(crowd whooping)
(ethereal music)
- If you want to know how to neighbor
you must first know who your neighbor is.
But before you can even begin the neighborly process
of neighboring them, you must first comprehend
the neighborhood of your own skin.
For we were the worst of neighbors, waging col-de-sac wars
with our transgressions, furnishing our habitats
with our inhabiting sins.
We were residing in hate as if bricks of enmity
formed our residences.
And we were walling ourselves off as if selfish deeds
were our addresses.
We were disgruntled neighbors of the Almighty,
and we were drowning in the mortgage of our flesh's home,
knowing that no wage we could have earn
could pay off our wager.
But now we actually can love others
because God himself did first show us how to neighbor.
♪ We were the orphans ♪
♪ You are the Father ♪
♪ You brought us all in as sister and brother ♪
♪ Sent with a calling to love one another ♪
♪ Love one another ♪
- We adopt the orphans
because we first lived without a family.
We were cut off from our true father
and from our line of royalty.
We love the lonely because He who is love
became loneliness for us.
And because He who is God was forsaken by God
when he cried out on the cross.
We reconcile the races because we were of the wrong race.
We were children of Adam, by nature children of wrath.
And because of the color of our sin-stained skin,
we deserve all the horror of our racism.
We empower the poor because we were once homeless,
without roof, wall, or door.
We thought we had all the comforts of Earth,
but hell was all we actually had in store.
We do all this and more but not because we're trying
to somehow be on our best behavior.
We do it in response to, and because of the true one
who taught us how to neighbor.
(crowd applauding)
♪ We were the orphans ♪
♪ You are the Father ♪
♪ You brought us all in as sister and brother ♪
♪ Sent with a calling to love one another ♪
♪ Love one another ♪
♪ If I mapped out my past route ♪
♪ It would all be hard to swallow ♪
♪ Heroin took my parents in ♪
♪ And spit them out as a broken model ♪
♪ Broken bottles and no tomorrow ♪
♪ Lonely sorrows and phony mottoes ♪
♪ I'm doing good ♪
♪ I'm just fine ♪
♪ But inside my soul was hollow ♪
♪ My life was a hot mess ♪
♪ Home far from spotless ♪
♪ Syringes left behind cabinet doors ♪
♪ Liquor bottles in closets ♪
♪ I went to church a few times ♪
♪ They shook my hand, said God bless ♪
♪ But the one embrace closed in a space ♪
♪ This orphan needed their arms stretched ♪
♪ By the time I was 16, I left my house for the third time ♪
♪ By 17 I didn't have a home ♪
♪ Nomadic roaming to survive ♪
♪ Inside I hated God ♪
♪ Waited long for love to land ♪
♪ Loneliness was my only friend ♪
♪ And no one seemed to understand ♪
♪ And know that it's a true story ♪
♪ So how did I get here today ♪
♪ My heart beats to God's rhythm ♪
♪ Jesus Christ took tears away ♪
♪ But how'd he do it ♪
♪ Here's the way ♪
♪ One man didn't fear my space ♪
♪ He took me into his home ♪
♪ And then showed love with the clearest grace ♪
♪ Taught me how to love God ♪
♪ Love the wife and love my neighbor ♪
♪ Even though I've been married 10 years ♪
♪ Three kids, there's nothing greater than loving the Lord ♪
♪ When it's uncomfortable, it comes at a cost ♪
♪ If he never reached out his hand ♪
♪ Then I wouldn't work for the cause. ♪
♪ Although his complexion was dark ♪
♪ Ethnicity different, our races reconciled ♪
♪ When he stepped in to assist this ♪
♪ And right now the lonely ones need your open arms ♪
♪ So that the church will rise awake ♪
♪ Before there can be dark ♪
♪ We were the orphans ♪
♪ You are the Father ♪
♪ You brought us all in as sister and brother ♪
♪ Sent with a calling to love one another ♪
♪ Love one another ♪
- So who is your neighbor?
It's anyone who's been in your place, which is everyone
because we all need
to move in to God's neighborhood of grace.
So may the orphans be embraced, may the lonely be loved,
may the races be restored, and may we empower the poor.
Because all this and more was first done by our savior,
the God-man known as Jesus who taught us how to neighbor.
(crowd cheering)