When we engage our neighbours
Jim Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · February 15, 2026 · How Do We Change the World? series
Jim Clements preaches on the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, sharing stories from Africa. The world changes one neighbour at a time as we see people, welcome interruptions, cross barriers and show mercy, because Jesus first loved us.
More from Jim Clements · The How Do We Change the World? series
Topics: Relationships, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] A week ago, I came back from visiting Sierra Leone and Kenya, in the beautiful continent of Africa. And I just wanted to, when we sang that song, "I speak Jesus," like, before we get into today's message, you just need to truly understand how strong and powerful the name of Jesus is in common places that maybe you'll never visit. Hopefully you'll visit, we'll create opportunities for you to visit. And I had one of those such opportunities. In the evening, it was about eight o'clock at night in Sierra Leone and we got picked up by our drivers and we went out into the wilderness probably about 45 minutes to an hour. And we came to this village, who the chief of the village had approved for Pastor Andrew.
[0:50] It's a gentleman that I met pastoring there in Sierra Leone to show the Jesus film. And the Jesus film was made originally in 1979. And so you can judge based on how that quality is from that perspective, based on what we think we have. And all that I have is I sat down on a few chairs and stools and stumps, and whatever was gathered to sit on, I became neighbours with the people of that village. And under the sky of the African skyline and moon, the projector started and it played the Jesus film to people who had never heard about Jesus. And every time in the part of the film when Jesus performed a miracle, they hollered and clapped each time.
[1:43] And I'm sitting there knowing all these stories. I can't understand the language it's in. They're listening to it in their native language. And at the end, Pastor Andrew explains what it means to receive Jesus as your personal Savior. And in the midst of the night of the African sky, he begins to sing. And he sings, "I have decided to follow Jesus." No instruments, no music track in the background, just Pastor Andrew singing this and people get out from their spots and they come forward to receive Jesus by the dozens.
[2:29] And it's an incredible moment to witness. "I speak Jesus" in the midst of something like that and you see the power of His name and what it can do in a place that we would consider have nothing but have everything. And he comes up to me after and he goes, "So what did you think?" I said, "It was incredible, what an experience that was." And he said, I said, "I wish we could do that. Like, it's that simple back in Canada." And he goes, "Well, it is. Just show them the video." And I thought, in the innocence of a culture that has tremendous joy, unending love and what we would consider nothing by comparison to what we have, their faith grows and people step into it because of the name of Jesus and they walk in that together.
[3:36] And I wasn't able to go back and the next day, he went back and baptized those new believers in that village. Hopefully in the coming years I will hear many stories of many of you that will travel to these places as part of teams from here because it's true. We go thinking we're gonna change where we're going. And you experience change when you see the sacrifice that people make for other people to know Jesus through loving and caring for them. Our series is How Do We Change the World?
[4:21] through engaging our neighbour. And I've selected the scripture from Luke chapter 10, the Good Samaritan. And in case you're not familiar with that or you've never heard it or the refresher might be good, I'm gonna read the entirety of the scripture so we have a baseline we're all starting with. "On one occasion, an expert of 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?' And he answered and said, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.' 'You've answered correctly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.' But he wanted to justify himself.
[5:15] So he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' In reply, Jesus said, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem.'" I love, like, Jesus, such a storyteller, like He's got to have some Newfie in Him somewhere. That's all I say, or New Fis. We gotta have a lot of us, Him and us. He just, like, He's never straightforward. He says, I just, He just wants to justify. "He 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 the man, passed by on the other side.
[6:00] 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, poured 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 have." Which of these three do you think was the neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?' Jesus asked. The expert in the law replied, 'The one who had mercy on him.' And Jesus told him, 'Go and do likewise.'" Everybody wants to change the world.
[6:48] Everybody talks about changing the world. We all have differences, but we know that we need to make a difference somehow in our world today and change it. And we talk about justice and the impact that it's having and leaving things better than we found it, or we wanna make it a better place for our kids when they grow up. But beneath all that, when we're having those discussions, is a deeper question. And that question is, how does real change actually happen? In Luke 10, Jesus answered the question, not with a strategy, not with some newfangled platform that He set up, but by telling a story of an injured man and a neighbour. The question though has a question behind it because as we read, the expert of the law stands up and he's testing Jesus.
[7:40] The scripture tells us, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus turns the question back on him and says, "What does the law say?" And the lawyer, the expert of the law, answers correctly, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself." We've heard these before growing up and some of us may have heard them for the first time today. Jesus says, "Do this and you'll live." But then comes the revealing moment of what the person is really trying to get down to. He wants to justify himself when he asks the question to Jesus, "Who is my neighbour?" That's the real question he's trying to get down to.
[8:28] He's not asking about how do I love? How much do I love? He's asking, how far do I have to go with my responsibilities in order to keep my righteousness? See, a lot of times in today's society and communities we talk about, well, where's my lane? Or how far do I get between the guardrails or how much do I have to do in order to be able to still be in my faith, or where's the line at? Or how great can I go into the gray? We're always trying to measure it in order to keep our righteousness. And still today we'll even say, well, is my neighbor, people that are like me, are the ones that think like me, vote like me, act like me, dress like me, tend to church like me, do worship like me, live close to me, so I don't have to be inconvenienced.
[9:17] If you live too far away, we're still seeking the width and measurement that we're called to, to love our neighbors as ourself. By contemplating these questions, we want to define the limits. We wanna know where the minimum is and still pass the grade. God's not about minimum. Jesus refused to give a definition when He was asked and instead He tells a story of the injured man. He was beaten, stripped of his clothes, left dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Back in those days, that was a dangerous road. It was isolated. You could be easily ambushed and taken advantage of just like this man was.
[10:07] But if you notice something in the story that Jesus, when He is telling the lawyer about the man, there's something missing. There's something missing because we're told nothing about the man. We're not told of his ethnicity, his beliefs, his background, his moral resume, any of those kind of things. And the reason that is, is because compassion doesn't start with who we are or who our neighbor is. Compassion begins by acknowledging that somebody in our circle of influence, our neighbor, is hurting today. Injured people in our lives that we encounter sometimes are that lonely neighbor that nobody has spoken to for over a week or haven't seen and just lives in solitude.
[11:05] Or maybe it's that single parent who's trying to work one or two jobs, children to take care of and are running at a rapid pace, completely overwhelmed. Maybe it's a refugee or an immigrant family that's finding their way into Canada and they're trying to navigate forms and systems and conversations in order to make things a little bit more peaceful in their life. Maybe it's a teenager or a young adult who's silently suffering with anxiety in the loneliness of their apartment or home or just within, inside of who they are. Maybe it's the person whose worldview we strongly disagree with, but they are falling apart on the inside and hurting unbelievably.
[11:59] The road still exists, injured people are still on it, and they run through our neighborhoods. And I don't just mean where your house or apartment or wherever you call home is. I'm talking in your workplaces, in your fields of play, in the avenues of your life that you go through. The priest walks by. The Levite walks by. Both see the man and both cross to the other side. Why? Fear, maybe. Busyness, maybe. Maybe religious purity, maybe self- protection, not knowing what was gonna happen to them. Maybe we don't know.
[12:45] But we do know this: that they have theology without proximity, and this is a warning sign for us because if you have theology without proximity, willing to wander in, you can know the Scriptures, you can attend worship services all the time. You can volunteer in ministries and serve. You can even lead ministries and still walk past suffering people as if you walk to the other side. Today we may not even cross to the other side. We may just look down and remove our gaze from that direction and just stroll on by as if nobody sees them.
[13:32] We say we want to change the world, but I think we want to change it uninterrupted and not being inconvenienced by what's going on. And that's not how change happens. Then Jesus shares in the story about the hero, the Samaritan. And you gotta know that as He talks about this Samaritan and this story. At this point in time, people would've, like, looked confused. They would've went, what? What is he, a Samaritan, like? Really? Like, they would've stiffened up at His suggestion because Samaritans were ethnically mixed. Their theology was suspect, they were socially despised and they were loners that stayed isolated. And Jesus is using this person as an example.
[14:19] If Jesus was to tell us that story today, maybe the Samaritans in our life today might be like people that we look at that have opposite political ways they vote, or maybe they're from another faith background or a social circle that we don't fully trust, someone maybe that keeps to themselves, or maybe it's the neighbor next door who has a messy yard that you don't like next to your yard. When he saw him, he had compassion. And when a true movement of compassion moves inside of us, when we want to be able, as a song said, speak Jesus into a situation, it causes movement more than it does feeling.
[15:06] It causes us to make change, it causes us to inject ourselves into the situation. The Samaritan stops, he moves towards the man, he actually touches him, treats his wounds, lifts him onto his own animal, takes him to an inn to pay for his ongoing care. But there's a part in here that we kinda sometimes blow over or miss or read quickly, and maybe you've caught it and you've kind of stayed in that moment for a second when you read it. But the Scripture tells us the next day he paid the innkeeper, which meant he just didn't pick the man up and take him to the inn.
[15:55] He cared for him through the night. He stayed with him, he nursed the wounds that he had. He made sure that wherever he was headed, that this man was stable before he left, stable enough that he knew that when I come back, I'll pay you the expense that's over what his care is. How often are we willing to take that inconvenience or that interruption in our lives to step into a space that's gonna take more from us? The love that the Samaritan shows, it's costly, it's expensive, it's inconvenient, it's risky, it's very personal from that standpoint. Didn't even know the man and cared for him like he was his best friend. He didn't stop and try to figure out, okay, how am I gonna fix this dangerous road?
[16:43] What people do I need to see? He didn't start, like, dismantling injustices or trying to set up things in and around the community. He didn't launch any kind of movement or social page about it. He simply loves the person and shows the compassion that causes the movement to make something happen. That's how the world changes: everybody engaging your neighbor who's in your life, in every line and every circle that you walk through. I love the fact too that Jesus actually flips the questions and He says, which of these three, now He's questioning the expert of the law, expert of law started out. I love how Jesus does that.
[17:31] If you don't, like, it's one of the coolest things. All of a sudden now you're standing there and He's asking you questions like He's the master at that. And He says, "Who qualifies as my neighbor?" Who qualifies of those threes as the neighbor? And the man answers. Jesus doesn't say who qualifies. He's asking him, "Who qualifies?" And then the man says, "The one who acted like one of the three that came, the one who showed mercy," he says, and then Jesus says, "Go and do likewise," not "go and debate." Likewise, not "go and agree." Likewise, not "go and build a platform on social media and argue with people."
[18:17] Likewise, not "go write a book about it or a paper or nothing of that." He just says, "Go and love with mercy." In our world today, unfortunately, we live a big myth that we can change the world quickly and we can imagine the world, what it would look like, you know, with the people that currently lead in our spots. And we've gotta be praying for our leaders. Whether you agree with them or disagree with them, you gotta, they're a soul lifter loss that still need Christ. And we pray that they would find that In our world today, when we think of changing worlds, we think of influence, visibility, recognition, and system overhauls.
[19:04] But the story is not that at all. One of my experiences, I got to go down into and do a home visit, and a home visit is about an eight by 12 corrugated steel room that might have up to seven people living in it with a ground floor. And I don't mean ground floor like on an elevator, like dirt ground floor. And I had the opportunity to go with a partner who delivered a sack of supplies: flour, sugar, soaps, different items in this bag. And as we sat and and the mom gave glory to God for all that she had, the joy was so incredible.
[19:54] Her faith was so strong. And I asked, I said, "How long will this last for her and her family?" They said, "Probably about a month, but she'll be through it in 10 days." And I'm like, "Wait, now you just said a month but she'll be through it in 10 days." I said, "Well, which is it?" She goes, "It's 10 days." And I said, "Why 10 days?" She goes, "Because when we all leave, she's gonna share it with everyone that's around her, because she sees that love, the compassion." When you get blessed, you bless others in return. It's a real incredible lesson to watch play out.
[20:39] You can't compare our culture to the culture and the world that you experienced there because they're two different worlds. And one is living fully, embracing what God has and blessing them for everything that they do have, that we would think they have nothing in our definition, but they have so much more. And even the lady, when I was leaving, she says to me, she goes, "Now when you go, don't be sad. Don't be sad because of what you seen. Like, don't feel sorry for us. Don't be sad about it." They said, "We're now, like, friends." And they said, like, go and tell other people because people who love Christ come together to care for each other.
[21:31] And it was, as difficult as it was to hear, it was true because I knew she was a strong woman and she was going to make it through and she trusted God with all of it. Our world changes when there's interruptions. One dying man in the story that Jesus shared with us created one act of mercy that came through disruption of wherever this Samaritan was headed. The priest and the Levite. They might have been, like, talking about big reform and change and what they should be doing and how they can change it. But when change required them to be inconvenienced or disrupted, they passed on by and not even so much as acknowledging.
[22:25] We want to think we can live in a world that doesn't have disruption or inconvenience when it comes to showing compassion. But we can't. The God I serve, He inconveniences me a lot of times by my definition, but it's the right time when He does that. He might disrupt my schedule and my plan, but it's not about my schedule and my plan. It's about His schedule and His plan because that's what He wants for people to come to the kingdom of God. If we want to change the world and changing the world starts with proximity, we can't just have theology and understanding. We gotta be willing to get within the distance and the closeness of people who need the love of Jesus Christ, to speak Jesus.
[23:19] And the power of His name will cause the changes to happen. The Samaritan felt compassion and it drew him near. And if you think about our society and comparison, we're being separated and isolated like you wouldn't believe and drawing near is what we need to do, near to each other as followers of Christ. For those that are trying to figure it out. And those that may not even know what to do, it's gotta kind of start at home. And I had the chance to play Red Light, Green Light with a bunch of kids and there's a video posted somewhere on social media. I'm not on social media but someone sent me, like, a clip of it or whatever, however you do all that stuff.
[24:07] And God just wants us to enter into life with people and share that together. And I backed up against the gate where all the kids were. And of course then they grabbed all my hand. I'm like, I don't even know how we're all gonna run now. I got, like, about four or five sets of hands holding onto my arm, playing. I haven't played Red Light, Green Light in a long, long time. And quickly I was one of them. I was their neighbor, they were my neighbor, and they continued to be part of that. So distance just numbs us to the stuff we see and hear about. Proximity changes us in how we look at our world.
[24:52] That's why in our society today we are more apt to argue about global issues, the needs in our local, regional, and global communities, needs of the people. We care more about likes and posts online and what we get or how many we give than having eye-to-eye contact with people in our communities or wherever God takes us to engage in real life discussions to meet needs. Or we've gotten into a habit of shooting off emails that we just kind of just spew everything in and think it's conversation, but it's not conversation, instead of having face-to-face discussions with people about real important aspects in our community.
[25:46] Jesus doesn't call us to save everyone, but He calls us to love each other. And it starts with us as followers. World doesn't change from the top down. The world changes from the ground up, from you up, one neighbor at a time. Each person that's in front of you as you take each step through your day. Ultimately, we can read the story of the Good Samaritan and think it's about instruction of what to do. A lot of what I said sounds like instruction about what to do. But really, the story in its core is a revelation. It's a revelation for us to consider. See, we are the wounded ones. Maybe we don't feel wounded any longer.
[26:32] Maybe right now we're struggling and going through wounding. Maybe we haven't even discovered how unhealthy our lives may be. There's times when we've walked and we've been beaten by sin and we've been left helpless, unable to rescue ourselves and unable to rescue others. And we've been that man in Jesus' story lying on the street. But then there came a Man named Jesus and He drew near us and He bound our wounds and healed our hurts and He paid the cost for it. And He also promised to return.
[27:22] See, we have to love because we were first loved. Jesus was the one who stepped into our lives and showed compassion, showed love and expects us to do that for everyone that we step into. Grace received becomes grace released. Mercy experienced becomes mercy extended. Neighboring is not a moral effort that you just do because it's the right thing to do. It's a discipline that comes out of your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ because of what flows through you. You want to share in the lives of other people. So what's it look like?
[28:09] I wanna leave you with four things of what it looks like. Number one is see what others overlook. Don't put your eyes down to the ground. Don't change to the other side of the road. Don't stroll on by. Ask God for eyes that He has to see those that are ignored, those that people may see as an inconvenience. Those that you may think are an outsider, those that are outside the circle of the meeting, getting their needs met. The world changes first by awareness, by us being aware.
[28:55] Number two, embrace interruptions. Oh, how we love to plan our days. If your desire is to change the world and never be interrupted, it'll only remain an idea. It won't be something that's core to who you are and the eyes that God gives you or the faith that you try to show. Number three, cross barriers. Ethnic, political, cultural and personal comfort. Love that crosses no boundaries, no barriers, is not the fullness of the Samaritan love that has been displayed for us.
[29:40] It crosses all those without hesitation. Number four, be faithful. And don't worry about being famous. Be faithful and don't worry about being famous. Most acts that truly change the world never make it in a reel or post on social media. You know who sees? God sees. On my refrigerator, I was given a gift and it sits on my refrigerator every day. It's an artistic picture of Jesus. And right next to Him it says, "I saw that."
[30:29] And it's just a reminder. Who are we here to serve? Who are we here to share about? Are we the same as the Samaritan, looking for the opportunities? The Jericho Road, it runs through your neighborhoods, it runs through your workplaces, it runs through where you do recreation, it runs through your school, your college, your university. It even runs through your online spaces. There are people that are hurting. So the question shouldn't be any longer, "Who is my neighbor?" The question I want to ask you today is, will you stop for your neighbor, that neighbor who needs that love that only the power of the name of Jesus can bring?
[31:24] You want to change the world? Start with the person in front of you. The one you see when you go to work. The person you see serving you at the grocery store. The one maybe walking with their head down as you're walking down the street. See them first, one neighbor, one interruption, one act of mercy, one obedient step at a time. It's not a sprint. This is a long race. We don't change the world by conquering systems and winning arguments. If you're ever in a discussion and your goal is to win, you've already lost. If your goal is to speak Jesus, you're starting to win.
[32:20] And that the lives of those people loving the person in front of you. Jesus's invitation was as simple then as it is now. And it says, "Go and do likewise." It's not go and ask questions or go and figure it out or go and create something. It's go and do likewise. I had these cards made for you for when you leave today. I want everyone to take one. I'll watch the video cameras and make sure that you all took one. I really want you to take one.
[33:08] It starts with intentionality. And I know, like all human nature, when you leave one thing, you go to the next thing. And when you leave here, you'll be thinking about what's for lunch. And after lunch, you'll be thinking about if I'm gonna go ice fishing or I'm gonna do, you'll be thinking about whatever the next thing is and you'll move along through your day. But I want you to take this 'cause on the other side is a tic-tac-toe diagram. And I've shared this before and I just want you to do it with intentionality. I've filled in the center spot for you with the Tidal icon, 'cause this is who we are. We're not only a church that praises, but we're a church that shows compassion and Samaritan love to people we come in contact with.
[34:00] So whatever is your Jericho Road: workplace, neighborhood. If you have, like, a small kids group that you get together, moms or dads or your small group, work, I already said work, sports. I want you to fill in these squares with people's names that God has placed in front of you and then over here, of how you're going to speak Jesus into their lives, and pray. Put this card in a prominent spot. Don't bury it. Make sure you see it every day. If we're not intentional about creating habits that Christ has placed inside of our spirit to be expressed outwardly, then it'll never form and become part of who we are that He wants.
[34:49] When I was in the countries in Africa, I saw a lot of pain. I saw a lot of loss and I saw a lot of needs. I couldn't fix them all. I couldn't even begin to meet the needs that were there. And my heart ached and my spirit cried. Sat on a plane for many hours, not watching movies, just listening to God. And I knew I couldn't do all that was needed. But He did say, "You can help by helping the people that I've entrusted to you that are part of the Tidal family to become people that care."
[35:47] Why? Because maybe, just maybe, if we all say yes to be like this, to be like the Samaritan, that the people that are in our local area, regional area, and even globally, we can make a difference by the partnerships that we have and stepping in the messy spots of being inconvenienced. To say, "Yes, I can do that here." I can't meet all the needs there. Lifting each other up instead of fighting against each other, supporting the ministries and partnerships that we know. We have connections with offering to assist instead of just ignoring and walking down the other side of the street.
[36:34] Lifting people up, because people here and around the world, they're counting on us. Eternity is at stake. They want a relationship with us here and globally. I want you to experience their joy and love and faith because it is at incredible levels. We are God's followers and we are one so that the world will believe.
[37:19] Whether we live in Canada, we live in Kenya, we live in Sierra Leone, it doesn't matter where we live. We are one. And as a faith community of followers of Christ, we can change the world one relationship at a time by the person that is in front of us, that God has placed there for us to reach and show compassion and make sure that their need gets filled. That's what we can do. When our circles change, our city changes. When our city changes, our province changes. When our province changes, our country changes. When our country changes, we can help change the world. And I am just asking you, as one of the pastors that are here, that you become like the Samaritan and you make a difference in someone's life and speak Jesus.
[38:12] But we need to be one and we need to ask God to make us one, because we are better together than we are isolated and separated. And I refuse. I refuse to go down in division, to go down in separation. We're coming together and we're gonna be a force to be reckoned with. And I don't know if our city's ready, but I know there is a world on the other side that are counting on us to help them conquer their world too, together. Father, we thank You for Your love. We thank You for the unbelievable experiences that You give us to walk into in people's lives. And Father, I know that sometimes maybe it's inconvenient or it's disruptive or it doesn't fit in our schedule, but it has nothing to do with that.
[39:05] When You introduce those moments to us, it is perfect timing. It is God timing. There is no timing greater than Yours. And so Father, may we realize that like the Samaritan did, I'm sure he had somewhere to go, somewhere to be, and people have shunned him. But he took the moment to not only nurse and pick up and take to a spot and care for, to get to a point of stability. He just showed love and compassion. Father, You've shown us love and compassion. You've taken us out of our sin, out of our mess of life and set us free. You've healed our wounds and You've nursed us and You've spent nights with us, and You paid the ultimate price for us.
[39:54] So may we be one, make us one so that the world may believe because of the unity that exists across nations. We are not just an isolated group of believers. We're a strong force that's ready to change the world. When You present those opportunities and it's in Jesus' name, we ask and celebrate those. Amen.