Two Commandments Week 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Housekeeping

Groups launched this week - THEY WERE AMAZING…YOU NEED TO BE HERE WEDNESDAY.

March 17 - Child Dedication - Registration in the lobby

Easter invites - Bring someone to church with you this Easter.

Dream Team Dinner Party is March 11: 7:00

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Opening Text

Mark 12:28–31 NKJV

Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Last week we discussed the importance of loving the Lord our God with all of our heart soul and mind.

Important to remember that love: agapeo can have various definitions and applications. {WE HAVE TO GET THE APPLICATION RIGHT}

Agapeo: To seek the benefit or betterment of the recipient

Agapeo: To take pleasure in the recipient.

As I concluded last week, we cannot better God…He’s God.

So the love we are called to in relation to God is a call to take pleasure in him.

Heart = Emotions

Soul = Thoughts

Mind = Interpretations

Strength = Actions.

This is a wholistic approach to loving the Lord our God…Taking pleasure in Him in every area of our lives.

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Today, I want us to consider the second commandment that Jesus gave as the “most important.”

Love your neighbor as yourself.

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Loving Others: Yeah, It’s that important.

Jesus says this commandment is “equally” as important.

The Word equally there means that the intrinsic value is the same.

Jesus stood by the fact that if we get our vertical affection right (our love for God) but not our horizontal affection, we are committing an equally significant sin.

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1. Loving myself is sacrificial I have to love myself first

There is an interesting phrase thrown in the mix… “as yourself”

Before I can properly love my neighbor…I have to love myself.

This seems to be the mantra of 2024…love yourself, be yourself, you do you.

But this is to love ourselves from the application of taking pleasure in.

I take pleasure in my sexual orientation

I take pleasure in my propensities

I take pleasure in my peronsality

But the proper definition is not to take pleasure in but to seek the betterment of.

I can only properly love myself when I realize that I was created for more than my destructive habits.

When I properly love myself…I seek the betterment of myself by submitting myself to an authority greater than me.

This is why the law is the prerequisite for blessing.

Psalm 1:1–2 NKJV

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.

I am not ready for healthy relationships until I learn healthy restraint.

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I show love by practicing surrender

Though our society would tell us the proper approach to our inclinations is “you do you”

Jesus shows us the proper action is actually “you surrender you.”

God showed us how to show love.

Romans 5:8 NKJV

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It is not gifts, touch, quality time…etc that serves as the greatest display of love but rather surrender.

A working definition of love is a surrender of ones self for the benefit of the recipient of love.

I love myself by surrendering the desires toward those things which are destructive of my purpose.

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Loving others is not about pleasure

As we consider our love for others, it is vitally important to remember that there are differing definitions.

I do not love my neighbor solely by taking pleasure in them.

This is the mentality that we often carry into relationships with those that we love.

The only thing that our society values more than love is pleasure.

Therefore we look for pleasure in each relationship we are involved in.

Pleasure is not a bad thing.

Sex is not a sin

Pleasure is not a sin

Out of priority pleasure is a sin.

______________ Misapproriated love is idol worship

When I try to convey and receive love towards others in a way that I am intended to convey and receive love from God…I pervert love.

To give to anything else that which is intended to be given to God is to participate in idol worship.

Idol worship does not look like what you might think it would in our modern context.

In 2024 idol worship looks like

A deeper commitment to financial gain than to God {Love my family}

A greater commitment to comfort than to purpose

A unwillingness to altar my kids activities in order to further develop their walk with Jesus {Love my kids}

A greater commitment to my own mental health than to what God has called us to.

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We love what we can understand

Often we are more apt to give our love to these things because they are comprehendible.

It’s easier to take pleasure in what I understand (Why my wife doesn’t like football)

It’s harder to give the proper kind of love because it requires us to take pleasure in a God we don’t comprehend and seek the betterment of those we do.

Seeking the betterment of others is not always easy.

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2. Loving Others is Scary

Hard to love myself - Scary to love others.

Loving ourselves according to the proper definition is hard…but loving others this way is scary.

Sometimes in order to love someone properly we have to be willing to lose them.

Sometimes loving someone properly means doing something that hurts them in the temporal moment.

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Blakelyn illustration

This week my wife has had to hold our little girl through screams as doctors inserted an IV…gave medication…and made her miserable

We allowed things she did not enjoy…because we were seeking her improvement.

Seeking the betterment of others does not mean giving them what they want…it means providing what they need.

Sometimes what is needed hurts.

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3. Loving Well is Confrontational

Godly confrontation is key

We have lost the art of loving confrontation

If we have a problem with someone…

we just avoid them…

This is because we only love by taking pleasure in

(It’s not pleasurable to have confronting conversations.)

But when someone is in error; they need to be told about the error.

Illustration about something stuck in your teeth

Matthew 18:15–20 NKJV

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

This is the directions for how to deal with issues “between brothers”

This is believers

This is those who love each other.

The scripture used to prophecy the possibility of any the miraculous at any level, is directly correlated to the willingness to confront offense.

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4. Loving Longterm is Costly

Love them with distance

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for those we love…is remove ourselves from them and them from us.

There is a difference between a new believer and an established believer with influence.

Sinners have not ever caused me much trouble in my ministry experience.

Paul writes a couple of paragraphs in letters that are seemingly hate filled but are probably the most loving in all his letters.

1 Timothy 1:20 NKJV

of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

2 Thessalonians 3:14–15 NKJV

And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

This is a practice of excommunication.

A better term would be removal of influence.

Paul gives us biblical precedent for how to deal with those who are not only practicing unrepentant sin, but are also doing so in such a way that it could effect others who are vulnerable to their example.

____________ It’s unsafe for the unrepentant to stay close

Removing unrepentant sinners from fellowship with the righteous is actually for their benefit.

It actually becomes dangerous for them to stay in relationship with believers.

Ananais and Saphira…

The believers in 1 Corinthians participating in communion…

We might not see people falling ill because of hypocrisy but we do see people contracting the cancer of deception at a rapid rate.

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Seek holiness for those you love

We love others well by requiring holiness from them.

We provoke one another to good works.

Your relationships are going to provoke or push you towards something.

Ladies your friendships will make you a better wife or a worse wife.

Men your friendships will make you a better husband or a worse husband.

Employees your relationships will make you a harder worker or a lazier worker.

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Influence many but be influenced by few

I’m not saying that we simply go into a monestary and avoid the outside world.

We need to be accessible to those who are far from God

We must be accessible to be an example without being influenced.

Jesus ministered to thousands but maintained a circle of twelve…of that twelve only three got to be on the inside.

The smallness of my circle is based on the largeness of my commitment.