Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself — Carter Conlon

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Loving God and Loving Your Neighbor

Matthew chapter 22, please, if you will. I'm gonna talk today about loving your neighbor as yourself. Not as easy as it sounds. Loving your neighbor as yourself. Matthew chapter 22, beginning at verse 36.

Father, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. God, you have something so deep, yet so simple, so profound, yet so hard to lay hold of. I pray, God, that as you're opening my heart to this truth, that you would open it to your church today.

Deliver us, God, from every voice of the enemy, from all the condemnation of the evil one. And make us a people that you promised you would have in the last days, who are glorifying God in the midst of the fires.

Whether they be fires of uncontrolled passion, lawlessness, or rebellion. Those that are living all around and trying to push the knowledge of God out of so many parts of every society. I pray, Father, this day, that you make us a people who shine brightly in this hour.

Give us the knowledge of who we are in Christ. I ask this in Jesus' name. Matthew chapter 22, verse 36. Now, this is a lawyer, an interpreter of the law, who would take the Old Testament law and he would open it up.

And as an expositor of sorts of that time, make known to the people, as it was supposed to be what he was doing, what the law was leading to. What was the sense of the law? And he came to Jesus and asked him a question.

Now, he was testing him. Probably a very arrogant man. And the King James Bible says he asked him a question, tempting him. And really testing. I see it this way. This interpreter of the law coming to Jesus and saying, well, let's see if you're as smart as you say you are or people seem to think you are.

And he asked him a question saying, Master, which is the greatest or the great commandment in the law? In other words, of all the things written in the law and all the things written in the prophets, if you were to sum it up, if there was one truth that stands out above and beyond all the other things that are contained in these books, what is the great commandment?

And Jesus said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Now, Jesus was saying everything that you're supposed to be teaching the people is all summed up in these two commandments. If what you're teaching does not lead the people to these two things, then go back to the drawing board and start picking the word apart again, because you're missing the mark completely.

There's a similar account in Luke chapter 10, verse 27. Don't turn there. Let me just share it with you. Where an interpreter of the Old Testament law asked Jesus the question, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And when Jesus answers him, he answers and includes another word. He said not only with your heart, your soul and your mind, but you're to love God with your strength. Now, in other words, if I can put it down in its simplicity, my deepest inner passion must be to love God.

Folks, that's where it all begins. There must be something inside of me. That means loving him with your heart. The heart is the very essence of my inner passion, my pursuit, why I exist, where I'm moving to, what I'm doing.

It's the very essence of who I am as a person. And the most important commandment of God is that I'm to love him with this inner passion. My pursuit is to be of God. As the psalmist says, as the deer panted for the water, so longs my soul for thee, O God.

You see it in the psalmist David, rather, in all of his psalms, where he talks about early in the morning when I seek you. You see, David is acknowledging that you are the chiefest pursuit of my heart and of my life, Jesus.

It's to know you, it's to walk with you, it's to understand you, it's to have your life intertwined with mine. And then to this end, the direction of my will, which is my soul, the development of my intellect, which is my mind, and the outflow of all of my inner abilities must be directed to him and to his work, which is my strength.

In other words, the totality of my life is directed to loving him, to knowing him, to understanding him, and to allow him to work within me and to allow that strength and plants within my life to begin to flow out through me to humanity all around me.

And that's where, when you put all of this together, it moves into the second. He said, the second is like to the first. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. In other words, the ultimate expression of how deeply I really do love God is reflected in how I interact with other people.

That's why in 1 John, John said, if any man says he loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar and the truth is not in him. If a man truly loves God, now the word hate also has in it the connotation of indifference.

In other words, if a man says, I love God, but is indifferent to his fellow man, indifferent to pain, indifferent to peril, indifferent to the difficulty that people without God find themselves in. If he says, God is in me and I'm in God, and yet he's not working in the work of God.

He has no passion in his heart, which ultimately is the passion of God. There's no outflow of that passion to fall in humanity around him. Then the truth isn't in him. He knows the truth, but the truth is not in him.

He may have had knowledge of God, but that had knowledge of God has not brought him into the life or the expression of this life that Christ died to give to all those that are his. Now, the ultimate expression of how deeply I really do love God, as I said earlier, is based on how I interact with other people.

In other words, the scripture says, in fact, I am to love my neighbor as myself. Now, there's where it gets a little bit tricky. You asked me the question, well, what if I don't like myself? You see, love is not even an issue here.

And correct me if I'm wrong in this, but isn't self this rotten interior thing that's to be taken and crucified? Didn't Paul say that I'm convinced that within me dwells no good thing? And now I'm told that the measure of how I love my neighbor is measured proportionately with how I love myself.

Now, some people might be very happy with this, say, well, I hate myself, so therefore I'm justified in hating my neighbor. But the truth of the matter is, what if I don't like myself? There's a lot of people here today.

If you were honest, you don't you don't really like yourself. Loving is not even an issue here. Liking would be a major victory. You look in the mirror and you don't like what you see. You don't like the way God made you.

As a matter of fact, there are people here have controversy with God over the way you appear. Not because there's a flaw in you. It's because you have a wrong definition of what beauty really is. You've been watching too much media.

You've been reading too many magazines and you're looking in the mirror and you have a totally wrong standard of what beauty really is. But you still don't like what you see. What if all I see is failure?

What if I look within my life and all these magnificent promises of God are here for me, but I don't seem to be achieving any of them? There's a few little victories here and there, but the overall picture is a picture of failure.

I don't see myself becoming what God intended me to be. What if I'm not very happy with who I am? And there's so many people today. Oh folks, just buy into the lie that you are not complete in Christ.

And just unhappy as if God made some kind of a tragic mistake in the way that you were created. Or somehow you've taken this life that God gave you and you've made such a mess of it that it's not recoverable as it is.

What if people laughed at my efforts or criticized me and said mean things to me? And inwardly I think that's the way they still feel. How do I love people, especially if I don't love myself? How do I do this?

How do I fulfill the law? Jesus said on these two you can take all the law and all the prophets. And if you could picture putting two hooks on a wall, you can hang all of these teachings on these two things.

That I am to love God and I can understand that with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. But then I'm to love my neighbor as I love myself. You've got to help me to understand this. Because there's a deep truth in this.

Paul the Apostle, even in describing the marriage relationship, said that if a man loves his wife, he loves himself. There's something about this that I need to understand. I'm afraid to reach out to people, many say, and I don't know how to change.

I'm afraid of people. I love God. I can seemingly open the Bible and read it. I can come into the prayer closet. But when it comes to people, I have a hard time. I've been so wounded by people. And I have a difficulty loving them.

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

The problem is that you may not understand something that we're going to be looking at here. First John 4 .18 says there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Because fear is torment. And he that fears is not made perfect in love.

In a sense, God is saying you are afraid of people because you are not perfected in love. And you would say today, well, I know that. That's fairly obvious. If God's love is in me, then I should not be afraid of people.

I should not be afraid of reaching out of my comfort zone into the places where they live. And to see God touch their need through me. And we ask ourselves the question, what is the root of this fear in me?

That keeps me from loving who I am. And loving others is hardly an option at the moment. That's what many of you would say. But there's a fear in me that keeps me from loving who I am. What is this fear?

Why don't I love who I am? Have you ever pondered this question? There are so many people here today that I know that the Lord has given me a word that is right where you're living. And if you're able to hear this today.

And I'm talking to the spiritually sincere. I'm talking today to those who have an honest walk with God. You may not have it all together. But deep down inside, you know that you have trusted Christ for your salvation.

And you know you want to walk with God. You understand in the Bible there is a great commission to reach the lost masses with the gospel of Jesus Christ. You acknowledge all of this. But there is a fear in you that keeps you firstly from loving who you are.

And if you can't love who you are, then according to what I read in this commandment that Jesus said is the most important. You can't possibly love your neighbor. How can I love other people when I hate myself?

I don't think it's a reality. I don't think it can happen. You see, here's the fear that many men carry. Women carry it. All kinds of people. It's the fear that deep and it's deep within every person.

And it's the fear that God sees us the way we see ourselves. It's the fear that the way I see myself in the mirror, the way I feel about myself, the way that I'm aware of all my frailties and failings is exactly how God sees me.

It keeps people out of the prayer closet. Many, many people can't pray in the body of Christ because they go into the prayer closet. They lift up their hands and here's this whole scenario of failure before them.

All they see is how far they've fallen short of the glory of God. How much they fail God. How little they do in the name of God. How seemingly insignificant their victories have been. When they're told in the scriptures they should be mighty and God should be doing exploits through them.

They can't even reach out. They can't even speak to the grocery clerk in the local store. They can't even tell them that God loves them. They see a person weeping on a park bench. They can't stop. They're so afraid of speaking to people.

And the root of it is this inward loathing of self. An unholy loathing. May I call it that today. A loathing that God does not want you to have. He does not want me to have. We're not to live there. We're not to focus on these things.

Now John says in 1 John 4, 19, We love Him because He first loved us. You have to know this. Before you knew God was, He loved you. Before you were born in your mother's womb, All of your members, the scriptures say, were written down.

God knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb. You were not an accident. You were not some fluke of nature or some illegitimate relationship. You were allowed by God to be born. He allowed the seed that was in your mother to be conceived, Knowing that that person that was going to come forth from the womb was going to be you.

And He did it because He loved you. He had a purpose for your life. He had a plan for your life. Something He was going to do in you and through you. In Ezekiel 16, speaking of His own people Israel, Verses 5 and 6.

Now listen to how He describes Israel. And it's a type of you and I. No I, none I pitied thee. In other words, you were in a terrible condition, And everybody basically passed you by. No one had compassion on you.

You were out in the open field, Cast out there to the loathing of your person in the day you were born. God says, I saw you. But I was the only one that really saw you. I was the only one who saw the potential in your life.

I was the only one who saw what you were going to be, Not what you are. To the casual passer-by who didn't know my heart, There was no pity. There was no compassion. You were seemingly dropped off as it is in an open field.

You had no hope. You had no helper in the day you were born. That's the condition that you and I were born into in this world. Without Christ, there's nobody here that would have any hope for the future.

Our songs would be empty songs. Our hope of eternity would be in vain. It was only because God had his eye upon us from the very moment of creation. In verse 6 he says,. And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood,.

Another translation says,. When I saw you trodden underfoot,. When I saw that you had no hope,. If I didn't reach down to you, I said unto you when you were in your blood, Live. And the word live in the original text means enjoy life.

Live again, recover and be quickened. I passed you by, God said. And I saw you in your condition. I saw you in your helplessness. I saw you as hopeless as you were. But I'm not like other people are. I stopped.

And I began to speak to you. And I said live. I said enjoy your life. I said live again. Not live in your being trodden underfoot. Not live in your failure. But live again. Recover from your condition and be quickened.

And in verse 7 he says,. I've caused you to multiply. God says, Not only did I speak the word live to you, But I gave you the strength to be someone other than who you once were. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Behold, all things are passed away. All things are become new. When Jesus saw you, When you trusted in him for your salvation, He spoke into your heart And gave you the power to be another person. Than the person that you once were.

God loved you when no one else did. God saw you when no one else could. And God cleansed you when no one else would. John says in Revelation 1 .5,. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins, In his own blood, He came down, Gave his life on a cross, And washed away all of the filth and iniquity That you and I were born in.

Because we were born in sin and with a sin nature. And God took the penalty of that sin upon himself And washed us clean in his own blood. In 1 John 4 verses 9 and 10, John says,. In this was manifested the love of God towards us, Because that God sent his only begotten son into the world, That we might live through him.

Herein is love. Not that we love God, But that he loved us. And sent his son to be the propitiation, Or that means the atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is love. Not that we love God, But God loved us.

The Prodigal Son and Acceptance in Christ

In Luke chapter 15, We see the story of a prodigal son. Now this prodigal son took this inheritance of his life That his father had given him And wasted it in a far away place from his father, As many of us did before we came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Then one day this son got up and started heading home. And as he started to head home, His father met him along the journey. And the very first thing his father did was cover him. And we see in this story that Jesus Christ And his shed blood on the cross Has become the covering for all of our sin.

We are covered, folks. It's as simple as that. We are covered. The father brought out the best robe in the house And put it on the shoulders of his son. And this robe covered him. As far as anybody in the house was concerned, This son was now royalty.

Not received as a slave, Not received as a second hand son, Having come back with all of his failings. No, coming into the house of the father, Fully covered, fully recovered, Fully restored, fully cleansed.

Absolutely accepted and undefiled. And that's exactly the way you and I stand If we're in Christ today. Folks, we are clean if we're in Christ. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Psalm 103 verse 12 says, As far as the east is from the west, So far as He removed our transgressions from us.

There is absolutely no record in heaven of your sin. There is no record in heaven of your failing. If you are a genuine Christian, You are received as the righteousness of Christ in heaven. That's how God the Father sees you, Not just for time, but for all of eternity.

When you go into the prayer closet, God the Father looks at you through His Son. And because the Son has your name At His right hand on His lips And stands there as your intercessor, You are completely received with the Father As fully righteous and fully cleansed.

Fully empowered by the Holy Ghost. God the Father does not see your failings. He sees only Jesus Christ. You're the only one who sees it. And the devil knows that. And he will come and he will play against that.

And he will speak that, Your repeated failings, your repeated struggles into your ears To try to get you convinced That this is exactly the way that God sees you. The ultimate goal of Satan is to get you to loathe yourself.

To hate yourself. Knowing full well that if you hate yourself, You'll not be able to love your neighbor. Knowing full well that what God intended To have flow through you and I as the church To a fallen society will not happen.

You'll not be able to speak. You'll be gripped with fear. You'll not have that perfect love as it is that casts out fear. You'll not be able to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ To those that are around you.

Peter’s Vision and God’s Welcome to the Gentiles

Go with me please to Acts chapter 10. And I want to show you this principle in reality. Now this is a story of Peter In his journey At a man's house called Simon the Tanner And just before lunch time He goes up on the rooftop To pray.

And as he's praying A vision unfolds before him. Acts chapter 10 And verse 9 On the morrow as they went on their journey And drew night to the city Peter went up upon the housetop to pray About the sixth hour And he became very hungry and would have eaten.

But while they made ready he fell into a trance. And he saw heaven open in a certain vessel Descending to him As it had been a great sheep Knit at the four corners and let down to the earth Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth And wild beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air.

And there came a voice to him Rise Peter kill and eat. But Peter said not so Lord. For I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time What God has cleansed that call not thou common.

This was done thrice or three times. And the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now this is a type of many believers Who come to Christ. You're on a journey with Christ. You know that God loves you.

You know that God has a commission. You've received that. But you're going out as it is In this commission deep in your heart. But so powerless to go where God is calling you to go. You go into the prayer closet.

And the moment you're in the prayer closet This sheet as it is comes down. That you think from heaven. And on this sheet are all kinds of unclean things. And I see it as a type for the believer of memories of the past.

The awarenesses of your shortcomings. The understanding of what the scripture calls you to be. And how far short you fall of the glory of God. And you look at this. And you can't even get beyond this.

Interceding as it is for the Gentiles is not even an issue. You can't even get beyond this. What appears to be a revelation. And the devil would love it to appear as a revelation from God to you. And the Lord tells Peter There's something in this that I want you to see.

But Peter is so entrenched in his own worldview. Or scripture view as it is of himself and other people. That he can't see it at this moment. So God has to repeat it to him three times. He's still after the third time.

Not even sure that he understands what it is that God is trying to tell him. He sees all of this uncleanness. And the Lord tells him Peter it's now yours for the taking. As it is. And Peter says no I can't do this.

These are unclean things. I can't accept this. You're presenting something to me that I'm not willing to accept. You're trying to tell me something that goes against everything that is in me. You're trying to tell me that these things that are now cleansed.

That I consider unclean. To the Christian who's in prayer for example God you're trying to tell me that there's no record of my failure. You're trying to tell me that there's no record of past wrongs.

You're trying to tell me that heaven hasn't recorded my present struggles. You're trying to tell me Lord that things have changed. They're not the way they used to be. And the Lord is trying to tell this to Peter but he can't hear it.

And so many of God's people have difficulty with this. Understanding that there is no record for the true believer. There's no record of your failure in heaven. You might be struggling today but if you're a true believer There is no record of your struggle in heaven.

You are received with God. Folks if nothing else makes you shout your whole life. This should make you shout in the presence of God. It should bring something of joy God Almighty. You're trying to tell me that in Christ the work was complete.

That all my struggles and all my failures and all my trials. And all my horrible self-image and all the way I feel about myself. These things that are always before me. That look so unclean. You're trying to tell me what you have cleansed.

That I'm not to call it common or unclean any longer. This is what the Lord is saying to His church in this hour. He's what He's saying to you this morning. I've cleansed you. You must not call yourself common or unclean anymore.

Don't look to your failings. Look to the one who has cleansed you. Don't look to your nakedness. Look to the one who has covered you. Don't look to where you've fallen short of the glory. Look to the glory that now sits at the right hand of God And is resident within you in the power of the Holy Ghost.

Look to the promises of God. Look to the faithfulness of God. Look to the fact that God is well able to make you Into everything He has promised that He's going to make you. You see the man who continues to call himself unclean Has in effect deposed God from the throne.

In this area of his life. He's walked up to the right hand of God and said Excuse me Jesus for this momentary interlude. Would you mind getting off of the throne At the right hand of the Father. Because I need to sit there for a moment and judge myself.

I need to condemn myself. I need to call myself a failure. I need to call myself ugly. I need to call myself unlovely. I need to stand there. And I need to become the judge of this area of my life. Or this season in my life I know you've cleansed me.

But for this moment I just would like to declare myself unclean. And tragically there's a certain amount of Kind of a perverse religious satisfaction in that. There are religions all over the world that beat themselves.

And the more unclean and unworthy they feel Ironically the more holy they think they're becoming. When in reality the knowledge that's supposed to be theirs Of who they are in Christ is being completely taken away from them.

The end result is this deeply embedded fear That makes them strange and religious. And they have no ability to relate anymore To the common man around them. Because they don't know That they have been cleansed from all uncleanness.

God’s Covenant of Peace and the Believer’s New Identity

They don't know how they're seen in the sight of God. They lose the passion for the lost. They lose this deep inward working of God And ultimately lose all compassion for fellow man. Isaiah chapter 54.

If you'll go there with me please. Isaiah 54. Are you beginning to get this? Isaiah 54 Verse 10. Here's what the Lord says To his people. He says For the mountains shall depart And the hills be removed.

But my kindness shall not depart from thee. Neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed. Saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Oh, verse 11. Tossed with tempest And not comforted. And that describes a lot of people In the body of Jesus Christ Afflicted Thrown about with different storms And inward struggles And not comforted.

He says, now let me show you How I see you and let me show you where I'm taking you. I'll lay your stones with fair colors. In other words, I'm going to take incredible truths And build a foundation underneath of you.

And I'll lay your foundations with sapphires. I'll make your windows of agates And the gates of carbuncles And the borders of pleasant stones. In other words, I'm going to recreate you In the image of God.

It's not going to be an overnight work. The work of God in the Christian heart Never stops Really, all the days of your life. If you are a true Christian, you're going to be changing And changing and changing daily All the rest of your life More and more into the image of God.

It's something you want to do Because you realize how God already sees you. You realize that you're already in Christ At the right hand of God. You're already fully received with God Fully cleansed Already the wrath of God is fully satisfied.

You are fully received That is your standing. I'm in Christ. I'm already at the right hand of God In Christ. Read it in the book of Ephesians. That's where I am If I die right now With all of my frailties and all of my struggles I'm in heaven, I'm already there.

My spirit is going to join the head Which is Christ. You cannot separate the head from the body. I'm in Him, He is in me. I'm going to be where He is for all of eternity. I will rule and reign with Him.

And everything else that heaven has for me Will be mine. It's in Christ, I'm not working to earn it. I don't deserve it, I never did, I never will. It's all by grace and by the goodness of God. Thanks be to God For this incredible salvation.

Now God is building into me Because my state Is not always in line with my standing. I am in Christ Fully accepted, fully received. But I live down here on planet earth. And I live in a body that has an old nature.

And this old nature is always Warring against the new nature of Christ That is within me The new life that God has given me. This old nature always wants to rise up And take over this new life. But Jesus promises That that old nature will never triumph.

Because I'm no longer living under the dominion of sin. I've been set free From the law of sin and death That once worked in me. And I'm brought into a new law Romans 8, 2, of life in Christ Jesus. Now I'm not everything I'm supposed to be But I am fully received with God.

I am changing by the grace and glory of God. Every day Morning by morning I wake up And there are new mercies come into my life. I see God's grace I see where he's leading I see what he's doing. And it puts a shadow of glory in your soul.

It's not a license to abuse this grace of God. But once you know this grace There's a cry comes into your heart Oh Jesus, oh Jesus Live in me, oh God Live through me Be glorified in my life. Kick the sides out of hell through me.

All the days of my life. I'll make your windows of agates and your doors Your gates of carbuncles and your borders of pleasant stones. And all your children Shall be taught of the Lord And great shall be the peace of thy children.

God says, no, I'm not just going to rebuild you. I'm going to rebuild your family. And there's going to be a peace At the center core of your house. From this day forward I'm going to give you a new lineage.

I'm going to give you a promise That the whole world will have to stand up And take notice that I'm with you. You will be established in righteousness And be far from oppression. Thou shalt not fear And from terror for it shall not come near thee.

Behold, he says in verse 15 They shall surely Gather together But not by me. He said, your enemies are going to come against you. They're going to hear about this new work that I'm doing in you. And they're going to come And they're going to surround you Just like they surrounded the Old Testament cities.

And they're going to shout insults Towards you over the wall. Voices from hell are going to come against you Like you've never known your entire life Trying to take away your righteousness in Christ Reminding you of your failings Reminding you of your shortcomings Trying to get you to look in the mirror To see if there's some good thing in you Apart from Christ.

They'll gather, he says. But whoever shall gather together against you Shall fall, God says For your sake. Behold, he says, I've created the smith That blows the coals in the fire And brings forth an instrument for his work.

And I have created the waster to destroy. Now God is saying they're going to gather. But keep this in mind. I've created them all. Even Satan himself is a created being from the hand of God. I've created them all.