And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
9 sermons cite this verse
… Remember what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22, verse 39. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You know, God intended all people to be our neighbors. The word nay or nigh is to be next to each other. We are meant to be over, not over against, but next to each other. It's like the strings on Pastor Nathan's guitar or the black and white keys on the brother's piano. They're next to each other. They're not against each other. Who is our neighbor? Well, the Lord Jesus defines that. And you know the story. It's given to us in John's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 27 through 37. It is a story which I read quite often and reminded of the love that the Lord took for us. and the love that we take to others that come our way. In Luke chapter 10, verse 27, we see in verse 29 that Jesus was giving this account of the parable that we call the Good Samaritan. …
… justice love kindness walk humbly with god clearly echoed in the new testament command from jesus the second of all commandments to love our neighbors as ourselves, Matthew 22, verse 39, even more than ourselves as we look to the interests of others, Philippians chapter 2, verse 4, and lay down our lives for them, 1 John chapter 3, verses 16 through 18. Following the example of the one who, 1 John 3 and Philippians chapter 2 makes clear, emptied himself and gave his life for us. So this is what we're supposed to do for all of these people, for children, for their parents. So it's interesting. Do you know the reasons why people say they abort their babies? When you look at the data, and I want to be really careful not to oversimplify this and certainly not to assume that I know the exact reason going on in any woman or man's heart and mind when it comes to having an abortion, but simply looking at the feedback from those who have abortions, there seem to be two primary reasons. And here's how I would describe them. The first is love of self. And the second is lack of support in no particular order. And I would just say, notice neither of those is because someone thinks the baby in the womb is not a person. So we just mentioned that even science is clearly shown this is a living being. …
… You're called, I'm called to reach up. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 22, verses 39 and following, it tells us, love the Lord your God. This is what Jesus said as he summarized everything. love the Lord your God with all of your heart, your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is love your neighbor as yourself. I'm called, you're called to love God, to worship God, to reflect God in everything. In your marriage, the way you deal with your kids, you might be a single parent, you might be struggling, You could be on welfare. You could be a billionaire for all I care. God has called you to reach up to worship him and to love your neighbor as yourself. Also, we're called to reach out. To reach out. The Bible tells us in Matthew 28, verse 19, it's called the Great Commission. Not the Great Omission. The Great Commission. Jesus said, go. He didn't say yo. …
… Praise God. And so with that said, I'm going to read this scripture, Matthew 22, verses 37 through 39. Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Amen. Thank you, Tribe, for the breakdown and closing out Emerging Generations. Whitney Donnelly, Janine Smith, and Mr. Kendall Bunch. Thank you. How amazing. And we are all right. Our future, not our future, right now we are all right because they are leading us now. Thank you so much for the encouragement and all of the wonderful words. You guys were amazing. And for those that are in the room and those that may have been listening online, we don't want to take it for granted that everybody has this level of maturity in God or that you are secure in who you are. So if you're listening and you want to know the God that we've been speaking about, that we've been shouting about all month long, now is the time that you can come forth here. …
… This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. You see, Jesus isn't throwing away any of the laws. Instead, he's doing something even bigger. He's explaining why they all matter in the first place. You see, he's inviting us to consider the fact that each and every one of these laws are all pointing towards the same thing. They're inviting us to live a life of love, a life of justice, a life of kindness and compassion. he's saying the most important thing for us to do is to love. Now some people might think rules are restrictive or commandments are things that are going to limit our lives. But what Jesus is doing here is he's reminding us that no, that's not the case. That the rules are actually opening us up to experience a beautiful life. They're creating conditions where we're all working in the same direction and longing to grow in the same capacity. …
… And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do you know that's a summation of all the law? Did you know that the basis for all the law was love? Did you know that? But people look at it like, don't do this, don't do that, don't do this, don't do that. And they just don't do it. Like, okay, I'm doing it. I'm doing it by not doing it. I'm doing it by not doing it. It says don't. I didn't. I'm good. I didn't kill anybody. You ever thought about killing anybody? I mean, sometimes, but... Well, then you're guilty. You're guilty. But I didn't actually kill anybody, but you thought about killing somebody because Jesus took the letter and showed the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law because the law was meant to be loving. Because if you love people, you won't take their stuff. If you love someone, you won't kill them. If you love someone, you won't covet what they have. …
… It's in Matthew 22. And the second is like it. Love your neighbors yourself. I was reading this week some of the harder passages. I like to read the in-your-face passages that Jesus gave. There's so many of them. Unless you lose your life, those kind of verses. Unless you lose your life, you're not going to find it. I love reading those verses because I don't want to get too comfortable I don't mean to create insecurity I just mean Bobby Connor made a statement here years ago he said we've become all too familiar with a God we hardly know that familiarity thing is really dangerous for us this whole thing of being sensitive and tender to this one who has has a heart of grace and mercy towards us but he's also right. He's right about everything. And when he says adjust here, it's because standing where I am is going to cause some problems. And so he comes to us and he says, the second is like the first one, but it's focused on people. Love your neighbors yourself. …
… And you remember Jesus says, and in Matthew 22, 37, he says it this way, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. Now, what's interesting is he's quoting Deuteronomy 6, 5, but in Deuteronomy 6, 5, it says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being and with all your might. with all your strength. Jesus changes that from all your strength to all your mind. And the word mind, I've taught this at resurrection before, but it's a Greek word, dianoia. And dianoia means to practice critical thinking, to think through things. Literally, it means to reason through or to think through things. And so to love God with your understanding, to love God with your mind, with your critical thinking skills, you're meant to be a critical thinker. There are places within the world, and in the United States, I hear this sometimes, where there are people who are academics or intellectuals, and they think that they have to choose between the intellect and faith, not just science and faith, but the intellect and faith, that maybe you can't be a person of reason and critical thinking skills and be a Christian. In fact, sometimes they think the things that you Christians believe require me to suspend my critical thinking skills, but that's not the case. Jesus was saying, use your critical thinking skills, love God with your mind and not just your heart and your being. So when I think about this, I think, well, the early …
… This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor, here it is, as yourself. all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments now I think it's interesting that Jesus didn't just stop with the first commandment because if he had loved the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind that he could have been promoting a very internal personal intangible and unobservable faith it's just me and God and I'm loving God with all my heart over here and don't mind me and I won't mind you. I'm just over here loving the Lord. That's the most important thing, right? He said no. And there's a second thing and it's as important as the first thing, love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, Jesus wanted us to know that the love we have for God and with God is to be demonstrated in the world. It's to be visible and tangible in the world as we love our neighbor as ourself. …