What Do I Need to Do?

 Jonathan Smith: What Do I Need to Do?

‘What do I need to do?’
Have you ever asked yourself that question?
Well, if you’re like me, you ask yourself that question every day, sometimes several times a day.
‘What do I need to do next?’
But there’s a little bit more to that question, and maybe you haven’t asked yourself this in a while,
‘What do I need to do to inherit everlasting life?’
And maybe that’s a question you asked when you were first studying the Bible, and rightly so.
Or maybe during your course of your Gilead training, you asked yourself that question a number of times.
Well, in the Bible, there were two men who asked Jesus that same exact question.
Both of them asked Jesus the question in the last six months of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
Though it was the same question, the answers were different.
Let’s look at the first one at Luke 10:25:

“Now look! a man versed in the Law stood up to test him and said:
‘Teacher, what do I need to do to inherit everlasting life?’”
Well, Jesus very astutely understands that this man is already versed in the Law.
He probably already has an idea, but it seems his motive may be more to test Jesus than get an answer.
So, what does Jesus do?
Jesus lets him answer his own question in verse 26: “What is written in the Law? How do you read?”
In verse 27, the man gives an amazing answer.
In one sentence, this man sums up the entire Mosaic Law.
He does it exactly the same way that Jesus had done so on two different occasions.
Well, Jesus is no doubt impressed.
He said to him in verse 28: “You answered correctly; keep doing this and you will get life.”

There are good lessons here for us:
When we’re talking with people about the Bible in our ministry, sometimes we may detect they have a little knowledge.
Flip the question back to them, “What do you think?” or better yet, “What do you read?”
Another thing we can do is found in verse 28.
Commend a person if they give a correct response.
Let them know that you think everlasting life is within their reach.

But this man has another motive surface now.
He moves from testing Jesus to wanting to prove himself righteous.
In verse 29, he says:
“Who really is my neighbor?”
Now, being Jewish and versed in the Law, he’s already got an idea on this one too, doesn’t he?
He’s probably thinking,
‘Is Jesus going to tell me what I want to hear
—that my neighbors are my Jewish friends, perhaps in my village,
especially those who follow the Law?’
Well, if so, that question would be a little limiting—wouldn’t it?
“Who really is my neighbor?” isn’t really the best question.

So how does Jesus get around this motive that he’s got of proving himself righteous and yet correct his viewpoint on a neighbor?
Well, as you know, there’s a beautiful parable here of the neighborly Samaritan,
where Jesus describes a situation here in verses 30, 31, 32.
A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falls victim to robbers.
They strip him, beat him, and leave him half-dead.
But by coincidence, a priest goes down that road but passes by on the opposite side.
The same thing happens with a Levite.
He passes by on the opposite side.
These are men who have responsible positions in God’s organization.
How callous! How insensitive!

There’s a good lesson here for us.
We may have responsible assignments in Jehovah’s organization.
Never allow that to cause us to become callous to another person’s needs,
even putting our downtime, so to speak, ahead of caring for someone.

Well, you’ll notice the Samaritan is very different.
In verses 33 and 34, he’s traveling this road and he’s moved with pity.
He approaches him, bandages the wounds, pours oil and wine on them,
mounts the poor man on his own animal, brings him to an inn,
and takes care of him, evidently all that day.
The next day (in verse 35),
he takes out two denarii (two days’ wages),
gives them to the innkeeper and says:
“Take care of him, and whatever you spend besides this,
I will repay you when I return.”
Two days’ wages—evidently he spent everything that he had
because he was going to have to come back
to give the innkeeper more—
all for a man who was a Jew
who would likely under normal circumstances not even greet him.

Well, Jesus then asked another question,
but this time Jesus changes the man’s question,
not to “Who really is my neighbor?”,
but to “Who of these three seems to you to have made himself neighbor
to the man who fell victim to the robbers?”
Isn’t that a better question?
It isn’t ‘Who is my neighbor?’
but ‘How can I make myself a neighbor?’

Well, the man gets the point, and he answers correctly again.
He doesn’t say Samaritan.
Maybe he can’t go that far, but he says:
“The one who acted mercifully.”

Now Jesus says:
“Go and do the same yourself.”
And the account ends there on a positive note.

Well, we learn a lot—don’t we?—
about talking with people in our ministry
and even in our day-to-day conversations at work
or with our brothers and sisters.
When others have a question, never belittle the question, right?
Simply help them to come to the right conclusion.
We never want to criticize someone for a motive that may not be the best.
Just kindly respond.
Maybe a parable, an illustration, will help them get the point.

Well, now, this isn’t the only time Jesus had to deal with that question, as I mentioned.
Let’s go to another occasion.
And this time we’re going to go to Luke 18:18.
And here we find that this man
is not well-versed in the Law,
but he’s a ruler, and the Bible says that he’s “very rich.”
In another Gospel, it also says that he’s young.
Rich and young and a ruler—not always the best combination.

But notice here in verse 18,
the conversation starts with him running up to Jesus on bended knee:
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?”
Well, Jesus can’t let this one go.
You don’t want to call Jesus something that should be only true of Jehovah,
that is, a title of being a Good Teacher.
So he gives him a gentle correction there in verse 19.
And then in verse 20, Jesus, of course, explains some of the Ten Commandments.

But the man in verse 21 says:
“All of these I have kept from youth on.”
In other words, ‘What else am I lacking?’
Well, after hearing this, Jesus acknowledges
there actually is something lacking.
In verse 22, one thing:
“Sell all the things you have and distribute the proceeds to the poor,
“and you will have treasure in the heavens;
“and come be my follower.”

Well, that’s almost too much for him to take.
In Mark’s account,
it tells us at this point Jesus “felt love” for the man
because he clearly saw that he was sincere.

But although he was sincere in his question
he couldn’t do it, could he?
“When he heard this, he became deeply grieved,
for he was very rich.”
Mark says that “he had many possessions.”
Well, we learned a few things from this parable, didn’t we?
We learned that sometimes people that have good motives
don’t always have good qualities.
In this case, he was simply too attached to his things,
and that prevented him from gaining one of the best privileges
he could have possibly had in following Jesus.

So from these two accounts, we learned some things.
First of all, we learned that we can learn from a “Samaritan.”
Have you ever learned from a “Samaritan”?
I know I have.
One day many years ago, I was driving down the road and I had a flat tire.
I had a spare tire, but the tools I didn’t have.
So this is before the days of cell phones.
I walked up to the nearest house.
I said, “Can I use your phone, please, to call a tow truck?”
And the man said, “Well, why?”
I said, “I need to change my tire.”
He said, “I’ll help you.”
He comes out of his house, gets his tools, and in no time changes my tire.
As he’s doing so, I’m thinking to myself, ‘He’s of another religion, he’s of another culture, another racial background, and he’s changing my tire.’
As I’m driving away, I’m thinking, ‘Jehovah taught me something today from a “Samaritan.”’
So, what do we learn? It’s not such a bad idea occasionally to ask this question, is it?
Two men were wise to do so.
Unfortunately, at least one of them didn’t follow through.
But occasionally, if we say to Jehovah, “Please, what do I need to do to inherit everlasting life?”, we can be sure that Jehovah will answer that prayer, maybe through personal study or Bible reading, or it might even be through a “Samaritan.”

https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODPgmEvtGilead/pub-jwb-113_4_VIDEO