As I was preparing for my sermon, I had to go this week
and rewatch one of my favorite episodes of The Office.
Give me a, a small hand raise if you're an Office fan.
Yeah, look, it's the church. We're an office church.
One of my favorite episodes. One of my favorite things about
The Office is it's so cringy. Right?
Like Mike Mike's Tots, the episode where Mike Michael Scott
has promised tuition to a bunch of students in elementary school
and then when they become seniors, they're looking forward
to graduating with tuition and Michael Scott realises he has no
way to pay it and he has to go and tell them.
That whole episode is so cringy. But a close second, maybe third,
is the episode Dinner Party. In the episode, if you haven't
seen it, which I, I'm sure there's not a lot of us, Jim and
Pam are invited over to Michael Scott's house for a dinner party
with his less than sane girlfriend Jan.
And Michael and Jim and Pam are doing everything they can to not
go. They try to think of an excuse.
They try to find a way out of it, but they can't.
And so they have to go and they go and, and the only other
people that are at the dinner party are like the guy that
likes to that's, that's like trying to be the number 2 at the
office. And then of course, Dwight shows
up with his nanny from a childhood and the whole episode
is just so awkward. Whether it's an awkward game of
charades with an incredible tension, or the fact that dinner
hadn't even been started before the guests showed up so they'd
be eating at like 11:00 at night.
Or the fact that that Michael takes all the guys out to the
garage to pitch them Jan's candle business.
Awkward moment after awkward moment in the entire time
Michael and Pam or Michael and Pam.
I'm confusing characters. Jim and Pam are trying to get
away from this dinner. What makes this episode so good
is that we have all felt that way.
It's OK, You're not a bad person.
I know that we have all had a time where we did not want to go
to that dinner. We did not want to go to that
event, whether it was going to be cringy or there was someone
there that we just didn't quite want to interact with.
We've all had a time where we didn't want to go to the thing.
And what's what's hard about that is that it's really
difficult for relationships to foster when we choose not to
enter into relationship with other people, or at least just
dinner. And what happens is, is that the
lonely begin to feel lonelier, right?
Whether they're the ones throwing the party or they're,
they're not invited, they begin to feel forgotten.
They begin to ask the question, do I matter?
Would anyone care if I'm not here?
But on the other side, you have people that begin to close their
table that begin to not understand the people around
them. They just eat dinner with those
that are like them, whether it's like for political regions or
religious reasons or even like a social class.
And so there's no communication between US and usually good
things don't happen when there's a lack of communication, right?
It's easy to have hostile assumptions that begin to
develop. We know that we live in a, in a
culture where relationship seems to be breaking down more and
more as we really try to focus our relationship and things like
social media, right? How many of us have how many
friends online that we would look to for relationship or
spend our time on Instagram or or X or TikTok?
Influencers talk about the amount of people they have
following us. We have division between
different political beliefs and religious beliefs.
We have just a lot of relationship break in our
culture. Is there a practice of Jesus
that can answer this breakdown? The answer is yes.
Right now we are in a series where we are talking about the
practice of community. Last week Pastor Ben preached on
what exactly community is. What does it look like?
What does a Christ like community appear to be?
If you did not listen to that teaching, it is up on Apple
podcast. Highly recommend go and give it
a listen. But for the next three weeks, we
are going to be talking about different practices of community
starting with this week. So if you have your Bible with
you or it's it's on a phone or whatever, go ahead and turn to
Luke 5, verse 27. We always recommend a paper
Bible. Easier to not be distracted or
well, distracted. So Luke 5.
And then if you want to, if you have a paper Bible, put another
finger in. Luke 19.
We'll be hanging out in those two stories.
So in the Luke 5 passage you have Jesus is walking around at
the beginning of his ministry and he is calling people.
He's already gone to Peter and his friends stood out and said,
follow me and I will make you fishers of men, OK.
And we know that that invitation, if you've hung out
with us, is not just a, hey, do you want to be a follower?
But hey, do you want to be an apprentice of Jesus?
Come and follow me and I'll teach you to be with me, to
become like me, and to go and do what I did.
And so in the in Luke chapter 5 verse 27, it says this.
And after that he went out and looked at a tax collector named
Levi sitting in the tax office. And he said to him, follow me.
Now in this story, it's really important for us to understand
the cultural context of tax collector.
It's not like Jesus just went up to a government employee, right?
It's not like he just went up to City Hall and was like, hey,
person at City Hall, would you like to follow me?
It's not like he went up to the mayor or a District Attorney or
something. A tax collector in that day
would have been a Jewish man that sided with Rome, OK.
And Rome, of course, during Jesus's day was an oppressor.
They had taken over the land of the Jews.
And so that tax collector not only had joined forces with the
Roman government, but was the representative of the Roman
government to go and collect taxes.
I know not we don't like collecting or we don't like
giving taxes then. But the Jewish tax collector
would not only get the government taxes, but his wage
was whatever he wanted it to be, and he would go up and he would
ask for more than the rate of taxes.
Does that make sense? So for example, if you were
Peter, you went out, you went fishing, you were going to need
to pay taxes on those fish before you could sell them.
Maybe taxes were as high as 80% during that day.
As a tax collector, you would go up to Peter and say, hey, Peter,
your taxes today are 90%. Eighty for me, 10% for for me,
or 80% for Rome, 10% for me. Or maybe it would be 20 percent,
30%. It was honestly whatever that
tax collector wanted it to be. And if you know, people in
general, we're not usually generous about those kinds of
things. We try to get as much money as
we can. So tax collectors were usually
pretty wealthy, but they were wealthy at the expense of their
own people. A tax collector was known as
someone that had betrayed their people.
They were an outsider. They were considered an enemy.
And Jesus just walked up to him and said, would you like to be
an apprentice? This would be like if you saw
Jesus hanging out with like a terrorist from ISIS.
This would be like if you saw pictures of Jesus sitting down
with with like the head of the KKK.
This would be like Jesus sitting down in a prison with the worst
murderers imaginable. How would you respond if you saw
that? Verse 28 Levi got up, left
everything, and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet
for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were eating with them.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who belong
to their sect complain to his disciples.
Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
This meal was scandalous, right? Jesus is hanging out with the
very people that were an enemy of their own people.
You see, when we sit down for a meal, and this is whether it was
Jesus's day all through, all throughout really humankind, you
and I, we eat with people that are like us, right?
Like, think about who is at your dinner table.
It's usually your family, maybe some friends if you have to,
maybe someone from work, but it is usually someone that you have
relationship with that has a common something in your life.
And so for Jesus to sit down with tax collectors, the enemy
of the people was for Jesus to say, I have something in common
with these people, which it makes sense.
The Pharisees would be like, Jesus, what are you doing?
We already think you're kind of weird with some of the teachings
you're giving, but now you are sitting down with our enemies.
See, the Pharisees are not offended by Jesus's theology.
They are offended by Jesus's table.
Jesus's meals are upside down. The religious leaders would use
the table to separate. Jesus used the table to seek and
save the lost. Go ahead and turn to the right
to chapter 19. OK, Jesus has been doing
ministry for a while longer. Verse one, Jesus entered Jericho
and he was just passing through. A man was there by the name of
Zacchaeus and he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
So you have Levi in the first story, just a tax collector.
This is like the tax collector's boss.
This is the main man. He wanted to see who Jesus was,
but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd.
Quick Bible nerd thing. K in the Greek there it's not
clear who the subject is of the short.
It can be read Either Zacchaeus's short or Jesus's
short doesn't have anything to do with our subject, but just
for the the short kings in the room.
So we ran ahead and climbed a Sycamore fig tree to see him,
since Jesus was coming that way. Zacchaeus is a tax collector.
He's the chief tax collector. He's wealthy, he's compromised,
He is another enemy of the people.
If there was someone that was despised in this town, it was
him. And what happens verse 5, when
Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and he said to him,
Zacchaeus, come down immediately.
I must stay at your house tonight.
Jesus is a travelling teacher. Is Jesus able to invite someone
over for dinner? No, Jesus is constantly going up
to people and saying I'm coming to your place for dinner.
How would you like that if Jesus showed up and said hey tonight
I'm at your house? So he came down at once and
welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and
began to mutter. He has gone to be the guest of a
Sinner. This is the same thing as the
first story, right? Jesus has gone up to someone
that was despised, someone that betrayed the people, an enemy
and he, Jesus went up to him and was like, hey, would you like to
have a meal? Would you like to have
relationship? Would you like to to be a part
of my party? And of course the people on the
outside are going what is Jesus do doing?
Does what does he have in common with this tax collector?
Verse 8 But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, Behold
Lord, half of my possessions I am giving to the poor, and if I
have extorted anything from anyone, I am giving back four
times as much. So look at what is happening.
Jesus has gone over to Zacchaeus's house and is not
just having a meal, but something has happened.
Something has happened in Zacchaeus's heart.
He is completely turning around what we would call repentance,
verse 9. And Jesus said to him today,
salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of
Abraham. For the son of man, which is
Jesus's favorite way of referring to himself, has come
to seek and to save that which was lost because Jesus went to
Zacchaeus's house. Zacchaeus repented Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus gives back more than what he owes in an act of
repentance. And Jesus is able to say today
salvation has come to this house.
This is the pattern of Jesus's ministry, eating over and over
and over again, so much that in Luke 734 Jesus is talking with
the Pharisees and he says the Son of Man has come eating and
drinking. And you say, behold the
gluttonous man and a heavy drinker, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners. Is that the vision you have of
Jesus when you think about Jesus is a guy like eating way too
much at the dinner table, drinking, hanging out with those
that you don't think should be there.
He was eating and drinking so often that eating and drinking
became a part of his public reputation.
Not a one time event, but a regular practice.
It was a pattern. Eating and drinking with the
lost was the primary way that Jesus did ministry, the table
where sinners were welcomed, where outsiders were seen, where
enemies were drawn near, where shame was undone, where
repentance became possible. It was the Kingdom of heaven,
created with bread, wine, and laughter and his presence. 1
commentator about the book of Luke says that Jesus is either
on his way to a meal, he is at a meal, or he is leaving a meal.
It is this idea of Jesus continually eating with the
lost, drinking with the lost that we have come to call
hospitality. Hospitality was so important to
the ministry of Jesus that the early church could not imagine
following Jesus apart from it. Over and over again in the New
Testament they instruct the church to practice hospitality,
whether it's Romans 15-7. Therefore accept one another.
That word accept can also be translated welcome just as
Christ has accepted us for the glory of God.
So it's not just an instruction for hospitality, but Paul in the
the letter to the Romans is saying that the reason you're
doing hospitality is not just because Jesus did it, but
because Jesus did it to you. Okay, first, Peter 49 offer
hospitality to one another without grumbling.
So it's not enough to just have people over, but it's to have a
loving disposition towards them. First Timothy 32 Now the
overseer is to be hospitable. That means that if you were a
leader in the early church, you were unable to be 1 if you did
not practice hospitality. Hebrews 13 Two, do not forget to
show hospitality to strangers. From the beginning.
The church could not imagine apprenticeship to Jesus without
hospitality, whether that's Jesus, the generation of the
church right after him and then continuing on into church
history, right. If we look at if we look at the
the early church for the 1st 300 years or so, evangelism did not
happen from like the pastors or leaders of the church giving
really good teachings. You wouldn't like be hanging out
at your your work stable and look at Rob the horse salesman
and say, hey, Rob, you want to come to church with me?
And he would say, yeah, I guess no.
Because to do so, you would be persecuted, right?
Rob could turn you into the the guards and you would be in
prison for inviting them to church.
So the primary way of evangelism was ordinary people over
ordinary meals. It would be you inviting Rob
over to your house for dinner and feeding him good food and
being present to him in loving ways.
And through that, Rob is exposed to Jesus.
It is that what made Christianity such a powerhouse
in the early church? Think about it for a minute.
The early church was considered to just be the small group, this
the small religious sect. And a few 100 years later, over
half of Rome was Christian. Why?
Because of the practice of hospitality.
So if hospitality is that important, we need to have a
clear picture of what it is. So let's start with a quote.
I like quotes. Do you guys like quotes?
Anyone else like quotes? Yeah.
There we go. OK, so Madeleine Engel is an
American writer. And she says we draw people to
Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe,
but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with
all their hearts to know the source of it.
Hospitality is an act by which you bring a revelation of Christ
to those who are far from Him. It's our presence, church
definition that hospitality is intentionally creating safe
space for friends, strangers, and enemies to experience the
love and presence of Christ. At its core, hospitality is the
creation of space. It is making room for people to
encounter God. So let's take a deeper look
where we've described what hospitality is, but I want to
give you kind of four pictures. 4 dimensions of hospitality.
First, hospitality turns strangers and enemies into
friends through the love of God. I want you to think from, I want
you to take yourself back to high school, unless you were
home schooled. I'm sorry, I'm I'm there with
you. You have your tray in hand and
you're trying to decide who you're going to eat with.
Who are you looking to eat with? You're looking to to sit with
friends, right? Or maybe you're, you're a
football player, you're looking to sit with the other football
players. You're looking to eat with
people that are like you. And we never outgrow that, do
we? We're constantly trying to hang
out with people that are like us.
The only thing is that you and I are getting better at hiding it.
We sit with people that like us, we sit with people that vote
like us, parent like us, worship like us, and that make us
comfortable. And I'm not saying that it's bad
to necessarily do that, not saying it's bad to eat with
friends. But what I am saying is that
that's not the vision of hospitality that Jesus had.
Think about Matthew 5 for a moment.
It's a part of the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus is best teaching where he gives a vision of what the
Kingdom of heaven looks like in daily life.
And he talks about enemy love. And he says that hey, the the
pagans, those that don't follow me, that don't believe in God,
they hang out and they love people that are like them.
So if we just do that, how are we any different?
Jesus says if you only love those who love you, where is
your reward in that? Even tax collectors do that.
The way of Jesus opens the table outwards.
Justin Whitmore, early in his book on rule of life, says
cultivating rhythms of the table must not pull us away from the
outsider. A redeemed table is one that
invites outsiders in. The heart of hospitality is
looking out for the stranger, for the lost, for maybe those
that we don't want relationship with and welcomes them in #2
Hospitality is about love, not results.
Hospitality is all about love of God and love of neighbor, OK?
It has nothing to do with what you get out of the relationship,
OK? How many of us have been to a
dinner where someone tried to sell us something?
Oh, it's an uncomfortable app in the room.
What Jesus is saying is that's not, that's not really
hospitality. And sometimes it's not just
money, right? It's not just like someone
trying to literally sell you something.
Sometimes we're just trying to create a relationship, so maybe
we can borrow something of theirs, or maybe increase our
influence or maybe do better at work.
But all of that has to do with you.
It doesn't have to do with the other person or God.
Think about this for a moment. What does Jesus say is the
greatest commandment? Go ahead and shout it out if you
know it. I heard, I heard a couple love
God, right. Jesus has the lawyer come to him
and he says, Jesus, what is the most important commandment?
And Jesus says, well, love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your
mind, which if you were a good Jewish man, you would know is
the Shema, a daily prayer that you learned as a little boy that
you would say three times a day that would keep you anchored.
And I need to love God, love God, love God, love God.
But Jesus then anchors another commandment to it.
He says, and love your neighbor as yourself.
This was revolutionary. He's saying that the love of God
has to flow into the love of neighbor.
Spiritual formation. Us becoming like Christ does not
just make us good lovers of God. It has to flow into US becoming
people of love for the sake of others.
Christian hospitality has to be different than the way the world
practices hospitality. And I know that hospitality is
kind of like a buzzword, especially if you work in the
service industry. I worked in a hotel and we
constantly talked about hospitality.
But The thing is, at the end of the day, it's not Christian
hospitality because I, as an employee of a hotel, am trying
to get your money right. A cafe shows you hospitality,
but if you leave without paying for your drink, they're not
going to respond very well. Right There was this time Missy
and I before we were married. We were dating and I had AI had
an old mentor friend reach out to me and ask us to dinner and I
was so excited. Her and her husband were were so
kind all of the time. They were the kind of people
that were just like completely present to you.
Have you ever met someone like that?
Like you feel like there is nothing else that matters except
you when you are talking to them?
And they were movie lovers. I'm a movie lover.
So I was really looking forward to going over to their house for
dinner. We were having spaghetti.
It was before I was gluten free. So good.
Miss You was a little apprehensive.
She was like, why are they asking us to dinner?
It's been like 3 years since you've seen them.
And I was like, let's not worry about it Let's go have spaghetti
and a great meal and enjoy their presents.
And we went over and it was some of the best spaghetti I've ever
had. Like not just like I do
spaghetti with like a little bit of butter and salt, but like it
had like Italian seasoning red Peppers, meatballs.
I don't even know how to make a meatball.
Garlic bread. Come on, I'm making my my celiac
heart really sad. We had a great conversation.
We talked about movies. We talked about what we had
seen, what we had loved. It was so fun.
And at the end of the meal, my old mentor said, hey, I got
something to show you. You want to go watch?
And as a movie lover, I'm like, let's go, let's go watch.
We go ahead and we sit down and he begins to show us a
commercial for a pyramid scheme. How do you think I felt in this
moment? I felt sad.
I felt like I actually didn't quite matter.
And I had to look at my future wife and say, you were right.
What they were doing was not actual hospitality.
It didn't actually foster love in our relationship.
In fact, all it did was drive us away.
The litmus test of hospitality is our motivation.
Am I making space for love or am I making space for something
else? My friends, God will not share
space with our agendas. Let me say that again.
God won't share space with our agendas.
If you are entering into a relationship with someone, if
you're trying to createspace for them to experience the love and
presence of God and you have another agenda, God will not
meet you there. God's call is to love him and
our neighbor dimension 3. When we practice hospitality, we
image God the story of Scripture.
Spoiler alert, I know some of you are like Bible and a year
fans and I'm going to spoil scripture for you.
The entirety of scripture is the story of God trying to have
relationship with his people. It's God trying to be present to
his people, whether it's Genesis 1 and 2 or God creates a garden
so he can have relationship with us so that we can work with him
so that he can see us face to face.
And then the fall happens, right?
And God is trying to find a way to get back to his people.
He goes through the family of Abraham.
You think of like the story of of Moses and the slaves in Egypt
and the go to Mount Sinai and Jesus invite or God invites
Moses up on the mountain with a bunch of his buddies and what
does God do with them? He has a meal with them.
The Tabernacle is just a space at the tent that God uses to be
with his people. The temple is just a place that
that God makes so that he can be present to his people.
The reason that Jesus comes is so that Jesus can be with his
people. The reason the Holy Spirit comes
is so that God can be in us. The reason the church starts is
so that we can be God's presence in our world.
The whole story of Scripture is this, the story of God making
room to be with us. It is what Dallas Willard called
the with God life. Karen Burton Mains writes.
The essence of hospitality is a heart open to God with room
prepared for the guestiveness of the Holy Spirit that welcomes
the presence of Christ. This is what we share with those
whom we open our doors. We give them Him.
In hospitality, we do not merely give people food.
We don't give them a good time. Our goal is to create space for
an encounter with God himself. Hospitality is US joining God in
his mission. It's US imaging God.
Finally, hospitality has nothing to do with presentation.
It has everything to do with presence.
Christine Pole, she has a book on hospitality, says hospitality
is not so much a task as a way of living our shared lives and
of sharing ourselves. Listen, I get that hospitality
is kind of hard. I'm preaching this message.
Let me tell you guys, I've been studying for this message for
two or three weeks and I've been convicted the entire time.
I literally have had things that I'm supposed to go to that I
struggled with that I was like, I don't want to go or I don't
want to have people over. My house is not clean enough.
I'm not enough good enough cook. We have a small apartment.
That seems like a good reason not to have people over.
I don't know if they actually like me.
I'm not that friendly. I don't know what to say.
I don't know how to make it special.
But see, all of these things are what distinguish entertainment
from hospitality. Entertainment.
Ask the question, what can I provide for you?
Hospitality says there is room for you with me.
Entertainment is about presentation.
Hospitality is about presence. Jesus was the most hospitable
person that ever lived and he did not have a home.
He didn't have anything to give other than himself.
I think we can all like get in the headspace of Martha in the
story of Mary and Martha, maybe you know it.
Jesus goes to their house to to take a break to enjoy their
presence and marry the little sister.
She sits right down at the feet of Jesus and they enjoy one
another. She's listening to his
teachings. But what does it say that Martha
does? It says Martha is anxious.
She's looking all over the place.
She is constantly working. Martha opens up her home, but
Mary is sitting at her feet. Martha is distracted by
everything except actually being with Jesus.
Martha is trying to host Jesus without being with Jesus.
Some of us do this. We try to give people a clean
house, a good meal, a good time of polished version of
ourselves, but we withhold our presence.
Hospitality is not about the room you prepare, it's who you
prepare to be in that room. Hospitality is all about what
you carry with you. You could throw a really good
party, great spread, big screen TV, yard games, whatever people
like to do. But if you're unpeaceful, if you
are unable to show the love of Christ, if you fail to create
that environment where people experience Jesus because you are
so far away from like him, then if you have failed at
hospitality, and that's not to bash anybody, this isn't like a
like, Oh no, you haven't done hospitality or you've done
hospitality. The reality is, is that
hospitality is for the other person, but it's also for you.
Because if you're in the space where the Holy Spirit comes,
where the presence of God comes and his love is with that other
person, you are also there. It is in hospitality that we get
a gift as well of the Holy Spirit's presence.
Now, I know that like this idea, I think it's beautiful.
Like I think it's beautiful that Christ gave us a practice that
can make strangers or enemies our friend.
A practice where people can really experience, like, I don't
know about you, but the idea of evangelism.
There's different people of different types, but like
evangelism can stress me out. The idea of going and having
just like a dry conversation with someone about Jesus, It
stresses me out and I've seen it go really badly before.
But man, the idea that I can just be present to someone.
I can be a loving presence and invite God into that.
And that's what changes lives, man.
That takes the burden off. So what are some of the reasons
that you and I struggle with doing this practice?
Well, if we're honest, we're tired.
A lot of us work a long days, and the idea of having someone
over at the end of the day, it exhausts us.
A lot of us are hurried. We live in an age where fast
food is eaten more often than not.
And why? Because we don't even have time
to plan dinner. If I don't have time to plan
dinner for myself, how am I going to plan dinner for someone
else? We're overextended, emotionally
spent, We're constantly moving. This is all why hospitality has
to be a practice. Or or it can be, as some writers
call, a discipline. Because Christian hospitality
can't be our choice. Because you're going to come to
the day where you don't feel like practicing it.
Hospitality has to be an intentional pre decision to love
others, John Ortberg writes. Love and hurry are fundamentally
incompatible. Love always has time, and time
is the one thing that hurried people do not have.
Our world does not need Christians with a lot of
convictions or a lot of opinions for a lot of really hard
conversations. We need people willing to open
space for the Spirit to work. People for, for the most part,
are not argued into faith, but they are welcomed.
They encounter a kind of love they can't explain, a kind of
peace they don't have, a kind of presence that they are starving
for. See, we live in a world of
secularism, which means that we, especially if you are a
millennial, you are naturally wondering what actually is going
on, right? So when you get that invitation
to dinner, you're asking why? Why do they want to have dinner?
Why does that person want to have coffee?
What's actually going on? You can't argue with that.
Secularism is a mood. What it needs is loving presence
to be changed. Moods are not changed by
arguments, but they are changed by presence.
The final reason that this is difficult, I think, is because
you and I don't have a vision of hospitality in our lives.
I feel like I'm the pastor that always gets to talk about
loneliness, but I think there's a lot of really lonely people in
the room. I think there's a lot of people
that that don't feel seen or maybe you feel used by those
around you, like you're a tool and not a person.
And the reality is, is that at the end of the day, the reason
that you and I practice hospitality is because Jesus
practiced hospitality first. There is.
Please listen. I know there's a couple of you
that need to hear this. There is a place for you at
Jesus's table. It doesn't matter what you've
done. It doesn't matter what you think
of him. Jesus was eating with the tax
collectors. He can take the heat.
You are welcome at his table. You don't need to have
prerequisites. You don't need to wait to become
the kind of person to sit at that table.
Jesus wants to meet you there. Jesus wants, Jesus wants you to
frankly abide. And so my invitation today is,
is twofold. We're going to talk a little bit
about how to actually practice hospitality for a moment.
But really first I want you to consider what it means that you
already have been invited to Jesus's table, that he has
already practiced hospitality to you.
And what that means is that who are you able to say no to that's
going to be at your table? No one.
You didn't earn a place at Jesus table.
That means people don't earn a place at your table.
You didn't have to get good enough.
You don't have to have the right attitudes.
I you don't even have to have all of the right beliefs.
You can be arguing with Jesus and Jesus still invites you to
sit there. So how do you and I begin to
practice hospitality? Well, first we need to just make
room. Following Jesus is much more
about emptying your life than it is adding things on top.
Have you ever noticed that? Think about the things Jesus is
calling you to do. Sit with him and quiet.
Sit with him and abiding talks to the the rich man and says
give away all of your possessions 'cause they're
giving and getting in the way. The way of Jesus is much more
about subtraction that it is addition.
So that means when I'm inviting you to practice hospitality, I'm
not inviting you to make a more full calendar.
What I'm asking you to do is to open your doors.
You are already eating dinner, correct?
Open your door to someone having dinner with you.
I think my favorite people that I have ever eaten dinner with
invited me over into their messy homes.
Maybe you've had someone like that when you were younger, not
married, and you had an older couple that said come on over,
but my kids toys are all over the place.
That is a more loving place than a perfect place.
The invitation is not to add to your calendar, it is just to
open your doors. But a couple really practical
things. First, learn your neighbors
names really quick. Think for a moment.
Can you name the people that live around you next door
neighbors, people that live behind you, live across the
street? Do you know their names?
Do you know their stories? Do you know what they do for a
living? We can't start practicing
hospitality until we know who we live with.
And I'll be honest, I'm just as guilty as of this, but I'm
trying. We know the people that live
behind us in our apartment building.
We didn't, we we barely know, knew the people that lived
across the way, but we had new people move in during me
studying for this practice. So we've been trying to get to
know them a little bit. And my wife, my wife is better
at this than I am. She was like, when are we having
them over for dinner? I'm like, yeah, I'm so
uncomfortable, but that's the idea.
If you don't know their names, go ask.
It might be a little awkward, but just go over.
The weather is gorgeous. It's the summertime.
They're going to be outside. Hey, my name is Patrick.
We haven't met. What's your name?
Hey, I'm Patrick. Nice weather.
Like you guys know how to do this better than I was.
I was homeschooled. You have an advantage #2 I want
you to begin praying about who God wants you to have at your
table. I want you to really, really ask
God and spend some time and this can be as easy as you sitting
down in your quiet time or just sitting down with a notebook and
pen and ask Jesus, who will you have me over?
People will come to mind. And you need to push past the
obvious. OK, You need to push past the
people that have been over before.
Again, the friends, the family, unless do you have a family
member that you need to reconcile with?
Is there a hard conversation that you need to have or you
need to just forgive? Is there someone from work that
you don't get along with very well?
Is there someone that you have just a blind spot for?
The great thing is you don't need to figure this out by
yourself, but take some time and ask Jesus who are the people
that need to be at my table? And if you need a hint, it's
going to be people that make you uncomfortable.
Practice three practice. 3rd circle hospitality. 3rd circle
hospitality. Rosaria Butterfield has this
book called The Gospel comes with a House Key.
If you don't know who she is, she was a a gay activist that
was doing everything she could to destroy Christianity.
She wrote for for a newspaper and she was at every event, she
was in every Christian's face. She saw on the street corner,
She was doing everything she could to get them out of her
town. And so one day her neighbor came
over to her door and invited her over for dinner.
And she knew that he was a pastor.
And she thought, man, this is perfect.
I can get on the inside. I can prove that he's a
hypocrite. I can get the inside information
about him. And so she went over and she had
a lovely time. And then at the end of the meal,
he said, would you like to come over next week?
She said, yeah, I guess maybe I'll have to spend more time
with him. Week after week she went, and he
let her ask question after question after question.
And after a couple years of this weekly practice of eating with
one another, she repented. She accepted Jesus as her Lord
and Saviour. And she is now like on the front
edge of evangelism, talking about the need for for for
Christians to just open their doors.
Here's the thing about 3rd Circle hospitality.
You have three circles. You have friends.
Again, not bad. And then you have strangers.
But whether it's a tax collector or Rosaria Butterfield who was
looking to literally destroy the church, 3rd Circle Hospitality
are your enemies. And this takes some courage.
Do you have the courage to have an enemy over for dinner?
Number four, stop overcomplicating it.
Stop overcomplicating it. It's OK if your house is messy.
You can order pizza, right? Most of us like pizza.
I don't. I'm gluten free.
That's the third time I've mentioned it.
But if you've had gluten free pizza, you understand, make
soup, sit down on the porch, go for a walk, get games out that
you naturally have. You don't need it.
You're doing activities anyways. Just invite people over.
One of my favorite things I used to do when I ran young adults
groups is I would be having a movie night because I was going
to watch a movie and I let people come over and eat my food
and watch a movie with me. We watched through all of The
Avengers films, 23 of them. I remember this has nothing to
do with the sermon, but I felt so bad for one girl.
She never saw one. In her first week we were
watching Avengers Infinity War. She spent the entire time asking
questions, but she was still welcome.
She was a stranger to the MCU and I invited her in.
Anyways, the point is, don't overcomplicate it.
Just open your doors. Finally, just be present.
Put your phone away. Put your phone away.
Patrick, put your phone away. I don't know about you, but when
things feel awkward, I go to my phone.
When I'm uncomfortable, I go to my phone, put it away, get a
box, put it on the wall, hide it, give it to your wife and say
put it in your purse, I don't need it.
And look at the person you're sitting with and listen.
There is an art to actually sitting and listening to people.
Consider, am I listening to what this person is saying or am I
thinking about my response? You can change people's hearts
by just listening. You don't need to argue.
God doesn't need you to defend him.
He's got it. He's not worried.
Sit and listen to the other person and show compassion.
People need hospitality. So in closing, there's this
really good. It's an old book.
It's called The Serious Call to a Devout in Holy Life.
How many of you want to read that?
That sounds great, right? And he has this description of
hospitality that's stuck with me over and over again.
I wrote it on a note card and every time I would sit down to
work on my sermon, I'd pull it out and look at it.
It's beautiful. And so I want you to, as you, as
you listen to this, there's two ways I want you to think about
it. The first one is, is God calling
me to to do any of these? Is there a person in my life
that I need to practice one of these things with?
But the second, I want you to listen or I want you to read
this list and I want you to consider Christ towards you.
I want you to consider Christ's posture towards you because we
do not createspace for the stranger or the enemy to meet
the love and presence of God just because we feel like it.
We do it as a response. Because Jesus found us first.
He invited us to His table first.
Condescend to all the weakness and infirmities of your fellow
creatures. Cover their frailties, love
their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their
wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate in
their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their
unkindness, forgive their malice, and be a servant of
servants. To quote The Mandalorian, this
is the way. Jesus is not looking for you to
be really good at arguing. He's not looking for you to have
it all figured out. Jesus is looking for available
people. Jesus is looking for people that
createspace for his presence.