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September 16, 2026 | In this episode, Camden Nephew continues the Neighboring series by teaching from Galatians 5:13-14, emphasizing that loving your neighbor means serving them through love, not using Christian freedom as a license to sin, and becoming less impressed with oneself to better love others. The message challenges believers to fix their eyes on Jesus as the source of love that overflows to others.
Bellevue Baptist Church High School Ministry
Hey, y'all can have a seat. Hey, can you give it up for these students that led us in worship tonight? Hey, it is a big deal to stand in front of your peers and be willing to lead in worship. And they did a phenomenal job at it. So, so thankful for that group. Hey, if you have your Bible, you know what to do. Galatians chapter five is where we're gonna be at tonight. Galatians chapter five. Okay, okay, okay. Hey, as you turn there, we are continuing our series entitled Neighboring. Neighboring. So I need some help. How many of you were here last week? Okay, any good note takers out there? I wanna give us a recap of what happened last week. Last week we asked the question. What was the question we asked? Anybody remember out there? What you got? Who is my neighbor? What passage were we in? Does anybody know? Anybody write that one down from this side? What was it? Lutan, thank you very much. So we asked the question, who is my neighbor? And what was the answer to that question? Don't yell it out. Somebody in the middle section. Who knows what the answer to that question was we asked? Okay, who is my neighbor? Yes. My neighbor is anyone the Lord has placed in my path. Anyone the Lord has placed in my path. So really that was the question that we asked last week. Okay, if we're gonna talk about being a good neighbor, if we're gonna talk about neighboring well, it begs the question, who's my neighbor? Like just the person that right next to me? Just the person that I interact with most often? Is it just the person that, do I get out of it? Because my family lives on like, you know, five acres or 10 acres. We don't really have neighbors. Like, do I get out of this command that the Lord has given us? The answer is obviously what? No. And the answer is that your neighbor is anyone that the Lord places in your path. And we looked at Luke chapter 10, which is the story of the Good Samaritan. Many of you have heard that story time and time again. And my prayer from last week is that you and I would be able to walk away with an understanding that, hey, my neighbor is not just the person that I get along with. My neighbor is not just the person that I see eye to eye with on political issues. My neighbor is not just the person that I go to the same school with. My neighbor is anyone that the Lord places in my path. So now this begs the question, because now if everyone is my neighbor, anyone that I come in contact with, like you're sitting here tonight, everyone in this room is in your path. You're in the same youth group together. You're in the same high school ministry. You're like, you are in close proximity and you're going to pass them as you walk through these hallways. Literally the path that you're going to take from here out to your car or to the lobby or to whatever it is. Like to get to your seat, you walk past some people and they were literally in your path. Anyone in this room is your neighbor. So now the question becomes, okay, if anyone that I come in contact with is my neighbor, how do I love them well? Because the command is to love your neighbor, right? The command is to honor your neighbor. The command is to love them in the way that Christ has loved you. So now the question becomes, okay, if that's the case, if everyone's my neighbor, how do I love my neighbor? This goes beyond just the hypothetical, okay, who's my neighbor? It's okay, you've convinced me. Everyone is my neighbor. Now what do I do with that? Galatians chapter five, I think gives us the answer. Let's read it together. Galatians chapter five, starting in verse 13, it says this, for you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Just two verses, very simple. And here's the answer to our question. How do I love my neighbor? And I want you to write this down. This is not one of your points, but I still want you to get this and I want you to write this down, okay? Someone's excited. Hey, we're cheering, cheering for the word, I love that. But hey, we're gonna, here's the answer, it's this. You love your neighbor by serving your neighbor. How do I love my neighbor? I love my neighbor by serving my neighbor. Now, I wanna make sure as we talk about loving our neighbor well, we need to lay down some ground rules, okay? And the ground rules are this, what does it mean to love? What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to love my neighbor? We throw around the word love very flippantly, don't we? Listen, I love mint chocolate chip ice cream. Who said ew? Are you kidding me? There is no, like, I understand if you're like, I'm not a huge fan of it, that's fine. But to say ew is so disrespectful right now. Like, it is so good. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's basically just like the frozen version of mint, what is it called? No, the Girl Scout cookies. Thin mints, and who doesn't like thin mints? Like, okay, see, that's your problem right there. You need to repent, and you need to start eating some thin mints, okay? Listen, I love me some, I love ice cream, I love Reese's, like, Reese's Pieces, change the game for me, love those things. I also love my wife. Now, I do not love mint chocolate chip ice cream the same way that I love my wife, right? We throw around the phrase, I love blank very flippantly, don't we? Like, you can think about like, oh, I love this sports team, I love this college, or I love this music, or I love whatever, and we say I love for a lot of things that we just actually like, even though I like a lot. But we throw out love all the time. So, I wanna have a good definition of what it means to love. 1 Corinthians, it's a passage that so many of us are familiar with. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, it says this, starting in verse four, 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. Some of y'all need to highlight that in your Bible. I need, I highlighted it. Underline it, it doesn't insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Notice this, I want you to notice something, love is patient and kind. That's what it is, it's patient and it's kind. Those are not emotions, those are choices that you make. I'm gonna be patient in this moment, I'm gonna choose to be kind in this moment. Then it continues, love does not envy or boast. Being envious, that's an emotion. It's not arrogant, that's a posture or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. That's a choice that you make. Now, I'm not gonna rejoice at wrongdoing, I'm not gonna rejoice in that which dishonors the Lord, I'm gonna rejoice in that which is true. And it says, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Here's where I read that passage, a passage that we're so familiar with. It says, I want you to understand, so when we talk about loving your neighbor well, you need to understand this, students, love is a choice, it's not a feeling. And this goes far beyond how you choose to love your neighbor. Students, you need to understand, as you step into marriage one day, so many marriages fail because they think, hey, love is something that I fall in and out of, or I fell out of love with this person. First of all, you don't fall in love or out of love with anything, you choose to love. And when you get married one day, there's gonna be days, listen, I just told you, I love my wife, and she's heard me say this before, I'm not saying anything, we're not gonna fight about this later, okay, I promise. There are days when we don't like each other, right? There are days, more so, where she doesn't like me, because I get on her nerves, right? But listen, she chooses to love me anyways, even on the days when we don't like each other. There's gonna be moments where you don't like someone, there's gonna be moments when you don't see eye to eye with someone, there's gonna be moments when you don't like what's happening or what they said to you, you always have the choice to love someone, because love is not an emotion that you feel, it's a choice that you make. And that right there is the foundation by which you need to understand, if you're gonna love your neighbor well, that doesn't mean that you have to see eye to eye with them, that doesn't mean you always have to get along with them, that doesn't mean that you have to accept everything that they say, everything that they do, the lifestyle in which they live. I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is this, in the midst of those things, in the midst of those disagreements, in the midst of those rubs that you have with that person, where it's like, ah, I just don't see eye, like we're just not getting along. Even in those circumstances, you can still choose to love them and count them as more significant than yourself. To love your neighbor means to serve your neighbor. So, if we're gonna do this well, if we're gonna love our neighbor well by serving them, there are three realities in this passage that you and I need to come to grips with. There's three truths that you and I need to take hold of and be willing to say.
Okay, I understand that. Like three realities that we need to cling to, in other words. First one is this, I hope you write this down. My freedom in Christ is not a license to sin. My freedom in Christ is not a license to sin. My freedom in Christ is not a license to what? Y'all are paying attention, so good. You didn't say it. Just sitting there, come on, man. My freedom in Christ is not a license to sin. The passage says, I'm sorry, I'm still in 1 Corinthians. Go back to Galatians. The passage says in verse 13, for you are called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. In other words, hey, don't use your freedom just to do whatever you want. Don't use your freedom just as an opportunity to say, oh, well, I can get away with it. Christ is just gonna forgive me anyways. Here's what I'll say to that. If your mentality to, oh, well, Jesus is just gonna forgive me anyways so I can do whatever I want, you haven't really experienced freedom in Christ. Greatest superhero of all time, Spider-Man. Amen, can I get an amen, okay, okay. Yeah, thank you very much. Greatest superhero of all time, depending on what movie you watch, mostly Uncle Ben, but in some cases Aunt May, has said this famous quote, with great power comes. Great responsibility. I'm not gonna, like, no, I'm not gonna say it. No, I am gonna say it. Y'all were so excited to say that. Why aren't we that excited when we start talking about scripture? Mm. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. With great power comes great responsibility. Here's how I hear that in this context. You have been given freedom in Christ and that freedom in Christ comes with some responsibility. That freedom in Christ comes with a responsibility of I have received this freedom so I'm gonna use this freedom as an opportunity to serve other people now. I'm gonna use this freedom as an opportunity to think, listen to this, less of myself and more of others. We'll get to that more in just a minute. Harriet Tubman is one of my favorite individuals in all of history. And if you don't know the story, Harriet Tubman is someone who escaped slavery and then willingly went back and got other people and said, hey, I'm gonna show you how to get out. That's exactly what you and I need to be doing with the gospel. The gospel is what set us free. We received freedom. We received eternal life. Now, our job as believers is to say this. Okay, now I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna get people. I'm gonna say, hey, come with me. I found the way out. I found what leads to eternal life. I found how to have joy and peace and fullness in Christ. Come with me. I think the problem that we run into so often is that too many believers are still living like they're slaves and we're not. If you are in Christ, you have been set free. Don't use your freedom as an opportunity just to do whatever you want and live however you wanna live. Use your freedom as an opportunity to love and serve other people for the sole purpose of, hey, bringing them to the Lord and bringing them closer to Christ. Paul makes this statement where he says, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. And then he says, but, or instead, through love, serve. When I know which leads to my second point, which is this. The love I've received demands to be demonstrated. The love I've received demands to be demonstrated. That's point two. I love what he says here. But through love, serve one another. Why didn't he just say, hey, don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another? Why do you insert that phrase through love? Like what's the significance of that? I think the significance is that the only way that you can genuinely love someone, listen students, the only way that you can genuinely love your neighbor is to set your gaze and your attention upon the Lord, to love the Lord so much that he is at the top of your priority list. Like he is the one that you are excited about. He is the one you're following, that your love for Christ, everything else, your love for other people becomes an overflow of your love for Christ. He says, through love, serve one another. Through the love that you have received in Jesus Christ, serve other people. Through the love that you are pouring back to the Father, serve other people, serve one another. My dad would always say, he explained to me one time, I'm sitting in the car with him, we're driving somewhere, down Dexter, I think, or something like that. And he said, Cammy, the only way that you can genuinely love someone is to love Christ so much that your love for them becomes an overflow of your love for Christ. Fix your eyes on Jesus, students. If I had to give you, if you had to get anything out of the message tonight, what I would say is this, is that if you're going to love your neighbor well, love Christ well. If you love Christ well, I promise you, you're going to love your neighbor well. I was talking about this with my wife before, just before we got started. And she said this, you will never extend more love than you've already been given. You will never extend more love to your neighbor, more love to your enemy, more love to someone that you don't see eye to eye with, but you're still choosing to love them anyways. You will never extend more love to them than you have already been given, been given in Christ. And students, when you begin to grasp just how much the Lord has loved you, just how much he has sacrificed for you, just how much he has demonstrated his love towards you, I promise you, you won't be able to help but to love other people well. Here's what I mean by that. Show me someone who struggles to love their neighbor, and I'll show you someone who hasn't really grasped the love the Lord has given towards them. Because when you realize the vastness of the love that God has demonstrated towards you, the overflowing nature of the love that he has demonstrated towards you, you can't help but to love other people. It's like it's too much for you, so you just got to give it away to other people. If you're struggling to love your neighbor, I think it's because so often we have a false understanding of Christ's love towards us in one of two ways, okay? Either one, you struggle to love your neighbor because you have a false understanding of how Christ loves you because you think wrongfully that you deserve that love. You think wrongfully, oh Lord, like, of course you love me, look how great I am. Of course you love me, like, I'm awesome. So you don't love your neighbor because now you've had this idea of, oh, well, they don't really deserve it, not like I do. Or you have this false understanding because you don't think that you deserve it. Here's what I'll say about both of those. Both have the same issue, which is this, is that your eyes are on yourself and they're not on the Lord. It has everything to do with how I can earn it. Either A, I feel like I have earned it and I deserve that love, or B, I feel like I haven't earned it and I don't deserve that love, so I'm not going to love anybody else. But at the end of the, bottom line is this, you have a false mentality that you're the one that has to earn it. And when your mindset shifts and you take your eyes off of yourself and you fix your eyes on the Lord, I promise you, you're going to not just have a right understanding of how the Lord has shown you love, but you're going to love other people well. Number three, last thing is this. Loving my neighbor means I must become unimpressed with myself. And this goes right along with what I was just saying. The passage says in verse 14, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor as yourself. You know what keeps us from loving our neighbor as ourselves? Is that we're too focused on ourselves. We are the center of our universe. And because we are the center of our universe, because we are so impressed with ourselves, we choose not to love other people. We need to become unimpressed with ourselves. Become less impressed with me, less impressed with yourself, and more impressed with the Lord. And I promise you, you will love others and serve them well. I also want to address two realities. Number one is this, is I don't want you to think what I'm saying is that you shouldn't love yourself. Because you should. You should. I don't want you to come out if you're thinking like, oh, well, I shouldn't like myself, because that's what Camden says. That's not what I'm saying. But when your focus on yourself becomes so great and so inflated that you fail to love other people well, then that becomes a problem. Seeing others as more significant than yourself does not mean that you see yourself as less significant.
It just means that you see others as more significant. But I also want to address this reality that I know that the opposite is also true. In the sense that there are some of you who don't love your neighbor well because you don't love yourself well. And the opposite is true when I say you don't love yourself well and you say to yourself, well, hey, I don't love anyone including myself, so I don't love my neighbor well. And you've fallen into this mentality that, oh, well, I don't deserve God's love, I don't deserve His mercy, I don't deserve His grace, I don't deserve... And it all goes back to what we were talking about, which is this, it's not about you. We too often have our eyes fixed so closely on ourselves that we forget to fix our eyes on the Lord. The band's going to make their way back up here. And here's my challenge to you as we leave this place tonight, as we respond. There are always two responses, one from the believer, one from the non-believer. If you know the Lord, which I know is so many of you in this room, if you have a relationship with Jesus, maybe you hear this message tonight and you say to yourself, well, Ken, there's a couple of things. I mean, man, my eyes are too fixed on myself, like I've been focused too much on me. Or maybe you hear this night and you say, listen, I have not been doing a good job of loving my neighbor. I have not been doing a good job of serving my neighbor. I need to become less impressed with myself and more impressed with the Lord. Not saying, okay, you need to think less of yourself, but I need to think more of other people. Maybe for some of you in this room tonight who know the Lord, your response tonight is simply this, is simply to walk in repentance and say, Lord, forgive me for not loving my neighbor well, for not serving my neighbor well, for thinking so highly of myself that I've forgotten to serve those that you've put around me. Some of you who don't know the Lord, you don't have a relationship with him, you've never trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, so just listen to me. We can only love because he first loved us. Scripture says that God demonstrated his love towards us that in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That means that in that while you did everything that was contrary to Scripture, in that while you did everything that was contrary to God's word, in that while you did everything, in that while you came into his house, you wiped your muddy shoes all over his stuff, and you spat in his food, and then you left. In that while you did everything contrary to God, he still demonstrated his love towards you by sending his son to die for you. And he did so not just so that you can come to Bellevue and come to Exit 15 and hear some songs and hear some guy stand up there and talk, but he did it because he wants to have a personal relationship with you.