The Bryce Crawford Podcast - Does Jesus Really Love You? (EP 85)

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

In this episode, Bryce breaks down how we know and trust God loves us!

What's going on, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryce, And today, we're going to be talking about loving your neighbor. This is a topic that is so heavy on my heart because I feel like in today's society, I find myself constantly asking this question. Where's my neighbor? Where's our neighbor? What does the Bible say about loving your neighbor? How can we actively love our neighbor?

We're going to jump right into it. First scripture I want to talk about here is Matthew 22. And in Matthew 22, there's this thing that happens where the Pharisees and the Sadducees they are proposed Jesus. And they're going to pin him down. They ask Jesus this question that is going to trip him up. up and give them a reason to call him out for blasphemy, and they're going to be able to arrest him and crucify him. They ask him, which of all the laws is the greatest? Jesus, which of the

commandments is the best commandment? Because they knew if they could get him to say one commandment was better than the other, that they could mark him for blasphemy and crucify him and arrest him. And this is what Jesus says. He says, you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And in this powerful interaction with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus does something very important here. Instead of saying one commandment is greater than the other, he sums up all 613 laws and 10 commandments under one truth by saying, love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength,

and love your neighbor as yourself. Saying if you love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, then all of the commandments and laws will be naturally obeyed because you love me. And then we're going to be emphasizing the second half of this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus says you shall love your neighbor as yourself, is he saying to put yourself before other people? Is he saying, view yourself selfishly?

Absolutely not. When Jesus says you shall love your neighbor as yourself, he's saying, when you see yourself the way that I see you, then you'll realize I look at everyone else the same way I see you. So when you interact with other people, you should interact with them with the same love, graciousness, kindness, and joy the way that I interact with you, despite your junk, despite your flaws.

Okay, because this is very important. Because in today's society, as we see in Matthew chapter 6, He says, have you heard what the earth says, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Anything society exalts Jesus Christ is in total opposition to, and anything that Jesus Christ exalts, society is in total opposition to. So where society says, if someone hits you, you turn around and hit them harder than they hit you. Jesus says, if someone hits you on the cheek, give them the other one. He says, if someone takes your cloak, give them the other one.

Because we don't return evil for evil. And so Jesus says, loving your neighbor as yourself doesn't look like returning evil. for evil because that's what love does. Love doesn't return evil for evil. Love doesn't clean the, love doesn't clear the record by getting back. Love isn't a get back. Love is grace talking. Love is sacrifice talking. Love is a choice. That's why I can't get behind the fact that people say, love is sex, love is drugs, love is the feeling I get when the booze hits my system. Love is this, absolutely not. Love is a choice. And when people choose to return. retaliate against you, you have the choice whether to love them and forgive them.

Forgiveness and love cancels the debt of what the person has done to you. So when someone has given you evil and you love them in that moment and forgive them despite retaliating against them, you actually cancel the debt of the very thing that they've done to you. And so when Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself, he's saying, look, the same grace, the same love, the same joy that I have shown you show to other people because they have the same value that I've put on your life. What is the value that Christ puts on every human being's life, his own? It's not that Christ died for Bryce and not Tom. So because Christ only died for Bryce and not Tom, Bryce is more valuable than Tom faults, Christ died for all people. So the price that he puts on every

human being's life is his own. And not only that, but if we read the parable of the lost coin, we actually find out that we are of extreme value to him because we're also made in the image of God. We have his imprint on us. And in a world, where millions and billions of people have and do exist, where nothing but a piece of grain of salt in this massive expansive universe, Christ wants to be extremely intentional and friendly with me and you. Loving our neighbor as ourself gives us an opportunity

to show the love of Christ to people that has been shown to us. Because with the dirtiest, most broken version of herself, when we come to the lowest of lows, that's where oftentimes people meet Christ. And then as Christ begins to transform us, take us into new places and new depths and new heights that couldn't have been achievable without Christ and we go to this place and then we begin to meet people that are suffering and hurting and in pain because we live in this world. We get to then love our neighbor as ourselves by showing people

that grace and love that we wish other people had shown us in the midst of our suffering. But Christ showed us, but because Christ showed us and it's unconditional and it's unmatched and uncomparable to any other love, we take that love that has been freely given us, and loving our neighbor as ourselves takes that free gift and gives it to other people. Does that make sense? And that's why I want to talk about James, the book of James, when it talks about the sin of partiality. What is the sin of partiality? Favoritism.

And Jesus is in total opposition of favoritism. Do you know how easy it is to love people and treat people right when they've scratched your back? How much harder is it to love and treat people when they've done you wrong? Or love and treat people when they've just flat out never done anything. for you. That's love. We live in a society today that defines love as conditions. Well, I'll choose to love you when you choose to love me. False. Jesus Christ shows us a love that has never been, that has never been exemplified for, that has never been lived out before. And that's this unconditional love. I mean, Christ lays his life down on the cross, knowing that the gift he is offering is going

to be denied by some. And yet he still does it. The offer is on the table for everyone. That is unconditional, without strings attached. The love Christ shows us and the love that we are called to show other people is a love that has zero strings attached. Is a love that if we give it, we must come to terms with the fact that we may never get that love back. That's the love that Christ is asking us to show other people when he says love your neighbor as yourself.

The very love that we've been shown is a love with no strings attached. And the very love that we begin to show other people is one with no strings attached, which is very hard to come around on. So James says steer away from partiality. don't just show favoritism. And that's why I love the passage in Matthew chapter 25, where there's the comparison of the sheep and the goats. And then Jesus is something very important here.

He says, for I was hungry, for I was hungry and you gave me food. For I was thirsty. And you gave me a drink. For I was naked and you closed me. What you do to the least of these, you do unto me. That passage in Matthew 25 put a massive fear of the Lord in my life because it made me go, dang. We are naturally taught growing up not to interact with the homeless man.

We are naturally taught growing up not to interact with people that smell nasty, don't have shoes on their feet, all of these things. Yet when we walk by them today, after reading that passage, I'm looking at these men and women who may be homeless or less fortunate, or maybe it's friends at school or coworkers that are going through a hard time. or retaliating in life and making bad decisions. And look at those people and I go, man, that's someone's son, daughter.

And to be quite frank, that's, they're God's children, made in his image. And if they would just know the love that was out there for them, maybe it would, maybe it would change their heart. Because like oftentimes these outward expressions of suffering and our expressions of retaliation

come from a place of, I'm on a quest for love right now and nothing's working. So what is love? Well, first, Sean tells us, anyone that does not love, does not know God because God is love. God is the ultimate definition of love,

his essence, his character, it was displayed on the cross, it was displayed in his servanthood. That's why Jesus says, the help they don't need a doctor. I came to help the sick because the sick need a doctor. This love that has shown

is it love that has never been expressed before in the physical realm until Jesus Christ came on earth. And then he actually showed us that the very love that is described as in God's character is possible for human beings to reciprocate to other human beings through the strength of his spirit. And Paul actually writes something very profound here, which I think really sums up the definition of what it means to love your neighbor. He says love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable, resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Why is it now in today's society when

the world is going to crap or things are going down, that we always go to the worst extreme in our brain like like something is going on and something is happening and going on in the world or in society and we decide to take things to the ultimate extreme of oh my goodness something's happening at school so this person it's gossiping about me and hates me and this is and that so we take it so we hold grudges against these people and we do all of these things when in reality like it says love hopes all things despite what our brain can convince us of a situation love believes the best in people. Love believes the best in a situation. Love is able to see the light in the midst of a dark time. Love does this extraordinary thing and it cancels the debt that has been placed

in an earth or in situation or things. That's the forgiveness of the cross. That's the love of the crosses. Instead of it saying, no, Bryce, no, no, no my son, no my daughter, you got to work your way to me. Christ loves is, I'm going to cancel the debt. And I love the NLT translation because it says love keeps no record of wrong. We're in society today. We hold grudges based on the junk that people have done and people's junk is like a naughty list that we stack up against them. But then when we reflect on our own life, we're more tolerant of our own junk than other people. So when other people are doing us wrong, we're harsh on them. But then when we do someone else wrong and they're harsh back to us, we wish that we had this grace that we didn't dish out ourselves. And Paul says, no, actually love

keeps no record of wrong. Love looks past the junk. Love looks past the grudges. Love looks past the times that are going to continue to happen when people do you wrong. It looks past all that, looks at the heart, looks at the human, and sees something more than just their actions. It sees that they are made in the image of God and they're valuable. And man, I just want them to know that my love and God's love has no strings attached. And how can people in today's society know the love of God if we're not reciprocating this love through the strength? Because this is possible. It is possible to reciprocate the love of Christ. With the strength of God's spirit in our body,

we can actually reciprocate this love that has zero strings attached to bring souls to Christ, to know this love. I mean, it's like, man, how can human beings know this love of Christ that seems so, so unrealistic, so unfathomable? And as Judas Smith said, so scandalous. How can this love be so true and vulnerable? And we can actually display this love. through the strength of the spirit so that people can know this reality.

Loving your neighbor as yourself is deeper than you. Loving your neighbor as yourself is actually reciprocating and displaying this unconditional, unfathomable love in a small way, in a unique way that can actually allow a finite human brain to comprehend that there is a supernatural God that loves them, that sees them, and that has made them, and has a purpose for their life. The last thing I want to say about loving our neighbor as our self is our neighbor isn't always going to be someone that has done us right. Our neighbor is going to be people that have done us wrong. Our neighbors are also going to be people that we've hurt.

And that's when I reflect on the story of King David and Saul. You know, there's this time where Saul gets jealous and he starts chasing King David. trying to kill King David. And there becomes a point where Saul takes arrests in a cave, and David finds Saul sleeping in a cave. And David is confronted with this moment where this entire time period, this man has chased him trying to kill him out of jealousy. And now David is looking over, standing over someone who has been attempting to take his life,

and he's looking over this man sleeping in a cave, and he has an ultimate decision to make. Am I going to stop this now? by ending his life because he's tried to take mine. Or once he wakes up, he's going to continue to pursue David. And David is looking down on Saul. And he does end this battle of jealousy, but not in the way that we naturally think.

You see, Saul ends up waking up the next morning. And he begins the hunt again, and then David sneaks up behind him and he goes, Saul! And Saul turns around and looks at him. And Saul's brain, he's looking at the very man, he's been hunting and trying to kill. and Saul is looking at him and he's confronted with this moment of finally I'm about to kill this guy

and all the jealousy and rage is built up this eye for an eye. David didn't even do anything. It's just, you know, David was anointed by God and it was called by God and Saul saw something and coveted something that he didn't have it. So he's looking at him and when Saul is filled with this rage and jealousy and wants to act on it, David holds up a piece of Saul's cloth that he cut off and he said, Saul look, this is your cloak. I could have killed you. And David actually ends this battle of jealousy and this battle of hatred with love. An unconditional love that doesn't say, well, you tried to kill me, so I'm going to kill you. It's actually, no, look, I could have killed you.

But good kings don't throw spears. And when I read that story, man, it encourages me so much, just like King David, where he had the opportunity to repay evil in a greater manner. But instead, he said, no, look, I'm going to show a love that has zero. strings attached. I'm going to show a love that doesn't make sense to the brain. It offends the brain, but it reaches the heart. And if you read the rest of the story, I mean, Saul falls to his knees and begins to cry. Because Saul, in a sense, is expecting to have returned what he was dishing out. It's like this karma mentality that we convince ourselves. Like he was dishing out

jealousy, hatred, and murder, and he was expecting to have that returned. But instead, King David it doesn't repay him with evil, but he says, look, your life I could have taken. But instead of taking your life, let me give you life with this love that you didn't show me that is accessible on the table. So in reality, like, this loving your neighbor thing, all has to ultimately do with your perception of who God is. And this is something that I'm learning today. Like, again, I said this a couple episodes ago, but the heart of this stuff is like,

stuff that I'm learning, man. And like, God is so cool because when I understand the unconditional, no strings attached to love that he has for me, when I understand this, it motivates me and strengthens me to love to love other people. So how can you love your neighbor as yourself? well, my friend, when you see yourself rightly in the eyes of Christ, how can you love your neighbor as yourself? You can love your neighbor as yourself the same way a goldsmith purifies gold. The goldsmith knows that the gold is finished purifying when he looks over the pot and sees his reflection in the gold. In the same way, you can love your neighbor as yourself when you realize that when Christ looks down on you, He sees his reflection in you.

And that motivates you to love people with the same unconditional, no strings attached love that Christ shows you. God, I thank you so much for the state, God. God, I just have one request. Would you give us the strength to love our neighbors as ourself? Whether our neighbors be people that have done us right or done us wrong or people that we've done wrong. God, give us the strength through your spirit to love our neighbor as ourself. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Guys, thank you so much for watching and tuning into these episodes. guys, if you love watching and listening to these episodes, aside from following us along on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, I want to ask you guys, would you guys consider partnering with our ministry financially? Your guys' radical generosity is actually what continues to fuel and produce these podcast episodes and our evangelism videos. So if you guys feel a burden to support this ministry,

reach lost souls with the gospel through digital and in-person ministry, go to Jesus in the street.org, pray and ask God, how should I partner with Bryce and their ministry and Jesus in the street ministry? Should I partner with them in prayer? Should I partner with them in finances? Should I partner with them in support? Whatever it may be, pray and ask God, how should I support Jesus in the street ministry? Love you guys.

See you guys next week for the next episode.