How To Neighbor: Official Performance Video feat. David Bowden & Dillon Chase - Life.Church

How to Neighbor

Overview

We once lived as hostile, self-walled neighbors toward God—“drowning in the mortgage of our flesh’s home.” Now, because Jesus first moved toward us, we are free and responsible to move toward others. The message unfolds four practical expressions of that love—adopting orphans, loving the lonely, reconciling races, and empowering the poor—then anchors them in a living testimony of one life changed when someone dared to open his door. Neighboring is not moral posturing; it is grateful imitation of the Savior who first neighbored us.

Main Points

1. Remember who you were without Christ

• We were “the worst of neighbors,” battling in cul-de-sac wars of sin, barricading ourselves behind selfish deeds.
• Our spiritual mortgage was unpayable; no wage could cover the debt.
• God crossed the street to us first, demonstrating true neighboring and making love possible.

2. Four calls that flow from God’s prior grace

Adopt the Orphan

• “We adopt the orphans because we first lived without a family.”
• Cut off from our true Father, we have now been brought in as “sister and brother,” so we extend the same welcome.

Love the Lonely

• He who is Love experienced utter loneliness when forsaken on the cross; therefore we enter others’ isolation.
• Loving the lonely means giving more than a polite handshake; it requires open arms and shared life.

Reconcile the Races

• We were “of the wrong race—children of Adam, by nature children of wrath.”
• Because Jesus tore down hostility, racial differences can meet at the table of grace.

Empower the Poor

• Once “homeless, without roof, wall, or door,” thinking Earth’s comforts were enough while heading for hell, we now steward resources to lift others.
• Action is driven by gratitude, not performance: “We do all this… in response to the true One who taught us how to neighbor.”

3. Story: a modern orphan finds a home

• Background: Parents lost to heroin; house littered with “syringes behind cabinet doors, liquor bottles in closets.”
• Isolation: By sixteen he had left home three times; by seventeen he was completely homeless, angry at God, convinced no one understood.
• Intervention:

  “One man didn’t fear my space. He took me into his home and then showed love with the clearest grace.”

• Transformation: That open door taught him to love God, love a wife, and love his neighbor. Ten years of marriage and three children now stand as living proof.
• Cost & Commission: True love is “uncomfortable and comes at a cost,” but if that neighbor had not reached out, the speaker “wouldn’t work for the cause” today.

4. Defining “neighbor” and issuing the charge

• Your neighbor is “anyone who’s been in your place—which is everyone.”
• The church must rise awake: embrace orphans, love the lonely, restore races, empower the poor.
• All is possible because “the God-man known as Jesus… taught us how to neighbor.”

Key Truths

• God initiated reconciliation; Christian neighboring is responsive, not performative.
• Our past alienation equips us to recognize and meet the needs of others.
• Adoption, racial reconciliation, care for the lonely, and justice for the poor are gospel fruits, not social add-ons.
• Real neighboring often requires personal discomfort and tangible cost.
• One open home can rewrite an entire life story.

Response

• Examine the “neighborhood of your own skin” and remember what Christ rescued you from.
• Open your home or table to someone who feels orphaned or alone.
• Cross racial and cultural lines intentionally, seeking shared life rather than polite distance.
• Redirect resources to lift the materially poor—housing, mentoring, employment, advocacy.
• Trade passive cordiality for active, sacrificial love that mirrors Jesus’ move toward you.

Closing

Neighboring begins with gratitude: Jesus relocated into our broken cul-de-sac and paid our impossible mortgage. Now the invitation rings out: welcome the orphan, befriend the lonely, heal racial divides, and empower the poor.

“Because all this and more was first done by our Savior… the God-man Jesus who taught us how to neighbor.”