"The Samaritan Recipe"
Sermon Transcript for September 26, 2004
Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-37
By Dr. Bishara Awad
Good morning! It’s a great joy being with you here. I’ve already been blessed with the beautiful music and, really, it is great for me to come here. I bring you greetings from Bethlehem from the students, from the staff, and from the churches over there. We are in Bethlehem; and I was born in Jerusalem as Reverend Dan said. And I have been with the Bethlehem Bible College since 1979. It’s great work that we are doing in that part of the world. It’s a light for the Lord Jesus Christ in which there is so much darkness. And as you know, the Middle East now is in turmoil and has been for years.
Today I thought I would share with you a beautiful story, the story of the Good Samaritan. Jericho is not too far from Jerusalem. And, of course, I’m in Bethlehem, you go through Jerusalem, and then to go to Jericho is downhill. You see, the Bible says, “He went down to Jericho.” And it is, Jericho is under sea level if you ever have been there. And so it was warmer than Bethlehem. Much warmer, maybe at least 10 or 15 degrees difference all the time between Jericho and between Bethlehem. But if you come to Bethlehem to visit us like Dan has visited us, it’s great. Dan didn’t have time to come and visit us at home. I would love for him to come and visit home and meet my wife, Salwa. Talking about Salwa, she is a great cook; she is a good cook. You can see how good I look. She really knows how to put a dish together and put a recipe together. And one of the greatest dishes that we have over there is from grape leaves and zucchini. She takes the grape leaves and she rolls it. Inside she puts rice and meat and spices. And the zucchini she takes the inside out and she stuffs it back in the rice and meat. But she knows how to put a beautiful dish together. She doesn’t use a cookbook. She really is a good cook and usually we enjoy this meal with friends, with associates and a great and a beautiful Christian fellowship and love right there in Bethlehem. I live right there at the Bible College like you live right here at the church. This, of course, reminded me of this Samaritan man and that’s what I want to share with you today about the Samaritan recipe. I’ve called it “The Samaritan Recipe”.
Clear Vision: The first ingredient in this recipe is a clear vision. As we know the story, there was a Levite that he saw this man hurting, he saw this man laying down and he just looked at him. He didn’t do anything; he just went by. And then a priest also who went by. But this enemy, who is a Samaritan, looked at him and he said, “Oh, my goodness. There is a man who is hurting. And even though he is my enemy, there is something I can do.” And this is what we now call as…he has a clear vision. Ministry starts with a clear vision, vision of all the human needs no matter what is the human need. The human need could be material, could be spiritual.
We live in a community that are Muslims and Christians around us all the time. The majority of the people in Bethlehem are really Muslims. It used to be the majority Christians, but many Christians have left. Now, we have a vision to reach out to the Muslims; we have a vision to reach out for the Christians. And Bethlehem Bible College has had this beautiful and a great vision. In 1997, as Dan said, I used to be the principle of Hope Secondary School, a beautiful Christian school. And everyday we have chapel and we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we sing; these Arabs, some of them Muslim, some of them are Christian, we sing beautiful songs. And everybody sings these songs. And many of them wanted to continue their Christian education when they leave the Bible College. But there were no Bible colleges whatsoever in all of Israel and the West Bank and Bethlehem is in the Palestine territory. And sometimes these students get to know a missionary. The missionary will send them to America to study the Bible. Do you know what happens when they come to America? They don’t go back! And this has been a loss of many future leaders.
So I came with a vision, the Lord had given me a vision. What we need in Bethlehem is a Bible College! I shared my vision with the pastors in a meeting of all of the area pastors and lay leaders. And I told them what we need in Bethlehem is a Bible College. One pastor said, “Bishara, you can do it. Go ahead.” You know how it is when you are in a committee. You suggest something and you end up doing it! Well, another pastor was more encouraging. He took out his checkbook. He wrote a check and he said, “Here, Bishara, go ahead. You can do it.” Well, they formed a meeting right there at that first meeting a committee and this became the Board of the Bible College. And I looked at the check that this pastor gave me. It was twenty dollars. Well, how can you start a Bible College with twenty dollars? But with the Lord, everything is possible. This was seed money that we put in the ground and the Lord blessed and blesses the seed money. We started the courses in the evening since I was the Principle of the school I had all the keys so we had classes in the evenings. We started with nine students. And we went like this for two years. And in these two years the Lord blessed us in more ways than we can imagine. Many people will come our way, World Vision, Open Doors, Christian Aide. They are telling us, “Can we become partners with you? You are doing something real good for the church of Jesus Christ in the Holy Land.”
After two years we were able to rent the place. That place became very small. And the Lord kept enlarging our vision and enlarging our tent. In 1990 there were places in Bethlehem, beautiful three buildings that had been empty for ten years. And I said to myself, “This is a shame. This is God’s property. This would be good for the Bible College.” I talked with the English Society who takes care of this Helen Keller School for the Blind, it use to be. They said, “No, no, no these building are for sale and we know you don’t have the money. We have to sell these buildings.” I left not disappointed but kept trusting the Lord. I felt inside that these buildings should be the Bible College. We prayed the students, we trusted the Lord, and we even fasted. And every time I passed on Hebrew Road and I looked to my left I see these beautiful buildings that say, “Helen Keller Home for the Blind”. And I say a prayer. My prayer was, “Thank you Jesus for the building.” You know, it’s Biblical; you can claim things and if it is in God’s will, you can have it. It wasn’t until September 1st of 1990; these people came with the keys. They said, “Bishara, we trust you; here are the keys. Just use these buildings.” I said, “How much?” They said, “No rent.” Isn’t that amazing! It’s just beautiful. Once you have a vision, God will open the doors and the vision will be fulfilled. And so now we have a beautiful Bible College--three beautiful buildings. It took us six years to raise the funds so that we could buy these buildings. And we bought these buildings for 1.8 million dollars. You see what twenty dollars can do with the Lord!
All you have to do is trust Him and if you are faithful to the Lord, He is faithful to you. He’s the one that gives you the vision. He’s the one that fulfills that vision with you. So our first ingredient is to have a vision. And our vision at the Bible College is to train young people, indigenous leaders, to be pastors of the churches, to be leaders, to be youth directors. We train them in mass media that they can become the television experts. And they are already making progress for Christian television station. And it is such a beautiful thing that the Lord is using us. We send them to be tour guides because many Christians from all over the world come to visit the Holy Land. And, unfortunately, many of the tour guides are not Christians. So now we have our own Christian tour guides that they can go to places, open the Bible, and pray with the people. This is our vision that when you come, and we invite you to come to Bethlehem, that you use one of our tour guides and you’ll be blessed as he knows the Lord, Jesus Christ. So we have visions.
We have a vision for mission. Among us are Muslims who are lost. And we know that without Jesus they will never have eternal life. And so we reach out to them. We reach out to the Christians. So without a vision, people perish. And we need to have this vision. And this is the first ingredient that the Samaritan had. He had a vision. He saw. And anytime we see a need, the Lord is going to supply that need no matter what need that need is. Well, let us have eyes the way Jesus had. And let us have these eyes that Jesus will deal with the people. Because Jesus, He went around and He saw the people. He saw the multitudes. And what did He see? He saw sheep without a shepherd and He felt pity on them. And that’s Jesus.
We sent our daughter to America to study after she finished high school. And she went to college. And when she finished college she gave us a call. I remember forever this call. She said, “Dad, I met this man.” I said, “We sent you to college to study and not to get married.” And she said, “Dad, but I love him!” I said, “What do you see in him?” She said, “Just come and meet him, you’ll see.” She saw something in that man and they are now happily married. They have a beautiful son that now is two months old. So I’m a grandpa. But it is good, you know, Jesus giving us a vision to see. And we have to fulfill these needs.
Compassion: The second ingredient to have is compassion. We serve in the name of Jesus and we must be motivated by compassion. Many times Jesus would see the people and He would have compassion on them. He would have compassion on the widow; he would have compassion on this little girl that he raised up from the dead. And we need to have compassion on the people. And this is what makes a difference in our Christian way of life, our Christian living, that we see people and we have compassion on them. In our country sad things are happening. We have suicide bombs on one side and many Israelis innocent people are dying. And many times we see on television all of these innocent people are dying and then my wife will be crying. I say, “You are crying?” She says, “Well, yeah, even though these are our enemies, but these are human beings. Look at these children; look at these women.” And on the other side we see the reaction of the Israeli army and they kill more people. And then my wife will cry again. We have to have compassion on these people. Both sides are lost; both sides they need help. They need help to come together and solve this Israeli/Palestinian problem. But somehow, you know, America has taken the side of Israel and then other countries taking the side of the Palestinians and that is not helping the situation at all. We need to have compassion on both sides. And this way we are praying for peace that peace will come to that part of the world.
Jesus had compassion on the people. And we have to also. The word compassion in Arabic really means, you know, when you feel so pity, so sorry for somebody that even your guts inside are hurting. This is compassion. And when we see people lost, when we see people dying, when we see people in pain, God has given us this compassion. Compassion and love—they come together. They both are very associated together. So God has given us, given you perhaps. So this is why, maybe, the priest and the Levite just went by this man because they had no love, they had no compassion, no pity on this man. But this Samaritan had the compassion.
Understanding: Well, let me go to the third ingredient and that is understanding. We need to have understanding of the people situation. And this man, as he grew closer and closer to him, he had a better understanding of the situation. We must not be afraid to draw closer to the people especially people who are in need. We need to come closer and closer. And this man, he had, every step he would take is closer and closer. He can see the man, he can see the situation, and he can understand his situation. Does he have broken bones? Is he bleeding? Can I carry him? He had an understanding. I believe, you know, going back home to our situation over there, I believe the Palestinians are the most misunderstood people in the world. In your country here, you have the media. And the media portrays the Palestinians always as the bad people and Israelis as the good people. And even sometimes we Christians are caught up in this media that we take sides. And let me tell you that there are very good people among the Palestinians. Sad things are happening on both sides by the suicide bomb. It’s terrible; it’s evil. But we need to understand why all of this is happening. And the Palestinians are the natives of this land. They have been living there for hundreds and hundreds of years. I traced my own family background at least 500 years in that part of the world and maybe more. Some people ask me, “When did you become a Christian?” And my answer, my quick answer was, “Well, maybe 2,000 years ago.” Who knows? We may have been right there from the time of the Apostles until now living there as Christians and then we adopted Arabic and we became part of the Arabic language and Arabic culture. But we need to have understanding of the people.
I’m the result of the missionary effort. But my mother didn’t know that until later. Because there was a missionary that came to Jerusalem and my mother became a believer through that ministry. And all of us now, seven brothers and sisters, are believers. But she came because she wants to be close to the people. And I really respect and admire missionaries very much because they leave everything and they go to the land, they have a clear understanding of the people, of the culture. Many times they learn the language. And they become part of the community and the culture over there. So they have a clear and more understanding of the people.
Now let me tell you this beautiful story. When I went to seminary in Fresno, California and one day my wife and I on a Wednesday we went to the marketplace because my wife loves fresh vegetables. She never eats anything out of a can; it’s always fresh. And so we were buying these beautiful fruits and vegetables in Fresno, California. And my sister visited us, also, from Anaheim to be with us. And we were speaking Arabic having a good time when this very, very old woman came and she said, “I heard you speak Arabic. I speak Arabic too.” She was a missionary in Jerusalem. And then she told us. “I have been in a girls school as a missionary but I am back here and I’m disappointed. No one was converted through my ministry. But I have been praying for this girl. I wonder what happened to Huda. I have been praying for Huda for the last forty years.” Well, Huda happened to be my mothers name also, our mothers name. And then we were really interested. And then we were asking questions. And finally I told her, “Are you Miss Brown?” She said, “Yes, how did you know?” Well, when she introduced herself she used her married name. I told her my mother became a believer and she had told us all the time she became a believer because of Miss Brown at that school. “You really touched my mother’s life.” But she found out after forty years that she did touch somebody’s life. She was there. She came closer and she was at the school and she touched my mother. And because of her I am here today. And all of us brothers and sisters believe in the Lord Jesus. And I have a brother who is a minister in Jerusalem. And he ministers the Word of God. So we need to have an understanding.
I’m so happy that when I came here, you did not put me in a hotel but I stayed with this wonderful family, Dan and Laura Sinkhorn family. And I learned to love this family especially I love Ruthie so much. We had an attraction to each other somehow. And I would never have met Ruthie if I didn’t come closer and closer and be part of your family. So thank you very much that I am part of your family.
So this is understanding. We need to have understanding of the people. In order to understand the Palestinians, just study both sides of the situation. There are books written on both sides. And it’s not being political; understand, of people and their feelings, and their pain. So we need, it’s just like this man on the way to Jericho; he had an understanding of this man. Jesus must have done a great work in other lives because Jesus wants to have understanding and this understanding took place as He came to be part of us. You see, He left heaven to come to earth and He was part of us. And He understands people. He understands our pain. He understands what we go through. And every temptation that we go through, He understands everything about us. So let us not just be satisfied because with remarks that control ministry, we can come closer to the people, understand the people and understand their pain.
Ministry: The fourth ingredient is ministry. This is what I love very much—ministry. This man, he ministered to him. And he took care of him. He poured wine and oil on his wounds, and then he put the man on his donkey and took him to an inn and took care of him. As a church, our ministry is to take care of the people. We are to have ministry. Without actual ministry all of our ingredients would not bring any practical relief to this man who is a victim. We run into many people who are a victim—not physically hurt but a victim of bad teaching, a teaching of being a part of the Muslim that doesn’t know the Lord Jesus Christ, and a victim of drugs, a victim of many abuses in this world. The children are being, because of the war that we have there, they are really, and their physical ability has flattened them so much. So these are all victims, victims of the situation. And it’s not always me, and my ministry or my church that is important. We need to get out of our circle and see the people who are really, really hurting and try to minister to them. Minister to the lost, minister to those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Ministry is really important. There are people who need their life to be restored, to be comforted, and we can minister to these people. Jesus did most of his ministry in Galilee, right around the Lake of Galilee over there. The great Sermon on the Mount was right there in Galilee. He ministered to the people and it was a great ministry. He did healing; he liberated people from their evil spirits. And this is the work that the church and us that the Lord has put on us to do, to do people, we ought to minister.
One day students and teachers of the Bible College, one of the projects they have to go and knock on homes and minister to every home right inside the home. I want to tell you, people over there—Muslims and Christians—open their homes and welcome you in. And you can minister. You can open the Bible; you can pray with them. But they were praying one day in this home and this woman who’s a mother of five people, she’s told the teacher and the students, “I don’t believe anything you are saying. I don’t believe Jesus can heal.” And they told her, “Why, what’s the matter?” Her name is Noel. And she said, “I am sick. I have a back ailment for the last 12 months and the doctors have told me in a month I will be in a wheelchair. I want to kill myself. I cannot be in this situation any more.” They told her, “Well, can we pray with you?” “Well”, she said, “you can pray.” And they prayed. Nothing happened. But she went home and the next morning she called. She said, “I slept twelve hours. This is the first time in my life I can sleep twelve hours! I am healed!” And she was praising the Lord that she is healed. She said, “Can I come and be a student at the Bible College?” Sure enough, we told her “Yes”. It was the beginning of the school year and she did come. She is a student. And not only her, all of her family. Now one of her sons is a pastor of a church. So we ought to do ministry.
God is using us in a great way that we can minister to the whole community over there. We minister to the refugee camp; we minister to the people in Bethlehem. Unemployment in Bethlehem is sixty percent. Can you imagine that much? People are unemployed for that long for the last three years. And so we have to do ministry to these people. We started the Shepherd Society that takes care of the needs of the people over there. And it’s great to see Muslims and Christians get the blessings from the Lord Jesus Christ through the Bible College and through the Shepherd Society, which is a part of the Bible College. One day at the Refugee Camp, we have three Refugee Camps in Bethlehem, they are all 100% Muslims. They surprise us! They put a big sign in front of the camp saying, “We appreciate the work of Bethlehem Bible College!” This is coming from a Muslim community. And because we love them, we show them the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and we don’t differentiate between Muslims and Christians because they are all born and created in the image of God.
Giving: Well, let me go to the fifth ingredient here and that is giving. I like that very much. Giving! This man gave. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. Love is always expressed through giving. We are in this ministry because we want to give of ourselves. We need to give. What did this man give? He gave his time. Time is very precious, as you all know. But he took time to be with this man. He gave up his medicine—the oil and the wine. He gave his energy. He gave his transportation. You know the donkey at that time use to be maybe the Cadillac of today. But he did give up that and he put this man on the donkey. (Lost some of the transcript due to tape change.) He gave his heart and love. And this is what we should do. We are to give our heart and love. When God loved the world so much, what did God do? He sent His only Son, His only begotten Son so that we would all have life and we could have everlasting life. And I praise God that I have accepted Jesus as my personal Savior. I have accepted this gift from God. God has given us His Holy Spirit. God has given us so much that we can give to other people. And without Jesus we can do nothing. God has given us so much. God has given us so many blessings. I cannot imagine…we just celebrated 25 years of Bethlehem Bible College and we started with twenty dollars! But God has given us these beautiful buildings. And we built another building and one building we build we build for a library. We found out that in Bethlehem there is no public library. So we gave that library, we made it public, and we gave it to the whole community to use. And now we have in Bethlehem Bible College the first and the only public library. We wanted to give.
What Jesus had given us we wanted to give. And I praise God for churches that have a vision for mission, for giving out. And the church that will give, I tell you, it is a blessed church. And the Lord will bless that church in more ways than one. So let us be always on the giving end and see how much the Lord will bless you more and more. Well, as you can see I am just an orphan boy. I was raised in an orphanage. But God bestowed so much blessings on me and here I am in America, your beautiful country. It’s all because God has given—given His love, given His Son, Jesus. And the blessings of God we just cannot count. And I love the song, “Count your blessings, count them one by one.” There is so much! But I think time is passing.
But let me just conclude to tell you that as you resume ministering and you resume walking with the Lord, Jesus Christ in this world, remember these five ingredients. Remember that Jesus is our great example. Have a clear vision, have compassion on the people who are hurting around you—your neighbor, your third neighbor, your fourth neighbor—because for us our neighbor is the Muslim, is the Jew, is the Christian. Have a clear understanding. Have a service, minister of service. Be a giving person. As these ingredients spice your ministry, you will find that they will also enrich your life and fill it with joy. If you want to be a happy person in this life, just follow these ingredients in your life and follow the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ll be happy. Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” So we are to follow the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And may the Lord bless you. Thank you.
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