We should be a neighbor because being a neighbor is to be what matters most to Jesus...

This week we have been spending our time together answering the question “Why should I be a neighbor?” In other words, why should followers of Jesus be a neighbor to the people around them?” To answer these questions, we have been looking at a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew.

We looked on, as crowds continued to gather and grow around Jesus temple, an expert in the Law approached Jesus to test Him with the question “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law? In essence, Jesus was asked “What’s most important” from God’s perspective?

 Jesus responded to the Sadducees question by quoting from a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, which was part of the Hebrew Schema. Now the Schema was the Jewish people’s confession of faith. The schema would be recited by all Jewish people as part of their daily prayers and was committed to memory. This answer would not have surprised those listening and would have seemed like the right response.

However, Jesus did not stop there. Instead, Jesus continued His answer by departing from the Schema to quote a seemingly obscure verse of the Law that is found in a section of a letter in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 19:18. But why would Jesus make this connection? And what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

We talked about the reality that to love someone as yourself is simply to ask “If I found myself in a similar situation or circumstance that my neighbor finds themselves in, what would make me feel loved by someone else?” And then that is what we do for that person. That is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. 

What is significant here, however, is the fact that not only did Jesus seem to be changing the Schema by adding this verse; Jesus also added that this verse held equal weight and significance as the Schema.

The idea of loving God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind conveys a sense of total commitment. We might communicate this thought today by saying that we should love God with our total being.

So, on the one hand, the most important thing is to love God with our total being. On the other hand, however, Jesus did not say that we could love God with our total being and be indifferent or hostile to our neighbor. But why would Jesus add this seemingly obscure statement that was not even a part of the Ten Commandments, or the Schema?

To understand why Jesus made this connection, let’s take a minute and look at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. Notice what John, who was the person who had perhaps the closest relationship with Jesus while He was here on earth, wrote in 1 John 4:20-21:

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother 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 should love his brother also.

Now, let’s let that sink in for a minute. If anyone says that he loves God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. Wow. That’s strong stuff. John explains his strong statement by reminding us of the reality that if we cannot love our neighbor, who was created in God’s image and is right in front of us, we are unable to love God, who we have not seen. Or have we?

You see, even though we have not seen God, His relational image is imprinted on each one of us. We all desire to be in relationships. We were created for relationships, vertically with God and horizontally with others in a community marked by love and acceptance. And because we were created in His image, we show our love for God by how we love others.

That is why Jesus did not make this an either/or proposition. It is not an either/or proposition; it is a both/and proposition. We show our love for God when we love our neighbor. Conversely, we show a lack of intimacy with God when we are indifferent or hostile toward our neighbor.

If that was not enough, Jesus hammers this point home by saying that “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”.  But what does that mean? During Jesus day, and still today, the letters that make up the Old Testament of the Bible were classified into three main sections; the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets. In addition, the letters that make up the Old Testament of the Bible take most of what we call the historical books, like the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and classify them under the Law.

In essence, what Jesus is saying is that all of the commandments of God can be summed up in these two interconnected commands. But how can that be? Can we just ignore the rest of the Scriptural commands? To help us wrap our minds around this principle, let’s take a minute and think of how we view  the concepts of obedience and sin.

If what is most important to God in terms of obedience is loving God with our total being and loving our neighbor as ourselves, then what is sin? Wouldn’t sin be the opposite? A great definition of sin is that sin is the love of self over God and our neighbor who was created in God’s image. 

So, if we loved God with our total being and loved our neighbor as ourselves: When we show our love for God by loving others, would we sin? Would we lie? Cheat? Steal? Murder? Gossip? Slander? Be divisive? Commit adultery? Be involved in pornography?

Or think of the last time you sinned. If we really and honestly think about it, were we not motivated by a selfish love, a selfishness, which led us to sin? The timeless reality is that nothing in the letters that make up the Bible can be truly obeyed if we are not following Jesus words here.

In addition, when we are living lives of love with God and that show our love for God by loving our neighbor, not only will we be living lives of obedience, we will also be reflecting His image to a world that is looking for that type of love and relationship, thus fulfilling the great commission that we looked at last week.

And it is here, in this event from history, that we discover the timeless answer to the question “Why should I be a neighbor?” in that  The timeless reality is that being a neighbor is to be what matters most to Jesus, because when we are a neighbor that loves our neighbor as ourselves, we provide the proof to our neighbor that we love Jesus with our total being.

Being a neighbor is to be what matters most to Jesus, because when we are a neighbor that loves our neighbor as ourselves, we reveal and reflect the love of Jesus to our neighbor. And being a neighbor is to be what matters most to Jesus, because when we are a neighbor that loves our neighbor as ourselves, we are doing what matters most to Jesus.

You see, what matters most to Jesus is that we live a life that loves Him with our total being and that demonstrates our love for Jesus by loving our neighbor like Jesus. And when we love our neighbor as ourselves; when we love our neighbor like Jesus, we are perfectly positioned to be the vehicle God uses to reveal His Son Jesus to those around us as we live a life of faithful obedience to Jesus.

We will live a life of faithful obedience because our faithful obedience flows from a life that loves God with our total being and the loves our neighbor as ourselves. And this morning, that is what matters most to Jesus. What matters most to Jesus is to be a neighbor that reveals our relationship with Jesus through how we love and treat our neighbor that leads us to be able to lead our neighbor to a relationship with Jesus.

Now a question that arises at this point is “Well Dave, that sounds great, but who exactly am I supposed to consider as my neighbor? So who do I have to do this for? Who is my neighbor?”

Next week, we will spend our time together asking and answering that question...