What Did You Do for the Least of These?

A strange island story exposes how easily people build a new “church” whenever the old one becomes inconvenient. The joke lands because religious habit can become a place to hide from the actual call of God. The blessing of Jesus Christ is not a building, an SUV, a bank account, or a comfortable life. Resources make people responsible, but Christ, his cross, and his eternal care are the blessing.

Luke places an expert in the law before Jesus with the right answer and the wrong heart. The law names love for God and love for neighbor, but self-justification immediately asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with a man left half dead on the road, two religious men who see him and pass by, and a Samaritan who stops. The priest and Levite may have had reasons, fears, schedules, and questions, but their distance leaves a wounded man alone. The Samaritan’s mercy costs time, supplies, dignity, transportation, money, and an open-ended promise to return.

The call to “go and do likewise” becomes personal in the story of an unwanted orphan who could not make it on his own. A seventeen-year-old girl and her young husband heard God’s call to become parents before their life looked ready. Love heard the voice of a little boy with a gigantic head, picked him up, and gave him what every child needs: a home, provision, and the settled knowledge that he was loved. James 1:27 names that kind of care as religion God accepts as pure and faultless: looking after orphans and widows in their distress while refusing the pollution of the world.

Maria’s face in a tiny shack in San Salvador brings that word into focus. Her brother and sister received school supplies because somebody in America chose to help, but Maria waited in the background, hoping that one day somebody would love her too. The least of these are not projects, numbers, or problems for somebody else to solve. Matthew 25 places Christ’s own voice behind their need: what is done for them is done for him.

The adoption portal places real children, including Lynn in Vietnam, before the church. Every child bears the truth that abandonment does not make a life a mistake. The question remains simple and searching: What did people do for the least of these?

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Resources make people responsible Blessing cannot be measured by possessions, comfort, or financial margin. Christ himself is the lasting blessing, because his cross and his care reach beyond every changing circumstance. Resources become holy when they are treated as something entrusted for love, mercy, and kingdom work. [42:23]
• 2. Mercy crosses the road The priest and Levite saw the same wounded man the Samaritan saw. Their reasons for passing by may have sounded practical, but mercy does not let caution become an excuse for indifference. Love of neighbor becomes real when it moves toward costly need rather than merely noticing it. [45:22]
• 3. No child is a mistake An orphan’s beginning may carry abandonment, loss, and questions that no child should have to bear. God’s call can interrupt ordinary plans and make a home where there was none. Adoption and care for vulnerable children testify that human rejection never defines a person’s worth. [56:43]
• 4. Christ identifies with the least Matthew 25 removes the distance between devotion to Christ and care for the vulnerable. Jesus receives mercy shown to hungry, hurting, forgotten, and abandoned people as mercy shown to himself. The final question is not whether people possessed religious language, but whether love took tangible form.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [35:31] - The Islander’s Two Churches
• [38:11] - A Tour Ends in March 2020
• [41:35] - Encouragement in a Hard Season
• [42:23] - Christ Is the Blessing
• [43:23] - The Question About Eternal Life
• [44:04] - The Good Samaritan
• [45:22] - Passing By or Showing Mercy
• [46:13] - From Orphanage to Family
• [50:32] - Pure and Faultless Religion
• [51:26] - Maria’s Hope in El Salvador
• [55:20] - What Did You Do?
• [56:05] - Lynn and the Adoption Portal

Bible Reading

Luke 10:25-37
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” [43:23]

Matthew 25:40
And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” [55:20]

James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. [50:32]

Observation questions

1. What answer did the expert in the law give when Jesus asked what was written in the Law, and what question did he ask next when he wanted to justify himself? [43:43]
2. What did the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan each do after seeing the wounded man on the road?
3. List the specific ways the Samaritan cared for the wounded man. What did his mercy cost him in supplies, time, transportation, money, and future commitment? [44:46]
4. In the account of Maria and her siblings, what did Maria believe the school supplies for her brother and sister meant for her own future? [54:15]

Interpretation questions

1. Why does Jesus shift the expert’s question from “Who is my neighbor?” to “Which person became a neighbor?” How does that change the way a person looks at someone in need? [45:06]
2. The priest and Levite may have had reasonable concerns, such as danger, busyness, or uncertainty. What does the story show happens when reasonable concerns repeatedly keep a person from acting with mercy? [45:25]
3. James describes care for orphans and widows as religion God accepts as pure and faultless. Why might God connect true devotion to him with practical care for people who lack protection and provision? [50:38]
4. Matthew 25 says that mercy shown to “the least of these” is received by Jesus himself. How should this truth shape the way believers view vulnerable children, lonely elderly people, struggling families, and people living in poverty? [55:44]

Application questions

1. Christ—not a building, vehicle, savings account, or comfortable life—is the lasting blessing. Where might possessions or comfort be quietly shaping a person’s definition of being blessed, and how could those resources be treated instead as a responsibility entrusted by God? [42:05]
2. Think about a need that is easy to notice but also easy to pass by: a struggling neighbor, a single parent, an elderly person, a child in foster care, or someone facing poverty. What excuses most often make it easier to keep distance, and what might it look like to take one compassionate step toward that need? [45:31]
3. The Samaritan did not merely feel pity; he stopped, used what he had, and made a commitment to follow through. What gifts, skills, time, relationships, or financial resources could be used to offer practical help to someone who cannot make it on their own?
4. Every child bears God-given worth, and abandonment never means that a child is a mistake. How can the group become more attentive to children and families affected by foster care, adoption, poverty, or loss? [56:32]
5. Caring for vulnerable children does not always mean adopting, but it can include supporting foster families, providing meals, mentoring, giving school supplies, praying, or partnering with trusted ministries. Which of these forms of care seems possible for each person or for the group together? [56:50]
6. Jesus identifies himself with the least and the forgotten. Who might be easy to treat as a project, statistic, or problem rather than as a person deeply loved by God? What would it look like this week to see and honor that person as someone Jesus sees? [55:36]