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Practical tips on how to enact the command of loving your neighbor
~~ Watch the Video ~~
Outline:
- Introduction
- Purpose Review
- The Greatest Commandments
- The Good Samaritan
- Judging Others
- Why Should We Love Our Neighbor
- How to Love Your Neighbor
Scriptures:
- 1 John 4:19
- Mark 12: 28-31
- Galatians 5:18
- Luke 10: 29-37
- Matthew 7: 1-5
- 1 Corinthians 13:7
- Luke 6:27-36
- Matt 25:35-46
- Eph 4: 29 - 32
Introduction
Joke: Aliens, Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr
- In 2,000 years only two people said that we should be nice to each other
- What did you guys do to those two?
Golden Rule
Most of Jesus‘s time was spent telling people how they ought to treat one another
When Jesus spoke, he spoke more often about the fruits of the spirit than on grace and salvation
To dwell above with those we love that will be a glory
To dwell below with those we know… That’s another story
Jesus instructed that the two greatest commandments are:
- Love God
- Love Your Neighbor
1 John 4:19
We love, because He first loved us.
Review
The two greatest days in your life are:
- the day you were born
- the day you figure out why you were born
– – Mark twain
Purpose is the "why”
- It is the fundamental reason something exists
The Bible tells us that everything was created by God, the Designer, for a reason
Your calling is the purpose that God created you for
- It's the destination or the end goal of your assignment on earth
You’re calling is who you were created to be
Your purpose is what you were created to do
A calling is God‘s invitation for your participation and the reason for your creation
–Darius Daniels
Universal Callings
Christians are called to:
- To Love God
- Love others
- Make disciples
Additionally, you are called to use your unique gifts, talents, and abilities to serve others, glorify God.
Having a purpose
- Gives you a meaningful goal
- Gives you a sense of fulfilment
- Makes suffering more bearable
- Gives you clarity in priorities and decisions
In this series we will look
- What are our universal purposes
- Discover your unique purpose
- Overcome the barriers preventing you from pursuing your purpose
The Greatest Commandments
Which of the commandments is the most important?
- Don’t murder
- No other God before YHWH
- Don’t lie
Mark 12: 28-31
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[f] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[g] There is no commandment greater than these.” 32And the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO OTHER BESIDES HIM; 33and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And then, no one dared any longer to question Him.
- The scribe told Jesus that he had answered correctly
- Meaning that that was the answer he was expecting
- Jesus wasn’t teaching something new
Jesus didn’t invent two new commandments to summarize the 10.
These aren’t part of the 10 commandments
Why was the scribe familiar with these two Commandments?
He chose two of the existing 613 Jewish commandments and prioritized two
- The 10 commandments are included in the 613
- Jesus clearly these two commandments as more important than all of the 10
As You Love Yourself
Jesus commands, "As you love yourself, so love your neighbor." Which means: As you long for food when you are hungry, so long to feed your neighbor when he is hungry. As you long for nice clothes for yourself, so long for nice clothes for your neighbor. As you work for a comfortable place to live, so desire a comfortable place to live for your neighbor. As you seek to be safe and secure from calamity and violence, so seek comfort and security for your neighbor. As you seek friends for yourself, so be a friend to your neighbor.
…
If you are persevering in pursuing your own happiness, be persevering in pursuing the happiness of your neighbor.
...
Measure your pursuit of the happiness of others, and what it should be, by the pursuit of your own.
-- John Piper
So a few lessons ago, many of you said you “just wanted to be happy”
- Jesus is saying, in the same way you want to be happy…make your neighbor happy
The Spirit of the Law
It’s not that if you Love God and Love Your Neighbor you will be keeping all of the other commandments. It really means that the reason for all of the other commandments was to ensure that you Love God and Love Your Neighbor.
If you are doing something with the motive of loving God or loving your neighbor then you are keeping the spirit of the law
- Even if you are actually breaking the specific law
- E.g. helping your neighbor get his horse out of the ditch on the sabbath
Driving Example
What are some driving laws?
I could say that our traffic laws hang on two concepts:
1. Have a safe car
2. Don't endanger yourself or anyone else
All of the other laws were made to enforce these two. It's not that if you keep these two then you'll automatically follow the details of all of the others. It's that the other laws were created to ensure these two.
Laws:
- Come to a complete stop at the stoplight
- Don’t cross a double yellow line
- Wear your seatbelt
Spirit of the Law
If you do a rolling stop at a stop sign on a country road in broad daylight there are no cars or people for 2 miles. Should you get a ticket?
- Letter of the law vs Spirit of the law
You may think not because you did not break the spirit of the law by putting anyone in danger
The law was created to prevent car accidents
These traffic laws maintain civil order, and the biblical laws maintain the natural order.
Galatians 5:18
18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
- If you are led by the Spirit of the law, you are not under the law
Love Fulfills the Law
34When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And then, no one dared any longer to question Him.
Notice that Jesus didn’t say that the man was a child of Satan
- Or a den of vipers
- But that He was close to the kingdom of God
The fact that he prioritize these to put him in a different category then the other scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees
If everything you do has the motive of
- Love God
- Love Your Neighbor
Then you are not far from the Kingdom of God
The Good Samaritan
Luke 10: 29-37
29But wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
The Good Samaritan
30Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, and they stripped him and [q]beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31And by coincidence a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35On the next day he took out two [r]denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.’ 36Which of these three do you think [s]proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37And he said, “The one who showed compassion to him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do [t]the same.”
In the Jewish culture it was okay to hate non-Jews
- The Jews believed that you should love your neighbors and hate your enemies
- They hated the Samaritans
- They didn't have a command to love anyone who wasn’t Jewish
Jesus redefined the meaning of neighbor to include Jews and non-Jews alike (including your enemies)
Who is your neighbor?
The good Samaritan shows us that “our neighbor“ means anyone who is within our reach that we can love.
“Your neighbor“ is the person who is in your proximity that is
- Hurting
- Wounded
- Cannot help themselves
- Who somehow you cross their path
If you have the capacity and resources to help this person
Love In Action
Jesus asked “which was being a neighbor”?
What information did we have to judge to answer Jesus' question“ about which one was a good neighbor?“
We don’t know their heart or their motives
- We don’t know why they didn’t stop
We can only judge by their actions
The other two may have had good reasons why they couldn’t stop to help
- It was a sin for the Levite to touch someone bleeding
- it incurred ritual impurity under the Mosaic Law
- They were running late to save someone’s life or to serve God
- They were aware that this person deserve the beating that he got
To love someone is to act in their best interest regardless of your feelings or affection towards them
Although we should be kind and loving, that’s not what earns us our salvation
The good Samaritan wasn’t being a neighbor by
- Feeling bad about the man
- Telling the church to go and help him
- Voting for the person that would help him
So we judge our own good by our actions
Judging Others
What are some reasons we judge others?
- out of concern that the sinner will stray from God
- because we think we’re better than them
- to make ourselves feel better
- Because we’re proud we have conquered that area
- because we miss the life we’ve given up
- Because they wronged us
"Don't judge me because I sin different than you do"
-Facebook Quote
Matthew 7: 1-5
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Actions vs Motives
Expectation Gap
between me and every other person in the world there are gaps between what I expect, and what actually happens
- You said you would be here at four, but it is 4:30
- You said you would pay me back on Tuesday, but it is Wednesday
- You said you don’t like broccoli, but you are eating broccoli
- you said you would never do that again, but you are doing that again
The principle of trust
Love looks for the most generous explanation for the other person's behavior
Fundamental attribution error
Think of the last time you cursed someone out?
- Were they in the wrong?
I’m sure you did it for a good reason…and they deserved it
We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intent
When other people do something negative, we attribute to their character
- “You are always late”
when we do something negative, we attribute it to circumstances/environment
- ” I was late because traffic was bad“
We don’t give others the grace that we would give ourselves
Filter Through Love
1 Corinthians 13:7
it [love] keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
- I am going to protect this person‘s reputation by not speaking about this negatively to anyone
- If you said that that’s how it happened… then that’s what I believe
- I'm going to hope that this happened because …
- Greek: To hold a position at all cost… Even to death
I choose what goes in the gap
What determines what goes on the gap
- What I see
- Who I am
Example: someone is speeding and driving recklessly on the freeway
- His wife must be about to deliver their baby
- “I hope he makes it in time”
The tools you learned to use to survive are hurting your current relationships
- Distrust
- Self reliance
- People pleasing
- Blowing up to get your way
STUDY: Happy Couples
- Other person ranked their spouse higher than the spouse ranked themselves
- romantic, loving, forgiving, …
positive illusions a phenomenon where happy couples hold exaggeratedly positive views of their partners
Study result: “A spouse with a positive allusion created an upward spiral of love”
Advice from the study: “find the most generous explanation of the other person's behavior“
Example: date assumed worst
- Live music
Examples
- She’s not impatient she’s just intense
- He’s not insensitive he’s just focused
——
every time you choose to assume negatively you contribute to the demise of your relationship
you can disagree with someone and think that they’re wrong, but don’t question their motives
use the gap to leverage love and pull them close
- “that’s OK… I know you’ve got a lot going on in a lot on your mind right now“
Can Still Confront
this doesn’t mean that you don’t confront the person about the issue if it’s repetitive
- 8% of the population loves to confront
Spiritual Maturity - Tolerance
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPbTmbjDeqz/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Why Should We Love Our Neighbor
Christianity demands that you love your neighbor
God‘s law demands that I love my neighbor
God Will Reward Us
Luke 6:27-36
Love for Enemies
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
- He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked
- your reward will be great
To Be Happy
The short cut to being happy… Is to try to make others happy
when you love your neighbor… You love yourself
You may be robbing yourself of your reward by giving to a charitable organization instead of giving directly to a person… The reward of seeing their gratitude
To Share God’s Love
Love your neighbor because that will be a way to do good in the world
Most people will never experience authentic love until they come across you
Sign - miracles are good people with kind hearts
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCmN5Hcy67j/?igsh=d3U2cGk2bmxvaGJ5
How to Love Your Neighbor
What acts Jesus saw as important
Matt 25:35-46
- clothing the unclothed
- feeding the hungry
- visiting prisoners in jail
- inviting strangers into your home
T.H.I.N.K. Before You Speak
Eph 4: 29 - 32
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
True: Is what I am saying true?
Helpful: Is what I am saying helpful? (Ephesians 4:29)
Inspirational: Will what I say inspire the person to be closer to God and give glory to Him? (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Necessary: Is what I am saying necessary? (Proverbs 4:19) Sometimes it is best to hold your tongue.
Kind: Is what I am saying kind, does it build up? (Colossians 4:6)
Trust commitment:
- When there is a gap between what I expect and what I experience, I am going to fill it with trust
- when I observe other people filling the gap with suspicion about others, I will come to their defense
- if what I experience begins to erode my trust, I will come directly to you about it
Example: Norma - pastor Brian
Trust worthiness commitment:
- I will commit to do what I say, and when I don’t, you will hear it from me
- Example: you call; they cancel
- I commit not to overpromise and under deliver, but if it looks like I am, I will be the first to tell you
- if you confront me about the gaps I’ve created, I will tell you the truth
Our greatest opportunity to impact our culture for God is not going to church. It’s learning to love each other. Our world is desperate to know this secret.
John 13:35
By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
Instructor: Michael Leadon
References:
Loving Your Neighbor Series (Unchained Disciples)
- Judging Others
- Speaking Against Your Neighbors
- Love Your Enemies
- Love in Action
- Love Fulfills The Law
- As You Love Yourself
- Love Your Neighbor - Review
love your neighbor
BethelS family TV
Eric Bancroft: how do I love my neighbor today?
Ligonier ministries
Love your neighbor (1857)
Charles Spurgeon
Matthew 19:19
Two principles that are crucial to love your neighbor as yourself
Community of faith
Extra
1 John 4:19-21 (NASB20) 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
Your love of God gives you the capacity and wisdom so that you can know how to love another person
God Loves You
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPHCXo4DOhc/?igsh=OWY5azBtaDJvMjF2
Forgiving Others
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1443656680245288?fs=e&mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e
How to love our neighbor
our conversation
How we talk with them and how we talk about them
You should be known for believing the best of others
[example] norma – I talked about Pastor Brian
contribution
How do you serve others
are your employers thankful that they hired you because of your attitude and your actions?
Care
How do we show care and compassion for others?
Do you pray for your neighbors?
Random Acts of Kindness
- pay someone's toll
- pay for the person behind you's coffee in line
- pay for a strangers lunch
- give money/food/clothes to a homeless person
- help someone in a store reach something on a high shelf
- let someone in front of you in traffic
Judging Others
Judging The Law
James 4: 11-12
11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
- When we judge others, what are we essentially saying about our relationship to God?
- How are we able to go from quarreling with one another, to loving one another instead?
The phrase, "Judge the law" is a modern legal term that is used in association with Jury Nullification. jurybox.org defines it as "Jury Nullification is the term given to the process where the jury of a criminal case acquits the defendant regardless if he has broken the law in question. The jury would do this in a case where they judge the law to be unjust, therefore the jury can vote to find the defendant innocent since the jury found the law itself to be immoral, unfair, unjustly applied, or unconstitutional. By voting to acquit, the jury therefore nullifies the law." When we become judges of the law, we judge the law to be wrong, immoral, and unfair. We set ourselves above the law and not subject to the law. We grant ourselves power to nullify the law while at the same time feel no obligation to keep the law ourselves.
- Deciding a law is not applicable in a certain situation is judging the law.
- Deciding one law is more important than another is judging the law - ML
- If we decide we can slander someone because they sinned then we have judged the the law saying you can’t slander is not valid in this case
- You can’t break the law to enforce the law.
In the story of the good Samaritan, the Levite would’ve been breaking the law to help the man who was needing help
- Yet he was also breaking the law by not loving his neighbor
Jesus’ Judgement
Jesus judged the religious people negatively…not the sinners
- Jesus judged the self righteous
He didn’t judge
- The woman caught in adultery
Why?
If these are the greatest commandments then what are the greatest sins?
Not loving a sinner would then be a bigger sin than the sin they committed
–
ideas versus individuals
ideas or declarations, propositions and opinions
when it comes to individuals, we need to focus not on the difference, but the likeness
Another vs other
another is additional one of the same kind
- Similar to
Other means defined or distinctly different from what was already said or implied
If I see people who are other than me I can feel more validated in my disgust for them
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