Teaching Series

Luke 10:25–37. Love that crosses boundaries and turns compassion into action.

1. Love Sees

The priest and Levite saw the hurt man but didn’t really see him.
True love looks beyond inconvenience and notices people’s needs.

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” — Philippians 2:4

2. Love Stops

The Samaritan didn’t walk past — he stopped, even when it was risky or inconvenient.
Love often interrupts our plans and slows us down so compassion can step in.

Are we too busy to stop for people who need help?

“We live in a world that moves fast, but love slows down.”

3. Love Acts

The Samaritan used his resources to help — bandaging wounds, carrying the man, and paying for his care.

Love is more than words; it’s action. “For Christ’s love compels us.” — 2 Corinthians 5:14

Practical acts of love:

• Share, give, or pray for someone.

• Stand up for a friend.

• Serve on a team or volunteer at Canberra City Care.

• Drop off a meal to a neighbour.

Go and do likewise.
Love sees. Love stops. Love acts.

Romans 15:4 reminds us: ‘For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.’

Two Offerings – Two Responses

Genesis 4:3–5 tells us:
“And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.” (NIV)

The Beast at the door

Genesis 4:7 (NIV):
“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

James 3:16 (NIV) says:
“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

James 1:19–20 (NIV):
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

It Starts In The Heart

Matthew 5:21–22 (NIV):
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

The Bible Project:
”Jesus traces murder back to its seed form: anger, insult, contempt. Murder begins in the heart long before the act.”

Unforgiveness and Its Fruit

Hebrews 12:15 (NLT):
“Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.”

Matthew 6:14–15 (NIV):
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

From Comparison to Celebration

1 Corinthians 12:26 (NIV):
“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

Philippians 2:3–4 (NLT):
“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.”

Abel’s Blood vs. Jesus’ Blood

Genesis 4:10 (NIV):
“The LORD said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.’”

Hebrews 12:24 (NIV):
“to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

2 Corinthians 5:17–18 (NIV) reminds us:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

How Do We Overcome?
By the Blood of Jesus
By the Power of the Holy Spirit
By Renewing Our Minds with God’s Word
By Choosing Love and Forgiveness

A diamond needs years of pressure and refining to shine; rush the process, you get fragile glass.

PEOPLE JUST LIKE US

Whatever was written beforehand is meant to instruct us in how to live. The Scriptures impart to us encouragement and inspiration so that we can live in hope and endure all things. Romans 15:4 (TPT)

Healthy Me, Healthy We — Don’t Settle For Costume Jewellery

In the days when the judges ruled,  there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. 

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. Ruth 1:1–5 (NIV)

Wholeness Begins with Surrender

Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. Ruth 1:16–18 (NIV)

Ruth did not deny her past, pain, or loss; instead, she brought God into her story.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 (NIV)

Biblical wholeness isn’t the absence of brokenness; it’s the surrender of our brokenness to God. 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:8–9 (NIV) 

Identity In God Comes First

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest… Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:9–10 (NIV)

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour—grace.” Ruth 2:2 (NIV)

If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. Luke 16:10 (NLT)

For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3 (NLT)

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:7–8 (NIV)

A God-given identity is the only identity that can’t be lost when life changes. — Unknown

Faithful Steps Open Divine Doors

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?” Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.” Ruth 2:10–11 (NIV)

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

A healthy ‘us’ starts with a healthy ‘me’ in Christ. — Gary Thomas

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son… And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Ruth 4:13, 17 (NIV)

May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” Ruth 2:12 (NIV)

He will cover you with His feathers. He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armour and protection. Ps 91:4 (NLT)

For you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. Malachi 4:2 (NLT)

Does the word 'father' evoke a smile, a pause, a groan, or tears from you?

PEOPLE JUST LIKE US

Abba, Father

So that we would know for sure that we are His true children, God released the Spirit of Sonship into our hearts—moving us to cry out intimately, “Abba, Father! You’re our true Father!” Galatians 4:6 (TPT)

A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society. — Billy Graham

God the Father is Our Provider

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:9–11 (NIV)

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence. Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)

This same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (NLT)

God is more ready to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them. — St. Augustine

God the Father is Our Protector

Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge. Proverbs 14:26 (NIV)

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Psalms 91:1–2 (NIV)

They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under My care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from Him. John 10:28–29 (MSG)

God Our Father is Loving

He does not punish us for all our sins; He does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For His unfailing love toward those who fear (reverence) Him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him. For He knows how weak we are; He remembers we are only dust.Psalm 103:10–14 (NLT)

A Word Picture of the Cross: His unfailing love… is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. 

For this reason I kneel before the Father… And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love (to settle down and feel at home), may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14, 17–19 (NIV)

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Eph 3:14, 17–19 (NIV)

Hosea 1:2 [NIV]

The Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 

Gomer (גֹּ֫מֶר)= ‘Complete’ or ‘Whole’ 

Hosea 2:15 [NIV]

“There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.”

The valley of Achor (עָכוֹר) = Akon, ‘Trouble’

Hosea 3:1 [NIV]

“Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

Trouble (θλῖψις) = Thlipsis, ‘Pressure’

John 16:33 [NIV]

“….In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Hosea 3:2 [NLT]

“So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley..”

Fifteen = Deliverance and Restoration

Five = Grace and Goodness

Psalm 24:1 [ESV]

“The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein…”

Hosea 3:3 [NIV]

“You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

Hosea 3:4-5 [ESV]

“For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.”

1.  DYSFUNCTION DOESN’T START WITH YOU, BUT IT CAN STOP WITH YOU.

As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home. Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

GENESIS 25:27-28 (NLT)

You may not be the origin of the mess, but you can be the one to stop it.

I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

EXODUS 20:5B-6 (NLT) 

If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new!

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 (NCV)

You are not your problem, the pattern is.

Ps. STEVEN FURTICK (USA)

2.  YOU CAN’T HEAL WHAT YOU WON’T ACKNOWLEDGE.

I know that you delight to set your truth deep in my spirit.  So come into the hidden places of my heart and teach me wisdom.

PSALM 51:6 (TPV)  

JOHN 8:32 (NIV)  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

You can’t conquer what you are comfortable avoiding. You can’t defeat what you defend in secret.

PS. SAM MONK (Equippers Church, NZ)

3.  EMOTIONAL DECISIONS vs FAITH DECISIONS.

Jacob’s choice was driven by passion, not prayer.

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days, because of the love he had for her.

GENESIS 29:30 (AMP)  

Emotional Impulses Can Set Up Decades of Conflict.

Faith Decisions Are Anchored In God’s Will, Not our Feelings.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

PROVERBS 14:12  

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

JAMES 1:5 (NIV)  

4.  PATTERNS PERSIST WHERE BOUNDARIES ARE ABSENT.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

GENESIS 31:3 (NIV)  

Boundaries are not walls to keep people out – they’re gates to keep the wrong influences from controlling you.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

GALATIANS 5:1  (NIV) 

How do we break the cycle:

• Recognise the unhealthy pattern

• Repent – turn to God’s way.

• Replace the old behaviour with biblical truth

• Reinforce with accountability and boundaries.

PEOPLE LIKE US

Whatever was written beforehand is meant to instruct us in how to live. The Scriptures impart to us encouragement and inspiration so that we can live in hope and endure all things. Romans 15:4 (TPT)

What if the ache we feel for connection isn’t weakness, but something God placed in us?

Created for Connection

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:18, 20–25 (NIV)

Built to Belong

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. Genesis 2:18 (NIV)

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is… what we need more than anything.  Tim Keller

Partners In Purpose

The Lord God said, “…I will make a helper who is just right for him.” Genesis 2:18 (NLT)

We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help (ezer) and our shield. Psalm 33:20 (NIV)

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed… Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 (NLT)

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)

Do you spend time with people who only comfort you or those who also call out your potential?

The Intimacy Principle

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 (NIV)

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. Mother Teresa

I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. Isaiah 50:6 (NKJV)

“Intimacy” = Into-me-you-see.

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 1 Samuel 18:1 (NIV)

Maturity Walks with Others

- ​Love one another (John 13:34)

- ​Bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2)

- ​Forgive one another (Eph. 4:32)

- ​Confess to one another (James 5:16)

- ​Serve one another (Gal. 5:13)

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing, because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning. Hebrews 10:24–25 (TPT)