Can You Love Your Neighbor Without Compromise

Love is easy to praise and hard to practice, especially when the conversation turns tense. We ask a simple “now what?” after a series on God’s design, and we land on a truth that won’t let us stay comfortable: love is not optional for Christians. Jesus doesn’t give a suggestion in John 13. He gives a command, and he ties our credibility as his disciples to whether we actually love one another.

We walk through three anchoring passages that shape a biblical approach to relationships and cultural conflict. Mark 12 puts love at the center of the greatest commandments: love God with everything, then love your neighbor as yourself. First John 4 refuses to separate devotion to God from how we treat people in front of us. From there, we talk plainly about neighbors who experience gender dysphoria, identify as transgender, or live in homosexual practice. Our starting point isn’t a knee-jerk reaction. It’s the command to love our neighbor because they are our neighbor.

Then we get practical with four biblical principles for Christian living: love promotes dignity because every human bears God’s image; love requires empathy because we can’t bear burdens from a distance; love shares truth because Scripture defines love as rejoicing with the truth; and love speaks that truth gently, without pride, harshness, or cheap shots. If you want a clear Christian perspective on love, truth, sexuality, and gender identity, this message aims to give you conviction with compassion. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re trying to live out.

Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

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You're listening to Foundations of Truth, the Bible-teaching ministry of Dr. Timothy Mann. Our mission is to help you build your life on the unshakable foundation of God's Word, rooted in Scripture, anchored in the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each week, Dr. Timothy Mann opens the Bible to bring clarity, conviction, and encouragement for everyday life. Today on Foundations of Truth, we continue the series Define Design. Here now is Dr. Timothy

The Command To Love Like Jesus

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Mann.

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Today is going to be all about now what? Now that we've examined these issues, now what? What do we do with it? How do we move forward? And so we're going to be looking at a number of passages of Scripture. So get your Bible and turn with me to the New Testament. The New Testament, turning your Bibles to John, the Gospel of John. John chapter 13 is where we'll start. We'll also be traveling over to his little letter, the first letter he wrote after his gospel, 1 John. And then we'll go from there and we're going to work our way back to the Gospel of Mark. And so we'll begin in John, the Gospel of John. Then we'll go to 1 John, then we'll come back to Mark chapter 12. So Mark 12 is where we'll end, but we're going to begin in John 13. Hopefully you're there by now and not confused. John chapter 13. Jesus is speaking here as John records it for us. He is speaking to his followers, his disciples. And he says in verses 34 and 35 of John 13, he says, A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you. In other words, in the same way that I've loved you, in the same manner that I've loved you, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. And by this, that is to say, that you actually love one another as I have loved you. By this we well all know, all will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. First John, a little letter in the latter part of the New Testament, before you get to Revelation. First John chapter 4, verse 20. The Bible says, If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? Now turn with me back over to the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter twelve. The context here is one of the religious leaders, one of his scribes, asks a question, probably in hopes to trip Jesus up about which is the first commandment of all. Verse 29 of chapter 12, Jesus answers. The Bible says Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Well, recently I began making meal purchases using an app on my iPhone. Yes, I've entered the 21st century. I'm trying to get all technological these days. So I make a meal purchase using an app on my iPhone, and after I'd selected the main items and then also the sides from the menu, I then had a spot on the app to click an icon for optional extras that I could add to my order, such as butter and whatever else, silverware and things like that, and sauce, all kinds of optional extras. And even though I ordered a few extras, it really didn't matter much because some of these things, including a side, did not make their way into the bag that held my order. Now, I was traveling. You know how that goes. Well, in the same way, love can never be an optional extra for the Christian. We're going to talk for the next little bit about how to love your neighbor. How to love your neighbor. Love can never be an optional extra for a Christian. It's not like we get eternal life and then a side of forgiveness and a future hope and then have love as an optional extra. And even if we think we would like love as an extra, sometimes it sure looks like it didn't make it into our Christian bag. To be a Christian means to love as you have been loved by God. To be a Christian means to love as you have been loved by Christ. Look again at John 13. Jesus said, A new commandment, not a new suggestion, a new commandment. I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Did you catch that? Jesus also says that if we fail to love other believers, we show that we do not really love God. It's a famous parable. I didn't even read that verse. It's a famous parable. Most everyone knows it. Even kind of what the title of the parable is is used in today's vernacular. The famous parable of the Good Samaritan actually shows that by others, he also means all others. My neighbor, your neighbor, includes anyone and everyone. John is an apostle. John spells it out again in the first, in verse 20, first letter, chapter 4, verse 20, he says, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, now, we would be inclined to say, well, he's a hypocrite. And a hypocrite is certainly bad enough. Nobody likes to be called or thought of as a hypocrite. But the Holy Spirit of God did not inspire the apostle John to use the word hypocrite. Instead, he really gets to the heart of the matter. And he says, If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he says, What? Well, I don't know that I like this study already. I didn't like it as I studied for it because it's very convicting. It says, He who does not love his brother whom he's seen, how can he love God whom he's not seen? And so for followers of Christ, love is not just an attitude tacked onto the Christian life as an afterthought. Love is not an appetizer. Love is not a dessert. Love is the main dish, the main course. And so a heart that cultivates actually works toward and cultivates love for God and

Love Is Not An Optional Extra

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love for others is at the core of what it means to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus even says that the love we foster in our hearts toward others is a reflection of the love that we have for God. So being a Christian, being a professing Christian and harboring hate toward others does not work for a follower of Jesus. It shouldn't work for a follower of Jesus. Why? Well, because love is the foundation of the greatest commandments, as we read in Mark chapter 12. Look at it again, verses 29 through 31. Verse 30, he says, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. So this is the first commandment. And the second commandment like it is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So there's no other commandment greater than these. So the centrality of love must be the foundation of our interaction with friends, with family, with neighbors, with our fellow citizens, including, including all those who are experiencing gender dysphoria or who have embraced a transgender identity or are living a homosexual lifestyle. A biblical response to all the folks that we've been discussing in this series is to see them as our neighbors and to love them because they are our neighbors. Now that's easier said than done. I understand that. Even if we're determined to turn our backs on all knee-jerk reactions of one kind or another, it's still easier said than done. But what does it mean? What does it even mean to love? Because from the Bible to the Beatles, we're told all you need is love. But what does it actually mean to love someone? As a Christian, I may want to act lovingly toward all people, regardless of their age or their race or their background or even their gender identity. But how do I do that? What does it even look like, biblically speaking? Now there's many things that could be said biblically. We could go a hundred different directions this morning, biblically. But there are four principles that I want to share with you, four biblical truths that are foundational and very integral to this in this topic. If we're talking about loving our neighbor, it's interesting because Jesus said between us, between believers, we're to actually love each other. How? As he has loved us. I mean, think about the ways that Jesus has loved you. And that means that fellow believer, that brother, that sister, we're to love each other in the same way as Jesus loved us. Now for our neighbor, the person we don't know, he doesn't use the same language. But he said this you're to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now I promise you, today, sometime today, if you've not done so already, sometime today you're going to feed yourself, right? I mean, how many of you have already fed yourself this morning? How many of you are going to feed yourself in a little while? It's because you love you. That's why. And hopefully, you clothe yourself this morning. You clothe yourself and you didn't go out naked. It would be harsh in the elements, and it would be harsh on everyone else too. You bathe yourself, at least most likely, you bathe yourself. We do these things. We care for ourselves. Why? Well, because we love us. And Jesus says, your neighbor, that person you don't even know, that you may not like, that you have no affection or fondness toward, you're to love them at least as much as you love you. Now, admittedly, that's easier said than done sometimes. And in the context of sexuality and gender, what does that look like?

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Thank you for listening to Foundations of Truth, the biblical teaching ministry of Dr. Timothy Mann. We are a completely listener-supported ministry. Our website is foundationsoftruth.net. Foundationsoftruth.net. Now let's return to part one of today's message from the Divine Design series. Here's Dr. Timothy Mann.

Love Promotes God-Given Dignity

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Well, let me suggest a few items to you. First one is this. What does love do? How do we love our neighbor? Well, first of all, love promotes dignity. Love promotes dignity. First, we need to understand who our neighbors are. And our neighbors are people made in God's image. We've studied that, talked about that in detail a few messages back. People made in God's image. Genesis chapter 1, verse 27 says that God created man in his own image, not in the image of an animal, in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And so the truth that man and woman are made in God's image is the foundation. It's the starting point for human dignity. The human dignity is the concept that individuals possess an unassailable worth, a value that cannot be violated. And there are no exceptions to this truth. There's no way for someone to be a human and not bear God's image. Even though we may obscure it, they may obscure it, even though they may mar it. There's no way for someone to be a human and not bear God's image. Oftentimes you'll hear someone say about someone else, Well, he's just trash, or she's just trash. Well, that's not true. That's not true. They're a human made in the image of God. And nothing they can do with their lives can eradicate the image of God. No human authority can take it away. All humans possess God-given dignity and possess it equally. Presidents and peasants both are equally the same in God's eyes. Christians and non-Christians are both made in God's image. Those who deal with same-sex sexual attraction and those who do not both possess the same inherent dignity. A person confused about their gender and someone at peace with their gender both possess the same dignity. And failing to understand how this truth applies to every single person equally is the foundation for all sorts of abuse and atrocities. In Nazi Germany, a failure to see the full dignity of the Jews led to the Holocaust. Early in the founding of the United States, a failure on the part of many white people to see the full dignity of persons with black or brown skin led to the evils of racism and slavery in this country. For the last 50 years, a failure to see the full dignity of persons who are not yet born has led to 50 million legal abortions in the U.S. alone. History's greatest crimes result from denying God's image in every single man and woman. A transgendered person is made in God's image. And that means dignity is due to them as people, regardless of whether I agree with their self-perception. Dignity demands that we speak in defense of someone's worth instead of saying, well, they're just trash. It means we speak in defense of someone's worth, even when, as Bible believers, we rightly and correctly disagree with their view of life and how they're living life. See, love does something. In fact, it has nothing to do with affection. It has nothing to do with fondness. Love does something. And that is, it promotes the dignity of another human simply because they carry the image of God. And that reason alone is enough for them to have value. That's the reason they have value. Love promotes dignity. Not

Empathy As The Path To Influence

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only that, love requires empathy. Love requires empathy. You don't love somebody because you don't empathize with them. See, understanding the perspective of someone unlike you is absolutely vital to developing empathy and building relationships. I would even go so far as to say, now, listen to me, Christian, professing Christian, empathy is the prerequisite for speaking meaningfully and even authoritatively into someone's life. Let me ask you a question. As a Christian, do you just want to be right or do you want to influence someone? It's a prerequisite for being able to speak meaningfully and authoritatively into someone's life. The Apostle Paul tells the church in Galatia, Galatians chapter 6, verse 2, this is what he says. Look what he says. He says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Well, what is the law of Christ? That we love one another. The new commandment he gave to love one another and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Bear one another's burdens. So to love someone, we have to work hard to empathize with them. What does empathy mean? Well, to empathize with someone means that you're seeking to look at life from their perspective and to walk in their shoes. Empathy is very close to compassion. And both of those words, their root meaning from the original language, has the idea to feel in the bowels. Feel in the bowels. That's a very picturesque kind of way to say it. Or stated this way, it means to suffer with, to suffer with. That's the idea. So let me ask you a question. Is it easy for you to simply dismiss someone out of hand because their struggle seems alien or strange to you? Is it easy for you to just dismiss someone out of hand because you disagree with the choices they've made or the identity they assume and the things they do? I mean, that you just, no second thought whatsoever, dismiss them out of hand. Because empathy, extending empathy, doesn't mean that you accept or affirm or encourage someone to embrace their desire to live contrary to God's creative design. But it does mean, however, that instead of rejecting a person outright, that we make an effort to seek to understand what they're dealing with and what their struggles are. That's what that means. We need to understand the fact that there's going to be people in our life who experience dysphoria of some kind. It's inevitable. There are people in your church. There are people in your family. There are people in your school. And so what are you going to do when someone you encounter admits to these struggles? Will you simply respond with your jaw hanging out on the floor? Will your facial expression turn someone away? Or will you extend a hand of compassion and make sure you ask questions and listen hard? Or what about your children? Can they even admit a struggle to you? I mean, look at what our eyebrows and our noses do when we meet someone who tells them much more about how we truly feel than do our words or our posts on social media. See, the Bible says that we're not only to get to know people, we're to bear their burdens, which means someone else's load also becomes my load. Someone else's struggle becomes my struggle. And if you cannot love your neighbor, the one who God puts in your path, if you do not empathize with them, if you do not have compassion on them, if you don't have, if you don't suffer with, if you don't feel it in your bowel, in your gut, you can't love your neighbor if you don't empathize with them. The reason the Samaritan got down in the ditch with the half-dead Jew who is prejudiced against the Samaritan, the only reason he got in the ditch with him, the Bible says in the Gospel of Luke, is he had compassion on him. He he empathized with him. What's our attitude? Our attitude is usually this. Well, he deserves to be into the ditch. He got himself into this mess. Let him figure a way to get out of it. And we don't offer to help. What do we do? Well, we just kick more dirt in on him or on her. See, love promotes dignity, and love works to empathize. Well, thirdly, love shares

Truth Spoken Gently With Courage

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truth. Love shares truth. First Corinthians chapter 14. Oh, it's a beautiful chapter 13 is beautiful. It sounds beautiful. It's good to be read at weddings. It's all high-sounding and flowery and beautiful. It's all about love. You might even have a verse up in your home somewhere. But the reality is this when you start looking at yourself as you read 1 Corinthians chapter 13, I failed the test. You do too. Because we don't measure up to what 1 Corinthians 13 says about love. And one of the things it says about love is this. We could put it this way: love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth. So what does love do? Love shares truth. Now here is perhaps the most delicate aspect of loving our neighbor, our practicing homosexual neighbor, our transgender neighbor, while not sending signals that we approve of someone living in a gender opposite of their sex, or no sex at all, or in a sexually immoral way opposite from God's design. But here's the reality: the Bible's definition of love runs contrary to the world's definition. Because according to the world, loving someone means giving them license to pursue whatever they believe will bring them happiness or fulfillment. That's the love of the world's definition. The Bible says that love requires truth. Love requires truth. Love does not mean, uh, listen to me, especially if you have kids or grandkids at home still, love does not mean looking someone in the eye and affirming every desire they experience. Love means looking someone in the eyes and communicating the truth of Scripture. That's what love is. We're to do so humbly, we're to do so gently, but we're to do so nonetheless. It's very important to bear in mind that what Christians call loving will not often be considered loving by the world. So we must never assess whether we're truly loving by the world's response or by an individual's response to our message of love. Love and truth are never determined by whether they're popular, because often what is loving and true is very unpopular. And you know this to be the case increasingly today. Speaking truth out of love is called hate speech. But the Bible says, the Bible says that love can. Cannot exist without truth, and love cannot rejoice at wrongdoing. It cannot rejoice in iniquity. So if we accept the authority of the Bible, if we accept the authority of God's Word, and that's really what it comes down to, isn't it? We've talked about that already. What it really comes down to is if you do accept the authority of the Bible, that's the final word. Everything over your life, in my life, whether I like it, whether I'm comfortable with it, whether it makes me happy, whether it makes me comfortable, it doesn't matter. Is this the final say? And if we accept, listen, if we accept the authority of the Bible, then we must understand that affirming people in a path that is contrary to Scripture, contrary to what the scriptures teach, that's never loving. It's never loving. If I affirm homosexual activity, I am actually doing an unloving thing. If I affirm transgenderism, I'm actually doing an unloving thing. If I affirm any kind, any kind of deliberate rebellion against the Creator's design, I am doing an unloving thing. If I affirm any kind of action that is against God's will, that's revealed in his word, I am acting unloving. I'm just simply, I'm withholding truth because I value my own reputation or my own friendships or my own comfort more than I value the eternal happiness and the eternal future of the person made in God's image. I want it to be easier on me and my comfort. Hell won't be very comfortable for that person. At the same time, speaking truth is not necessarily loving. Speaking truth is not necessarily loving. Did you know this? There's a way of speaking biblical truth that is the opposite of loving. And that would be truth speaking that's motivated by self-righteousness. Truth speaking that is motivated by pride, or truth speaking that is motivated by a desire to win an argument and to be right. Want to be loving as I speak truth, that's wonderful. But only if we speak truth lovingly. I mean, sometimes, huh, sometimes I want to give a harsh answer. Sometimes I want to give a harsh answer to somebody right in front of me I disagree with. And you might want to do the same thing. But the Bible says, in Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh

When Love Costs You Something

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word stirs up anger. How many of you know that to be true in your own life? A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Love shares truth, but no arrogance. No arrogance, no dismissal, no harsh words, no trite sayings that gloss over deeply personal feelings and experiences. No jokes. See, communicating truth in love requires relationship. If we really care about someone, we must tell them the truth. We have to love the truth so much that we care about truth more than we care about how the world thinks of us. And we have to love people so much that we care about their souls more than we care about their approval. And so you know what this means? This means that pursuit of the truth and love may cost us friendships. It may cost us relationships. People rejected Jesus for speaking the truth in love. And so we should expect the same.

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Thank you for listening to Foundations of Truth, the biblical teaching ministry of Dr. Timothy Mann. If you'd like to hear this message again and to receive additional biblical resources and to support this ministry, visit us online at foundationsoftruth.net. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.