The Dangerous Way We Misunderstand “Love Your Neighbor”|01.04.26|Each One Reach One pt.1

I want to start with the word: LOST. What does that word make you feel? Lost.

I’m curious, have you ever gotten lost on a roadtrip? Or did you ever get lost when you were a kid? Or worse… have you ever lost one of your kids?

As a parent, the fear of a missing kid isn’t just some abstract sort of experience, it’s visceral and fills your body as you go into high-alert mode.

If you’ve ever lost a kid, even for a moment, you know you’re not panicking because you’re “mad” at the kid or because the kid is “bad”. You panic because the child is YOURS. And they’re LOST.

One of my favorite movies growing up was Home Alone, because I wanted to be the independent kid who had the run of the house and was able to fight off the bad guys. And, as a kid, I thought it was hilarious when the mom realized that her son was missing and screamed “Kevin!” and then fainted right on screen.

But now as a parent? Not so hilarious.

And before I had kids, I thought the entire premise of the movie was ridiculous, because how could they have not noticed that Kevin wasn’t with them all the way to the airport and all the way onto the flight?

But now as a parent? The fact that the kids are all running around and won’t sit still and the stress of trying to get on the road with multiple adults and cousins and cars…? Shockingly realistic.

Just last week, we had a small case of missing kid for about 3 minutes on Sunday morning. Megan had done what she does every Sunday: gotten the kids dressed all cute and perfect, fed them, gotten them all loaded in the car, and made it to church with plenty of time to spare. I’m always amazed at how she does that, because I’m gone before anyone else wakes up on Sunday mornings.

But at a certain point in the morning before service started, Megan noticed that our youngest almost-two-year-old, Lucy, wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

There was a brief moment of fear with the realization that her child was lost, but she had a hunch, and a moment later, found Lucy in the men’s restroom, on her way to play in the toilets, because she has discovered that she can push the bathroom doors open here at church and she has also discovered that the toilets are at the perfect height for her to splash and have fun.

Yeah, I know. Toddlers around water are terrifying, and toilets make it gross, and the entire thing is a classic parenting story.

But here’s the reason I wanted to share that with you: Megan didn’t pause to debate how Lucy went missing. She didn’t assign blame. She didn’t say, “Well, my child is missing, and this is probably a teaching moment for her to realize that she needs to stay where I can see her…”

No, Megan realized our daughter was lost, and so she immediately WENT LOOKING. No hesitation, just rescue.

And if you’ve ever been lost before, you know what a relief it is to be rescued. It makes me think of the line from the famous song, “I once was lost, but now I’m found.”

There’s nothing quite so lonely as being lost. And there’s nothing quite so joyful as being found. And this is good news for us, because God is a SEEKING God. And when people that he created are lost, that doesn’t stop his love.

Actually, lostness is the CONTEXT for God’s love, not the obstacle to it.

Because there’s not a single person that God loves who hasn’t been lost. Every one of us listening right now have been lost. Some of us STILL feel lost, whether that’s being lost spiritually, or feeling lost and alone emotionally, or feeling lost and isolated relationally.

But the good news is that God has never stopped pursuing lost people! All over the witness of Scripture, we’re reminded that God doesn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up before we can be reunited with him. Instead, he immediately, without hesitation, moves TOWARD us to bring us home.

In fact, one of the Jesus-stories we mention frequently is the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. Jesus describes God as the good shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep in order to go after and rescue the lost One.

And that’s not an image of a reckless God. It’s an image of God’s relentless love, always seeking out and saving the Ones who are far from him so that he can bring them home and reunite them with the family of God.

And this is important for us here at New Life, because about 90% of the Sauk Valley is not connected to a church. That means 9 out of 10 people that you live next to, work with, shop with, and see day to day don’t have a church family where they can experience grace and belonging and connection as they try to grow in the ways that God is loving them toward.

That means that most people who live here in our community feel unseen, unloved, unable to handle the stress, and unsure if they will ever belong.

And so this realization that Jesus would leave the 99 to reach the lost One is important for us because that means Jesus loves every single person in the Sauk Valley more than we ever could, and he’s actually inviting US to join him in his work.

That’s what we talk about every single week when we gather. We want to be Apprentices of Jesus, not just attenders of church services. Following Jesus was never meant to be a spectator sport. We’re not meant to stay on the sidelines. Every apprentice of Jesus, that’s you and me, we have a part to play in his mission.

We have a name to pray for. We have a person to invest in. We have a story to share that points to God’s love and goodness. We have a simple next step of obedience to take.

Each one of us has a personal part to play, because the mission of Jesus is OUR personal mission. And God’s action shows up in powerful ways when the mission becomes personal.

That’s why this year is the year of Each One Reach One. This year, we’re asking everyone at New Life to identify one person they will pray for, invest in, and point towards Jesus.

You don’t have to reach hundreds. You don’t have to reach dozens. Just One. Each one Reach One.

[Core Value]

And that’s actually becoming a core value for us here at New Life. Each One Reach One isn’t a slogan. It’s a reflection of God’s heart.

Because Jesus’ mission is personal for each one of us. When Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples, he wasn’t talking to a denomination, or a pastor’s conference, or a gathering of only certain types of leadership Christians.

He was talking to individual people, giving them a personal mission to join him in his work. He was talking to US.

That’s why we believe that every apprentice of Jesus is empowered by the Holy Spirit to love, pray for, and reach the people that God has already placed in our lives.

That’s why we talk about who is “close to you but far from God”?

[Scripture Ref]

And this isn’t about earning God’s love. It’s about joining God’s work because he’s already found and rescued us. And if we’re going to be serious about following Jesus, we need to understand what he actually commands.

So open your Bibles with me to Matthew 22 (p???), because today, we’re going to look at one of the most famous passages where Jesus articulates a COMMAND, and he says that everything else having to do with following God hinges upon this. So let’s read together…

[Matthew 22:34-40]

[blank]

Now, because we just jumped into the middle of a section, we’ve got to seek to understand the context to better understand how to apply this to our life. Because this wasn’t a moment when Jesus is just leading a Bible study or offering some devotional thoughts.

This is actually a scene that finds Jesus in an open-forum debate with other religious leaders. And the religious leaders are trying to trap Jesus.

Now, you might know already that in Jesus’ day there were two main “religious groups,” the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they had both spent generations trying to obey God perfectly.

Because the people of God had been under foreign occupation and oppression for hundreds of years. And there had been multiple Old Testament prophets that confirmed they were experiencing this oppression and hardship because they had turned away from God.

So the Pharisees and the Sadducees had the thought: we’ve got to follow God’s laws perfectly so that he will love us again. In fact, we should try and convince ALL of the Jews to follow God’s laws perfectly so that God will finally rescue us from the grip of the Romans.

And here’s this Jesus, who SEEMS to be a man of God, and he SEEMS to have God’s favor because he’s able to perform miracles and incredible signs.

But he’s UNSETTLING to the religious leaders. Because he speaks with authority. He definitely has wisdom about God’s word. The people are all hanging on his every word. BUT… he’s disrupting the power structures.

He’s often bringing an interpretation of how to follow God that goes AGAINST what the Pharisees and the Sadducees have been trying to do.

And so they are asking him deep theological questions, not because they want to learn from him and follow God better, but because they are trying to figure out, “Whose side are you on? Which framework of interpreting Scripture to you support?”

“What’s the greatest commandment?”

[quotes]

And Jesus answers by quoting Deuteronomy 6: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. Now, our passage in Matthew quotes Jesus as saying heart, soul, and mind. And when Luke records this interaction, Jesus answers with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And that could have been two different interactions, or one could have been quoting the Hebrew scroll of Deuteronomy, and the other could have been quoting the Greek translation of Deuteronomy.

But Jesus answers with a very common and agreed upon answer to “which is the greatest commandment?” …Love God with all of who you are. But then Jesus immediately adds a quote from Leviticus 19, where God tells his people to love their neighbor as they love themselves.

And notice in our Matthew text that Jesus doesn’t RANK the commands as 1st and 2nd as if they have different levels of importance. He INTEGRATES them (the second is LIKE it in terms of greatest).

According to Jesus, love for God and love for people are inseparable. And this isn’t just a description of something that happens by accident, as if we can figure out how to love God so perfectly on our own that it naturally and passively becomes love for people.

This is a command, from our king, on how we are to live. We follow God's commands because of what he's done for us. He's created us on purpose for his purposes. He has paid the penalty for our waywardness and sin. He has redeemed us from the grave. He enlivens our life and empowers our activity in the world through his Spirit. And he provides daily for us to be able to live in his kingdom.

He's the king, and he's proven himself to be SO. FAITHFUL. to us. How can we respond other than faithfulness to him in return?

And so, when you love God fully with your heart and soul and mind and strength… it will reshape how you love people.

[1 John 4:19]

But 1 John 4:19 reminds us that love doesn’t originate with us. Love starts with God, and flows THROUGH US.

Jesus, in his brilliance, distills the over 600 commands in the Jewish law to two: Love God and love people. Not on our own power, but by receiving and experiencing God’s love to us, and allowing that to change us and transform us so that we can partner with God’s love for others.

[Jesus sends me]

When we are following Jesus and trying to reach others, I want you to remember that Jesus doesn’t send me to fix people or win arguments. That’s not what it means to reach people who are far from God.

No, Jesus sends me to love others the way he loved me.

[Romans 5:8]

And how did he love me? A very famous verse from the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:8 says that God DEMONSTRATED his love to us, he PROVED his love for us with action by coming in the person of Jesus Christ and dying for us WHILE we were still sinners.

God didn’t wait for us to fix ourselves. He didn’t stand there with arms crossed, expecting us to prove ourselves in some way. He acted while we were still far from him. He came for us while we were lost.

And if that’s how God loved us, and if that’s how we are to love others, then that means that loving people doesn’t mean correcting their beliefs before we let them find belonging with us.

Loving people doesn’t mean forcing agreement so that we can work together and worship together. Loving people doesn’t mean winning debates so they know our knowledge of scripture is superior.

In fact, in Luke’s version of this interaction, when Jesus answers that we’re to love God and love our neighbor, the religious leader who asked him responds immediately with “then who is my neighbor?”

Because he was still trying to figure out where the limits to God’s love were. He wanted to justify himself when he was picking and choosing who he had to show love to.

But Jesus tells the story of the man who was robbed and left for dead, and a priest and a temple worker both walk past him and ignore him, but the Good Samaritan helps the man and takes care of him.

Jesus is saying, stop asking “who is my neighbor” and start asking, “how can I BE a neighbor who loves like God has loved me?”

[My one]

So when we talk about who is your One? Who is someone who is close to you but far from God? We need to remember that our One is a person that Jesus is ALREADY pursuing, and I am simply invited to join him by loving them through relationship, presence, and grace.

My one isn’t a project. Because who wants to be someone’s project? My one isn’t a problem for me to solve by fixing them or convincing them or correcting them.

My one is someone that Jesus loves. And he wants to work through me to reach them. But we can’t love others like Jesus has loved us, until we recognize and receive the love that God has for us.

That’s why it’s so important that Jesus tells us to Love God with all that we are (which includes receiving his love in every area of our lives), and THEN we can love our neighbors as we love ourselves. As we have been loved. That’s they only way that each one of us can reach the One that God is calling us to reach.

[This week]

So this week, my pastoral encouragement to you is to receive God’s love before reaching others in love. This week, I want you to spend 5 minutes in prayer just receiving God’s love for you.

And this is really simple. Just set aside some time where you can have uninterrupted space, and pray to God and ask him to remind you of all the times he has shown you love.

The times when you were far from him… the times when you wandered… the times when you were apathetic or angry… the times when you were ignoring him.

Ask him to remind you how he has been FAITHFUL in showing his love for you and never leaving you alone.

And then, ask just one question: “Jesus, who are you inviting me to love?” Write their name down so that you can start looking for ways to show them love. Not to fix or convince them, but to see them and care for them.

That’s it, just five minutes of prayer to receive God’s love and then receive a name of someone to share that love with. “Jesus, help me to love them the way you’ve loved me.”

[END]

And I want to remind you that this is NOT about earning God’s love. God already loves you and has already reached out to you in his love. In fact, God’s love is what initiates our very lives. God’s love is what has rescued us. God’s love made us alive when we were dead in sin.

God’s love is what fills us up and sends us out to reach those who are far from him. That’s why we’re beginning this year with the call for Each One Reach One.

But this is not just a one-month initiative. This is going to be the heartbeat of our church for the entirety of 2026.

This is the year that we will become a church where people pray DAILY for their One. This is the year that we become a church where people invest intentionally in their One.

This is the year where we become a church where people invite boldly and lovingly. This is the year where we become a church where the mission of God isn’t just something we hear about on Sundays, it’s something we LIVE all week long.

And can you just imagine the impact our church will have on the Sauk Valley if hundreds of us prayed for someone by name every week and then showed them love when God gave us opportunities?

Can you imagine the ripple effect we could have on the Sauk Valley if each of us reached just One person with the love of Jesus this year?

Can you just imagine the stories of baptism, of reconciliation, of healing and transformation that God is going to bring through the everyday love of our church family?

Truly, this is not hype. This is the way of Jesus. And this is our year to live it!

Loving God with all of who we are means that God WILL reshape all of who we are: our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength.

And God will produce fruit in our lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Are those things you want LESS of in your life? No! I want more of that in my life! More of God’s love that will overflow out of me into the lives of the people he is reaching through me.

That’s the mission of God that has been given to each of us.

Because we were lost. But we’ve been found.

And now we GET to join the Father in reaching our One… not as projects, but as beloved children. Because we follow a king who is a good shepherd, who never stops running after those who are far from him.

Isn’t that good news?