Why and how should I grow in my love of others? (Mark 12:31)

On Friday, I got to speak at our Youth group. They are doing a "Why and How" series on things, and my topic was on loving others. I did go off script a bit and put in more personal things, but more or less is what I said here. At the end are also the questions I sent to the leaders for a discussion afterwards to go with the talk.

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Tonight we are talking about love. The topic of love, you would think, would be easy to talk about. Love is everywhere. It is in the movies and the songs we consume all the time.

Taylor Swift can’t stop singing about her love story and her lover. Oliver Dean, whom I had never heard of, is also currently in the charts, and she sings about how easy it is to fall in love and that you can’t hurry love. Since the beginning of time, love songs have always been on the charts.

Love is a good thing. It is just that I think as a culture, we don’t really know what love is, or we use the word in so many different ways, it loses its meaning.

I love hamburgers, I also love my mum, and I love Hannah, my wife. No,w when I say these things, you would be foolish to think that I love all these things in the same way with the same seriousness and intensity.

The problem is, we use the word “love” in lots of different senses. The Greeks had at least four different words for love. There is a friendship love, which is like a certain sense of affinity for each other. Sometimes this is based around a common interest, like sport, school or music tastes. There is a family love, that comes with a built-in structure to it, like a mother to a daughter. And there is the love our culture is trying to sell us all the time. This is your strong romantic or sexual attraction love. Our culture makes this love the ultimate. People think this Love is God, when really it's the other way around, God is Love.

So, when it comes to Christian love, what are we talking about?

So last week I heard you looked at the great commandment from Mark 12

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30 NIV)

That sounds like an effort love. One that you have to put something into, one that may not come easily, and yet it could come easily, if your heart, soul, mind and strength was filled with God’s own Spirit.

But for tonight, we are looking at the second commandment that comes in the next verse

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31 NIV)

This love for your neighbour is sometimes called the Golden Rule. Some point to these teachings of Jesus and say, well really, this is not new, others have also said the same thing. This is just standard human behaviour and how any civilised society would act towards another. And sure that might be true-ish. Have a listen to other teachers before Jesus

Hillel, the Hebrew rabbi, said, “Do not do to thy neighbor what is hateful to thyself.” Socrates, the Greek philosopher, said, “What stirs your anger when done to you by others, that do not do to others.” Confucius, the Chinese teacher, said, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” (Pulpit Pages: New Testament Sermons The Principle of the Golden Rule # 22 (Matthew 7:12))

They all sound kinda the same right? And I find that really interesting that this all seems to work in their different religions and philosophies from Hebrew, Greek and Chinese, but that is not what Jesus said. These guys aren’t saying what Jesus is saying. They are saying don’t annoy your neighbour, don’t do things you wouldn’t want done to you, but Jesus is saying something different, something more. He is saying, love your neighbour as yourself. This is harder than not just annoying someone. It is something that takes effort, that initiates and is self-sacrificial.

Why love others?

So I’m here to answer the question as to why we should love others. First off, Jesus says so. This seems pretty clear: we should love others because Jesus asks this of us. But deeper than that, it is because Jesus loves people. Jesus goes to the effort and initiates self-sacrificial love for others.

Sometimes, if you are attracted to someone, you want to know what they are interested in. You want to know about their hobbies and music interests and favourite sports team, and you do this because you are interested in the person who likes those things.

If you are a follower of Jesus, know that Jesus is into people. He is God, who came as a man. He took on humanity in Himself and is still the God-man today in a resurrected human body. He likes people so much that He became one of them, to save humanity. He did this, not because He was lonely, not because He needed something to do on the weekend, but because He loves. He loves His creation and He loves the people in it. He made us, and He wants us to know that He loves us.

We people were made in God’s image. That is why we are different to all the other animals. We have language, and art and morals. So every person you meet is made in God’s image, fallen though we are. But Jesus came as a man to save us and to bring us back to God.

So why should we love others? Jesus asks us to love others, and God loves others. If we follow Jesus, we will do what He does, which is sacrifice for others, which is to love others, putting their needs first. It is an act of God to love others. We do it because that is what we were made to do. To love God and love others.

How to love others

Now, how are we to love others? There are different words for love. We aren’t talking about romantic love for everyone, are we talking about friendship with everyone, are we talking about having feelings for everyone, trying to empathise or sympathise with everyone and to feel what they feel? How are we to love others?

One way from the command itself is to think about what you would like and do that for others. We might all want to be known, to be talked to, to play that game. Well, go and talk to the kid on the outside, the one who isn’t known and talk to them. Play that game with your friend that you are over and don’t want to. Do that thing for your parents without grumbling, as I bet you don’t like people grumbling at you. Consider how you are treating others, and think, would I like others to be doing that?

And this is hard work. This is not easy, and I think it might just border on the impossible. In fact, John said we can’t love others through our own strength.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:19–21 NIV)

We only love because Jesus first loved us. When we know that God is for us, that He will not give up on us, that He will forgive us, is when we can share in the same type of love with others.

The love we are talking about isn’t a feeling; it is an action. It costs and takes effort. Love put Jesus on the cross; loving others might mean you miss out on something, as it might mean you do something that clashes with another thing you wanted to do. It might mean you use some of your money on others and not yourself. It might mean you act differently to the rest of your group, and you might lose some cool points.

So what does love for others look like? There is no one exact way, and people can disagree in how this can happen, but 1 Corinthians 13 is a pretty key chapter to get us thinking. This passage is sometimes read at weddings, but it's not really about marriage; it is about how people in a messed-up church might act. It says

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:1–7 NIV)

Being smart at something counts for nothing if you don’t have love. Doing good things to virtual signal counts for nothing if you don’t have love. Love is relational and seeks the best for the other. It forgives, it encourages, it keeps the peace.

Jesus of cause is the great example of this. You can replace the word “love” for Jesus to say something like, Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. Jesus doesn’t dishonour others; he is not self-seeking, not easily angered. Jesus keeps no record of wrongs.

But if we are in Christ, if we love God, we can love others, and you can put your own name in there. I wonder how you feel about that?


Andrew is patient, Andrew is kind. Andrew is not self-seeking, Andrew is not easily angered. Andrew keeps no record of wrongs… What is your reaction to that when your name is there? What do you struggle with in this area? What might you want prayer for to help with how you can love others?

So we love others, because God is love and loves others, and if we love God, we will love all those who bear His image. We do this love, by any and all ways of putting others first and sacrificing ourselves for them, in a smaller way, mimicking what Jesus did for us on the cross.


Questions:

How is it different to say “do not annoy others in the same way you don’t want to be annoyed” compared to “love others in the same way you want to be loved”?

When talking about loving others, what does that love look like or involve?

Looking at 1 Corinthians 13, when you put your name in there, are there any areas that you think you might need to work on?

Are there people on your radar that you think you should love more? How might you go about that?