciate that we love these things, not necessarily the things he’s told us to love and how to love.
I think it perfectly diagnoses what happens all the time, which is sure, there’s this idea that God wants us to be committed to him and kind to others, but if we can redefine what committed to him and kind to others looks like, we’ll be fine. So, he has the wrong attitude. It’s the wrong question, wrong answer, wrong attitude.
The Wrong Person
But I think the key to this passage is it’s the wrong person. There’s a shift that happens in this passage. The shift happens with the question, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus asks a similar question at the end. In Luke 10:29, the lawyer says, “Who is my neighbor?” At the end, verse 36, Jesus says, “Who is this man’s neighbor?” You see what’s happened there? There’s been a shift in the subject of who the question is about. Jesus wants the lawyer to identify with the beaten man. He’s had the wrong person because he in this story is not the savior coming to heal a guy on the side of the road. He in this story is the man beaten, dying, left for dead. Jesus is the savior that has perfectly crossed cultural boundaries, that has used his resources, his power. He’s the one that has brought salvation. We are the ones beaten on the road.
At first reading of this story, it actually says nothing of what it seems to say because at that level, it’s not a story about going and helping people on the side of the road. It’s a story about being helpless and needing one to help us. We’re the ones who the priest and the temple helper, who’s only interested in their own roles and responsibilities, walk by and can do nothing to save us. This is a story where if we miss the point, we’re looking at the wrong person. In that sense, the story says nothing of what it seems to say.
He in this story is not the savior coming to heal a guy on the side of the road. He in this story is the man beaten, dying, left for dead. Jesus is the savior that has perfectly crossed cultural boundaries, that has used his resources, his power. He’s the one that has brought salvation.
The Parable Says Everything It Seems To Say
And yet at the same time, like most of Jesus’ parables, it also says everything that it seems it said. The key there is in verse 37, the last thing we read, Jesus says, “Go and do the same.” The opening question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer is there’s nothing you can do. Jesus is the savior who is the one that will bring the redemption to the one that is helpless on the side of the road. But now that we’ve established that we are the one beaten on the side of the road, we are also called to be the one who is giving our all to God. We are called to be one that while we can’t perfectly do it, we should be seeking to give our heart, soul, strength, and mind to God. As we think and bring this back to the topic of finances and resources and investments, that is the reality that we’re called to do. That every part of us is called to serve God.
Managers, Not Owners
I used this illustration from the Barefoot Disciple two weeks ago, but he draws an analogy between owners and managers. The idea being that God is the owner. He owns everything and he has given us resources that we are really managers. The difference between an owner and a manager: an owner gets to decide what happens with all the resources. The manager gets assigned a portion to pay his wage, to provide for him. But if there’s an excess of resources, if there’s a cash flow excess, if the business does better than expected, the owner gets to decide what happens with that excess, not the manager. The manager still just gets his wage. The trouble is when we often come to the idea of what God has given us, we come to it with the idea much more like an owner than a manager. That is, if we come into excess resources, we suddenly then turn them around as things that we can use on ourselves. That’s what an owner does, not what a manager does. There’s a mind shift there to say if there is excess in my life, what should I do with that? And how can I be faithful with that?
The model that Barefoot Disciple pushes forward is that we live simply so others can simply live. We live on minimal so we can maximize our impact for the kingdom. Whatever that looks like for you, the call is for you to work that out between you and God. But figuring out that if you’ve worked out what living on minimum is, if you come into a place where you have excess, then that would not be the minimum you work on, that would be something that you give to God.
Breaking Worldly Identities
One of the great things and strategies of the book Barefoot Disciple is at the end of each chapter, he gives scenarios, responses someone might give, little questions someone might ask, and then he gives a response to it. For example, on this topic of saying if you come into excess maybe you should give it away, he says the classic response from people are things like, “But I worked hard for that. I worked hard. I studied hard to get a degree that allows me to earn more money. I deserve more money than this other person who doesn’t have that degree and didn’t do that.” Or, “I worked hard for that commission that I got on that sale that allowed me to have this extra money. I deserve that extra money. I worked hard on that and I deserve it.” Or, “I worked hard this year on the promotion that the boss recognized my hard work and gave me more money. I deserve that extra money more than that other person who didn’t get that and doesn’t have those resources.”
There’s a real challenge there on thinking about that. If we are doing everything in our lives giving our all to God, which means even our working hard is for the glory of him and not for humans, then even that hard work is something that should be going towards God. There’s a real challenge that we have just gained the expectation we deserve that because that’s what society has told us. The Barefoot Disciple uses a really simple illustration that I think is helpful, maybe because it’s very pointed at me. But he uses the illustration of a minister. It says imagine you applied that same scenario to a minister and you said he gets more money if the church grows bigger or he gets more money, he gets a commission based on converts in the year, and he gets money based on attendance. Now to be fair, I think unhelpfully there have been ministers in the world that operate that kind of way. I think rightfully so you should be uncomfortable with that kind of thinking. That is not how our system works. By the way, we have set wages for our ministry team and we don’t get more or less based on how well we did at an event or at our attendance over the year. That is to say, no matter how much harder our ministry team work in a year, there isn’t more money that comes in for that. I think rightfully so, you should be uncomfortable if that was the way it is. The question is, if that makes us uncomfortable, why are we comfortable that in a secular place we are free to earn the extra for our extra hard work?
We have been taught things about a consumer world that we live in that we have just accepted and received and live by those same standards. We need to be careful of that. If we’re the one who’s called to give our all to God, then we need to break from the worldly identities that we often connect with. Worldly identities like the success identity, that I am someone significant because I’ve seen success in my life or I am successful or I’m doing successful things. Often that’s tied to our finances. We want to spend money in a way that shows our success. When someone walks into our house and feels like this is a house that a successful person has earned. Our car, the way we dress, the way we present ourselves. There’s an idol of success.
There’s an idol of control, that we want to be the authors of our own destiny. I think the more money people have, the more this is a temptation to believe the lie that they now have full control of their life. The reality is finances does give you some control over certain things in your life and there are other things in our life that we will have no control over. There’s the parable of the rich fool that Jesus tells that he has so much success in his life, he just keeps building bigger barns, builds the third biggest barn that he builds, and then that night we’re told he dies. No matter how much he had and how much he thought he had controlled his life, he actually wasn’t the author of his own destiny. But we believe this lie about ourselves that we can protect ourselves from all things if we just save up enough money, if we just have enough income.
Or the identity of consumerism, consumerism itself. That idea that we deserve it, that we want that extra item of luxury, that we want to follow that trend, that we need the latest of something that is coming out, the latest phone. We’re told that our old devices are not adequate for what we need. We buy into this sort of thing. We need to work harder, we need to earn more so that we can buy more. In fact, we talk about the idea that we do that so much that we end up starting to try to buy back time. We’ll pay someone else to do things for us so that we can have more time because we’ve spent so much time trying to earn the money to pay that person to do things for us. We have this consumer cycle. In the Barefoot Disciple, there’s a whole chapter he calls “Getting Off the Consumer Treadmill.” It is that idea that we get caught up in this.
Breaking The Consumer Cycle
Here’s some practical thoughts on breaking that consumer cycle. One of them Barefoot Disciple suggests what he calls the barefoot tax. That is every time you decide to spend over and above a luxury item on yourself, you pay the barefoot tax and you give the same amount of money away in order to break a consumer cycle to say, “I think I need this or maybe I just want this. Fine. But you need to save up twice the money now for that so that you can also be generous in that moment that you seek luxury.”
He talks about the idea of just thinking about giving away bonuses, giving away excess that we might gain that wasn’t budgeted, that wasn’t what we thought we would need outside of what we decided we needed. We get that. He’s saying consider giving it all away. If you want to break a consumer identity, then give that away. Not just bonuses. We might get things like more back on tax or maybe even you haven’t put your tax in your budget at all. It’s just bonus money that you see coming back and he’s saying, “Well, then be generous with that.” Maybe it is a bonus that comes from work. Maybe it’s actually a savings that you made. A windfall you had on a sale that something and you saved more money than you expected still gives you excess to what you thought you were going to have and what you needed. You might give that away.
We should be thinking about what we buy. We should also be thinking about where we buy it and think about how we might have the most social and spiritual impact with every part of our life.
The model that Barefoot Disciple pushes forward is that we live simply so others can simply live. We live on minimal so we can maximize our impact for the kingdom.
Invested In Mercy
Because not only are you the one who’s called to give your all to God, you’re also the one who’s called to be invested in mercy. That’s the picture we get here. That is what we’re called to do. There’s a social media experiment that’s been going around at the moment. I don’t know if you’ve seen it on social media. A woman in the States has been calling churches pretending that she has a crying baby sound in the background, pretending that she’s got a crying baby. She says on the phone to the church, “My baby hasn’t eaten for 24 hours. I need some formula. Can you help me out?” She has just been putting up the responses of churches to her. There have been appalling, terrible responses from churches to her and not only in the videos but even worse I think is some of the responses that have happened on the following Sunday that they have live-streamed some of the things they’ve said. Some of them just I think really shameful of how churches responded. Some of them saying she obviously had this baby out of wedlock if she doesn’t have the resources and so she doesn’t need money from the church, that sort of thing. I think it’s terrible.
I have two minds of the whole social experiment. One of them is that we live in this strange space of really creative, inventive scams that happen in our world. I hear people responding saying she’s not asking for money, she’s asking for formula. Yeah, almost no scams at the moment actually ask for money because they know that doesn’t work. You got this world of scams happening. To be fair, what she’s doing is a scam in the sense that it’s not a real story. It’s not a real situation. I have that over here. The other thing that’s over here is we’ve worked hard at trying to say we want to help people long-term with long-term strategies and we give to organizations that specialize in that to try to help people out. We encourage things like don’t give money to someone on the side of the street, give money to an organization that might help get people off the street or long-term support them. We have that all going on there.
Yet I think we need to have a very strong, hard look at the Samaritan opportunities we get. That is no good for him to say to the man bleeding out on the side of the road, “Wait till I get to the town, I’ll send someone back.” He is called in that moment to be that man of mercy and we also need to respond. I hope and pray that we might pass that social experiment test when the time comes, both as a church and as individuals, the times that someone comes knocking on our door. It does happen for our church. It’s complicated every time. We don’t have a stash of things to give people that are in need. We can’t just pull money out of the safe and give to someone that’s in need. Almost always every time that’s happened, it’s usually someone who has some cash on them that is able to give to that. We had a woman once who broke into our building and stayed the night. She was very polite. She left us a note saying, “I’m going to be back in a couple of hours.” We couldn’t let her stay another night in the building. It will affect our insurance; our insurance won’t allow someone to stay in the building. It’s hard to know what her true motives are. So instead we gave her food out of the fridge that we had and we drove her to a place where she could stay. We do have those moments and we should be responding in those moments.
How The Samaritan Invested
We are the ones called to invest in mercy. This story of the Samaritan is not a story about finances. But on the other hand, it is because we see how he invests in mercy. He invests his social status. There’s tension between Samaritans and Jews, but he doesn’t let that be something that holds him back and he crosses over that cultural divide. He invests his own resources. It’s his olive oil. We’re told he bandaged his wounds. I don’t know if he had bandages or he just tore up some of his clothes. This man was dying, we’re told, on the side of the road. I don’t think it was a band-aid kind of situation. Some serious fabric needed to be used. This man used his own resources. He put him on his own donkey. I don’t know if he was riding the donkey and now he doesn’t have a donkey to ride. Either way, he puts him on his own donkey. He pays for him at the inn. He doesn’t say to the innkeeper, “When he’s on his feet, get him to wash some dishes and pay back whatever else is required.” He says, “I will come back and pay whatever else is required.” This man is invested in mercy in an incredible way. I think we’re called to do the same.
How We Can Invest
One of the great things that I found really refreshing about the framework that Barefoot gives us is that when we move to step three and we start thinking about missional spending, it’s beyond just giving away. It’s starting to say how do we use our resources, every part of them, not just resources we can give away, but resources we keep. How do we spend our money on things that we can use day-to-day to live for the kingdom? We see this with people who use their car. I know families that have deliberately bought a larger vehicle, even a van for families that didn’t need a van, with the element that they can use it for helping shuttle other kids to youth group, for example. Such a huge ministry opportunity transporting kids to youth group in the scenario where you’ve got a family who’s not opposed to their kids going to youth group but not willing to put themselves out enough to take them. If you were to say, “Hey, I’m taking my kids. I’ll take yours as well,” that’s a great opportunity to use a resource that you have that you are using, but also use it for the kingdom.
Where we buy our resources, thinking about ethical use and companies. I think that’s a really tricky space because every company wants to tell you that they’re ethical and giving to ethical causes as much as possible. I think if we’re buying resources from companies that we know are ethical, that is a useful thing for us. We’re investing into a mercy economy. The same thing is true when we invest in Christian companies. If we trust that another Christian is also living and giving generously, then we might be able to invest in their business in a way that might see return. I saw a video this week on TikTok of a guy whose video was posted by another church, but he said, “I’m convicted as a Christian business owner that I should give out of my business to the kingdom.” But he said, “I have a question. How do I do that when my business isn’t turning a profit? So, I feel convicted I should give, but I don’t actually have a profit to contribute.” I commented on it. I don’t comment on these on social media very much, but because we’re in the middle of what we’re in the middle of, I was like, “Oh, here’s some thoughts.” Some of them were just the idea of if his business is getting resources from partnering with other Christian businesses, he might not have excess to give, but trusting that another Christian might be using their excess to give. He is still investing in a kingdom economy.
There are other reasons I think to not just go to Christian businesses. We had this discussion in my connect group. The idea that you might go to a cafe regularly that’s not owned by a Christian because you want to connect with staff there and you want to actually connect with people in our community. I think there’s good reasons to invest outside of just Christian businesses. It’s not just about creating this patting each other on the back ecosystem. We want to live in the world but not of it. But these are things we should think through. How are we doing that? How are we investing in kingdom ecosystems and how are we spending our money? One of the things I put on the chat was maybe as a business owner he has more flexible hours than others and maybe he can free up, instead of giving money, he can free up some hours where other Christians aren’t available, for example, school scripture in the middle of the workday. A business owner might be able to free up some time to go teach scripture at school where others aren’t able to do that. How are we invested in the kingdom?
How is our house glorifying God? One of the challenges of the house situation, the Barefoot Disciple points out that your house is a necessity, but it’s also a consumer product. It could be a luxury item. It’s also an investment. It could be wise stewarding. It’s actually a very complex issue to figure out. He has a whole chapter dedicated to it. Very complex issue to figure out how we live as Christians. There are ways we can use our house for ministry. The consumer mentality is you go to the bank and find out how much you can afford for a house and then you buy a house based on how much you can afford. There’s a challenge there to say is that the right question over what kind of house you should buy. Should you just be buying as much as you can afford or should you be buying what you need for the life of serving Jesus?
Not only are you the one who’s called to give your all to God, you’re also the one who’s called to be invested in mercy. That’s the picture we get here. That is what we’re called to do.
Conclusion
Let me round this up. It is important as we come to this story of the good Samaritan that we come with the right recognition that this isn’t a story where the answer to the question, “What must I do to receive eternal life?” is “Go and help people on the side of the road and then you’ll be right with God.” If you hear that in this story, you’ve actually missed the point of the story. It’s not saying what it seems to say in that regard. We truly are the ones beaten on the side of the road and the only way we can be saved is through the Savior.
And yet it also says, “Go and do likewise.” As a saved people, we are called to invest in mercy. We are called to give our all to God as imperfectly as we are able to do that. We are called to pursue giving our all to God. We’re called to invest in mercy in all elements, not just what we give away, but how we spend and live every resource we have for the glory of God. Let me pray.