Back to Basics - Week Four

“Let us love our neighbors as ourselves”

Pastor Matt.   January 23, 2005

Mark 12:28-34

Today we are going to talk about Loving your neighbor as yourself

1 John 4:19.  We love because he first loved us.

John 3:16.

Romans 5:8.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Have you begun to notice a trend?  The entire Gospel message is love. 

Why do you think He commands us to love?  Because loving others is spreading the Gospel.

God is love and when we love others, we draw them to God.   

A heartfelt understanding of how much God loves us naturally creates within us a heartfelt desire to love our neighbors

Looking at Mark 12:32-34… we are reminded that loving the Lord and others Is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices

-          burnt offerings = The external religious duties.

-          If there is one thing we do right, it is to love God and Love others. 

o       Nothing is more important.  Everything comes out of this. 

-          We have to love God first to love others. 

o       And we love God because He first loved us. 

§         Remember last week we talked about why we love God. 

I even need to love…

-          That difficult person that I totally disagree with.

-          The lady at Burger King who provides anything but customer service

o       Sometimes for me it is so unnatural to love others.  I just want to be angry at them all the time.  Regardless of how I feel, I need to always love others.

-          How about the people in the church?

1 John 3:10.  “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”

Colosians 3:12-14. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,

Once again we see this concept that we are loved by God and therefore we should love too

 clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

So, We know we are supposed to love others, because He first loved us, but you may ask What is love???

1 John 4: 10.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

This is a sacrificial love

-          giving of yourself, even unto death

o       pretty extreme view considering we live in a selfish society

Description of love as found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-9 in The Message translation of the Bible:

Love never gives up. 

Love cares more for others than for self

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have

Love doesn’t strut

Doesn’t have a swelled head

Doesn’t force itself on others

Isn’t always me first

Doesn’t fly off the handle

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others

Doesn’t revel when others grovel

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth

Puts up with anything

Trusts God always

Always looks for the best

Never looks back, but keeps going to the end

We can never totally love people in all these ways because we can never be God (God is love)

However, God can do these things through us if we let Him.

We know why we should love, We know what love is, but what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

Our first clue to understand how to love our neighbors as ourselves is found in the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37.

The religious leader asks Him, “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Let’s focus on the one person who was a good neighbor.

³⁴ Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he handed the innkeeper two pieces of silver  and told him to take care of the man. ‘If his bill runs higher than that,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay the difference the next time I am here.’

How was the Samaritan a good neighbor?  How did he show love for his neighbor?  How did He show a sacrificial love?

-          He had compassion for the man

-          He met the man’s physical needs

-          He used his own resources

-          He gave him time

-          He checked back later to see how he was doing

-          He gave up personal comfort (walked while he rode the donkey)

o       Have you ever given up something for the comfort of others?

-          He was spontaneous

He did not just do something nice for the other person.  He sacrificed a great deal of himself for the sake of the other man. 

He loved him in the way that he would expect to be loved in a similar situation

The second clue that shows us how we are to love our neighbors as ourselves is found by understanding what a neighbor is in its Biblical context.

-          Being a neighbor meant living in a cultural setting where people would gather in villages and bump into each other as they went about their day

-          They were not scattered like we are today

-          It is somewhat similar to an apartment community

-          They depended on each other, interacted with each other, cared for each other.  Their were rules of obligation, their were responsibilities you had toward your neighbor that your neighbor depended on

Today’s society is independent and I believe that is Satan’s way of preventing us from connecting with people and loving on them in a neighborly way that could bring them to Christ.

We are going to best reach those we live next to because...

We relate to them

We have the time

We can serve them in everyday little things

Modern technology has pushed people away in a disconnected way but you can still be a neighbor

A neighbor is not just the people living next to you, a neighbor is also...

People at work

Your family

Your friends

The guy you see every week at the gas station

The cashier at the grocery store

Your neighbors are people you see everyday and are physically close to you.  They are people you bump into (or should be bumping into on a frequent basis)

Remember, being a neighbor is not just one or two kind acts of service.

It is a spontaneous life were we proactively look out for the best interests of others, meet their needs, and want the best for others. 

It means living beyond yourself and connecting with people in a natural way

!!!!!!!!!Acts 13:47-49!!!!!!!! Let’s be a light to the Gentiles by loving God and loving people!

Closing

³⁶ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. ³⁷ The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”