Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

By: John Piper
 
But when the Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "'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 foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." 

The Incredible Context of This Commandment

My main concern in this text is the commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But it is surrounded by such stupendous statements we would be foolhardy to plunge into it without pondering these surroundings. So it is going to take us two weeks at least to deal with this text.

 

The Great and Foremost Commandment

The two stupendous things I have in mind are, first, the greatest commandment in the Word of God. In verse 36 a Pharisee asks Jesus, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" Jesus answers by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5,

    You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Then he adds his own words to put the commandment even higher than the question required. The question was, "Which is the great commandment?" and Jesus says, "This is the great and foremost commandment."

So the first stupendous thing surrounding the commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself is the commandment to love God as the greatest and foremost thing that is in the entire Word of God. The greatest and most important thing you can do is love God—love GOD—with all your heart and soul and mind.

On These Two Depend the Whole Law and the Prophets

The other stupendous thing surrounding the command to love your neighbor as you love yourself is what follows in verse 40,

    On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

Everything else in the Old Testament in some sense depends on these two commandments: the commandment to love God and the commandment to love our neighbor. This is an amazing statement. We have the authority of the Son of God here telling us something utterly stupendous about the origin and design of the entire plan and Word of God.

The Overwhelming Commandment to Neighbor Love

Now those are the two stupendous things we need to ponder before we dive into the overwhelming commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. I say it is overwhelming because it seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel that I am that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me.

It is an absolutely staggering commandment. If this is what it means, then something unbelievably powerful and earthshaking and reconstructing and overturning and upending will have to happen in our souls. Something supernatural. Something well beyond what self-preserving, self-enhancing, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-advancing human beings like John Piper can do on their own.

Before we take up such a commandment and apply it to our lives, we need to ponder these two stupendous things that surround the commandment. That the commandment to love God is the great and foremost commandment in the Word of God and that all the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.

The Whole Law and the Prophets 

Let's start with verse 40. "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

He Didn't Have to Say This

First, consider the sheer fact that Jesus said this. He didn't have to say it. The Pharisee didn't ask this. Jesus went beyond what he asked and said more. He seems to want to push the importance and centrality of these commandments as much as he can. He has said that the commandment to love God is great and foremost. He has said the commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself is "like it." Verse 39: "The second is like it . . . " That's enough to raise the stakes here almost as high as they can be raised. We have the greatest commandment in all the revelation of God to humanity (Love God); and we have the second greatest, which is like the greatest (Love your neighbor).

But Jesus doesn't stop there. He wants us to be stunned at how important these two commandments are. He wants us to stop and wonder. He wants us to spend more than a passing moment on these things. More than a week or two of preaching. So he adds, "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." They are 1) the first and the greatest, and 2) the second that is like the first and the greatest. But they are also the two commandments on which everything else in the Bible depends. "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." 

Now what does this mean? Let me see if I can open a window into heaven by contrasting what Jesus says here (in v. 40) with what he says in Matthew 7:12 and what Paul says in Romans 13. Turn with me to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:12. This verse is better known as the Golden Rule. It is, I think, a good commentary on "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Matthew 7:12: This Is the Law and the Prophets

Jesus has just said that God will give us good things if we ask and seek and knock, because he is a loving Father. Then in Matthew 7:12 he says,

    Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Notice that again Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets like he did in Matthew 22:40. He says, if you do to others what you would have them do to you, then "this is the Law and the Prophets." In Matthew 22:40 he said, "On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets."

Take notice here that the first commandment is not mentioned in Matthew 7:12. Loving God with all your heart is not mentioned. Treating others the way we would like to be treated, he says, "is the Law and the Prophets."

We must be careful here. Some people over the centuries have tried to take sentences like the Golden Rule and say that Jesus was mainly a profound teacher of human ethics; and that what he taught is not dependent on God or any relationship with God. They say, "See, he can sum up the whole Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, in practical human relationships: the Golden Rule."

I say we must be careful here, because thinking like that not only ignores the great things Jesus said about God elsewhere and the amazing things he said about himself coming from God to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45); it also ignores the immediate context. Verse 12 begins with "therefore" (dropped in the NIV):

    Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them.

What this shows is that the Golden Rule depends on what went before—on our relationship to God as our Father who loves us and answers our prayers and gives us good things when we ask him (Matthew 7:9–11). In fact this is a very profound key to how we are able to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So God is here upholding the Golden Rule by his fatherly provision. His love for us and our trusting, prayerful love back to him is the source of power for living the Golden Rule. So you can't turn Jesus into a mere teacher of ethics.

But still, Jesus does say that treating others as you want to be treated "is the law and the prophets." He does not say that loving God "is the Law and the Prophets." Why does he say it in this way? I think what he means is that when you see people love like that (fulfill the Golden Rule), what you are seeing is the visible expression of the Law and the Prophets. This behavior among people manifests openly and publicly and practically what the Old Testament is about. It fulfills the Law and the Prophets. Loving God is invisible. It is an internal passion of the soul. But it comes to expression when you love others.

So loving others is the outward manifestation, the visible expression, the practical demonstration, and therefore the fulfillment of what the Old Testament is about. So there is a sense in which the second commandment (to love your neighbor) is the visible goal of the whole Word of God. It's not as though loving God is not here, or that loving God is less important; rather loving God is made visible and manifest and full in our visibly, practically, sacrificially loving others. I think that is why the second commandment stands by itself when the New Testament says that love fulfills the law.

Romans 13:8–10: Love of Neighbor Fulfills the Law

Let's look at one other text that points in this direction.

Look at Romans 13:8–10.

    Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 For this, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

Two times (vv. 8, 10) Paul says that the command to love our neighbor is the "fulfillment of the law." This is what Jesus meant when he said (in Matthew 7:12) that treating others as you would like to be treated "is the law and the prophets." And, just as in Matthew 7:12, Paul doesn't say that the law is fulfilled in loving God and loving neighbors. He only says that if you love your neighbor, you fill up the law. I think this means the same as Matthew 7:12, Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is the visible expression and manifestation and practical completion and fulfillment of all that the Old Testament was about, including love for God. Love for God comes to visible manifestation when we love others. Or you could say, our love for God is "fulfilled" when we love others.

We know Paul saw this practical love as utterly dependent on our relationship to God. In Romans 8:3–4 he says,

    For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh [= self-reliance], but according to the Spirit [= God-reliance].

In other words, fulfilling the law—loving our neighbor as we love ourselves—is not something we can do on our own. We do it by the Holy Spirit. And we saw last week that Paul teaches God supplies the Spirit to us through faith.

So it's the same as in Matthew 7:12. When Jesus and Paul say that loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, they don't exclude our love for God and his love for us; they assume it.

Matthew 22:37–40: On These Two Hang . . .

But let's go back to our text in Matthew 22:37–40. Here Jesus DOES mention both love for God and love for neighbor; and he explicitly says (in v. 40), "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." Why? I want to suggest that he is saying something different here than in those other texts (Matthew 7:12; Romans 13:8, 10). Here he does not say that these two commandments "fulfill" the Law and the Prophets, or that they "are" the Law and the Prophets. He says that the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments. Verse 40:

    On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

Now this is a window into heaven, if you have eyes to see. When he says here that the Law and the Prophets depend (literally: "hang," like a stone around the neck, or a snake on the hand, or a man on a cross) on love, this is the reverse of what those other texts were saying. They were saying that the Law and Prophets lead to and find expression and fulfillment in love. But here in Matthew 22:40 Jesus is saying the reverse: love leads to and finds expression in the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets are hanging on—depending on—something before them, namely, God's passion that this world, this history of humankind, be a world of love to God and radical, other-oriented love to each other.

Illustration

Let me see if I can put this in a picture, so that you can see it more plainly. It is so important, if we are going to grasp the magnitude of the significance of love in our midst, as we move forward into the practical expressions of it in our preaching and in our life together at Bethlehem.

Let's picture the inspired history of redemption from creation to consummation as a scroll like the one John saw in Revelation 5. This is the Law and the Prophets (and the New Testament). The story of God's acts and purposes in history are told in this scroll, along with God's commandments and promises. Matthew 7:12 and Romans 13:8–10 tell us that, when the people of God love their neighbor as they love themselves, the purpose of this scroll is being fulfilled. Its aim is being expressed visibly, manifested practically so "that people can see our good deeds and give glory to our Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). So the scroll is leading to love. Love is flowing from the scroll.

But then Jesus gives us an incredible perspective. He lifts us out of history and out of the world for a moment and shows us the scroll from a distance. Now we can see it whole—the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament, the story of redemption, the purposes and acts of God in history. And what we see is that the scroll is hanging by two golden chains, one fastened to each end of the scroll handles. And Jesus lifts our eyes to heaven, and we see the chains run up and disappear into heaven.

Then he takes us up to heaven. And he shows us the ends of the chains. They are fastened to the throne of God. One chain is fastened to the right arm of the throne where the words are inscribed: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind." And the other chain is fastened to the left arm of the throne where the words are inscribed, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

And Jesus turns to us and says, "The whole scroll, the whole Law and the Prophets, the whole history of redemption and all my Father's plans and acts hang on these two great sovereign purposes of God—that he be loved by his people, and that his people love each other."

I believe it would not be too much to say that all of creation, all of redemption, all of history hang on these two great purposes—that humans love God with all our heart, and that from the overflow of that love we love each other.

Which means that love is the origin (Matthew 22:40) and the goal (Romans 13:8, 10) of the Law and the Prophets. It is the beginning and the end of why God inspired the Bible. It's the fountainhead and spring at the one end, and the shoreless ocean at the other end of the river of redemptive history—remembered and promised in the Word of God.

God's Word to Us This Morning 

God's word for us this morning is that we take with tremendous seriousness this season of dealing with love at Bethlehem. That we let this picture stun us and remake our priorities. That we get alone with him and deal with him about these things. That we not assume that we fully know what love is or that it has the proper centrality in our lives. He is saying: All of Scripture, all of his plans for history, hang—HANG—on these two great purposes: that he be loved with all our heart, and that we love each other as we love ourselves.

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Followers of Christ

Are you a follower of Jesus? When that question is asked, people generally give a wide variety of answers. They may think it’s synonymous with believing in God, attending church, participating in communion, giving to good causes, praying when in need, living a good life, or being religious. But none of these actually answer the question, nor do they prove that someone is following Jesus. Engaging in certain religious activities is not equivalent to following Jesus. Although these activities are generally practiced by Christians, not everyone who does them is a Christian. To determine if we are truly following Jesus, we must use biblical guidelines.

As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, He called Simon Peter and Andrew to leave their occupation as fishermen and follow Him (Matt. 4:18-19). Their response demonstrates what following Jesus involves: “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him” (v. 20). This was a whole life commitment, not merely religious activity.

In order to evaluate whether we too are following Jesus, we must understand what experiences are true of those who are genuine followers.

    Born Again. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). This is the first qualification to become a follower of Jesus. We must confess and repent of our sins, by faith receive God’s forgiveness, surrender our lives to Christ as our Savior and Lord, and start walking in His ways. Being a Christian is not just becoming better or improving ourselves; it’s an entirely new life born of the Spirit.

    Prayer. “It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). If we follow Jesus, we will be a person of prayer just as He was. In fact, it will be a major part of our lives, not just an occasional plea for help when we’re in need. For prayer to become a priority, we must make it a daily habit to have a quiet time alone with God. Starting and finishing each day in prayer is a good way to make sure we are walking in Christ’s footsteps.

    Listening. “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!’” (Matt. 17:5). Too often many of us begin the morning with thoughts of everything we need to accomplish that day. Although fulfilling our responsibilities is important, it’s more essential to spend time listening to the Father, asking Him to guide us into His plan for our lives as well as for the day ahead, and not our own. As the sovereign Lord and Master not only of the universe but of our individual lives, God requires our submission and obedience to His will. That’s why we must take time to listen to Him as we read His Word and pray.

    Belief. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Just as we trusted Christ for salvation, so we must continue to live by faith as we follow Him. If we don’t believe Him, we’ll live self-centered lives and won’t do what He says or walk in His ways. But as genuine followers of Christ, we’ll trust Him with our difficulties, pain, temptations, and needs, relying on Him to enable us to do whatever He says.

    Obedience. “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12). Following requires obedience, and when this is the desire of our hearts, we recognize how foolish it is to go our own way. Sin always leads to loss and the death of something whether it’s opportunities or blessings (Rom. 6:23). If we stubbornly refuse to obey God, He will send enough heartache and trouble into our lives to correct us. It is always good to obey Him because He is the source of every good thing.

    Love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and will all your strength” (Mark 12:30). We can’t follow Christ with a divided heart—half in the world and half with God. The love we are to have for Christ involves our entire being. Therefore, we can’t allow impure thoughts, images, and words into our minds and claim to love Him at the same time. Wholehearted love for Christ affects what we think and watch, what we do, and where we go.

    Sharing. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). This is Jesus’ command, and if we are going to follow Him, we will share the truth of God’s Word with others, regardless of whether they like us or not. In a world of hatred, bitterness, animosity, and death, Christ’s followers are risking their lives to bring the gospel to people throughout the world. Each of us can surely say something to spark the interest of someone we know who is not following Jesus.

    Service. “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him” (John 12:26). Jesus came as a servant, and as His followers, that’s what we should do as well. All of us have the capacity to serve the Lord in some fashion by serving others. Service comes in many different forms: helping, caring, encouraging, comforting, giving, teaching, or sharing God’s Word.

    Suffering. “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29). If we are following Jesus, we can expect to experience some form of suffering. We may be rejected, suffer financial loss, or even lose relationships because we make people feel uncomfortable and don’t fit in with those who love the world. But this should not stop us from following Jesus and sharing the gospel.

Although we may be tempted to pick and choose which of these qualities we want to pursue, all these practices are essential elements of our walk with Jesus and should become an important part of our lives as we follow Him.

Are you a follower of Christ? If you find any of these characteristics difficult to accept and practice, go to God in prayer and ask Him to work them into your life so you can follow Jesus more fully.

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FOLLOWERSHIP: THE OTHER SIDE OF LEADERSHIP

By: John S. McCallum

The link between leadership, management and enterprise performance is widely understood and accepted.  Improving leadership improves management and raises the probabilities of better performance.  That boards often change leaders when enterprises are slipping confirms the importance placed on leadership.

The flip side of leadership is followership.  It stands to reason that if leadership is important to performance, followership must have something to do with it too.  But curiously, followership gets only a small fraction of the airtime that leadership does.

Nowhere is this more the case than in MBA programs.  MBA programs pride themselves on their ability to teach leadership.  Leadership skills are at the head of the list of what many MBA students say they want to get out of an MBA.  To them, the better the leadership skills, the better the chances of making the executive suite.  They are right!  So enamored are MBA programs with leadership that programs actively search out evidence of leadership ability in selecting among applicants.
 

MBA programs loudly trumpet their leadership development prowess.  It is bizarre to even go there but has anybody ever thought of an MBA program facing the highly competitive MBA student market with the value proposition:  “Get your MBA at our university; we teach followership better than anyone else; become a better sheep at our university.”  This article is about followership.

Followership is a straightforward concept.  It is the ability to take direction well, to get in line behind a program, to be part of a team and to deliver on what is expected of you.  It gets a bit of a bad rap!  How well the followers follow is probably just as important to enterprise success as how well the leaders lead.

The label “excellent follower” can be a backhanded compliment.  It is not a reputation you necessarily want if you are seeking higher corporate office.  There is something of a stigma to followership skills.  Pity because the practical reality is one does not reach progressively more responsible leadership positions without demonstrating an ability to follow and function effectively in a group.  The fact is that in organizations everybody is both a leader and a follower depending on the circumstances which just adds to the paradox of the followership stigma.

Followership may take the backseat to leadership but it matters:  it matters a lot!  Quite simply, where followership is a failure, not much gets done and/or what does get done is not what was supposed to get done.  Followership problems manifest themselves in a poor work ethic, bad morale, distraction from goals, unsatisfied customers, lost opportunities, high costs, product quality issues and weak competitiveness.  At the extreme, weak leadership and weak followership are two sides of the same coin and the consequence is always the same:  organizational confusion and poor performance.

Good followers have a number of qualities. 

First, judgement.  Followers must take direction but they have an underlying obligation to the enterprise to do so only when the direction is ethical and proper.  The key is having the judgement to know the difference between a directive that your leader gives on how to proceed that you do not agree with and a directive that is truly wrong.

No one disputes that good judgement is critical to being a good leader.  It is just as important in the follower.  Show enough good judgement as a follower and you usually end up getting a shot at being the leader.  Something of an aside but there is a line that I have always liked about judgement:  “Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement.” 

Second, work ethic.  Good followers are good workers.  They are diligent, motivated, committed, pay attention to detail and make the effort.  Leaders have a responsibility to create an environment that permits these qualities but regardless, it is the responsibility of the follower to be a good worker.  There is no such thing as a bad worker who is a good follower.

Third, competence.  The follower cannot follow properly unless competent at the task that is directed by the leader.  It is the obligation of the leader to assure that followers are competent.  Sometimes things go wrong because the follower is not competent at the task at hand.  When this happens, leaders should blame themselves, not the follower.  A sign of poor leadership is blaming followers for not having skills they do not have.

Fourth, honesty.  The follower owes the leader an honest and forthright assessment of what the leader is trying to achieve and how.  This is especially the case when the follower feels the leader’s agenda is seriously flawed.  Respect and politeness are important but that said, it is not acceptable for followers to sit on their hands while an inept leader drives the proverbial bus over the cliff.  Good leaders are grateful for constructive feedback from their team.  Bad leaders do not welcome feedback and here followers have to tread carefully.  If the situation is serious enough, consideration should be given to going above the leader in question for guidance.

Fifth, courage.  Followers need to be honest with those who lead them.  They also need the courage to be honest.  It takes real courage to confront a leader about concerns with the leader’s agenda or worse, the leader himself or herself.  It is not for naught that Churchill called courage “The foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend”.  From time to time, it takes real courage to be a good follower.

Sixth, discretion.  A favorite saying in World War II was “Loose lips sink ships.”  Sports teams are fond of the expression “What you hear here, let it stay here.”  Followers owe their enterprises and their leaders discretion.  Talking about work matters inappropriately is at best unhelpful and more likely harmful.  Discretion just means keeping your mouth shut.  It should be easy but many find it next to impossible.  Bluntly, you cannot be a good follower and be indiscreet.  Everybody who works at an enterprise has a duty of care; indiscretion is not care, it is careless. 

Seventh, loyalty.  Good followers respect their obligation to be loyal to their enterprise.  Loyalty to the enterprise and its goals is particularly important when there are problems, interpersonal or otherwise, with a particular leader.  Followers who are not loyal are inevitably a source of difficulty.  They create problems between team members; they compromise the achievement of goals; they waste everybody’s time; they are a menace.  Loyalty is not a synonym for lapdog.  Rather, its essence is a strong allegiance and commitment to what the organization is trying to do.  Followers should remember that their obligation is to the enterprise, not a given leader at a given point in time.

Eighth, ego management.  Good followers have their egos under control.  They are team players in the fullest sense of the concept.  They have good interpersonal skills.  Success for good followers relates to performance and goal achievement not personal recognition and self promotion.  Sounds too good to be true and often it is.  It is difficult but the best organizations tie advancement and reward to performance and goal achievement as hard as that may be to do.

Followership will always be in the shadow of leadership.  But there are no leaders without followers and on-going success with weak followers will usually prove elusive.  It is true that an organization is only as good as its leaders.  It is also only as good as its followers.  Who would not benefit from giving some thought to how they could be a better follower?  Such thought may actually hasten your trip to the leadership position you actually want.

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