Love Your Neighbor
Dr. Mark Foster
Part of 50 Days of Kindness
November 3, 2024

and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” —Matthew 22:35-40

If we don’t love our neighbor, the

won’t believe what we say about Jesus. (John 17:21)

(hesed) in Hebrew has to do with willing the good for others.

Politics is about how we live together, and how we make decisions together: Who gets what, when, and how?

The goal at Acts 2 is not political uniformity, but spiritual

.

While disagreement is unavoidable, division is a

. (Psalm 133:1)

Our Political Agenda Comes from Jesus

Our political agenda is to love our neighbors and our

. (Luke 6:27-31)

“We refuse to alienate half our community by siding with one political party over the other.
We chose to stand with Jesus in the messy middle, where problems are solved.” —Andy Stanley

We don’t take our cues from

. We take our cues from .

God wants us to do for

what God in Christ has done for us.

We can disagree politically and

unconditionally. (Matthew 5:9)

We make an

of politics when we set it above God and when we set it apart from God.

“We can carry a kingdom heart with us into all of life, including politics.” —Michael Wear

The Way Forward

Choose

over foolishness. (Proverbs 14:15)

Break groupthink and your

chamber by affirming those you oppose and critiquing those you support. (Proverbs 12:15)

When we carry one another’s burdens, we move

together in kindness and what divides us diminishes. (Galatians 6:2)

“We are, all of us, never-ceasing spiritual beings with a unique eternal calling to count for good in God’s great universe.” —Dallas Willard

Engaging in service is perhaps most important not for what we do but for who we

.

The Final Exam

We won’t know when the exam is, and we need to be

. (Matthew 25:1a, 13)

What we do with our earthly life has eternal

. (Matthew 25:14-15, 19, 23)

Beware of going along with the

.

How you treat

is how you treat . (Matthew 25:31-36)

Are you a wise sheep or a foolish goat? Both groups were surprised! (Matthew 25:37, 45-46)

Jesus takes it

how we treat other people who are hurting or in need. (Matthew 25:40-43)

“Do all the good that you can, to everyone that you can, everywhere that you can, in every way that you can.” —paraphrase of John Wesley’s instructions to the first Methodists

Were the goats too

to stop and help? Were they too to notice those in need? Were they to stop and help?

We are

as a gift from God to be a gift of God to the people around us. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Kindness is to be our way of

. (Ephesians 2:10)

Jesus’ love comes with

for us to love others as he loved us.

As we celebrate 25 years of kindness, together we have given

to those in need beyond the walls of our church.

Action Steps

Sunday: Pray for God to bless and use

Democrats and Republicans to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.

Monday: Like Jesus, always choose people over

.

Tuesday: Vote, be

in line, and say, “Thank you” to election volunteers.

Wednesday and forever: Continue to pray for our country and the world, and keep being kind.

My additional notes:

”.