Loving Our God-given Neighbor's Life

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: I John 3, 4; Lord's Day 40
Psalters: 227, 341, 305, 371
  1. The duty.
    1. My neighbor is anyone placed by God in the path of my life. Whose neighbor am I?
    2. Life (mine and my neighbor?s) is a gift of God.
      1. Life is a most precious gift from God, in which what He gives is Himself (He is life).
      2. Anyone who kills another is destroying God?s gift (whether regenerated or not).
    3. More, in forbidding the taking of our neighbor?s life, God commands us to love our neighbor, especially our brother.
      1. If we love not the brother, then we abide in death!
      2. God?s love, shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:5) is the power and experience to love Him, myself, and each other.
  2. This command forbids taking life and everything that leads to killing.
    1. To kill is to take life without having the authority to do so.
      1. It is to be as a child of the devil, who is a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44).
      2. This includes plotting and consenting to a killing, even when it is ?accidental,? or by negligence (Ex. 21:29,30).
      3. Realize that we also can wound a soul.
    2. Murder is very wrong because we touch God in three ways.
      1. First, it is rebellion against God?s all-wise providence, which put him/her in my path.
      2. Second, it is to take what God has given.
      3. Third, we touch God Himself, Who created that human in His own image (Gen. 9:6).
    3. This command teaches us that God also abhors all that leads to killing: envy, hatred, anger, desire of revenge.
    4. God forbids the endangering of our lives.
  3. That which God requires is the preserving of our neighbor?s life in love - not just the not taking of his life.
    1. God commands capital punishment to show the seriousness of this sin and to show how much He values life.
    2. God calls us to control our anger and to restrain our natures.
      1. Pray for and work to develop a meek and humble spirit, for contention comes from pride (Prov. 13:10).
      2. Consider often the infinite patience of God for us, and His forbearance of the reprobate.
      3. Shun angry persons, for anger spreads quickly from one to another (Prov. 22:24,25).
    3. See love for the neighbor and the brother as a calling (not an option) arising out of gratitude.