Series: Outside the Circle
If I were to draw a circle around your feet, is what is inside that circle enough? Is it enough for your family? Is it enough to attain what you see as success? Is it enough to be everything God made you to be?

The answer is no, it is not.

Remember John 15:5
I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.

What is wild is that we know this verse, yet we constantly try to live the opposite of this verse! We operate in a high level of self assurance thinking we can do anything without Jesus.

How do you know if you are trusting in Jesus or something else? Simple.
When a problem comes, what you really trust is revealed. An unexpected bill, A health emergency, A misunderstanding with a friend or family member.

What you reach for first is what you worship. It is what you think will save the day.

Too often, that thing we worship is what is inside that circle. But remember from last week, if you want to grow, if you want to be poured out, if you want to change, it requires you looking outside that circle.

This past week, Pastor Jason gave you some practical steps on how to look outside that circe. If you want to grow, ask Jesus and a friend what they think you need to do to get to the next level. If you want to be poured out, join a serve team and start using your gifts, talents, and abilities to help move the Kingdom. If you want to change, identify one habit or rhythm in your life that needs adjusting.

All of this is designed to get you thinking outside of the circle around your feet.

And remember, the more you focus on inside the circle, the more you miss that God has for you outside the circle. But if you will focus on what is outside of the circle, God will take care of what is inside the circle.

So we know we need to look outside the circle and we know why we need to, but there are always attacks from the enemy, either directly, through stumbling blocks, etc., that are designed to keep us from being able to live outside the circle.

The goal is ultimately for you to completely ignore the circle so that your life becomes generous and Kingdom focused. In the same way your brain ignores your nose, God wants you to ignore that circle.

When you learn to ignore that circle and begin living beyond it, it stops many of the blocks that keep you from fulfilling your purpose in Christ.
Blocks like entitlement, isolation, and selfishness.

I want to spend the time we have today talking about the contrast between selfishness and service within the context of focusing outside the circle.

Selfishness vs Service
I don’t know a single person who likes a selfish person. Think of someone you know who is selfish. Do you want to do anything to help them? Does their selfishness stop your desire to bless them or be of help?

How do you think God feels about our selfishness? The same way?

In 2 Timothy 3:2, 5
2 People will become lovers or self…5 Avoid such people

God doesn’t want you selfish. But someone else does…and he has a good plan for it.

If satan can get you selfish, he can kill your service.
And one step further, it can drastically limit the amount of blessing you walk in. Some of the most bitter people in the world have been the richest, but stingy. Some of the most talented people have wasted away miserable. That is because there is a stark difference between selfish goals and service goals.

Simon Sinek says it like this:
“Selfish goals are things you want to achieve for your own benefit. Service goals are things you want to achieve to help other people. The problem is that selfish goals don’t satisfy us in the long run.”

Remember from last week, Jesus, Paul, Being poured out - THAT is what actually brings satisfaction.

We see this in a very famous Bible passage, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10:25-37
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

We typically use this passage to identify our neighbor, but let’s focus on the character of three people in this story.

A priest.
The priests played the significant role of standing guard in God’s house, making sacrifices for God’s people, and instructing the people so that they could enjoy God’s blessings. When priests did their job, God blessed his people, but when they failed, God’s curses fell on the people.

What was the role of a priest in a nutshell? Sacrificial service. The second most important core value at Freedom is People are the Priority. That means we will kill any process, program, or procedure that does not make people feel valued, and not only for congregants, but for our staff as well.
This is one of the main reasons we don’t have services on Christmas Eve night or Christmas day. We want our staff to get to enjoy their family as well.

If the priest was actually doing what he was called to, he would have dropped everything and helped.

So why didn’t he?
If the man who was robbed and beaten was dead, the priest would have become unclean and had to offer a sacrifice and then remain outside the temple until he was clean again. In other words, it would have cost him something.

He was thinking self, not service. Inside the circle, not outside of it.

How can we relate that to our lives?
What do you think pleased God more? Risking it to offer service or ignoring it to preserve self?

Look again at the text to find out:
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

What is your service going to cost you?
This is where so many people get held up. But even that question is inside the circle thinking! That is how deep this issue runs in our hearts. We instantly think of what it will cost us!

Rather…
What blessing is your service going to create?
THAT is outside the circle thinking!

When you care more about how you can be a blessing than you do about what it is going to cost you, that’s when you start thinking outside the circle.
That is a neighbor God can use.

We mentioned a priest. Who was next? A Levite.
Context: What is the difference between a priest and a Levite?
All priests are Levites, being selected from the tribe of Levi, but not all Levites are priests. Those Levites who were not priests were assigned duties connected with the tabernacle. They assisted the priests in preparing offerings. They cared for the courts and the chambers of the sanctuary.

Later, the Levites were involved in interpreting the law and thus functioned as teachers (Jesus wasn’t a fan lol). The Levites were explicitly permitted to go near the sacred furniture, and this special privilege distinguished them from ordinary Israelites.

The Levites were inducted into their role through a series of ceremonies that included shaving of the body, sacrifice, the laying on of hands, and a solemn presentation to God.

Different roles. Same attitude, but with a twist. While the priest didn’t want to risk being unclean to serve, the Levite didn’t want to serve because it wasn’t his job.

How does it make you feel when you see a CEO bending over to pick up some trash in the foyer on the way out to a business meeting? Or maybe when someone who is above a position is more than willing to chip in and help, even though it isn’t their job? It makes you feel good. It makes you feel like they have their priorities straight. It makes you want to serve with them.

Imagine the blind man. Imagine Lazurus or the woman with the flow of blood. Imagine the Gentile woman begging for crumbs from the table, or the adulteress caught in the act.

Now imagine Jesus said, “Not my job.”

A castle will never give you what the Kingdom can.
When there is peace in the Kingdom there is no need for the walls of a castle.

This only happens when we are more concerned with how we can benefit the Kingdom more than we are concerned with how we can build our castle.

Jesus didn’t say,” Not my job.” He said, “Be healed, come forth, be forgiven, go and sin no more.”

It is drastically important for your purpose that you abandon the inside the circle thinking of the Levite and embrace the outside the circle thinking of the Lord.

Priest, Levite, then there was the Samaritan.
Always the ones you don’t expect, huh?

There area few people on TikTok who go around and ask for a dollar to catch a bus or get some food, only to reward the giver with hundreds of dollars when they help. RARELY is someone of means willing to give. It seems it is ALWAYS a needy person, homeless person, etc.

Be very careful that what you have doesn’t have you.

We live in a things focused world and things can make us think and act in ways that are not representative of the heart of our Father. All things do is clutter our castles and feed our selfishness.

A great question to ask is not “Do I want this,” but, “Do I need this?” I don’t mean you can’t ever have anything you want. This isn’t about legalism. But we have to be careful that instant gratification doesn’t turn us into ravenous monsters.

Remember, God doesn’t care what you have. He cares what has you.

What did the Samaritan have?
34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

I don’t want to get hyper spiritual on you, but look at this inventory!
Oil - the Anointing!
Wine - the Blood!
An Animal - Practical helps!
Money - Provision!

He takes the broken man to an inn, foots the bill, and then accepts responsibility for future charges!

Talk about selfless!

There’s no record of MY OIL, MY WINE, MY DONKEY, MY MONEY!
All we see coming out of that Samaritan was “How can I be of service?”
“I got time. I got treasure. I got you, broken man! Don’t give up!”

I am convinced the story of the good Samaritan has nothing to do with identifying your neighbor and everything to do with understanding the heart of God!

We took inventory of what he had in Scripture, but there is one more thing he had that is everything.

33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Compassion.

Compassion is what moves you out of selfishness and into service.

Matthew 9:36
36 When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Compassion is what moved the heart of Jesus into service.

Look at another time when Jesus had compassion: The Rich Young Ruler
Mark 10:21
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Not only does compassion have the power to move you from selfishness to service, it has the power to offer the same to others around you.

The Samaritan had compassion and that compassion caused him to move beyond selfishness an into a place where he could not only be a blessing, but to save a life.

The priest, the Levite, they were too concerned with themselves, with their own lives, with their titles. The word entitled is one we hear a lot these days. It has two meanings.
Entitled: believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.
Entitled: a thing’s identifier

Isn’t it interesting how when you compare the Priest and Levite to the Samaritan, you find that two of them lived for the title, but one of them lived out the title.

Which do you want to be know for?
Being selfish, or being selfless?
Being served, or being a servant?

Philippians 2:3-4
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I need to tell you one more thing about the good Samaritan that we simply can’t overlook:

Look at verse 33 one more time:
33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Did you see it? “and when he saw him.”

We get hyped about his inventory, his compassion to help, but it all started with his willingness to look outside the circle around his feet.

When we are focusing inside the circle, we are blind to what is outside of it.

This idea plays a pretty huge role in this story of the good Samaritan, but it started 800 years earlier.

In 2 Kings 6, the King of Syria, enemy of Israel, was frustrated because God was telling Elisha every move before he made it.

He wanted to kill Elisha, who was in Dothan with his servant.
This is where we pick op the story.

2 Kings 6:14-23
14 So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. 15 When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16 He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

This is huge and something you need to embrace.

When all you are focusing on is inside the circle, you miss the blessing of what is outside of the circle. The servant was thinking inside, but Elisha was thinking outside. WHY? Because unlike the servant, Elisha knew that his help didn’t come from inside, it came from outside.

Inside the circle thinking makes you blind!

But there is more to this story…

18 And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha.

19 And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.

Elisha led them back to Samaria – the capital city of the kingdom of Israel and an unfriendly place for a group of Syrian soldiers, but also the very home of the good neighbor we’ve been talking about this whole message.

20 As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. 21 As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?” 22 He answered, “You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” 23 So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.

Instead of killing these enemy soldiers, Elisha instead commanded the king of Israel to treat them with kindness and generosity. This practice of answering evil with good successfully changed the policy of free-lance raiders from Syria.

Imagine with me for a moment that our Good Samaritan was simply operating by the same kindness and generosity that stopped the raids 800 years before.

My point is this:
We know exactly what inside the circle does in you.
Selfishness. Idolatry. Castle-mindedness. Ignoring those in need.

But we also know what outside the circle does in you.
Compassion. Concern. Service. Selflessness.
And kindness, not revenge.
Generosity, not greed.
Vision, not blindness.

Here’s my big question for you today:

What can God do today to help you see outside the circle?

He brought the Samaritan to a broken person needing help. He might put you in a situation where you have to choose to be selfish or offer service.

But it isn’t lost on me that the Samaritan didn’t just choose in the moment to help. It had to be a lifestyle of looking outside the circle.

Maybe if he’d just gotten the guy help, we could say it was a snap decision,
But he went over and above to prioritize a perfect stranger. Like ChikFilA over and above…

That says to me there’s a heart in there that knew God.

So perhaps the best thing we can do today is not just “What can God do today to help you see outside the circle?,” but to ask:

“Change my heart, Father, and open my eyes, help me see what is outside the circle so that I can abandon selfishness and embrace service.”

Let’s pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?