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September 9, 2026 | Camden Nephew launches a series on 'Neighboring,' focusing on Luke 10:25-37. He teaches that loving one's neighbor is simple, without excuses, and will cost something, emphasizing that neighbor includes anyone God places in one's life.
Bellevue Baptist Church High School Ministry
All right, ladies and gentlemen, how y'all feeling tonight? Y'all feel all right? Yeah! Okay, okay. Hey, I believe in giving honor where honor is due, and Owen would probably never tell you this, but we are introing a brand new series tonight called Neighboring, and we'll talk about that in a second. But Owen and his team, they were like, hey, we've been looking for a song to sing that's kind of like the anthem for this series, and we couldn't really find one, so we wrote one, and they wrote that song that y'all just heard. So give it up for that worship band, them leading us, and worship, so Owen does a phenomenal job. Hey, if you have your Bible, whoa, we're almost there. Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10 is where we're gonna be at tonight, yeah? Okay, okay. Hey, if you're new, here's what I want us to do. I want to get into a culture where we are excited about the Word of God, we're excited to read it and to open it together, so when I intro the text for a night, I would love for y'all just to cheer and be excited about it, just like you heard. I saw some of you got wide-eyed, like, what is happening right now? There's a bunch of weirdos. But we're just excited for the Word, so. But hey, like I said, like Owen said, we are introing a brand new series tonight entitled Neighboring, and throughout this series, we're gonna be asking the question, okay, what does it look like to be a good neighbor? What does it look like to love my neighbor well? And throughout this series, we're gonna be asking different questions when it comes to neighboring. Y'all with me? Okay, when it comes to neighboring. And here, I'm really excited for this series for a specific reason, and it's this, is that this topic is really convicting for me personally. And I get really excited about teaching when I'm teaching about something that, man, like the Lord is using this as I'm studying through this text, as I'm studying the different questions that we're gonna be answering as I'm getting ready for these lessons, man, the Lord is teaching me just as much as He's teaching you. And honestly, He's probably teaching me more through studying for this. So as I walk through some of these questions, as we talk about, hey, what does it mean to be a good neighbor, what I want you to know is this, is I'm preaching to myself just as much as I'm preaching to you. And the question that we're gonna be asking ourselves tonight is this, is who's my neighbor? Like, it seems kind of like an elementary question. It's like, okay, well, my neighbor is the person that lives like right next to me. You know, we've got some neighbors at our house. We have one couple that's like, if you're looking at our house, is to the right. And we got another couple that's to the left. And the couple on the right is like older. And he loves to do yard work. He's like, I don't even know how old he is. He's probably like almost 90. And he'll go out there in his little motorized wheelchair. And I don't even know what those things are, but like, you grab stuff with him, like a long stick thing that you grab. You all know what I'm talking about? Like, it's like a little handle on one end, like a little claw. Does it have a name? No, no, no, no, no, no. He'll like go around and pick up pine cones with it and put it in his bucket, in his little wheelchair. And it's awesome. Like, we love that couple. They're so sweet to us. And we've got another couple to our left who's younger. They're just a little bit younger than we are. And they're awesome as well. Our dogs have play dates together. So it's like, okay, are those my neighbors? Are those people just live next to me? We're really asking the question tonight, okay, is that where it stops? Because the answer is yes, that's my neighbor. But is that really where it stops? And if you like, if you grow up in church at all, you know what the answer is already. You know, no, that's not where it stops. But I want to see what scripture has to say about it. So Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25, let's read it together. It says this. And behold, a lawyer stood up and put him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But he desiring to justify himself. If you've got a pen, a highlighter, I don't care what you have. I would underline that in your Bible where it says, desiring to justify himself. That's a big deal. But he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? This is the exact question that you and I are asking each other right now, right? He said, okay, Jesus, but who is my neighbor really? You say love my neighbor, but who even is my neighbor? And then he tells this story. Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him. And whatever more you spend, I'll repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said, you go and do likewise. Let's pray together. Father God, I thank you so much for your word. Lord, I thank you for the gift that it is to be able to sit in a air conditioned room like this and just study your word together. Lord, the gift that it is to be able to worship you freely, the gift that it is to be in this place. Lord, I pray that's something that we never take for granted. So as we study your word and we ask the question, what does it look like to be a good neighbor and asking the question, who is my neighbor? Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to what it is that your word has to say. Not my words, let it not be my opinions, Lord, but let it be your word that we hear tonight. It's in your holy and your precious name I pray, amen. Hey, if you're taking notes and I hope that you are, there's one thing that I want you to write down. There's gonna be several things we talk about tonight, but really one thing that if you leave with anything tonight, here's what I want you to understand, it's this. Is that my neighbor is anyone the Lord has placed in my path. My neighbor is anyone the Lord has placed in my path. I'll say it one more time. My neighbor is anyone the Lord has placed in my path. Who is your neighbor? Anyone the Lord has placed in your path. Now, here's why this is a convicting passage for me. This seems very elementary, doesn't it? Okay, well, duh, it's like anyone that we come in contact with. It's because Camden needs this passage and needs this text because Camden has a tendency to try and pick and choose who's in his path and who's not, right? You know, I might try to make my own path. That's what we see happen in this passage where they're walking, the Levite and the priest are walking and they see this man on their own. They go and they choose a different path. Okay, I'm gonna go on the other side and they try to avoid it. Listen to me, students. Your neighbor, making it personal, my neighbor is anyone that the Lord has placed in my path. Now, I wanna walk through this passage together, okay? Verse 25 through 28 is so interesting to me. I'm gonna read it again. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? So this lawyer stands up in front of Jesus and he's like, okay, I've got a question. This lawyer who's intelligent, who knows the word, he's a smart guy, he's been around for a while. He's like, okay, I've got a question for you, okay? Let me ask this question. Like, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And then Jesus flips it and he asks him a question in return and he says this, what's written in the law? How do you read it? I love that answer. Because he knows that he's intelligent. He knows, Jesus knows this guy has read the word, Jesus knows this guy is familiar with scripture and he asks this question, hey, like Jesus, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? He says, you know what it says, what does it say? And then he repeats to him, he quotes scripture to him, he says, and he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. So essentially, Jesus is like, okay, like you're asking this question, what does the Bible say? Oh, well, it says do this. Yeah, so yeah, exactly, just do it. Just do what the Bible says. Do you know how much simpler things would be if followers of Jesus just did what the Bible said? Let me, here's one thing I want you to understand. Maybe you can write this down if you want to, but it's this. Neighboring is not complicated. Neighboring is not complicated. Jesus answers his question with a question. Again, it's this mentality and it's this moment where this lawyer, this intelligent guy who probably overcomplicates things from time to time is like, okay, Jesus, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus flips it on him, he says, hey, like, you know what the text says, like, you know what scripture says, what does it say? Oh, well, it says that, you know, I gotta love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And your neighbor, as your son, he says, yeah, exactly. So do that. Neighboring is not complicated. Does anyone here have a tendency to overcomplicate things like me? Okay, I overcomplicate stuff all the time. I'll give you an example. My wife is really good at like decorating stuff. She's like, hey, well, I want to hang this picture here, this mirror, we're going to do something like that. And the way she hangs a picture is,
Okay, this is where I want it. I've got a nail and a hammer. Put the nail in, hang the picture, I'm done, right? I hang pictures like this. I'm gonna examine the wall. I'm gonna figure out where the stud is. I'm gonna determine what kind of drill bit that I need. I'm gonna go out to my tool shop and I'm gonna get the things I need. I'm gonna make sure that I have my measuring tape. I'm gonna measure it out, make sure I'm perfectly centered and exactly where she wants it to be. I'm gonna make sure, okay, is there a stud there? Am I gonna hit a stud with my screw or do I need to put an anchor in the wall? And then I'm gonna hang it on there. I'm gonna make sure I got my laser level out and make sure it's perfectly straight. And listen, at the end of the day, it's like a 45 minute process for me. It took her about 10 seconds. And if you were to look at them side by side, you would have no idea which one was which, okay? Because I have a tendency to overcomplicate things sometimes. I think you and I at times have a tendency to overcomplicate the gospel. We have a tendency to overcomplicate, okay, but like who really is my neighbor? And here's the deal, students. Neighboring is not complicated. It's not this complicated thing that requires a seminary degree for you to be able to love someone well and to serve them well and to consider others more significant than yourself. This lawyer stands up. He says, Jesus, okay, what do I need to do? And he says, well, what does the word say? Okay, do it. And I think we have a tendency sometimes to do this with things that we deem as inconvenient. Here's what I mean by that. If it's inconvenient or uncomfortable for us, we'll try to overcomplicate it so then we can just talk about it and then not actually do it. I'll give you an example. I think we overcomplicate sharing the gospel way too much. Where we're always like, well, I need somebody to teach me how to share the gospel. And we've been to so many different lessons on, hey, here's how you share the gospel. Here's how you do it. Hey, or let's just simplify even more. Hey, here's how you read your Bible. Here's how you pray. Here's how you fast. Here's how you do these things. Like you've heard these things before, but we'll overcomplicate it in our mind instead of just living out and doing it. Because so often we will tell ourselves, well, I can't share the gospel because I don't know how. Well, how good are you at something when you did it for the first time? Probably not great. If you play a sport, you didn't know how to play it until you started playing and then you figured it out. I love card games, but I'm like too distracted. And again, I overcomplicate things way too much that if like you're saying, okay, Kim, I've got a great card game for you to play and you try to explain it to me, I'm gonna be the one who's like, hey, just play, I'll figure it out. Okay, you ever do that? I think we can treat spiritual disciplines the same way. It's like, okay, yeah, I've heard the sermons on it. I've heard the stuff. It's just time, just do it. Just be a good neighbor. Just love people. Just serve people the way you would wanna be served. It's not complicated. Neighboring is not complicated. I think a lot of times we overcomplicate it in an effort to justify ourselves. Well, who's my neighbor really? And listen, remember, I'm preaching to myself here. Like I said, this is so convicting for me because this is exactly what I have a tendency to do. Lord, surely they're not my neighbor. They don't live near me. Surely they're not my neighbor. They don't have the same political beliefs as I do. Surely they're not my neighbor. They don't look like me. Surely, Lord, you're not talking about that person. That person, like we have completely different backgrounds. We live in two different parts of town. We have different beliefs when it comes to religion, Lord. Surely you're not talking about that person. They don't go to the same school as me. And I think if we're honest with each other, a lot of us tend to have these same trains of thought where we dismiss people and we say, oh, that person's not my neighbor. They're not worthy of my love. They're not worthy of my time or my energy, or it's inconvenient because they think different than I do, look different than I do, or have a different background than I do. And listen, again, I'm preaching to myself. And my challenge to you is this, is don't overcomplicate it. Your neighbor is anyone that the Lord has placed in your path, which raises the question, how am I overcomplicating things and what am I doing to avoid that person that the Lord has placed in my path? Is there someone you're avoiding? Maybe it's someone at school and you have very different upbringings. Maybe it's someone that looks different than you or they have different beliefs than you do. And you say, hey, because of the belief that they have or because of the background that they have or because of this or that or whatever, like you fill in the blank. Because of this, I'm not gonna be a good neighbor to them. And we justify it by saying, no, God, surely you wouldn't want me associated with them. I'm getting ahead of myself. I had a tendency to go through every reason possible in order to justify why someone wasn't my neighbor. It's not complicated, students. If they're in your path, they're your neighbor. If you interact with them, in other words, they're your neighbor, even if it's just for a short time. Next thing is this, is that neighboring has no excuses. Neighboring has no excuses. Verse 31 through 33 says this. Now by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion. Here's what I mean by no excuses. Now, I wanna be very clear here. I also wanna be careful because what I'm about to share with you is not in Scripture. We're gonna speculate for a moment. I wanna make it very clear when I do that and when I'm preaching straight from the text. The text does not explicitly tell us why they passed him by but we can assume a couple things or we can make speculations as to why and I wanna do that together if that's okay with you. You have a priest and a Levite. What's the significance of these two? Number one is that these are people who are followers of the Lord. They should know the word. You have a priest and you have a Levite who, like the Levites were the tribe that they would pick the priest from. So you have these two people that are followers of the Lord that should know God's word. And you have two instances. Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him pass by on the other side. So we ask ourselves this question, okay, why would they have done that? Here's one potential reason. Maybe they already thought that he was dead. Now, here's why I say that. The passage says again, in verse 30, Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. So it's not like he was on the road yelling, hey, I need help. So they very well could have assumed that he was dead. And here's the deal with that. A priest or a Levite, if they were to come in contact with a body, like a dead body, they would be considered unclean and then they couldn't go about their priestly business for a while until they were made clean again. So it was really inconvenient if they were to come across a dead body. So maybe they just passed him by because, oh, well, maybe he's dead. I think you and I do the same all the time. Here's what I mean by that. I think you and I will pass people by because we already assume that they're too far gone. We don't share the gospel with that person in our school that we know has a different belief on gender than we do because we already believe that they're too far gone. We don't care to share the gospel with someone in our class or that goes to work with us who claims to be an atheist because we say to ourselves, well, if I share the gospel with them, they're not going to believe it anyways. And we pass by and we assume, oh, they're too far gone, there's no point. And just like the priest and the Levite, I think what we have a tendency to do is to say, well, if I go and I get my hands dirty there, that's gonna be really inconvenient for me and that might hurt my reputation. We care more about our reputation than about making God's kingdom known. Maybe that's why. I think another reason could have been maybe this, maybe that they were in a hurry. When we left Bellevue and went to Paris, Tennessee, there was a lady there who was so sweet to us. She was an older lady and I remember we were in a season where we were just so busy and we were doing stuff nonstop and we were going to students' games and we were doing stuff with our house and we were hanging out with people and we were going and going and going, just like nonstop, nonstop. And I remember, Hannah Gray, she grabbed you and she said, hey, do you know what busy stands for? And she said, being under Satan's yoke. And I was like, whoa, listen to me, students. If the enemy can keep you busy, he can keep you ineffective for the kingdom. And I'm not saying that's bad to have things on your schedule. I know so many of us are so busy, but when your schedule gets in the way of what the Holy Spirit wants to do in you and through you, it's a problem. When you are too busy to stop and have a gospel conversation with someone.
you're saying to yourself, well, I've got too much going on right now, then you've got too much going on. Or your priorities need to shift. It's okay to be late for that thing that you were going to if it means you can have an intentional gospel conversation with someone and neighbor well. Neighboring has no excuses. And the last thing is this, is that neighboring will cost you something. Look at what the pastor says in verse 34 through 37. I'm gonna read 33 as well. But Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He had compassion. I think we miss out on what the Lord wants to do through us because we forget how to have compassion on people. We've grown numb to it, haven't we? We see it all the time. I think your generation is one of the most desensitized generation in all of history, if not the most. You see so much pain, so much suffering, so much death, so much brokenness, 24 seven on your phones. And here's the deal. A powerful prayer that you can start to pray is, Lord, teach me how to have compassion again. And when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever, I'm sorry, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Being a good neighbor is going to cost you something. Listen, it might cost you your reputation. It might cost you your time. It may be, listen, it's inconvenient to be a good neighbor, but it's worth it. So my question to you is this, was when was the last time being a good neighbor really cost you something? Like when was the last time you were inconvenienced for the sake of furthering the kingdom, for the sake of being kind to someone, for the sake of being a good neighbor to someone? And listen, remember again, not talking about the person that lives right next to you or the person who lives across the street, anyone that the Lord has put in your path, when was the last time it cost you something to care well for your neighbor?