Love Your Neighbor & Reach Your Street

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here,

and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith,

and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have your Bible,

please open it with me to Matthew chapter 22

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

in a message I'm calling Love Your Neighbor.

This morning we're interrupting our series of going verse by verse through the book of 1 Thessalonians in order to kick off a church-wide emphasis that we're going to have for the next month or so leading up to Easter that we're calling Reach Your Street.

Lord willing, we'll pick up in 1 Thessalonians next Sunday morning.

We'll cover the end of chapter 4.

In fact, the end of chapter 4 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture in all of God's Word.

And so you're not going to want to miss next Sunday morning.

But for today, we're in Matthew chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And whenever we come to Matthew chapter 22, we see that Jesus had just entered into Jerusalem a few days earlier in what is called the triumphal entry.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

He was, that was the last week leading up to the cross.

Now, at this point, the religious leaders of the day were out to get Jesus.

And so on Tuesday of that week, they came to him with what we might call some gotcha questions.

One after one, they drilled Jesus with these questions,

and Jesus answered them with incredible wisdom, silencing his critics.

Well, one of the questions came from a lawyer, a person who was an expert in the law of Moses.

And he asked Jesus, he said, what is the greatest commandment in the law?

And Jesus responded in verse 37.

Jesus said to him, he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

The second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Now at this point, I think the religious leaders were sort of dumbfounded

because Jesus had just summarized the entire law of God in only a few words.

Love God and love people.

And he said, on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.

So Jesus connected these two commandments together

because he knew that a person can't really love God without loving people.

And a person can't really love people properly without loving God.

Now, in today's message, I don't want to focus on the greatest commandment,

to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Instead, I want to focus on the second greatest commandment,

that you and I are to love our neighbor as ourself.

Galatians 5, verse 14 says,

Galatians 5:14

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this,

you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Think about the commandments of God for a moment.

You shall not commit adultery.

That's rooted in love.

You shall not commit murder.

That's rooted in love.

You shall not lie.

Rooted in love.

You shall honor your father and mother.

Rooted in love.

Every commandment in the Bible is rooted in love.

Rooted in loving God and loving one another.

Right?

Now, in our culture, we use this word love and we throw it out in so many different circumstances that we sort of cheapen the word.

I mean, I can say I love my wife and the very next sentence I can say I love pizza, which, by the way, I do love pizza.

If you're curious, linguistically, it looks the same, even though the meaning is very, very different, isn't it?

Now, love is admittedly difficult to define.

In fact, you can search the scriptures and you will not find a definition of love.

The Bible doesn't define love, but it does describe it.

In fact.

The greatest description on love, we don't have time to read it today, but I encourage you to read it on your own.

It's 1 Corinthians chapter 13, this beautiful description of love.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

And whenever we see a description of love within Scripture, we see that it involves attitude and action.

Now, many in our culture think that love is an uncontrollable feeling, and so it can't

really actually be commanded.

Sometimes, and occasionally in adultery, will even tell me,

"'Pastor, I can't help it. We fell in love.'"

According to God, though, that's not true, is it?

Because love is not a feeling that has control over us.

It's a decision we make. It's a choice.

Whenever God commands us to do anything, what he is doing is,

the implication of that is he's giving us a choice to make.

So when Jesus says, I want you to love your neighbor as yourself,

he's saying, I want you to make a decision to love.

He's commanding us, decide to love.

Now, the question becomes,

Who's my neighbor, right?

In fact, earlier in Christ's ministry, he was asked that very question.

A man came up to Jesus and he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Now, this guy was off the moment he asked the question because there's nothing that we can do to have eternal life.

It's only something that God can do.

It's a gift from him, right?

Eternal life is a gift from him.

It's not something we earn.

It's something we receive.

You see, we're all sinners.

Every one of us has failed and missed the heart of God.

We've broken the will of God and the commandments of God, and so we're sinners.

And what we need is a Savior.

Now, Jesus entertains this question, though.

He says, he asks him another question.

He said, what's written in the law?

And the man summarized the law as Jesus certainly had done within his ministry.

He said, you need to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

And Jesus said, you're right.

Do this and live.

And the man asked, he said, but who's my neighbor?

In other words, do I have to love everyone?

Now, Jesus responded by telling one of the most famous parables in the New Testament,

what we now call the parable of the Good Samaritan.

He said there was a man traveling from Jerusalem down that steep hill that goes down to Jericho.

And while he was on his way to Jericho, some thieves, some robbers, jumped him.

And they robbed him, they beat him up, they took all of his clothes, all of his belongings,

they left him half dead on the side of the road.

And then a priest came down that same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side of the road.

Then a Levite man came, and he got a little closer.

In fact, he went over, he stooped down, and he looked at the man who was half dead, and he just kept walking.

And then a third man, a Samaritan man, came along that same exact road,

and as he passed by, he saw the man there in the gutter, and he had compassion on him.

He cleaned his wounds up, and he bandaged him up, and Jesus said he put him on his animal.

He put him on his donkey, and he carried him away.

He took him in, and he took care of him.

And so Jesus said, which of these three men was a neighbor to the man who was robbed?

He said, the man who was robbed.

And he said, well, the man who showed mercy on him.

And Jesus said, go and do likewise.

Well, what was Jesus teaching us with the parable?

His point was everyone is your neighbor.

Everyone is your neighbor.

The Samaritans, they were hated by the Jews.

There was this intense racial animosity

between these two groups.

And yet the Samaritan clearly is the hero of the story, right?

Jesus is saying, loving your neighbor,

it crosses the racial lines.

It crosses the social barriers that society has erected.

Those who live in Africa,

we are called upon to love like we love ourselves.

Those who live in Russia, we are loved like ourselves.

Those who live in China,

those who live in the Middle East,

in South America, in Central America,

on and on we could go.

We are called to love everyone as our neighbor.

Those who look very different than us.

Those who dress different than us.

Who speak different than us.

Those who are older.

Those who are younger.

Those who are poor.

Those who are wealthy.

Those who are oppressed.

And yes, those who are the oppressor.

In fact, Jesus said, Matthew chapter 5 verse 44, he said,

Matthew 5:44

But I say to you, love your enemies.

Bless those who curse you.

Do good to those who hate you and pray.

for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

I don't think Jesus could have made it much clearer than that.

We are to love everyone, whether our friends, our family, our co-workers, our enemies.

We are to love everyone.

Everyone is your neighbor.

But did you also know that your neighbor is your neighbor?

Now that sounds a little bit strange to say,

but I think it actually needs to be said in our culture.

Your actual next door neighbor is your neighbor who Jesus told you,

you are to love them like you love yourself.

I want to do something a little bit different today.

I'm going to invite Pastor Jeremy, our missions pastor, to come up and share with us just a little bit about something God has been putting on his heart.

And then I'll be back up after him.

Pastor Jeremy.

Thank you, Pastor Andrew.

Well, I moved to Bakersfield in 2003, and I moved here to study at Cal State Bakersfield and to wrestle there.

And my first week in town, I was invited by my teammate.

Some of you might know him. His name is Brian Busby.

I was invited him to this church, and when I came to this church, I absolutely loved it.

And very early on, Brian started taking me out on Tuesday nights to share the gospel in our city.

And to be honest, this was very scary for me.

But over time, Brian taught me how to share the gospel, and I really grew to love sharing the gospel.

After graduating college, marrying my wife Kelsey, and eventually buying a home,

I recognized that we needed to share the gospel with our neighbors as well.

And we were doing a decent job of this.

We were sharing the gospel with those who were closest to us.

I could tell you several of our neighbors' names, where they were at spiritually.

because I'd had gospel conversations with them.

But one day, while I was on my way home, driving down my street,

it really hit me that there were a lot of other neighbors on our street

that we had never even met before.

Home after home was filled with people,

and we didn't even know their names.

Opportunities for the gospel that I'd been passing up

every single day.

So when I got home that day,

I decided to get on Google Maps,

and I took a screenshot of our entire street.

And it wasn't in the satellite view,

but the view where all the homes are grayed out,

if you've ever seen that.

And I printed that out on a piece of paper, and I began going house by house, outlining the homes of the neighbors that I knew by name.

I wrote their names on their house that they lived in.

I wrote some of the details I knew about them based on previous gospel conversations I had had.

And then I also highlighted the homes of the neighbors that I knew were believers.

Okay.

And this map showed an accurate picture

of how we were doing reaching our street with the gospel.

And this map was really eye-opening for me.

Come to find out, there are 43 homes on our street.

And we'd only really been reaching out

to seven or eight of those homes.

So we put that map up on our fridge in our kitchen,

and at night, as we prayed as a family,

one of our kids would often grab that map off the fridge

and we would take turns praying for our neighbors by name.

For the ones that didn't know Jesus,

we prayed that they would come to know him,

and that God would give us opportunities

to share the gospel with them.

For the ones that did know Christ,

we would pray that they would grow in their faith,

and if they weren't already plugged into a church,

that they would get connected to a local church.

But we also prayed for the homes with no names on them,

and we started referring to these neighbors

as the unreached.

And we prayed for opportunities to meet those neighbors,

for opportunities to share the gospel with those neighbors.

And eventually, I added the title to that map

that said, Reach Your Street.

And this map really changed the way

that we viewed our street.

It was no longer just a street to drive down

in order to get to our house.

It was now a street filled with souls, many of which still needed a savior.

So as I drove down my street, my eyes were now open,

looking for opportunities to meet new neighbors that I had never met before.

I wanted to add these neighbors' names to our map so that we could begin praying for them by name.

I wanted to have more opportunities to invite our neighbors to church.

and to share the gospel with our neighbors.

And this made me and my family more intentional

with reaching our neighbors for Christ.

And from this, God has given us many opportunities

to pray for our neighbors, to meet them,

to share the gospel with them, and to serve them as well.

One day while I was driving down my street,

I noticed that one of our neighbors was out in the street

and I had never met this neighbor before.

So I drove over to that neighbor,

I rolled down my window and I struck up a conversation.

Now I know that sounds a little weird

and this approach is not for everyone,

you know, drive-by evangelism is not for everyone.

But you'd be surprised how fast people's walls go down

when you mention to them that you're their neighbor

from down the street and point over to where your house is,

the walls start coming down quickly.

Well, I noticed that me and this neighbor

had something in common,

so I started talking about that first

And then eventually I invited him to church and started sharing Jesus with them.

And I was blown away by what he told me next.

He told me that recently on YouTube he started seeing video after video of guys that he followed sharing their testimony of how they had recently come to faith in Christ.

And how this had made him think that he should start reading the Bible.

I mean, talk about a God-ordained moment.

This is something that I could have never set up on my own.

And I told this man this was no accident,

that God was pursuing him.

And I asked if he had a Bible of his own,

and I offered to bring him a brand new one,

and I was eventually able to do that.

You see, God put that opportunity right in front of me,

where previously I would have never even been looking

for the opportunity.

And eventually I told some family and friends

about what we were doing as a family with our map

and our goal to reach our street.

And a friend suggested that we make an app for it

to help other Christians do the same thing.

And I told our pastors about this idea.

and we were about to start the process of building our own Reach Your Street app

when a family member told me that there is actually an app that already exists just like this,

an app that has even more than we could have ever dreamed of.

And this app is called the Bless app.

And we're going to tell you more about this app in a video at the very end of the service.

So I hope you'll stick around to watch that video.

But my family uses this app almost every single day now as we continue to reach our street.

And we really want to invite every single person at Valley Baptist to join us.

And that's why we're having this emphasis over the coming weeks leading up to Easter.

And we're calling it Reach Your Street.

And we are praying that God will take all of us and use all of us to reach our streets here in Bakersfield with the gospel.

And I want you just to imagine how God's going to use us as we all get very intentional about loving our neighbors as ourselves and sharing Jesus with them.

I am so excited to see what God is going to do in and through us.

Pastor Andrew?

Amen. Thank you, Pastor Jeremy. What a tremendous thing that God has placed on Pastor Jeremy's heart for us to reach our street with the love of Jesus.

You know, sometimes we get overwhelmed with reaching our world for Christ, but what if we just started with reaching our street for Christ, one neighbor at a time?

You know, each one of us, whether we live in the suburbs or out in the country somewhere,

or whether we live in a cul-de-sac or in an apartment,

each of us live within close proximity to others who are around us,

who I believe God has strategically placed in our lives so that we can love them and we can share Jesus with them.

Now, I love as a preacher to preach on things that I'm a great example of.

But occasionally I'm called to preach on things that I'm not the greatest example of.

And this is certainly one of those areas.

My dad used to tell us young preachers, he said, don't lower your preaching to your living.

Raise your living to your preaching.

So that's what I'm trying to do today.

I've begun praying for my neighbors by name each day.

And I'm excited to see how God's going to use me and my family as we reach our street.

Now, here's what I'd like to do for the rest of the message.

I want to get very, very practical.

I want to share some points of just practical application for you and I,

some things that God has placed on my heart as I begin to think through,

how am I going to start reaching my street that I live on?

Now, thankfully, none of these things are hard.

They're not difficult at all.

They only require us to actually love our neighbor like ourself.

First thing is this.

We've got to see them.

We've got to see our neighbors.

Now, physically seeing them is helpful, but I'm not talking about physically seeing them.

I'm saying spiritually see them.

See your neighbors as God sees them.

Individuals who God carefully and wonderfully made.

Individuals who God deeply loves.

Individuals who Jesus died for.

Did you know that God deeply loves your next-door neighbor more than you've loved anyone in your life ever?

He loves them that much.

And that's your good neighbor, and that's the neighbor that drives you crazy.

He loves them all, right?

I had that thought this past week.

It really began to open my eyes.

We've got to have eyes for our neighbors as God sees them so we can love them.

Now, Pastor Jeremy already touched on this, but here's how we begin seeing our neighbors as God sees them.

We've got to start praying for them, right?

Anytime we start praying for people, God starts to open our eyes.

Our heart grows bigger for those people.

God uses our prayers certainly to impact their lives, but he also uses our prayers to work on our heart to give us spiritual life.

So we've got to see our neighbors, but then we've got to meet them, don't we?

It's hard to love someone you don't know, that you've never met.

Now, for many of us, this is going to require a great deal of intentionality.

You're like me.

You're very, very busy.

So maybe you come home from work exhausted one day,

or you come home from all the kids' activities exhausted one day.

Well, whatever excuse you have, I know the excuses that are in my mind.

And with those excuses in mind, if I come home with all those excuses

and I continue on autopilot, I'm not ever going to meet my neighbors.

I'm going to pull into the garage, I'm going to close the door behind me, and you're not going to see me.

So I think this requires a great deal of intentionality.

It's a decision we make, remember?

It's a choice to meet our neighbors and to love them.

I know people in our church who put on block parties for their neighborhood,

and they cook some food, and they provide an opportunity for the neighborhood to get together

and build a community as a neighbor.

That's a great idea.

I know someone in our church who made Christmas ornaments, and as a family, they went and took them to their neighbors as a gift.

So they got to meet their neighbors.

They had something to give them at the same time.

What about having your kids play not in the backyard but play in the front yard?

Right?

We used to do this when our kids were very young,

and we'd just go sit out there and watch our kids play.

You would be amazed.

The neighbors would just start kind of flocking outside,

and sometimes we would spend hours with our neighbors.

Another idea is maybe walk your neighborhood.

We all need our steps, right?

It's good for us.

It's good for our body.

Why don't you walk around your neighbors?

You'll be amazed how many opportunities you have to visit with people and to get to know people who are out in the yard.

So let's be intentional.

So we've got to see them.

We've got to meet them.

But we also need to encourage them.

You know, everyone needs encouragement, don't they?

Why?

Life's hard.

Life is really, really hard.

And so everyone's facing challenges.

Everyone has struggles.

Everyone has experienced defeats.

And as you get to know your neighbors, if you're listening,

and if you're being a good neighbor,

you're gonna be listening.

You're going to learn some of the challenges that they face along the way.

And as you hear more of their story, I want you to encourage you to encourage them.

Find ways to encourage them.

You could drop them off a card, which no one does hardly anymore, a physical card.

That's kind of special when someone writes you a card.

Or maybe if you have your number, you could shoot them a text of encouragement.

Include a scripture verse on it.

Encourage them from God's Word.

You know, most people are lacking encouragement, so let's encourage them.

Another way, we've got to serve them, right?

Remember, love takes action according to the Bible.

Jesus said, I came not to be served, but to serve.

As human beings, though, we want to be the ones that serve, right?

Come and serve me.

That's what I like.

But Jesus said, no, no, no.

The real blessing isn't in being served, it's in serving.

1 John 3, verse 18 says,

1 John 3:18

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

So I want to encourage you to pray and ask the Lord, Lord, help me know how I can serve my neighbors.

Now, here are some ideas.

Maybe if you know they're going out of town, you can ask, is there anything I can do for you while you're gone?

Can I take care of anything in the house for you?

I know of people in our church who consistently watch their neighbor's pets whenever they go out of hand.

Just an act of kindness.

I heard about some people in our church who bake fresh bread,

and they take it to their neighbors out of an act of kindness,

and I really wish I was their neighbor.

But you do too.

I know of someone who puts on an outdoor movie night in their front yard

and invites their neighborhood to it, just being a good neighbor, loving, loving people.

Now here's the last thing I would say for us.

In order to love our neighbors well, we've got to also tell them.

You say, Pastor, tell them what?

Well, tell them about how much God loves them.

You've got to share the love of God with them.

God loves them.

Let them know about how much God loves them.

Tell them about Jesus.

And here's how you can do that.

Here's how you can start.

Share your story.

Share your life with them.

Don't be a closed book.

Be an open book.

And I know that sometimes it's challenging to be vulnerable with people and to really share our story, especially maybe, especially with our neighbors.

But as you begin sharing your story with them, they're going to be able to identify with you.

Not just as a neighbor.

Not just as that Christian neighbor, but as a real person who also has pain, who also has struggles.

And here's what you do as you're sharing your story.

You share your story about how you came to know Jesus.

Tell them about your life before you met Jesus.

Tell them about how you met Jesus by faith.

And tell them about how Jesus has been changing your life.

Tell them about how much God loves them.

How God loves him so much that he sent his only begotten son.

He sent Jesus into this world.

He lived a perfect life.

And then he died on the cross for their sins.

But he didn't stay dead.

He rose the third day.

And that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Tell your neighbors about Jesus.

Now it could be that you're not real sure.

about the best way to do that.

You say, Pastor, I'm not there yet.

I don't have the courage for that.

Number one, I would say,

is pray and ask God to give you the courage,

and He will, so watch out.

He'll give you courage,

but maybe you just feel like you're not there yet.

If that's you, here's where you start.

Just invite them to church.

I'll tell them about Jesus.

Someone will tell them about Jesus.

Your life group teacher will tell them about Jesus.

Stats show that you will be surprised how many people will take you up on an invitation to church.

You know, a missionary told me one time, he said,

Andrew, there's more people who want to know how to be saved

than there are people willing to tell them how to be saved.

We just got to take a step and invite them to church.

You know, we're not ever going to reach our world for Christ.

We're not going to reach Bakersfield Christ.

We're not going to reach our street for Christ without love.

It's going to require the greatest command to really, genuinely love people.

Years ago, there was a large church in Chicago that was pastored by a man named Dwight L. Moody.

It became known as the Moody Church.

And there was a young boy who walked to that church every Sunday morning.

He got up very early in the morning.

He walked several miles to that church every week.

In fact, he passed four other churches on his way to the Moody Church.

Well, one Sunday morning, the rain was pouring down.

The wind was blowing like it often does there in Chicago, and the conditions were just horrible.

And so he was walking by one of the churches, and someone saw him walking by like they did every week,

and they had compassion on him.

Hey, why don't you come on here and hear today?

It's another mile to the Moody Church.

It's raining.

It's pouring.

Why don't you come inside today?

And the boy said, well, I'm just going to keep going.

He asked him, well, why do you walk so far to go to that church?

And he said, because that church knows how to love a fellow like me.

You know, that's my prayer, is that our church would be able to love a fellow like him.

But do you know what your neighbors need from you?

They need you to love a fellow like them.

However God made them, whatever experiences of life they've been through,

for you to see them like God sees them.

And to care for them like God cares.

We are his hands and feet.

We are his mouthpiece.

We've got to tell him the wonderful good news of Jesus.

As we close, I want to be very clear today.

Loving our neighbor as ourself isn't the greatest command.

The greatest command is that we would love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But did you know before you can ever love God,

you've got to receive God's love for you.

And here's how you do that.

You receive God's love by opening your heart and faith in receiving Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.

And you do that by faith.

In fact, the book of Hebrews says, without faith it's impossible to please God.

The Bible says if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It's that simple.

It's that simple.

You see, no one has ever loved you like Jesus loves you.

No one has ever cared for you like Jesus cares for you.

He came to this earth to love you, to forgive you, and to save you.

You know, the Bible says,

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

I recognize that today's message has been focused kind of an insider message on our church family,

those who already know Jesus and that we're to love people around us so they can get to know Jesus as well.

But it could be that you're here today or you're listening online.

You say, man, I don't know Jesus.

I'm the person in need.

I've tried everything, and everything has failed me.

I've tried to get peace.

I've tried to get joy.

I've desperately wanted to be loved by someone that really matters.

And I'm the person who needs God's love today.

If that's you, I've got great news for you.

You can receive God's love right now.

You don't need a pastor to do it.

You don't need a priest to do it.

You just open your heart and faith to Him right now.

Because no one has ever loved you like God loves you.

You see, Jesus came willingly to this earth.

He lived a perfect life, that which we have failed to do.

And then, the perfect one.

Died on a cross, a gruesome death.

Why?

He died for our sin.

So that we could be forgiven.

And those who believe in Him,

His righteousness that He earned with a perfect life

and that He has inherently,

is given to you and I.

We're forgiven and we're clean and we're free.

And I want to invite you to experience that today.

to simply open your heart and life to Jesus and faith.

Let's bow together in attitude of prayer,

both here and at Olive Drive.

This is a holy moment in the life of our church.

And I'm gonna ask in just a moment after I pray

for all of us to stand, both campuses.

And there's gonna be pastors and other leaders

and prayer partners here at the front.

And we're gonna invite you just to step out

from wherever you're at and walk down one of these aisles.

walk down one of these staircases,

and they take one of these leaders by the hand

and say, I want to give my life to Jesus.

It's time.

I've heard about God.

I've known about God.

I've heard about Jesus.

It's time for me to surrender my life to Him

and go all in.

These leaders will know exactly how to help you.

Now, do not fall for the lie

You've got to clean up your life before you can give it to Jesus.

There's a lot of people out there who think, man, you know what?

I need to do that, but I've got some stuff in my life that I need to clean up first.

Because I don't want to be one of those hypocrites that I've seen in the church.

Listen.

No, no, no.

You've got to come to Jesus as you are.

Sin and all, failures and all, you've got to admit it to them that you can't do it on your own.

And you watch what Jesus does in your life as he saves you.

Maybe you want to come this morning and say, I want to be baptized.

I've known Jesus for some time.

Maybe it's been recent.

Maybe it's been a long time.

But I've never gone public with my faith through baptism like Jesus told me to.

You come, you let us know that you'd like to be baptized like others were baptized today.

And we'd love to talk with you about what that means, what that doesn't mean, and set up a time for you to be baptized.

Maybe you want to join our church family.

We'd love to visit with you about that.

Or maybe, just maybe, you want to come to these steps and pray for your neighbors.

Maybe you're able to pray for them by name.

Maybe you're not.

And you want to pray and ask God to give you a love,

His love for them,

so your eyes can be opened

and you'll have some love to pass on.

I think it would be wonderful that these steps were filled with people

pouring out their heart to the Lord for their neighbors.

However God leads, let's come as He leads in just a moment.

Let's pray.

Thank you for loving us so much and so well.

We love you because you first loved us.

Thank you, Lord, for not leaving us in our sin, but pursuing us.

Help us love people like that so we pursue them.

That we're intentional.

God, would you make our church family this great army of love?

Not that we would fake love, but that it would be real, deep decision to love.

Lord, help us have eyes to see our neighbors.

Help us have intentionality to meet our neighbors.

Help us, Lord, have love to encourage them and serve them.

And Lord, help us have the boldness and the courage to tell them about you,

to invite them to church.

Lord, I ask that you would do a special work in anyone who doesn't personally know you today.

They've never opened their heart to receive the flood of your love and your grace and your forgiveness

that you offer to give them.

I pray, Lord, that you would open their eyes today and right now,

that you would open their hearts, soften it, Lord.

Give them the courage it's going to take to step out and come

and trust you as Savior.

We love you, Lord.

We give this time to you to do as you please.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening today.

We hope you enjoyed this message.

And if you did, we would be so grateful

if you left us a review.

Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast

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If you feel the Lord calling you

to take the next step in faith

through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.

reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.

That's podcast to 88988

or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.

You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org

to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey,

know that we love you.

We're praying for you

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.