Would you like to hear what it is? You probably already know it, but here it is: Your life is almost entirely shaped by how you answer three questions. Only three questions. Follow along in your outline—this is week two, so we’re jumping right in.

1. What will I do for an income? What will I do for a job? This has everything to do with your education. This is why parents say, “Stay in school.” It’s all about what school you go to, the field that you co-op in, your internships, your job placements, your promotions—and some of you might say it’s even about who you know. But ultimately, you’re going to be spending 40 hours a week, likely more, at this job. And I hope that you can enjoy your job and have an income to live. So your life is going to be greatly shaped by what you do for a job and career. Would you just nod your head if you agree with me on that? Greatly shaped. The sermon today has nothing to do with that! However, Pastor Jerry is speaking on this topic two weeks from today—the title is “Rise and Shine: How to Find Your Worth in Your Work.” And so you want to come back for that in two weeks’ time.
2. Who will I marry? Who am I going to share my life with? When you choose a person, you are choosing their lifestyle, their money habits, their sleep schedule, their stress levels, their extended family, and their drama! Some of you found out too late! You’re choosing their work ethic, their coping mechanisms, their spirituality. Your life is intertwined greatly and influenced by the person you marry—harmony or chaos. This sermon has nothing to do with that, either! However, there is a Marriage Alpha course coming up in the fall that is there for you in your next step guide.
3. Who will you serve? This is all about your belief system—whether you say you have any belief or lots of belief.

Generally, when it comes to who you serve, there are two choices. Let me illustrate:

• The first choice is that you will serve yourself: “I am all about me. I will serve myself. I am sitting on my throne, I have my crown, and everybody else in my life revolves around me.” Do you know anybody who sits on their throne?
• The other choice is going to look significantly different from that self-centered focus. With this choice, you’re going to be willingly sitting in the passenger seat, and you willingly say, “God, I trust you, I love you. God, take the wheel / take the reins.”

Two very different decisions on who you will serve. The best advice I ever received in my life was that all your life will be entirely shaped by these three questions: What will you do for income? Who will you marry? And who will you serve? After 50 years of life, I know this to be true; after 26 years of marriage, I know this to be true; and after 43 years of following Jesus, I know this to be true.

So that’s your five-minute sermon—let’s just shut her down and go home! Now, they did give me a few extra minutes, but for some of you, that might be the only thing you needed to hear today.

The Default Defect of the Soul

I have the privilege of being here for three weeks in a row to tackle this summer series called Soundtracks. Today is week number two. The question of the series is: What plays continuously in your heart, your soul, and your mind?

If you were not able to be here last week or you didn’t get a chance to watch on YouTube, here’s the summary of last week: To love God with all of your heart means that I do not follow my heart—that is the worst thing to do. Instead, I follow Him. And there is a heart transplant that is needed, and I need to surrender to the Surgeon.

And so for today, as we tackle the soul, I brought something to show you: This is my old CD tower! Oh, it’s a beauty. I went into the barn early today and pulled it out.

Now, I don’t have any 8-tracks—I was born in ’76. In ’76, the way that people listened to the music of their choice in their house was mostly records. Any record collectors out there? I know they’ve come back and they’re popular again. But there was a defect to records—if it scratched or if it warped, right?

So then along came cassette tapes. Oh yeah, the cassette tape! Fast forward, rewind, mixtapes for the person that I love: “Here’s some songs, I think about you!” Right? But what’s the defect with cassette tapes? Water, for sure, and the tape! Did anybody ever get that tape caught in their machine? Oh no, she’s never gonna know I love her! And then you’d get out the pencil—oh yeah, the pencil, you’re with me—and wind that tape back in.

Well then, along come CDs! Oh, this was the greatest invention of all—smaller than a record, no tape involved, very expensive unless you bought the eleven for one penny! But there was a defect to CDs: scratches and skipping when you go over bumps. How many of you had one of those absorption vibration things that the CD player would sit on in your car?

And now, oh, it’s so good in the digital age! Streaming services like Spotify—the kids have no idea where we’ve come from! We have arrived. Every song you ever want is right in your pocket. It is just delightful all the time.

Now, we’ll table that illustration for a second and come back to it.

Scripture Reading

Now I’m going to go to the scripture that is the focus of this series. Last week we looked at a scripture in Mark that has become known as the Great Commandment, and today we’re going to Luke. It’s a similar scripture, but it’s a different setting—still another public debate that Jesus seems to be having at the temple. Follow along with this verse:

“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?'”

The Loophole and the World Cup

Here’s a little commentary now: There’s an expert of the law here that boldly stands up to test, debate, and maybe try to see what Jesus is made of with the fundamental question of “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I want you to remember that in the verse we did last week in Mark, the question was different: “Which of the laws is most important?” The twist here in Luke is that Jesus doesn’t actually state the Great Commandment first. Instead, He turns the question back on the questioner. And so the expert of the law himself recites the double commandment of loving God and loving others perfectly.

When Jesus tells him that he’s answered correctly, Jesus adds: “Do this and you will live.” Oh, I wish I could have been there for this debate, for this setting, because I would have loved to read the nonverbal language of what was going on—the pauses here. After looking at this for quite some time, I believe the expert of the law actually took a big breath when Jesus said that. It may even have been one of those moments where he took a gulp. Uh-oh. You see, he knew the intellectual knowledge of the law; he knew how to recite it verbatim, even since he was little. But deep down, I believe he realized that there was an action missing, and my sense is that he may not have been living out the level of love that Jesus was expecting.

So the expert of the law looks for a loophole in the exchange, not wanting to be embarrassed. The text says that “to justify himself,” he asks, “So who is my neighbor?” I spent a considerable amount of July looking into this because I was like, Why doesn’t this smart religious leader know who his neighbor is? Why is he asking this question? I’ve learned that he was very slick, and he’s trying to narrow the definition of a neighbor. Essentially, he’s asking: “Who am I legally required to love?” and at the same time, “Who essentially can I ignore?” Do you have any teenagers who ask, “What do I need to do to get an allowance? Can I just vacuum this much of the carpet?”

Jesus responds with the famous Parable of the Good Samaritan to define what true neighborly love looks like. It’s almost as if Jesus says, “I’m done debating you. Let me tell you a story.” And the greatest storyteller of all time tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Now, I need to be honest with you: My earliest recollection of the story of the Good Samaritan is with a flannelgraph. A flannelgraph was this piece of board that had a little scenery on it, and the Sunday school teacher had a little box with cutout felt characters that were supposed to stick—but these things never stuck! They always fell, and all the kids would laugh. In that story, there was a Jewish man, a priest, a Levite, a Samaritan, and some robbers. It sounds like the setup to a joke: A priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walk into a bar…

The parable that Jesus told made an incredible impact on the listeners of the day because of how He told it and the context of the story—they felt it and knew what Jesus was talking about. But little Davy, sitting down in that Sunday school basement, didn’t quite feel it. I didn’t understand the context, though they tried to tell me; I didn’t feel why each person in the parable chose to do what they did.

As I became a pastor, one of my vows was to make sure that every child and teenager I ever speak to always understands the Bible clearly. So today, I want to talk about the World Cup for a minute. The World Cup captured the entire planet recently. Stats say that 75% of Canada watched a portion of a World Cup game!

While it’s fresh on our minds—after seeing the passion of these fans filling stadiums with 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 people—I have taken creative liberties so that we may hear the Good Samaritan story in a fresh new way. Now, before anybody stands up and accuses me of heresy, stay with me—I think we’re gonna land in the right spot, okay?

If you like hearing stories, I want you to close your eyes if you’re comfortable. There are no pictures on the screen; you’re not going to miss anything. Just don’t fall asleep! Here it is:

There was an Englishman who was walking down the road after watching a match. He was going to his car, and suddenly he was jumped by hooligans who had partied too hard at the game. They tore off his English jersey, they took his wallet, and they beat him brutally and drove away, leaving him bleeding in the ditch.

By chance, an English midfielder—an actual player—was driving down the same road long after the game. He was a fellow countryman wearing the same Three Lions badge on his jersey. But when he saw his own fan broken and bleeding in the dirt, he didn’t want the bad press or the distraction before the semifinals. He tapped his accelerator and passed by on the other side.

A short time later, a French supporter walked down the same path. France and England share centuries of bitter history and intense sporting drama. He looked over at the ditch, saw the English crumpled jersey in the mud, shook his head in disgust, and crossed to the furthest edge of the road, leaving his neighbor behind.

Then an Argentine supporter came driving by and slowed down to see what was in the ditch. What you need to know is that between England and Argentina, the animosity runs incredibly deep—fueled by decades of controversial World Cup history and geopolitical tension. By all accounts of football culture, the Argentine man should have been the injured fan’s greatest enemy. But the Argentine saw the battered Englishman, and his heart melted with compassion. He didn’t see a rival; he saw a human being.

He pulled over to the side of the road and knelt down in the mud. He poured clean water from his expensive water bottle to wash away the blood of the Englishman. Then he used his own custom team scarf to bandage the man’s wounds. He carefully lifted the Englishman into his own car, getting mud on the seats. He drove them to a nearby highway motel. He stayed in the same room, stayed up all night attending to him and contacting his family.

The next morning, the Argentine had to catch a flight, so he took 400 Euros, handed them to the motel manager, and said, “Take good care of him. If his medical needs cost more than this, just keep track of it. I will pay the difference myself with an e-transfer. Here’s my cell number.”

You can open your eyes. You see, I couldn’t fully relate to the historical priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan as a kid, but I can feel that story. I can understand the tensions there. Jesus had such a special way of sharing a story with the crowd that left them with a real understanding of what He meant: To love your neighbor is to help the hurting. That was the bottom line.

Defective vs. Delightful Rhythms

This was not at all the practical answer that the expert of the law was looking for; this did not go in the direction he wanted. Now let’s go back to the question of: Who will you serve? Remember, it’s the third question of the greatest advice I ever received. That question ultimately is about your soul. This is where the soul comes in.

We learned last week that when we talk about the heart, we’re not talking about the physical organ; we’re talking about the seat of our emotions. When we talk about the soul, the difference is that it’s the spiritual part of a person—your deepest identity is your soul. And so, if we’re going to love God with all of our soul, you will need to break the soundtrack of selfishness, which is not easy to do. Our default system is to have everything revolve around us and keep ourselves in control. I am naturally a selfish being! But now, because you’ve invited God to work on your heart—surrendering to the Surgeon—you love Him completely, and now you begin to see things differently. At a soul level, you understand what has been done for you through Jesus on the cross. The cross, fully understood, creates this love for others at a soul level, and it begins to happen naturally each day.

It’s the opposite approach of our default mode, which is to think of ourselves first. Selfishness comes easily and naturally—just go serve in the preschool room!

A defective rhythm to life is one that is serving yourself. Just like the records, cassette tapes, and CDs we talked about—yes, they worked for a time, but they had a defect. Many people become successful with selfishness as their driving force; you know them, and I know them. There are many people making it in life, but they find out eventually that there’s a defect to that. At the soul level, there’s a defective rhythm when you are all about yourself.

Contrast that with the Great Commandment. A delightful rhythm to life is one that is serving God. It’s a simple shift: when you’re serving God, you will be serving others. It flows naturally: love God, love others—they belong together. Jesus said this Himself in the Gospel of Matthew:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Three Marks of Soul Love

For those who like clear takeaways, here are three summary points for loving God with all your soul:

1. Soul love moves compassion to spiritual action.

When the Samaritan sees the beaten man (and in our story, when the Argentine sees the Englishman), Scripture says that he was moved with compassion. He didn’t just feel compassion; he was moved with compassion. It was an intense, visceral reaction that caused him, at the deepest level of his being, to do something. That soul love moved him to action. Loving God with all your soul means that your innermost spiritual compass is aligned with God’s heart, so that you get to be His hands and feet.

2. Soul love moves from an external facade to sacrificing comfort.

In the parable, the priest and the Levite who walked past the dying man were highly religious figures. Not getting involved was actually a choice to preserve their external ceremonial purity over saving a human life. They prioritized the mechanics of religion over the heart of God. It’s known today as religious formalism—where the focus is purely on external religion and there’s no focus at all on what you’re going to do for God on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

The Samaritan proved that true spiritual devotion sacrifices comfort to protect a soul made in the image of God. Write this down on the side of your outline: Dangerous unselfishness. That is what is required.

3. Soul love shatters cultural and social divides.

Our church is made up of people from over 50 different countries—it is so special! The soul is the universal spiritual equalizer of human value that transcends external labels and country of origin. In the context of Jesus’ story, the Jews and the Samaritans shared deep-seated racial, cultural, and theological hatred toward each other. If the Samaritan had loved only with his cultural mind—if he had only listened to the prejudice around him—he would have left that Jewish man to die.

However, when you love God from the soul, there is a recognition that every human being possesses sacred worth, and that person is your neighbor. Soul love functions above social prejudice. The world needs to hear the Good Samaritan story again for the first time.

Pastor Tim Keller once wrote: “All life-changing love is inconvenient because it requires time and commitment.” There is no drive-thru for helping your neighbor; it takes time and commitment.

Closing Challenge

If I am going to strive to follow the Great Commandment, I must:

1. Surrender to the Surgeon: That was step one—loving God with all my heart. “Change my heart, God. Give me a full heart transplant. I accept your unconditional love.”
2. Surrender my seat: Now I am going to surrender my seat at the soul level. I put away the soundtrack of selfishness and choose daily to serve God through my actions toward my neighbors. Whomever comes into my space, path, or realm—that is my neighbor.

Somebody is going to come into your life this week that you weren’t expecting and you may not be ready for. It’s going to happen between Monday and Saturday, and you’ll need to remember this moment: What does God require? What is my soulful action when my compassion is moved to action?