H a b i t 7 : Love your neighbor as yourself
Jesus closely connects our vertical love for God and our horizontal love
for one another. Disciples are lovers of God and lovers of people. What made Jesus’ teaching radical in the 1st century and radical today is his call: 1) to love other people with the same level of care we would love ourselves 2) to expand our vision of who our neighbor is, to give costly love to people who inconvenience us and who are different from us. Love is the hallmark trait of disciples of Jesus. Growing here involves growing in self awareness, we must know ourselves better in order to know and love our neighbor better. Life is about loving God and others the best we can.
MEMORIZE
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” - Luke 10:36-37
STUDY AND DISCUSS LUKE 10:25-37
What similarities and differences do you see between this text and Mark
12:28-34 (the text for Habit 6)? Why does Jesus put these 2 commands together, how is vertical love for God related to horizontal love for our neighbor? What does it mean to love “your neighbor as yourself”? Describe a time in your life that, out of nowhere, someone showed love and mercy to you and how that impacted you. If Jesus showed up to your Discipleship Group today, how would he retell this parable in your context? Summarize in 1 sentence what this text of Scripture is teaching us. Share specifics as a group about the “neighbors” in your life and opportunities for showing mercy that God might be calling you to walk into.
“All the different obligations expected of a disciple can be summed up in a single word. It is love.”
Stephen Smallman 61
“If we are going to be faithful witnesses to the message and mission of Jesus in vulnerable neighborhoods, we must expand our current paradigm of gospel-centered ministry to make certain that it puts the millions of people surviving on the fringes of our world at the center of our concern, because the margins are at the center of God’s concern.”
- Noel Castellanos
SEEK SELF AWARENESS.
To love others well we need to become more self aware. As we discover more
about how we are similar to and different from one another, and more of how other people experience us, we’re equipped to love others more thoughtfully and effectively. The following are key categories for seeking self awareness. Secure in your GraceBased Identity (Habit 4), work through these categories as a Discipleship Group, share loving and truthful feedback with one another, and help each other become more self aware disciples of Jesus. • Race. Our race deeply shapes how we see and experience the world, sometimes in ways we’re not aware of. Discuss together your color and culture, and how this influences the way you see and treat others. • Place. Where we grew up and where we live now forms how we love. Explore this as a group. • Socio-Economic Status. Economics is connected to love. Of all the forms of diversity we seek to enjoy as a multi-ethnic church (race, age, etc.), socio-economic diversity is generally the most difficult diversity to form in a church because of how deeply socio-economic status shapes a culture. Discuss and help each other become more self aware here. • Age. God puts us in families and in his multi-generational church so that we can experience and give love in all its richness. How does your age and generation influence how you see the world, and how you give and receive love?
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• Personality. God created us different. Each of us are each unique creations who uniquely image God. Becoming more self aware of our personality, how we’re wired and how other people experience us, is a huge component of growing our obedience to Jesus’ call to love. We’ve found the following tools helpful for this self awareness journey. Make use of 1, or all 3, of these tools as a group, and discuss your findings: • The Enneagram: If used rightly as one tool (rather than as a box to put someone in), gives insight into how people are uniquely motivated, one’s true self vs. false self, and how teams best function. We use the Wagner Enneagram Personality Style Scales test: https://www.wepss.com/buy.asp We encourage you to seek out one of the leaders in our church who has received training with the Enneagram to help you in using and interpreting this tool in a Lifegiving way. See also Appendix 3 of The Relational Soul for some introductory guidance, and Marilyn Vancil’s book, Self to Lose Self to Find, for a biblical approach to this tool. • Strengths Finder: Gives insight into what a person is most strong at and gifted to do. • Love Languages: Gives insight into a person’s preferred way of receiving and giving love. • Man or Woman. God created us in his image, male and female. Men and women are very similar and very different. Discuss as a group how you can steward your manhood or womanhood (particularly in our increasingly gender-neutral culture) to the glory of God. We encourage our men to wrestle through the vision of manhood presented in Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, and our women to wrestle through the vision of womanhood presented in Psalm 31 (we’re not yet aware of an excellent book-length treatment of flourishing biblical womanhood for both single and married women to recommend, though God’s Good Design is helpful; let us know of any suggestions you have). • Stage of Life: Single, Married, Widowed, Young Parents, Aging, Divorced, etc. Our different stages of life shape how we function in the body of Christ. Seek greater self awareness together in your stages of life.
MEMORIZE
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! - Psalm 139
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DEVELOP AN APPROACH TO OTHER PEOPLE, START BUILDING A HABIT FOR A LIFETIME, OF LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
This is not easy to do, we tend to be more interested in ourselves than in
others. But Jesus gives us this command for our own flourishing and the flourishing of others. He wants us to enjoy the freedom of loving other people really well. What’s 1 small action you could begin to take that would help you walk in greater obedience to the second greatest commandment? Perhaps it’s something as simple as imaging yourself in your neighbor’s shoes and then treating that person as well as you’d treat yourself. Discuss ideas and action steps as a group.
“We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must get into action and obey—we must behave like a neighbor to him… You can only learn what obedience is by obeying.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
LOVE PEOPLE IN WORD AND DEED, IN TALK AND WALK.
Some of us are more comfortable loving people with our words, others are
more comfortable loving people through service and deed. Jesus models and summons us to a vision that includes both. Discuss as a group your preferred way of receiving and giving love, and where you think this comes from. Share and spur each other on in 1 way your love of neighbor can become more well rounded. Don’t be afraid of God stretching you or calling you to a new risk, this is part of the discipleship adventure and how we grow.
“In the first commandment he focuses the passion to be happy firmly on God and God alone. In the second commandment he opens a whole world of expanding joy in God and says: people, human beings, everywhere you find them, are designed to receive your joy in God. Love them the way you love yourself. Show them, give them—through every practical means available—what you have found for yourself in God.”
John Piper
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“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” Martin Luther King Jr.
PICK JUST 1 WAY (OR SIMPLY LIVE ALERT TO OPPORTUNITIES GOD GIVES YOU) TO SHOW MERCY TO YOUR NEIGHBOR.
Because of the volume of information we’re exposed to everyday most of us
feel overwhelmed by the needs of our world and neighbors—poverty, orphans, widows, homelessness, abuse, injustice, racism, hunger, refugees, etc. God doesn’t want us constantly overwhelmed, and we are not expected to meet every need. A healthier approach would be to either: 1) Pick 1 way you are passionate about giving transforming love to your neighbor (serving at a local homeless shelter, caring for a single mom in your neighborhood, etc.) and pour focused, relational, thoughtful energy into that over a long period of time. 2) Or, simply live alert to opportunities God puts in your path, like the Good Samaritan did as he traveled the Jericho Road. Discuss your passions, approaches, and ideas as a Discipleship Group. Is there something God might be calling you to as a group?
MEMORIZE
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. - Deuteronomy 10:17-19
RUN TO THE TENSION (KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS).
Conflict, miscommunication, sin, and hurt are a normal part of being human,
following Jesus, and living in community. One of the best ways we can love each other and keep our church healthy is by “running to the tension.” When significant tension (some tension is wise to overlook, see Proverbs 19:11) arises in a relationship, Garden City’s culture is to run to it—to take timely initiative to move towards the person to address and work through the tension. Sometimes the tension is a big sin or hurt, sometimes we discover it was just a big misunderstanding.
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RUN TO THE TENSION (CONTINUED) By running to the tension and keeping short accounts we love our neighbor as ourself, we model the way of Jesus who ran towards the tension of our sin and brokenness, and we keep our community healthy by talking directly to each other (instead of gossiping) and not allowing issues to boil beneath the surface. Conflict is inevitable in the church, and it’s also an opportunity to glorify God and grow. There’s no such thing as a deep, healthy, intimate relationship (or team) without conflict. On the other side of healthy conflict we discover our most intimate relationships. When running to the tension we recommend following “The Four Gs of Biblical Peacemaking.” These are listed briefly below, but we strongly urge you to study pages 24-28 of our Membership Handbook and the short book, Resolving Everyday Conflict, for more detail: • G1: Glorify God—Bringing God into your situation. • G2: Get the Log Out of Your Own Eye—Owning your part of a conflict. • G3: Gently Restore—Helping others own their part of a conflict. • G4: Go and Be Reconciled—Giving forgiveness and arriving at a reasonable solution.
“Conflict is a normal part of life…Peacemaking is applying the gospel and God’s principles for problem solving to everyday life. Peacemaking comes naturally to no one.”
- Ken Sande
WORK ON BEING RECEPTIVE, NOT REACTIVE.
There are 2 types of people: Reactive, and Receptive. Reactive people imme-
diately react to feedback, don’t listen, and don’t learn. Receptive people are willing to take things in, listen, consider, reflect, and grow. Because of our deep safety in God’s unconditional love for us, we can become more receptive and curious disciples, eager to learn and grow. Discuss as a group how you typically handle conflict, and how conflict was handled in your family growing up. Discuss what scares and what excites you about running to the tension and the four Gs of biblical peacemaking. Is there any unresolved conflict within your Discipleship Group that you need to run to the tension on? How does practicing this habit of keeping short accounts nurture the health of a church (or any organization)? What stories do you have about enjoying closer relationships, team, and unity on the other side of conflict? Take a moment to pray for this aspect of church life—pray that we’d be a people who handle conflict well and love well.
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“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
MEMORIZE
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. - Matthew 18:15-16
C.S. Lewis
DON’T GOSSIP.
There’s not much more to say here. Always follow this clear rule of the Scrip-
tures. Gossip is one of the sharpest ways to violate Jesus’ call to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t talk behind people’s backs, we talk to each other face to face.
MEMORIZE
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. - John 13:35
DO YOUR BEST TO BE FULLY PRESENT WITH PEOPLE.
Giving people our full presence and attention is in rapid decline in our dis-
tracted age. One of the most countercultural ways you can love someone today is by being fully present with them. Discuss and work on this as a Discipleship Group. And, remember that this way of relating to people springs from how we relate to God—as we grow more fully present to God we find it natural to be more fully present to other people.
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“Wherever you are, be all there.” Jim Elliot
MAIN TAKEAWAY: We’re a church of disciples who practice the habit of loving our neighbor as ourselves.
What is God saying to you?
What’s your next step?
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR HABIT 7: The Economics of Neighborly Love, Tom Nelson Resolving Everyday Conflict, Ken Sande Ministries of Mercy, Tim Keller Where the Cross Meets the Street, Noel Castellanos A Loving Life, Paul Miller A Cross-Shaped Gospel, Bryan Loritts Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, J.I. Packer Self to Lose Self to Find, Marilyn Vancil The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham The Road Back to You, Susan Stabile and Ian Morgan Cron
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