Neighboring (Week 1)

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Personal space has taken on a whole new role in our lives. We get away with saying things to people that we just didn’t even used to consider (or maybe we did). Maybe we always wanted to be able to tell people to go away or get further away but now it is more socially acceptable. I am not really sure.

Well, during the month of April while the ‘safe at home’ orders were in place in our county, I watched as my neighbor worked tirelessly on his home projects…I have talked to him a little bit about his faith, but honestly haven’t taken a lot of opportunities to share with him. I found myself more concerned with the fact that he wanted to drive a truck through my yard, over the portion of my property where my water line runs from the street to the house…than I was with as concerned with what the Lord was doing in his life.

So, we start a series today, that I am not sharing because I have it down or will be able to share all my incredible experiences or have enough of a win streak together to share on this topic.

NEIGHBORING

This is something that the Lord is challenging me on, and I believe He wants us to look at as a church.

STORY: Growing up…the literal neighbors that would share a cup of flour or 2 eggs. Mr. Boop, The Tuttles, The Reagans...

I think it is even strange to my kids when we drive through the neighborhood where I grew up and where my parents still live (36 years)…for me to mention how many of the house I have been inside. Who I used to play with. Etc.

We don’t do that today. It is a different time. My kids don’t go in the neighbors houses or have sleepovers. But how do we still neighbor well.

This is not a secondary thing that we will be talking about the next few weeks; it is core to Scripture. We are going to be spending some time this morning in Romans 12.

Romans 12:9–13 NLT

9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10 Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. 11 Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. 12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 13 When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Romans might be one of my favorite books in the Bible. Chapter 8 might be my favorite chapter in the entire Bible. Chapter 12 could easily be a second runner up. But let’s look at these verses in more detail together.

vs. 9 I love what Paul says here, “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.”

Listen to this commentary on vs. 9 and 10:

Love is primary, but if it is not sincere, it is not real love but only pretense.

Our love for God, for others, for ourselves…it must be SINCERE (honest, genuine, authentic, without hypocrisy).

The NIV says, “Love must be sincere.” The word is ἀνυπόκριτος which means “without hypocrisy”.

ἀνυπόκριτος — “without hypocrisy”

ὑποκριτής — “play-actor”

I love these next two statements which we see coupled often with God’s love: hate what is evil, cling to what is good. We will display our sincere and genuine love by hatred for what is evil and clinging to what is good.

vs. 10 “Love each other with genuine affection (NLT).”

“Be devoted to one another in love (NIV).”

φιλαδελφίᾳ — family love/affection

φιλοξενίαν — love for a stranger

Let’s rid ourselves of the false notion that Biblical hospitality has anything to do with Martha Stewart or Paula Dean or polished silverware or how clean your house is or __________.

Hospitality is not when you have someone over to your house that you know and already love. Hospitality is hosting well those that are entirely outside of your circle, outside of those you normally interact with and love.

vs. 13 “When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality (NLT).”

I love that it says always be eager. The word used here connected to hospitality is sometimes translated practice or here ‘always be eager to practice’. The word means “to move rapidly and decisively towards,” “to chase down”. That sounds a little creepy even. I don’t think we need to be running strange folks down, so we can show them some good strangely love.

That might not go very well for you. I’m just saying!

You get the idea though that the the love we are to show isn’t idle or waiting for the stranger to come to us, but we are intentional, in pursuit of, and we go out of our way to actively display the love of God to them. Always be eager to do this.

Now to the second part.

Galatians 5:14 NLT

14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 22:37–40 NLT

37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Love God with everything you have. Love your neighbor with everything you have. That’s it. We have heard these things so many times, and that has become part of the problem is that these words have become trivialized in their power to transform our life.

STORY: OPTICAL ILLUSION

As a teenager, I had so many Christian t-shirts. I had posters on the way, bookmarks, Bible covers, highlighters made for Scripture pages, you name it. One of the t-shirts...

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I think sometimes the Scripture itself can become a little like this. We stare at so long that we are not really even sure what we are looking at anymore. It all seems to blur together. We have heard some of these statements and verse so many times before that we don’t hear then with the Spirit’s illumination that we once did.

John 5:39 NIV

39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,

And I think that we tend to do that with verses like these. Love God. Love your neighbor. That’s it.

Luke 10:25-29 we remember the story of the guy who gets into a dialogue with Jesus about these greatest commands.

We have insight into his motives, but he comes as an expert in the law asking Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds to his question with a question. How do you read the Scripture? What’s in it? And the expert in the law quotes the laws of love.

Luke 10:27 NIV

27 He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Ding, ding, ding. You got it! Jesus told the man that he answered correctly. Now, just do this and you will live. But the expert in the law wanted moral justification for how he was living his life. He wanted to justify himself, and so he asks Jesus, “And who [exactly] is my neighbor?” Thus Jesus goes on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan.

Who is my neighbor?

Your neighbor includes your actual neighbors.

Mind blowing.

Now, I don’t know what you neighborhood is like, but in mine there are some folks that I enjoy talking to others that I avoid and still others that I hardly know at all. (Just being honest.)

I began to think through this week about the different places I have lived. From where I grew up, to where I lived during college to after college to more college to finally getting married and the apartment, condo, and now house that we have lived in surrounded by different neighbors.

DIFFERENT PEOPLE

As I began to think about the fact that I am comfortable or not inconvenienced to speak to the neighbors I know and/or like, but what about the rest of the neighborhood. Then, I began to think about the fact that there is probably someone who is praying for those neighbors in a way that we might have all prayed at some point in time.

Lord, would you put someone in their path, etc. Bring someone into their life to help them during this season in their life that would be an encouragement to them or bring them to Jesus.

Maybe they heard that where they have moved they live next door to the pastor of such and such church. Surely, this is the answer to my prayers. Are we the answer to those prayers?

While not being a good neighbor, praying to be a light or even travel to a place to be light somewhere else.

Draw a small map of your street, neighborhood

Write down the names of the people that live in the houses that surround yours.

Write down something you know from a conversation with them.

Write down something they are concerned about, the area where they might need your help in some way.

90% of other people cannot complete step 1.

97% of people cannot complete step 2.

99% of people cannot complete step 3.

Go home

Rosaria Butterfield wrote the Gospel Comes with a House Key

She theologically stands for some things I definitely do not, but her take on neighboring is very good.

“God never gets the address wrong.”

It is not an accident that you live where you do, that your neighbors are who they are. Whether it is your favorite neighbors or the ones you can’t avoid fast enough. It is by design. The ones that make too much noise, shooting fireworks at every holiday, the ones with the most annoying dogs that bark all the time and are aggressive. Everyone we are surrounded by is by intention design.

I have been convicted in studying for this sermon this week.

There are stories behind every neighbor. There are stories behind the run down house with the knee high grass and the story is more than just your property value.

My neighbors. Your neighbors.

Next week, we will talk about some practical things we can do. Take some time this week and begin to make that map of where you live and who surrounds your home.

We are not going to be guilted into some SHOULDS or OUGHTS that will change the trajectory of how we live and love our neighbors. I have been there. I have preached that message to myself with little to no change.

What we need right now, like always, is to see Christ for who HE IS. We need to be transfixed on the cross of Christ, have a new revelation of His deep love for us, and realize He wants this Good News shared with everyone around us.

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