Won't You Be My Neighbor
In 1968 a brand new neighborhood was built in Pittsburgh. It quickly gained national attention for the unique way the neighbors related to one another. They visited each other, cared for each other, forgave each other, and loved each other. And no matter how many people moved in, they were always ready to welcome the next person. By the 1980’s, this neighborhood had grown to include nearly 6.5 million people and the growth was driven by one simple question: Won’t you be my neighbor?
The neighborhood, of course, was Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, the children’s television show, filmed in Pittsburgh. Mr. Rogers began each episode singing the same song to the viewer. The song include these famous words:
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you!
I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a place where every person mattered, and every person belonged. Where did Mr. Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian Pastor, find his inspiration for this beautiful community?
In a commencement address given to Marquette University in 2001 he said this:
“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what’s best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does. So, in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.”
Mr. Rogers believed that loving our neighbors was a way to participate in divine work. He saw it as our highest calling. Jesus agrees. When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus began by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
He then said, the second greatest commandment is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This time quoting Leviticus 19:18.
This fall, we want to explore what this might mean in our very own streets, apartment complexes, dorm floors, and hospital rooms. What if we followed Mr. Rogers’ example, and loved those who live next door, upstairs, down the hall, and across the street with the same love Jesus has for us?
To better understand what this kind of neighborly love looks like, we will spend this series in the Gospel of John, walking alongside Jesus, learning from the master. And as we do so, we will look at five relational steps we might take, as we seek to love our neighbors.
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Won't You Be My Neighbor
Table of Contents
Week 1: Love Your Neighbor
Matthew 22:37-40, John 13:34-35| August 24, 2025
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
“A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one Another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples; if you love one another.“
In this message we will consider the significance of Jesus’ instruction to love our neighbors. What does it mean to love others as we love ourselves? What does it mean to love with the same love Jesus has shown us? And what might this mean for my literal neighbors, those who live next door, upstairs, or across the street?
Week 2: Starting a Relationship with Your Neighbor
John 4:1-30| August 31, 2025
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Starting a new relationship comes with many unknowns and a little bit of risk. Each person contains a whole world of experiences, preferences, ideas, and practices. Embarking on a new relationship means being open to meeting another person where they are. In this message we will examine the model that Jesus provides for how to step into new relationships with kindness and compassion.
Week 3: Repairing a Relationship with Your Neighbor
John 13:36-38; 18:25-27; 21:15-17 | September 7, 2025
Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!
Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?”
He denied it, saying, “I am not.”
One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
A remodel blocks a view, a party is too loud, an argument over who is responsible for fixing the fence. There are endless reasons for neighbors to be in conflict. And many conflicts linger and fester because the cost of relational repair feels too high. In this message we will see how Jesus works to repair a broken relationship with one of his closest friends.
Week 4: Serving Your Neighbor
John 5:1-13 | September 14, 2025
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Our neighbors’ needs can come in many forms. The elderly couple may need help with tasks around the house. The young parents may need a night out. The upstairs neighbors may need someone to take the dog out while they are at work. The recent transplants might need someone to show them around.
One way to love our neighbors is to serve them. In this message we will see how Jesus served a man whose neighbors had ignored him for decades.
Week 5: Including Your Neighbor
John 1:35-50 | September 21, 2025
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
“Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.
Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter). The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.”
We’re having a party. We’re going to a movie. We’re meeting up with some friends. We’re going to church.
Would you like to come?
This simple invitation can open the door to a different future. Including your neighbors is a great way to build deeper relationships and find shared interests. It can also provide a way to share your faith in a comfortable and winsome way.
In this message we will see how Jesus turned strangers into disciples by including them in his everyday life.
Week 6: Befriending Your Neighbor
John 3:1-21; John 7:50-52; John 19:38-42 | September 19, 2021
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
I’d like to meet my _____________. There’s nothing wrong with calling someone your neighbor, but in a world of increasing isolation and loneliness, what would it look like to transform our neighbors into our friends.
In this message we will see how a friendship forms between Jesus and one of his neighbors as we consider how we might turn our neighbors into friends.