GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 3 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Daniel Goulding · May 13, 2024 · 46 min watch · 3 min read

GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 3 | Sermon

Big Idea

Jesus sets an impossible standard of love not to condemn us, but to show us we need Him — the true Good Samaritan — and to free us to be innkeepers in His redemptive plan.

In Matthew 5 and Luke 10, Jesus exposes humanity's tendency to find loopholes in God's commands — loving only those who look, vote, and believe like us — and raises the bar to an impossible standard: love your enemies, be perfect as your Father is perfect. This impossibility is the point. Jesus, the true Good Samaritan, has already paid the ultimate price for broken humanity. Our call is not to be the hero, but to receive what He has given us and steward it faithfully as innkeepers — leveraging our time, treasure, and testimony to care for the people He brings into our lives.

Key points

1
1Jesus corrects the religious distortion that loving your neighbor also means hating your enemy — that phrase is never in the Old Testament.
2
2God's love falls on both the just and the unjust, demonstrating that He is in pursuit of all people — not just those who look like us or believe like us.
3
3The golden rule — do to others what you would have them do to you — summarizes the entire Old Testament, yet our human inability to live it out reveals our need for God.
4
4The religious expert who asks Jesus 'who is my neighbor?' already knows the answer intellectually; Jesus tells the parable to expose the condition of his heart, not just inform his mind.
5
5Jesus is the true Good Samaritan — He stepped off His high horse, entered our mess, felt compassion, and paid the full price to restore us when we were half dead on the side of the road.
6
6We are called to be innkeepers — not the savior, but stewards of what the Good Samaritan has entrusted to us, using our talents, treasures, and testimony to care for those He brings into our sphere.
7
7What we give — of our money, time, and testimony — shapes the reward we will experience in heaven; generosity is an invitation to a new way of being human.

Application

Pastor Daniel closes with a direct challenge: stop looking for the loophole. The Sermon on the Mount is not a checklist to satisfy but an invitation into an entirely new way of being human — one led by the Holy Spirit rather than our natural instincts. Practically, this means looking at your calendar and your checkbook, because they reveal what you truly value. It means seeing your time, resources, and personal story of redemption not as things you built, but as things the Good Samaritan has entrusted to you to care for the people in your sphere of influence. This week, take one uncomfortable step of faith — give something, serve someone, share your story — and trust that what seems like it will lead to lack may actually be the very thing that produces real life in you.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“So if you brought a bible, which I hope you did, open them up to Matthew chapter five. Matthew five is where we'll be today”
From the transcript
“Matthew chapter five, here's how the story begins in verse 43. Jesus is going to say, you've heard the law that says love your neighbor and hate your enemy”
From the transcript
“Verse 44, he says, but I say love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. In that way, you will be acting as true children of your father in heaven”
From the transcript
“Verse 47, if you were kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? See, even the pagans do that”
From the transcript
“He's quoting Leviticus 19 to them. He says, here's the standard that you've always heard. Here's the law. Here's the technicality that you know”
From the transcript
“He will kind of conclude this whole thing in Matthew chapter seven. He'll kind of wrap a bow on this whole idea and say, here's what God is hoping that we get to. Matthew chapter seven verse 12”
From the transcript
“Luke chapter 10 verse 25. Here's how the story begins. It says, One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question, teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life”
From the transcript
“Jesus responds verse 26 and says, well, what does the law of Moses say? What does the old testament say? How do you read it”
From the transcript
“Verse 27, the man answers, okay. Again, quotes Leviticus 19, same thing we just read in Matthew chapter five. He says, you must 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”
From the transcript
“Verse 27, the man answers, okay. Again, quotes Leviticus 19, same thing we just read in Matthew chapter five. He says, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind”
From the transcript
“Verse 29, the man wanting to justify his actions to make sure that what he's already doing is good enough. He asked Jesus, who is my neighbor”
From the transcript
“this is the parable of the good Samaritan that's recorded in Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter nine tells a story of Jesus trying to go do ministry in Samaria”
From the transcript
“Luke chapter nine tells a story of Jesus trying to go do ministry in Samaria. He tells his disciples, go ahead and go to the town of Samaria”
From the transcript
“Verse 33, then a despised Samaritan came along and he went and he saw the man. He felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them together”
From the transcript
“Here's what a verse I wanna share with you from Luke chapter six, where Jesus just says this incredibly plainly. He says in verse 38, he says, give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full”

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Most of us have never said out loud, 'I hate my enemy.' We don't have to. We just quietly shrink our definition of neighbor until it only includes the people who look, vote, and believe like us — and call that faithfulness. Pastor Daniel pointed out something striking: the command to hate your enemy is never actually in the Old Testament. It was a religious addition, a loophole sewn into the fabric of the law to make obedience more manageable. Jesus tears it out. He tells His listeners — and us — to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Not because they deserve it, but because that is what our Father does. God's sun rises on the evil and the good alike. His rain falls on the just and the unjust. He is not waiting for people to clean themselves up before He pursues them. That posture — that wide, costly, unsentimental love — is what Jesus is inviting us into. It will feel unnatural, because it is. Our instincts pull us toward our own tribe. Grace pulls outward. Sit with that tension today and let it do its work rather than rushing to resolve it.

For reflection

Who have you quietly moved outside your definition of 'neighbor,' and what would it look like to pray for that person this week?

Pray

Pray for one specific person who is difficult to love, asking God to give you His perspective on them.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

The message this week put a surprising twist on two familiar passages — the Sermon on the Mount and the Good Samaritan. Before we dig in, what's one word or image that stuck with you from the sermon?

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus points out that the command 'hate your enemy' never actually appears in the Old Testament — it was added by religious teachers looking for a way to narrow their obligation. What does it tell us about human nature that we tend to look for that kind of loophole in God's commands?
2
Jesus says in Matthew 5:45 that God sends rain on both the just and the unjust. What does that image suggest about the way God defines 'neighbor' — and how does it compare to the way people typically draw that line?
3
In Luke 10:25-29, the religious expert already knows the right answer before Jesus tells the parable. Why do you think Jesus responds with a story aimed at the heart rather than a correction aimed at the head?
4
The sermon described Jesus as the true Good Samaritan — the One who stepped off His high horse, entered our mess, and paid the full price for us when we were 'half dead on the side of the road.' How does seeing Jesus as the Samaritan change the way we read that parable?
5
Pastor Daniel used the image of the innkeeper — not the hero, but a steward of what the Good Samaritan has already provided. What might it look like in everyday life for a community of people to think of their time, resources, and personal stories of redemption as things entrusted to them rather than things they built?
6
Pastor Daniel challenged us to stop looking for the loophole and take one uncomfortable step — give something, serve someone, or share our story. What tends to make steps like those feel costly, and how might the innkeeper picture reframe that cost?

Pray together

Gratitude that Jesus is the Good Samaritan who has already paid what we could not — and openness to steward faithfully what He has entrusted to us for the people around us

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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GREATEST OF ALL TIME

Week 3 · 8 messages

Where these passages are preached

Matthew 5 Leviticus 19 Matthew 7 Luke 10

Explore related topics

Generosity Impossible Standards of Grace Loving Your Enemies Stewardship The Good Samaritan

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