The American Church is Not OK: Part 4 Love Your Neighbor, by John Avant

“…“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭10‬:‭27‬ ‭

Jesus said this is the key to eternal life!

Jesus is passionate about our neighbors. 

The American Church is passionate about our enemies. 

After Jesus said this, He told the astonishing story which we refer to as the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This parable makes me uncomfortable.  The Samaritan was wrong about doctrine, wrong about history, and wrong about politics. 

The only thing the Good Samaritan was right about was being a merciful neighbor. 

Seems like that’s a pretty big priority to Jesus. 

All around us we see people who are so broken that they embrace things that are completely insane. Men can be women. Women can be men. Babies are killed before they’re born, and it is celebrated! Freedom is no longer important and many believe communism is the answer.  

All these things are very frightening and worthy of our opposition.  

Yet, at what point did we forget that the Gospel requires us to love, not hate our enemies?

In the American Church, we are obsessed with defeating our lost enemies and have forgotten how to have mercy on them. 

We have forgotten how to be neighbors.  

As I mentioned last week in Part Three of this series, I’m not very interested in large hypothetical, systemic answers to problems like this.

God periodically brings systemic change through great spiritual awakening. but apart from that I’m pretty skeptical about all of our human efforts to remake a better world. 

I’m much more interested in what you and I can practically do right now to become better neighbors. 

And it’s really not complex.

One word is the key.  

Hospitality.  

We fight a lot these days in the American church about who is qualified to lead. These are very legitimate biblical discussions. But we like to pick and choose which biblical qualifications matter to us.

For instance, when’s the last time you heard of a controversy about a church that had a pastor who would not have neighbors in his home? 

And yet twice in the Bible, that is a clear qualification of leadership:

“Rather, he [the Pastor] must be hospitable,...” Titus 1:8

The word “hospitable” literally means to love strangers and welcome them into your lives and your home. 

In other words, you become their neighbor. 

This is something each of us can choose!

Have someone in your home who doesn’t believe what you believe. Just become their friend.  

Invite an immigrant to their first American Thanksgiving dinner with your family.

Where you work and play, seek out relationships with those who might otherwise see you as an enemy. 

Decide to have at least one of your 21 meals a week with someone who doesn’t know the Lord, and might not even know a Christian who actually cares about them. 

We don’t have to do big things. God does big things.

Many times He does big things when we just choose to do small things in His name. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Francis Schaeffer:

“Don’t start with a big program. Start personally and start in your home. I dare you. I dare you in the name of Jesus Christ to do what I am going to suggest. Begin by opening your home for community. You don’t need a big program. You don’t have to convince your pastors or Board. All you have to do is open your home and begin.”