Home Recent Previous Series Phil's background Creation and science Miscellaneous Links Contact Phil

Your Neighbour and You - Part 2

10th September 2011

Loving our neighbour must be about more than just practical things like not making loud noises when he's trying to sleep, and not throwing our rubbish over the garden wall, and helping our neighbour when he's unwell. And it's about more than big issues like equal justice for all, and feeding the poor. As well as the practical, love involves the spiritual and the emotional. This week, we'll consider one example:

To love our neighbour as ourselves is to forgive our neighbour and not to judge him

Matthew 6v14-15
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

We may not think much of ourselves - we know ourselves to be sinners, weak, doubting, a bit selfish, sometimes a bit thoughtless, but we love ourselves, and buy ourselves little comforts like chocolate and TVs and cars and holidays (and if we don't, we probably need to seek professional help). What I'm saying is: we can love ourselves despite our faults. And to love our neighbour as ourselves is to love our neighbour despite his faults.

Matthew 7:1-2
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Many non-Christians perceive Christians to be very judgmental people. There must be a reason why this is. That reason is probably that they've heard Christians sounding judgemental. It's long been said that we should hate the sin and love the sinner, but we don't always convey that when we talk about social issues. Some Christians can be heard saying that one group or another are sinners and deserve to go to hell. This is actually true, of course, but we can say such things in such a way as to give the impression that we Christians imagine that we are not sinners who deserve to go to hell. But if we've understood the gospel at all, we know that we're saved by the merits of Jesus Christ the Lord, not by our own goodness.

Isaiah 64v6
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags

Romans 3v10-12
As it is written: "There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one."

And, knowing that everybody - including us - deserves judgment, and that our salvation is a gift from God, and something that we could never earn, we Christians should be more aware than anyone of both the power and the necessity of grace.

Christians are called to follow Christ, to seek to live as He lived. To imitate Christ is to love sinners, and try to help them. And we who have experienced Christ's amazing grace must share that grace with others.

That's a good definition of what the church is for - to show the world the grace of God.

It could be argued that to explain to a sinner the error of his ways is a loving act. But if we demonstrate judgmentalism instead of grace, we don't help anybody. Only after we've demonstrated the love, the grace, the forgiveness of God, can we help anybody find the kingdom of God.

To love your neighbour as yourself is to be just as willing to accept your neighbour the way he is, as you would like to be accepted the way you are.