We are one church. We love God, love people, love
His mission, and love His church.
Welcome to the One Church Podcast.
We've been looking as a church over the last four weeks over
the greatest commandment. Jesus was asked a question of
all the commandments, which is the most important?
What a question, the most important one, answered Jesus.
This is not a debate, it's a statement of absolute fact.
Is this here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1 Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Wow. And we've been looking at that
over these last four weeks. And our prayer is that we would
be a church that loves the Lord with our God, with all our
heart, the in innermost being of who we are, with all our soul,
the deepest part of us, with all our mind, with our thinking and
our sharing, and with our strength.
The very who we are almost needs unpacking even more.
And the passage then goes on to say this, because Jesus didn't
leave it there. He said this, the second
commandment is this love your neighbour as yourself.
There is no greater than these, and in the last week of our
series I want to explore the theme of how we can be Jesus in
the places where he has called us to live.
Your ministry is as important as any ministry that happens in
this house from those of us that get the privilege to lead
different ministries and to to speak where you are planted in
the hospital, in the school, in the supermarket, in the home, on
the street, where you are is as important as anybody else's call
in the whole earth to call to be Jesus in that place.
He says love your neighbour as yourself.
But before I go to loving your neighbour, I just was so stirred
about the phrase loving yourself to love yourself.
I'm not talking about pride and ego, self focus.
These aren't Jesus I'm talking about.
We want to love our neighbour, so we firstly have to love
ourselves. People can spend their whole
lives dissatisfied with who they are.
If you talk to AGP and they're able to in any way unpack to you
of some of the challenges they faced in the surgery, many, many
times they will talk about the sadness of people's lives,
wanting to find something different to where they are.
We can spend our whole lives trying to change our looks.
A friend of mine, when he became a Christian, realised as a young
man the one or two face changes. He'd already had operations to
change his looks. We're not going to solve him,
we're not going to mend him. You can want to spend your whole
life looking at how you look, the life that you have, perhaps
the home that you live in, the career that you have, the salary
you get, the pictures of, the achievements on your wall.
And there's nothing wrong with reaching your potential.
But to love our neighbour means we have to love ourselves and to
love ourselves means we are content with the person God has
made us to be. How do you love yourself?
Well, I think firstly you realise who you are.
We live in a world that wants to tell you everything that you are
not, wants to crush you, wants to push you down, wants you make
you feel inadequate. But the Father's heart is so
different. This is why when he appeared to
Jesus here in Matthew 3 at his baptism, he wanted to define who
he was. And he does the same with you.
He says this is my son, He's not started his ministry yet.
I love him and I am pleased with him.
Do you know that's how he speaks about you?
You're created to know Him as a Jesus follower.
You are a son or a daughter of the King of Kings.
The Father you've always been looking for is here in this room
to embrace you as you sit in your seat.
You are deeply loved. This is my son, whom I love.
You are deeply loved. Not if you or not because of
your effort or not when you you are loved.
You were conceived. He loved you in that moment.
He has no accidents. You are deeply loved.
He's passionate about you and you are accepted, not rejected.
He's pleased with you. Perhaps you had parents.
You always felt they were not quite pleased with you enough.
The Father's pleased with you, cheering you on.
To love yourself, you have to realise who you are, but you
also have to look after yourself.
I love this, Paul says. Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit? God who made everything when you
became a Jesus follower, came to live in you.
It's amazing you received him from God.
You're not your own. You were bought at a price.
Therefore honour God with your body, love what he's made.
Look in the mirror when you get home today, look in the mirror
at who you are and bless yourself no more.
I hate this about myself. Never say it again.
Look at you and go look at my amazing teeth.
I'm grateful that many of them are filled.
Look at my chin, this is. Look at my hair, my body, my
size, my height, my weight, my education, who I am.
Love the person that he has made.
Stop trying to change things that won't sort you.
Love yourself and then treat this temple with care.
Keep it clean, if for no one else, for others, keep it clean.
I think deodorant is a gift that God has given to us.
It's not to be shunned, it's to be embraced.
I know some of us like the natural and that's good, but
there are ways to keep healthy, to look after the temple, to be
careful what you do with it, what you place in it, how you
treat it. I love the people in the room
here who talk to me about healthy living, who help me be
more healthy. To love yourself, look after
yourself. You're Worth It was a a man came
in to Open Hands this week who, through a new programme that
we're running in the city, he's been given a place to live and
we in Open Hands have been able to furnish the whole of his flat
with everything that he needed now.
He was loved before, but now he feels real value.
I love that. If you're going to love
yourself, not only do you need to realise who you are and look
after yourself, but you need to deal with the rubbish this week.
There's going to be a lot of rubbish produced by the balls
here and then next week, Christmas, we're going to have
to come up with a plan on what we're going to do with all the
rubbish that comes this week. We'll come up with a plan,
there's going to be a lot of it, but we need to deal with the
rubbish in our own lives too. Many of us as Jesus followers
are carrying around many black plastic bags of rubbish.
It's for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourself be burdened by a yoke
of slavery. Every one of us has carries
regrets. Things we'd have done
differently, moments that we would change.
We're all a work in progress being made more and more like
him in his image. You know, think this.
If you if you think you're good now, imagine what you're going
to be like when you meet him and you're with him for eternity
dynamic. How can we be free now?
How can we be free from the things that hold us back, The
insecurities, the rejections, the pain that we experienced as
children, those moments that were unacceptable, that happened
to us? How do we get free from them?
So we love ourselves, so we can love our neighbour.
We bring them to the cross, we get them to the cross.
We bring our baggage to the cross.
There's nothing you can't bring. He knows it already.
He is not surprised when you confess your sins.
Oh, I didn't realise that. I'm not sure if that can pass
the test. He knows it already.
Bring it to the cross. Habits that you've had, that
you've practise, carried from before you became a Christian.
And there's shame this morning and there's things.
If you knew what I was like, you would not say he's pleased with
me. I understand.
There's nothing you carry that you can't be free from nothing.
It's a lie from the enemy that you can't be free of that.
There are people in this room who had habits that they were
ashamed of, that they no longer have because of the grace and
kindness of God. But they had their part to do as
well. Because as well as coming to the
cross, you've got to be willing to change and exert effort and
maybe start fasting and doing all that you can with your
energy, the works, his energy working in you.
And then perhaps get some help from a leader for many of us.
Get some counselling, some support, some prayer, someone
who stands with us and invites Almighty God with you to come
and help you set you free. And then do your part and expect
God's part. Honestly.
Love yourself. Go home today, look in the
mirror and thank God for you, the size you are, the person you
are. Thank God for you, love
yourself, I love your neighbour. You've answered correctly.
Jesus said do this and you will live.
But he wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus, who is my
neighbour? And in reply Jesus said a man
was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by
robbers. They stripped him of his
clothes, beat him, went away, left him half dead.
A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he
saw the man he passed by on the other side.
So to a Levite when he came to the place and saw him pass by on
the other side. But a Samaritan, as he
travelled, came where the man was, and when he saw him he took
pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his
wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then he put the man on his
own donkey, brought him to an inn, took care of him.
The next day he took out to Denari and gave him to them, to
the innkeeper. Look after him, he said.
When I return I'll reimburse you for any extra expense you may
have. Which of these three do you
think was a neighbour? To the man who fell into the
hand of robbers, the expert in the law said the one who had
mercy on him, Jesus said go and do likewise.
I think Jesus made it clear, crystal clear, that it's just
not possible to be his follower and not be engaged in the rescue
mission of lost people on the planet, which is why we need to
love our neighbour. And this parable illustrates it
so powerfully. A Jewish man has fallen into the
hands of robbers and along the way from from Jerusalem to
Jericho, they've stripped him, they've beat him, they've fled,
they've left him on the edge of death.
And the priest saw and passed by.
He was the first to encounter him on the road.
And we can be judge mental of the priest, but I, I feel a
little bit sympathetic because the Jericho Rd was a dangerous
place. It was literally called the Pass
of blood because of all the places that robbers could hide.
And the one rule on the Jericho Rd was this you don't stop,
don't stop. Second, if the priest was
returning from Jerusalem, he just spent seven days going
through his purification rights, which were required for him to
outwork the practises of him as a priest.
He knew that if you touched a dead man, you had to go back to
the temple and do another seven days.
So in other words, for him to stop and help this man ran the
risk not only of being attacked, but also of another 7 to 8 day
journey. Perhaps he'd got a Pilates
class, or he knew that his wife had got a meal prepared.
I've just passed by on the other side.
I've got a bit of compassion for him.
The Levite saw him pass by. Now the road was probably very
straight. There's a chance that you could
see 3 or 4 miles ahead. And just maybe the Levite could
see that the priest had already gone past.
So he thought, I'll do the same. Because people do follow
leaders, which is why as leaders there is such a high call to be
like Jesus. Which is why for us as leaders,
when we fail, it has to be spoken about in a public
context, which is why there is a call on us to live holy lives.
The Samaritan, those saw and stopped, he didn't pass by on
the other side. He became a companion of this
man. He had compassion on him.
The Samaritans were the ethnic and religious enemies of the
Jews. They were the half Jew, half
gentile offspring that came about when the Assyrians who
conquered the northern part of Israel forced the Jews there to
enter marry with them. Samaria was between the northern
and southern parts of Israel. But the Jews hated the
Samaritans so much that if they were travelling from the north
to the South of Israel, they would walk around Samaria, which
was another two days journey, just to avoid contact with a
Samaritan. Just touching a Samaritan, they
believed, made you dirty. It's why when you read Jesus not
only touching the leper but also at the well with the Samaritan
woman, it blows people's minds. They couldn't believe it.
I love that Jesus breaks down every wall in you, me in our
world. Shockingly, this Samaritan when
he saw the bleeding Jewish man, he stops and has compassion.
He what he loved his neighbour and allow me to be very simple.
What does it mean? Well, firstly, involved in
seeing. When he saw him, he saw and he
couldn't walk away when he saw him, when he saw him.
I walked into our cafe the other day and I saw a man same age as
me, whose son had got into difficulty and spent some time
in prison. And he had two young girls and
he took them into his and his wife's family as a, as a more
senior couple and loved them. And I looked across and he was
sat there with these two beautiful nearly teenage girls
and I saw something of what it means to love your neighbour.
It was incredibly holy, powerful, because when you take
a life that God gave his life for, that is as precious as
anything. When you show compassion and
love that person. It involves seeing He saw he
couldn't walk away. It involved caring.
He took pity on him. He was moved by the person and
the situation. He couldn't help it.
It involved doing. He went to him.
He bandaged his wounds, poured on the oil and the wine.
The wine acted as an antiseptic to cleanse the infection.
The oil relieved the pain, protected the wound.
It involved doing pouring on oil and wine.
It involved time, just casually. The Bible says the next day he
he'd been there, a day he loved by giving time.
And it involved cost. He took out two dinari, A
labour's full day's wage money. Other costs were involved.
If it's any more, I'll let you have it.
He loved his neighbour. So why is not loving our
neighbour the same today? I think it is.
Loving our neighbour today firstly involves seeing when he
saw him, He lost people of the Father's highest priority when
we see them as he sees them. Because I think in the vision of
God that occasionally I managed to get myself in that place, but
I'd like to live there. The focus of what's most
important to Him is not always the focus of what's so important
to me. Because people are always his
highest priority. He sees them.
God can see everyone who's sad, everyone who's broken, everyone
who's suicidal. He sees everyone who's
desperate, who longs for something that they haven't
managed to see in their lives. He feels it.
He sees it. I want to pray.
Open my eyes, Lord, to see the things that are important to
you, what's important to you, the person on their own, the
person in need, the person who needs help, the person who we
stop and listen to for a moment. It involves seeing, which means
we need to be ready. We need to be asking for
opportunities, which means we need to be listening, open,
praying, waiting. It's what it means to see.
Yesterday I got home, went through my message because I was
excited because Susan was coming back after a pastor meeting and
I was going to have a BLT sandwich and a doughnut.
I was so excited about the doughnut.
It was on the table waiting for me, beckoning me, so excited.
So I was preparing the message in anticipation of speaking, but
probably mostly for the sandwich and the doughnut.
And she came up to me and she said, I've just seen a man on
the street, you need to go and invite him to Christmas.
Now I have to tell you, in that moment I was not fully dressed.
I was also focused on my message.
Why would I want to spend time talking to a neighbour when I'm
preparing a message about loving my neighbour?
Do you not understand, Susan? And I said, now I'm going to
feel guilty if I preach and I don't run after this man.
So I put this coat on and ran down the road to see this man
who'd got this enormous dog with him because I met him a few
months ago on the golf course near our house.
And and I went to talk to him and we chatted, just retired and
all this lot and I'm out. I'd only run up the road and I
was out of breath thinking I need to get even fitter.
But I love myself as I am. And I invited him to come next
week. May come, may come.
It involves seeing. Secondly, involves caring.
He took pity on him. Pity.
How do we care? Well, we love ourselves.
Get rid of your rubbish. Because if you don't, every time
you talk to somebody, you talk about how it was hard for you
and how you were rejected and how it was difficult.
And let me tell you about what? And you live there for the rest
of your life. Get to the cross, cry your
tears, get free. And all of a sudden when you're
there, you talk about this person and their needs and how
they are. And it's so much better.
You get your rubbish dealt with. You get your relationship with
God tender. I spoke to a man recently.
I saw him come in and I just thought this man's struggling.
And I thought I'll ask him. And he came and I said, how are
you? And he said I'm all right.
I said no, talk to me. And of course it's the same
every time. It's the same every time I'm
struggling. Why?
Well, I've stopped praying. I don't really get to my Bible.
I'm not communicating well with the person I'm with.
Giving's really difficult. My life feels disorganised.
And it's you want to be caring, but to say, can I just give you
a really start reading the Bible again, start praying again, Put
every Tuesday night between 8:00 and 8:30 a communication time
together. Get your giving sorted, get a
diary out and plan ahead. Hey, it doesn't sound very
spiritual, but honestly it's caring.
Just got to say it in the right way, not exasperated.
It involves caring, a heart response and compassion, A
kindness, a love that springs up.
Sometimes when the compassion of Jesus comes upon you, it can
overwhelm you. You you suddenly realise that
you deeply care about the situation.
Susan was praying with somebody this week and she just began to
weep uncontrollably because she felt a little bit of his
compassion for this person she was praying with.
And it's a beautiful thing, you, you can get a miracle in that
moment. We need to love the people and
have a heart for those around us.
I've got my work to do of you. My heart isn't always there.
I don't like inconvenience. Perhaps you really, really don't
like inconvenience. I don't want to complain.
As a first response, ask yourself, do I complain?
Is that, is that how I complain? It was late, it was cold.
It was it was rather than it was lovely.
And I'm grateful. And what a privilege.
Don't be a complainer. Be a celebrator.
Thank you so much. It involves caring.
Thirdly, it involves loving your neighbour doing he went to him
doing, which means this be a good boss.
If you have employees, be a great boss.
So that if we get all your employees here they all go.
He she great boss. Be a great employee.
So if we get your manager and your boss, here they go.
Great employee. Let your work ethic be strong.
Stop leaving dead on time. Stop miserable.
That's it. I'm gone.
No, do an extra few minutes. Why?
Because it's love. It's loving your neighbour.
Be a good neighbour. Be a good son.
Be a good daughter, a brother, a sister, a friend.
Be positive before we gossip. Stop being a gossip if you are.
Be friendly. It involves doing.
Be practically. Stop, pray, help with the
gardening of your little neighbour.
Bake a cake if you can, bake if you can't.
It might not be seen as a blessing.
Buy a cake, buy a cake. If you can't bake, be there.
Never give up. It involves time.
The next day, the next day. How are we connecting with our
neighbours, with our work colleagues, with those we see on
the bus? There's somebody you've seen
often in a shop. Ask and pause.
Build a bridge, help with a task.
Stop. My neighbour's mother died the
other day. She was in her 90s.
Susan had already done her part. I went round.
I sat next to her on the sofa. I said tell me all about your
mum. It's not hard to do, I don't
always get it right. She talked about her mum and her
childhood and her sisters, some of the challenges, some of the
joys and what the funeral could look like.
It involves time, love, your neighbour and it involves cost.
He took out two Daenerys a day's wages cost.
Practise your story so that you can Share your story in 30
seconds. Tell your story of what God's
been doing in you, the bits that you've been easy, the bits that
have been hard. Talk about what God is helping
you with in your life, what he's done.
I was with a man this week and he, he was doing lots of
practical jobs for me because I can, I can give it a go, but I'm
not your main man. If you want practical help of
that involve craftsmanship, I can.
I can do tasks and he was doing all these things.
I was driving him round and and he got to the 16th task he was
doing for me. He says, David, I'm going to
need to sit down for a minute because we've been going so
quick. And they said to Susan, where
does he get his energy? And she said, you know where he
gets it from? He gets it from Jesus.
I love it. That man sent me a text on
Monday saying me and my partner 6:00 PM next week.
That's good for us. I'm believing he's going to sit
with me, going to get get saved. It involves cost.
Buy your neighbours a gift this Christmas, especially if they're
noisy. Bless them.
If the fencing breaks down and it's their cost, make a little
contribution. It can open up the gift, The
proverb writer says, makes way for the giver.
A gift makes way for the giver. Never be mean with neighbours.
Don't. In our first house, the next
door neighbours, Tom and Sheila, he used to fry bacon at 3:00 in
the morning. Honestly, he was, He was a
unique character and they did not get on, but their grandson
had his bike nicked and Susan felt the Lord speak to her.
She said let's buy him a bike. So we bought a bike for our
neighbour and it changed our relationship, changed our
relationship bridges. It meant more to them that we'd
done that. All of these are part of loving
our neighbour. It costs.
Do you need to see, do you need to care?
Do you need to do? Do you need to give time?
Do you need to invest in a cost? Do you need to do something?
This is the greatest commandment.
Love your neighbour as you love yourself, loving God all your
heart, soul, mind and strength and loving yourself so that you
can love your neighbour. This is a gospel.
This is so powerful. Love him, love yourself, love
your neighbour. See them, care for them, serve
them, give time to them. Invest in them.
Right now, pause and think about your neighbours.
Go on. The person who works on the desk
near you, The teacher who always in the school classroom takes
their tea bag out and leaves it on the the surface for you to
put away. Think about them.
Pray for them now. Pray for a brother or a sister,
a friend, someone you know. The Lord's just spoken to you
about a name. Right now you've got a face,
it's come to you. Love your neighbour, Love your
neighbour. Send them a text.
Tell them there's hope. Somebody you fell out with.
Write to them. As much as it depends on you,
the Bible says leave at peace with everyone back.
That's hard. Sometimes it's hard, but you can
do everything you can. Bless somebody that hates you
this year. Pray for your neighbours.
Pray for your neighbours.
Go and speak their names out right now.
Go and speak the names of neighbours, whatever it is,
people that you love. What about a husband that's not
yet a Christian, Nora, a son or a daughter away from him?
Go and speak their names out. Your physical neighbours, The
person in the flat underneath you that you sometimes say
crying at night. Pray for them, pray for them.
Love your neighbour, Love your neighbour.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine
upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards
you and give you peace.