Love God And Love Your Neighbor : 6th Commandment Series

Intro

Open your Bibles to 1 John 3 today as we continue our Summer Series entitled “Love God , Love your Neighbor”

We are examining the 10 Commandments—God’s moral law—while focusing on Jesus is summary of the commandments found in the New Testament. Jesus tells us

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:36-39 ESV)

Jesus teaches us here that the 10 commandments are easily understood as “Love God” and “Love Your Neighbor." The first four commands and focus them on our love and worship to God. While commandments 5-10 and focus them on our mission to love our neighbor. Since Jesus teaches us that these are about loving others, and not just internal struggles against sin. We want to ask god to teach us how to love others for the sake of the gospel.

Last week we learned that loving your neighbor begins in the home.We are to love our family with all our heart, mind and soul. Pointing them to Jesus who loved His family perfectly on our behalf. Keeping the 5th commandment perfectly for us. Today we come to the sixth amendment which is:

“You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13 ESV)

This sermon is entitled Mission: All Lives Matter

If you're able we stand as we open up God's word today? We will read out of 1 John 3 beginning in verse 11

I pray that you will hear the word of the Lord.

READ FROM THE BIBLE

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:11-24 ESV)

PRAY

The big truth is: Jesus showed how much He values human life by laying His life down to save us.

John Calvin said

“Our neighbor bears the image of God: to use him, abuse, or misuse him is to do violence to the person of God who images Himself in every human soul.” John Calvin

Of all the commandments this one is generally accepted in most cultures.What is not generally accepted is how cultures measure the value of life. We have cultures that believe that their race is superior to other races. Such tribalism leads to racial cleansing and genocide. Humanists believe that man’s life is superior above all things and they deny a supernatural source for life. They believe that humanity is the highest bar. Unfortunately, in light of the gospel, humanist have ironically, lowered the bar for human’s because they deny the creative design by Holy Maker. Believing in a creator requires us to be subject to that creator. The watch does not tell the watchmaker how he is to operate. In creation God sets the bar high as He declares we have been made in His image and in His likeness. Humans are not equal to God but we all made in His image and likeness. This is what makes human life so valuable.

Philip Ryken says “What makes life so precious is that every human being is made in God’s image. God has put His stamp on every one of us the way the great artist signs his name to a work of art. Therefore, to damage a life is to deface one of God’s masterpieces.” Beautifully said. The gospel declares God created everything and He looked down upon his creation and declared it to be very good. Distinct from all other creation, humans were equally and uniquely created in the image and likeness of God. It is in this distinction that we begin to see how God measures the value of human life. Gaining our prospective from the gospel keeps us from valuing human life higher than revealed in scripture and especially elevating humans higher than God himself by denying His existence. Gaining our prospective from the gospel also keeps us from devaluing human life so that there is no longer any distinction between human life and any other type of life.