Love Your Neighbour

A Love That Overflows

1 John 4:19–21 ESV

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Real estate illustration - Can you imagine a society where having Chrisitian neighbours makes your home value go up?

We tend to favour a literal interpretation of the Bible until we read the command to love our neighbours. Imagine what could happen

Our love for God should be seen in our love for our neighbours. If there is no love for our neighbours there is reason to question whether there is any real love for God.

God does not have any “only” children. When you are born again you receive, not just a new Father, but also new brothers and sisters. You cannot have one without the other. What if we saw people who do not yet follow Jesus, not as enemies, but as estranged brothers and sisters whom our Father wants us to welcome home?

What sort of impact could we have on the world if we sought to allow God’s love for us to overflow through us to our neighbours?

No Limits

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Six Simple Suggestions

We love others at any and every opportunity.

We love others when it costs us something. Can we really love someone without it costing us something?

We love others who are of different ethnicities.

We love others who are of different faiths.

We love others without excuses.

We love others without expecting anything in return. In other words, we love others unconditionally

Satan’s Subtle Strategy

The enemy will try to make our neighbour a very abstract concept but our enemies very real.

Satan will encourage you to think of almost everyone as your neighbour except the people you actually cross paths with and who live across the street or next door.

If you fall for this subtle and common trap you will find your self agreeing whole heartedly with large parts of this message, yet never considering what you might do to show God’s love to your actual neighbor or feeling the slightest bit of guilt about ignoring your coworkers.

No Loopholes

God did not leave any loopholes in the command to love our neighbours. Yet all too often we seem to think we have stumble upon a way to avoid simple obedience to this clear command when we ask this question, “How can I love my neighbour if I don’t love my self?”

While there is some truth to be found with this question, if we ask this question uncritically we get into an interesting situation.

God commands me to love my neighbour as I love myself.

I don’t love myself, therefore I cannot love my neighbour.

Thus the real problem in the world is that people don’t love themselves enough.

I hope it is obvious to you that this is an absurd conclusion. The problem with society today is clearly not a lack of self love.

Consider this; if you needed to attain to a certain level of love for self before you could be expected to love your neighbour, how would you know when you were ready to love your neighbour?

Ephesians 5:29 ESV

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,

When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, he was not saying we are to love are neighbours IF we love ourselves.

“You are told to love your neighbour as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own mind, I find that I do not love myself by thinking myself a dear old chap or having affectionate feelings. I do not think that I love myself because I am particularly good, but just because I am myself and quite apart from my character. I might detest something which I have done. Nevertheless, I do not cease to love myself. In other words, that definite distinction that Christians make between hating sin and loving the sinner is one that you have been making in your own case since you were born. You dislike what you have done, but you don't cease to love yourself. You may even think that you ought to be hanged. You may even think that you ought to go to the Police and own up and be hanged. Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ― C.S. Lewis

Love is more than a feeling. It is an action. No matter how you feel about yourself, if you get hungry enough you will eat. If you get cold enough, you will seek shelter. The Bible is true when it says no one ever hated themselves.

No Excuses

John 13:34 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

The obstacle to loving our neighbour is not that we think too little of ourselves, but rather that we think too much of ourselves. In what ways does loving ourselves too much keep us from loving our neighbors?

The new commandment empowers all of us to love our neighbours, because our love for neighbour is not based on love for self but on Jesus’ love for all of us. This is the remedy for those who think they love them selves too little. It is also the remedy for those who in fact love themselves too much.

We have no excuses when it comes to loving our neighbour.

“[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1:3; 1st Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2), he is the sole Mediator in the world… - Dietrich Bonhoeffer