Love Thy Neighbor

Love

Possibly play bumper video of friendship? 

Love thy neighbor: Their neighbor is CCGA 

-Welcome // Intro myself 

Good morning, my name is Jacy Lassiter and I am the Coastal Wesley Foundation Director. I am honored and glad to be here this morning with you.

Hook line here … As I was looking at it this is what I was wrestling with. Throw out question or thought // Find what excited me. Bc Im learning something. Name the gap that you’re learning from.

As I was looking at it this is what I was wrestling with. Throw out question or thought // Find what excited me. Bc Im learning something. Name the gap that you’re learning from.

Today I want to talk about what Jesus really said about Love and loving those around us, and who “our neighbors “ are . 

“Before we dive in “ … Its the weekend of Love. We all have seen the red and pink every where. The flowers, the cute date night picture posts, and tons & tons of candy. I think its funny how smart companies have gotten because they know a girl may like shiny things but she really loves yummy things! They have it now where you can not only buy someone food but you can get it sent to them! Isnt that wild , those of you who dont know my hudsband is sittin gin the crowd and this is my subttle hints to him. We celebrate our one year next month so we are still learning how to love each other. It got me thinking how funny love can be. How are we to really do this whole love thing? 

“Our scripture reading is from the Gospel of Matthew ‘22:36-40 . You see there is so much in that statement. When Jesus said that he was hitting on how we truly don’t care to love others as much as we do ourselves. 

Yet it is funny because if you really look at it on the inside many of us struggle to love ourselves. So this is a very deep and complex one sentence statement. 

God and neighbor. Self comes last. How is that beneficial to us?

To love ourselves means we need to know who we are and who’s we are. We are children of God. If we do the first part, love God with all that we are in knowing more and more about him we will find more out about ourselves and how we are made in his image. Once we love him with all that we have we can really understand how great he is, how great his love is, and how we are pretty great too. When we love others we are investing in them. We are sharing part of ourselves with them because that is exactly what God did and does for us. He invest in us

Now since we realize our worth and love in ourselves its now time to love our neighbors. 

When we

Who is our neighbor? In the Gospel of John this passage is told but following the command about loving everyone, Jesus goes into the story of the Good Samaritan. Many of you here have probably heard of this story so just to summarize it there is a man who is on the road beaten and badly hurt, a priest walks by, a levite ( symbolic of important Godly person) walks by and a samaritan walk by. The first two leave the man as is, the Samaritan is the one who helps this hurt man. In this time this story is so wild because Samaritan’s are seen as ________. Jesus intentionally reads this story after to help those identify who is our neighbor.. its the person God puts right in front of us. It’s who God has equipped you to serve. Your neighbor is not your project, it’s who is in your sphere to influence and help. So who is your neighbor…

1, It is the person sitting beside you and Across the church from you, in the other services

2. The ones that live beside you.

3. It is US. This is college place, the college & the Wesley foundation is your neighbor.

As the band comes back up I want to leave you with a challenge. how can you reach out to a neighbor this week? You can go into a new Sunday school group to meet new people here. Go walk across your driveway and knock on your neighbors door and invite them to supper or take them cookies. Meet some of my amazing students and meet us at the back table to find ways to plug in to mentor, pray for, and be a influence in these students lives.

. I want to leave you with a challenge today, how can you reach out to a neighbor this week? You can go into a new Sunday school group to meet new people here. Go walk across your driveway and knock on your neighbors door and invite them to supper or take them cookies. Meet some of my amazing students and meet us at the back table to find ways to plug in to mentor, pray for, and be a influence in these students lives.

1. Go talk to your physical neighbor. If you dont know their name, ask. Take a small gift

2. Meet me & some of my students after to talk about different ways you can love your niehgbors right here, The churches physical location neightbor is CCGA. We have many different avvenues for ways to plug in to meet these kids and be able to love them. “Be who you needed at their age.” 

Thank you.