Love Thy Neighbor Sermon Draft v4
LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER –
YOUR NEIGHBOR
How many of us today want to be loved? How many of us love God? How many can love others despite how they treat you? Whether people appreciate you, or respond to your righteous love, Jesus’ command is still valid: You must show love to one another - your neighbor in a practical real way. Today we will speak about (1) who “one another” is or “your neighbor” and (2) where the love comes from, and (3) the act of not loving as God commands. Please stand and turn to our text NKJV - 1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Our message today is “LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER – YOUR NEIGHBOR”.
Introduction
What kind of love do you have toward others as brothers and sisters in Christ? What kind of love has a profound impact on your own life? Is your love of others an application of GOD’S PERFECTED LOVE - NOT YOUR WORLDLY LOVE? Are you plugged in to the right kind of love? The love I speak of today cannot be bought – it cannot be made, it cannot be traded, and cannot be contained!
Eight times in the Bible we are told to love our neighbor – one another. It is one of the Bible's most repeated commands. Loving one another - your neighbor, is the opposite of selfishness which is the common human, worldly practice. Walking in divine love demonstrates that unselfishness is possible of each one of us, showing the righteous reality of God that cannot be ignored or denied.
In the Bible, one of the great parables Jesus told to a certain Jewish lawyer was in the book of Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37. This story was one of the Good Samaritan and for those who has not read this parable I implore you to read it and let God touch you with the story in His own way. From this parable, I want to convey to you that in the time of Jesus, Samaritans were hated, despised, and downtrodden by the Levites and the Jews. In this parable, it was a Samaritan, the same hated person, who showed righteous love to a Jew when his own people passed him – even the priests passed him by. Jesus – the Living Word, showed that we should love all people – one another, and not only those we favor.
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Who’s Your Neighbor?
The Webster’s Dictionary Definition of “Neighbor” is a fellow being or one of the human race; any one that needs our help, or to whom we have an opportunity of doing good. It is important to understand that a neighbor can be as intimate as those in your family living with you or as far as the other side of the world. It is anyone that needs God’s love from you or me, or to whom we have an opportunity of expressing God’s love through telling the good news of Jesus. Our own testimony is God’s tool to show how he manifested His love in us, that we can share how God’s grace brought us to God. Us loving our neighbors – one another, is part of God's plan to evangelize our neighbors. Our righteous love, being a vessel for God, demonstrates what God and His kingdom are like.
We personally will know God through love. In 1 John 4:7 it tells us “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” Loving your neighbor – one another, is God’s commandment and Godly love pleases God! Romans 13:10 states this very fact in that the Word saying “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
We are also sure of God’s commandment because in John 13:34 God said that “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” In addition, Luke 6:35 tells us that you and I are to love your enemies as well! “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.”
Where’s the Love Come From? (LOVE)
God is to be the source of love and not our flesh. Our fleshly love has many limits, but God’s love, demonstrated through Jesus Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection, is limitless, timeless, unconditional, and everlasting. 1 John 4:8 tells us 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. The Holy Spirit that lives in every Christian is the power of God in us. God’s love lives in us and is our “neighbor to our spirit living in the same dwelling, which is our body and heart.
Romans 5:5 tells us “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Romans 8:39 tells us that no power on Earth, even the Devil, can separate me and you from the love of God! Jesus died on that cross on Calvary and rose with all power to reconnect us to the Father and to a love greater than no other. It is that love of God, through Jesus, that we walk in. We must demonstrate that love in good times and bad as to allow the power of God’s love to spread
Not Loving one another (THY NEIGHBOR)
Your righteous love is an act of obedience by faith. Not loving your neighbor – one another is, lying to God! 1 John 4:20 tells us that “If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? Also , Luke 6:32 tells us that when you only love those who love you back, or say they love you, this is not the love of God. (Luke 6:32 32 "But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.)
Behaving like a Christian, Christ-like, is walking in righteous love and expressing a righteous love to all. You and I are nothing without the love of God and the expression of Godly love. 1 Corinthians 13:2 tells us “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” It’s in the Word of God!!
Conclusion: (LOVE THROUGH GOD, FOR ALL, GOOD AND BAD, IS GODLY AND OBEDIENT)
To conclude - 1 John 4:11 says – “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Love God who created you in His image. Love Jesus, the Lord of your life and our Savior. Love the Holy Spirit, your Comforter and spiritual Power source. The three – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit –are “one”. LOVE ONE – GOD. Love yourself as a child and heir of the Most High. LOVE ONE- YOU and YOU and YOU. Then, love another - your neighbor, even your enemy.
If you really love another, pray for them. As man, we are limited in how we can help our neighbor, but God is unlimited in how He can help your neighbor. God can do more for your neighbor than you or I could do in a lifetime. But God does not force His blessing on anyone without an invitation. Show the righteous love to one another!
Show Godly love because God commanded it. Show Godly love because God loves you! Show Godly love to those who don’t love you back because it glorifies God. God is loves each and every one of us and is “neighbor” to your spirit through the Holy Spirit. God is the Great Neighbor! The Most High Neighbor! Jesus is the example of the Great Neighbor in the flesh! God is also the Landlord through the Holy Spirit! Go to the landlord and have Him fix your heart, your tired spirit, your leaky faith, remove that fear to testify – to spread the Good News of Jesus!. Let the Holy Spirit take care of the vessel for you!
Your loved ones, friends, and enemies - all you come in contact with, are neighbors. Love one another! Those you never met are neighbors! Love one another! Loving your “neighbors” – one another, is loving God, knowing God, walking with God in Jesus. God loved the world so much, you and me, so much, that He gave His only Son to die for us! Believing in Jesus, in that great love, gives the gift of eternal life. John 3:16 tells us this.
Jesus bled, died, and was resurrected with all power God because of a greater love than He – a greater love than us – to reconnect us to the love of the Father in Heaven. 1 Corinthians 16:14 Let all that you do be done with love. 2Co 13:14 May The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. We ought to love one another. Amen.