The Cure

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, (Philippians 1:9 ESV)

Whom are we to love? God first, then our neighbor--in that order. Loving neighbor more than God is idolatry and it does no eternal good for our neighbor. No, the order must be correct--God first, then our neighbor. If we do not love God first, then we will never understand how to love our neighbor anyway. This is what Paul means when he says that he prays for their love to "abound more and more with all knowledge and discernment." Knowing how to love our neighbor is as important as loving him, for if we are to love him, we must love him right.

Here again, we take our cue from God and his love for us. How did God love us? He loved us by giving. He loved us by giving in a sacrificial way. He loved us by doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. He loved us by giving us what was best for us. He did not come to merely treat the symptoms of our disease. He came to cure us of the disease.

Make no mistake about it, sin is a disease. It is destructive in nature, wreaking havoc on every good thing in this life. The problems in this world, every problem in this world, have as their root cause rebellion against God. Our desire to rule ourselves has ruined us. To be made well again we must be fully and finally cured of sin. Sin must be eradicated from our lives and from the universe before all will be well again. This is what Christ came to do. This is the good news of the gospel.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 ESV)

If we are to love our neighbor we cannot behave as if sin is unimportant. Sin is our problem. Sin is our neighbor's problem. Sin is the disease, everything else is just a symptom. The gospel is the cure for that disease.

Love compels us to feed our neighbor when he is hungry. Love compels us to heal the sick. Love compels us to visit the widows and the orphans in their affliction, to reach out to the down and out, to provide shelter for the homeless. Love compels us to work for justice for the downtrodden. But all of these things are symptoms. The disease is sin. If we treat the symptoms and ignore the disease then in the end we have done nothing for our neighbor that is of any lasting value. Jesus came to save his people from their sins."

If we love our neighbor as we should, then, we will lovingly give him the gospel and point him to Christ. Anything less is not love. Neither is it love to ignore the problem of sin or pretend it is unimportant. Sin is the cancer that is killing us all. 

Everyone enters the kingdom through the same door. That door is Christ (John 10:9). And everyone approaches Christ the same way--guilty and begging for forgiveness, knowing he receives sinners. We cannot approach Christ in repentance and faith and at the same time justify our sin in our minds. We cannot pretend to repent and not agree with him about our sin or its destructive nature.

The gospel is that Jesus loves, forgives, and saves sinners from their sin. Loving our neighbor is giving them that wonderful message, but we cannot ever dilute the offensive part of the message--that our sin is an affront to God. Love never condones sin, but always loves the sinful. It's kind of like Jesus in that way.