Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
HomeSermonsHospitalityHospitality: A Masculine…

Hospitality: A Masculine Virtue

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Good morning, how are you? [audio unclear] So, we’re going to look at a number of texts today. I want to continue our discussion that we started last week about hospitality. If you’re in a life group, you’ve been studying the topic. And we had a conference a while back and we talked about the other, the unknown, and reaching out to the unknown, even the unknown in our own lives, the unknown you might see every week at church, not just the unknown way out there. And my title today is Hospitality, a Male Virtue or Masculine Virtue. What was the title I gave you? Something. Masculine Virtue. Now if any of you guys read the news, you keep on seeing this thing come up called toxic masculinity. Heard the phrase? Right? So if you just Google masculinity, here’s a definition that says, a position of qualities traditionally associated with men. Handsome, muscled. Toxic masculinity in boys fueling an epidemic of loneliness. How masculinity is evolving. Here’s a good one. Hold on. There’s some good ones out here. Training the masculinity out of our children. Here’s a good one. Masculinity is an anxiety disorder. Well you know most of the kids that are on mood-altering drugs are young men, are young boys, not young girls. So we’re drugging them. Because the assumption is that masculinity is a bad thing. You know Aristotle said something very profound. I think it was Aristotle. He said something very profound. He said, he that defines the terms wins the argument. Right? If you define masculinity as unbridled aggressiveness, then of course it’s toxic, right? So how do you define it? Well, who defines it? Does God define it? Although God never gives us a definition of masculinity, He gives us pictures of it all throughout the Bible. And one of the striking things as it relates to the topic of hospitality is that in Scripture, hospitality is pictured as a male or a masculine virtue, which is very different than the way our society sees hospitality, right? We think of it as a female virtue, not a male virtue. It just shows one of the ways, excuse me, we’ve drifted from a biblical worldview on so many things.

The Words Themselves: Pursue Hospitality

So my first point is that we see the masculine aspect of hospitality in the very words that are used when we’re exhorted to it. Go to Romans 12, and we’re going to look at a lot of Scripture today, is that okay? Is the Bible okay in this room? All right, just make sure. I don’t feel like getting stoned this morning. Romans 12, “Let love be without hypocrisy.” 12:9, I’m sorry. “Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.” As I pointed out before, the word here, given, could be translated pursue, I think King James even says pursue hospitality. And my version says given, yours may say something different, but the root word here is used in hunting. Now there’s a masculine activity. How many men here like to go hunting, right? Yeah. So in other words, go hunting for hospitality. In other words, go hunting for people that you can bless. Go hunting for the other, the unknown, the stranger. One author says, we’re here directed to not only practice hospitality, but according to the import of the original, meaning this original word, to follow or pursue it. Christians are to seek opportunities of thus manifesting love of their brother and love of the other. In other words, take initiative. Now, I’m not a hunter. The big game I’ve killed is a squirrel. No horns, nothing to put on the wall. Although I did take the tail home, but I think I gave it to one of my kids. It was Lydia. Lydia was the one that liked animals and bugs and things like that. She got the tail. I don’t know where it went. Anyway, that’s my big game. That’s my big hunting expedition. My booty, as they say—no, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter. You know, the prize for the hunt, the booty. Wow. I did not say what they thought I said. So hospitality is an initiative word. In that sense, it’s an aggressive word, but not a hostile word. You get the difference? You can be assertive, be aggressive, but not hostile, because what you’re asserting is a good thing. What you’re pursuing is a good thing, a positive thing. So take the initiative. Hospitality is not a passive virtue. We pray, we plan, we prepare for it that we might practice it.

Look at 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 9, as I said we’ll be jumping around. 1 Peter is right before 2 Peter, does that help? Nope. 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 9, y’all there? What does he say? He says, well let’s start in 7, he says, “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’ Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.” One author says this, he says, the connection between Christian love and hospitality is even more clear in 1 Peter 4 than Romans 12. Peter exhorts believers to keep fervent love for one another. The Greek word for fervent conveys the idea of persistent effort, resolve, or exertion at full stretch or strength. Would you like that? Masculine ideas, strenuous, labor, stretching, working. Thus, there’s no weakening of love. As Cranfield, one Bible commentator, says, “Fervently, perhaps, gives the wrong nuance. For it might suggest that the emphasis is on warmth of emotion, whereas the Greek word it represents suggests rather the taut muscle of strenuous and sustained effort, as of an athlete. Its root idea is stretching. Xenophon uses the verb to describe a horse at full gallop. So strenuous or persistent would probably be a better rendering here. It suggests a certain toughness of love, a love that endures.” Isn’t that good? So above all things have tough love, above all things have strenuous love, above all things have laborious love, all of those translations would actually work here. And then the example of that or the demonstration of that is, “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.” [audio unclear] So he said, Peter asks here, do it, but don’t complain. Some people are really like Martha. They’ll serve and serve and serve, but they let you know. They remind you they’re serving because they’re grumbling about it. Remember when Martha came to Jesus and complained, right? Mary wasn’t doing her part. Alexander Strauch says this, he says, “Unquestionably, hospitality is hard work. It is costly and sometimes inconvenient. The pursuit of hospitality can easily degenerate into displeasure and murmuring. It is surely a concrete, down-to-earth test of fervent love. Love can be abstract and an indistinct idea. But hospitality is specific and tangible. Hospitality is love in deeds.” And as I’ve said many times, it’s easy to love humanity and not your neighbor. It’s easy to love in the general but not in the specific because the specific is marred and fallen and problematic. The ideal is, well, it’s ideal. That’s why we like to dwell on the ideals. But love is not an abstract ideal. Love is action. And hospitality is one of the ways we show it. But in order to show it, we have to exercise. It’s costly.

A Requirement for Church Leadership

Another striking thing in Scripture that shows the masculinity of hospitality is that it’s actually a requirement for church leadership. A requirement for church leadership. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. In verse 1, y’all there? Paul says, “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop,” mine says bishop, elder would probably be as well, overseer, “he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine,” meaning not addicted to it, “not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.” So hospitality here and in Titus chapter 1 where there’s another list, very similar list of elder requirements, we have this idea of hospitality. And it’s striking because it’s not just suggested, it’s actually required. If someone is going to be an elder in a church, we’ll be calling elder a pastor these days, they must demonstrate hospitality. It’s a requirement. My impression is that in our culture, it’s usually the woman that has a social calendar, right? Hey, you guys want to get together? Yeah, talk to my wife. That’s what we do. But here, the burden is placed upon the man to hold this qualification of hospitality. In our culture, the common perception is that women are more affective, meaning affectionate or relational, men are simply not. You say to a group of women, hey, let’s get together, like, okay. Say to a group of men, hey, let’s get together, and, like, what for? In other words, there’s got to be a reason. It can’t just be to be together. It can’t be just to know one another and develop a relationship. That’s not why we get together, right? We have to do something. Yet when we look in Scripture, we see that leading men in Scripture were always marked by this trait of hospitality.

Leading Men in Scripture

Go to Genesis 18. We’ll look at a few examples in the Old Testament. We see the example of Abraham, the man of God, Abraham. Genesis 18 verse 1 it says, “Then the Lord appeared to him,” meaning Abraham, “by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day.” Notice that he’s sitting at the tent door, and just because of the heat. Well I’ll explain more about that later. “So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, ‘My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.’ They said, ‘Do as you have said.’ So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, ‘Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes.’ And Abraham ran to the herd, took a tender and good calf, gave it to a young man, and he hastened to prepare it.” So the image is somebody not just showing hospitality, but somebody that’s eagerly showing, right? He’s running, he’s hurrying, he greets them, he’s the first one to greet them. And then he offers hospitality. They don’t require it. He offers it. He initiates and then he is eager to do it. He’s running. He’s hurrying to show them hospitality.

Look at Genesis 19. We see this similar example with Lot. By the way, Lot gets a bad rap. A lot of people think Lot, like the heading of my Bible says, you know, backslidden Lot. But when you read the New Testament, Lot’s not criticized as a bad guy. That’s a footnote. 19:1. “Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.” So again you notice he’s at the gate, he’s looking, he sees them, he initiates to them. He doesn’t wait for them, he goes to them. “And he said, ‘Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.’” So he initiates by going to them, then he invites them into his home. He just invited them in. They didn’t ask. He initiated and invited them. “They said, ‘No, but we will spend the night in the open square.’ But he insisted strongly; so they turned in to him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.” So he offers, he initiates hospitality, then they decline, and so what does he do? He didn’t say, okay. He persists in his invitation and his outreach to them and exhorts them to come in and stay in his home so that he can give them a feast. And then they finally respond.

Go to Exodus chapter 2, a situation involving Moses. You know Moses’ basic story, right? He kills the Egyptian. [audio unclear] Now the priest of Midian—they came and drew water and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Moses. [audio unclear]

We have these lenses where we look at masculinity and femininity in such a way that the initiative for relationships is almost always put on the feminine, other than in what we call dating or courtship. There it’s assumed the man should initiate to the woman, right? But once they’re married, the woman’s now the one who initiates outside the family to connect with other couples and other families. Whereas in Scripture the pictures, it’s the man who’s initiating hospitality.

The Myth of the Lone Ranger

So we have this notion of the suffering lion, the lone-ranger male in our society, right? The tough, solitary, living on the range. He’s got his rifle and his horse and he’s just out there by himself. Because he’s a tough guy. And that’s what men are, they’re tough guys. And they just go it alone. And so this really is a myth of the, you know, self-reliant individual male, and it has hurt biblical fellowship in the American church. And it’s cut many men off from edifying relationships and loving accountability. And it weakens them spiritually and emotionally whether they know it or not. So they become inferior Christians because they’re not being sharpened by other men. What does the Word of God say? Iron sharpens iron, right? Iron sharpens iron. And so men need other men whether they want to admit it or not. But the truth is most of the men that I know do not have a good friend. Most of the men that I know do not have a good friend. And that’s a demonstration, not of masculinity, it’s a demonstration, I believe, of how culture has shaped the way we live, shaped our masculinity, if you will, versus the biblical model. That’s not the biblical model. That’s not what we see in Scripture. When Jesus came, what did He do? You know, He gathered men around Him. He built a brotherhood, right? They walked with Him, He walked with them, they talked together, they prayed together, they ministered together, they did these things together. So let me encourage you men to repudiate this myth of the self-reliant lone-ranger male Christian. It is a myth and it is harmful. It will harm you spiritually and emotionally.

You know, in the ancient Middle East, really in the time of Abraham and even for hundreds and thousands of years afterwards, it was criminal for a man to injure another man who had eaten bread with him. It was considered equivalent to lifting his hand against his own flesh and blood. Why? Because by dining together, they were considered brothers of the bread. That’s the phrase they use. We are now brothers of the bread. By sitting at my table, you are now my family. And by being a brother of the bread, you pledge to do each other no harm and to also actively promote each other’s safety. Isn’t that a great phrase? Brothers of the bread. And ironically, that’s what Christian men already are, whether they know it or not, because we are all bound together by a common meal of the bread and wine, the Lord’s Supper, amen? And when we take that meal together, we are pledging to love one another, guard one another, and not harm one another. Psalm 133:1 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Amen.

Also in the Middle East, amongst the Arabs, and of course this is the culture where we see so much biblical history, one author says this, turning to the Arabs, among whom are best reflected the immemorial usages of the East, we find that among them, a man’s hospitality is largely the measure of his reputation. A closed fist, this is one of their sayings, a closed fist and a narrow heart and a miserly soul shall not hold rule over them. To be described as a man of much ashes is a coveted distinction. A man of much ashes. Because the heap of ashes by his tent indicated the extent of his cooking for the entertainment of his guests. Isn’t that good? Today we’d have the man of many pizza boxes. They had another saying, the man whose dogs bark loudly is one held in highest esteem. Why? Because the dogs were guiding the wanderer, the stranger who might not otherwise find his dwelling. So you’d hear the dog and you’d follow the voice or the noise of the dogs. The sheik’s tent always stands in the camp nearest the traveled way to offer first welcome to the approaching stranger. And that’s why we see Lot is in the gate. Abraham’s at the tent. In other words, they are aware and looking for opportunities to invite others into their home. His superior position must be vindicated by his superior liberality. Let me say it again. His superior position must be vindicated by his superior liberality. In other words, the higher one went up in the social status, if you will, the more it was required of you to demonstrate that you were hospitable. I love that. A man of much ashes and a brother of the bread.

Hospitality in the Father and the Son

We see this masculine aspect of hospitality in the Lord, I mean in God Himself, the Father and in the Son. Look at Luke 14. Here in Luke 14 we have a beautiful parable about the great supper, about a great supper, and we’ll start in verse 15. “Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him,” meaning with Jesus, “heard these things, he said to Him, ‘Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,’” or eat dinner. Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited,’” meaning those who were invited and didn’t respond, “‘shall taste my supper.’” So the divine host here, of course, this is God the Father in the parable, right? Who’s inviting all to come to the feast that He’s provided through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. That’s what we remember in the Lord’s Supper when we take the bread and the wine. That’s, we wouldn’t call that a feast, right? A little wafer and a little cup of wine, but it’s symbolic of the great feast that we will be experiencing if we’ve come to Jesus Christ. So here the host is the Father. He hosts a banquet and He invites all to come. And here we in this parable, we are the poor. We’re the maimed. We’re the blind. That’s who we are in this parable. We are the ones on the outside. We were the ones, we Gentiles, we were the ones who were not initially invited. The initial invitation went to the Jews. Jews first, right? And by and large, the Jewish people didn’t respond. And so the Father says, well okay, let’s invite the Gentiles. And out the invitation goes. Let’s invite the alien, let’s invite the stranger in. [audio unclear] The stranger now becomes a family member. God’s superior position as sovereign Lord is vindicated by His superior liberality as the supreme Benefactor.

But we see the same thing in the Son. Go to John 13 and we’ll close with this. John 13, Jesus gives a really beautiful illustration here of hospitality in John chapter 13. Verse 1, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And supper being ended,” or some of your versions may say during supper, “the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.” Jesus, I mean, this is so amazing, you know? It’s like when they’re dining, which is the symbol of this brothers-of-the-bread thing, right? The dining together, a pledge, it’s a pledge of loyalty is what it is. They’re pledging loyalty to one another by dining. It’s right when they’re pledging loyalty that the devil moves in and Judas turns to betray Him. The very opposite of what this dining together really symbolized. Verse 3, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.” So ordinarily in those days when someone would come to your home, you would have a basin of water and they would come in and they could wash their own feet. Or you might have a servant who would attend to them. But as the host, you didn’t usually wash their feet. It wasn’t your job. Here Jesus not only dines with them, and He takes the role of the servant and actually washes the feet of His disciples. You talk about being hospitable, right? So Jesus here is the perfect man, the man’s man, as well as the model for not only men, but women also. But He was the ultimate hospitable host or the gracious servant. Amen? And yet He was, He washes the disciples’ feet. In other words, His superior position is vindicated by His superior hospitality.

Initiate, Count the Cost, Look to Jesus

So in conclusion, let me just say this, just as God has regard for us, and remember in the biblical narrative, we are the stranger. We are the other. We are the ones outside of God’s family. Just as God had regard for strangers, meaning us, so we should have regard for those we don’t know. You know, when the young lawyer asked Jesus, he said, who is my neighbor? Jesus gave him an example of somebody who was in need. That’s who your neighbor is, someone who’s in need. So should you ask who’s my stranger? He will show you a person you don’t know. Indeed the heart of hospitality is regard for the stranger. You can look around this room today and extend yourself to someone. Even in a group this size, there are people that you may have been seeing for weeks and weeks and weeks, maybe even years, and you don’t know them. Reach out to them. Initiate. Just as God initiated our salvation, in other words, He invited us. He invited us to the church. You likewise pursue hospitality or take initiative.

Lastly, just as Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him, so in order to practice hospitality we do need to count the cost because there’s a cost, right? It takes time, might take some expense, takes getting the house ready, and yet we’re called to do these things without complaint. Jesus wept in Gethsemane, but it wasn’t because He was complaining. He was enduring, right? Jesus wasn’t a whiner, Jesus was a winner. Yeah, I saw this lecture the other day by actually a non-Christian who was talking about the biblical Jesus, and he said, you know, we got this whole, he said, this whole cultural picture of the meek and mild feminine Jesus, that’s not the Jesus I see in the Bible. This guy’s not even a Christian. But he’s right. When you read the Gospels, Jesus, man, He’s tough. I mean, He is brave, He is bold, He’s assertive when He needs to be, yet He can be kind, He can get down and wash people’s feet. I mean, He is the perfect human being. It’s amazing. But He wasn’t a wimp. He wasn’t a whiner. He didn’t complain. He didn’t moan and groan, because life was hard. He’s our exemplar. He is our pattern of the Christian life. The Christ-life is to look at Jesus. Amen? You know, if you extend yourself to others and you are not by others rewarded or appreciated, remember this, many whom the Father invited did not come. Many for whom Jesus died have trodden underfoot the Son of God. So you, I, we may never be amply appreciated in this life, but Jesus has for you an eternal reward. For as you have done it unto the least of these, He says, you have done it unto Me. And Jesus will repay you. Amen.

Let’s stand and pray. Lord we thank You so much that You have a heart of hospitality. Father, that You have regard for the stranger, the outcast, the poor, the lame, the blind, and that’s who so many of us were. We were on the outside, we were aliens to the promises, strangers to the covenant and to the household of God, but now Lord, through Your initiative, Your initiative, You have invited us and drawn us into Your family. We thank You, Father, that You have made us Your children, not just Your guests, but Your children. We thank You, God, that we belong to Your family. Lord, I pray for any here today that aren’t in the family or maybe they’re not sure. I ask that today, Lord, they might understand Your great love for them. And that parable that I read earlier, Lord, is an invitation to them from You. Come to the feast, all things are now ready. God, through His Son Jesus Christ, has died for your sins, and He has risen from the dead to conquer your guilt and your shame. He is now ascended, sits at the right hand of the Father, and He will give to you eternal life and the forgiveness of sins if you call upon His name. He is inviting you, not just to a banquet, but through that banquet, through the shed blood, the broken body of His Son Jesus. He is inviting you to fellowship with Him and to join His family. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord, meaning Jesus, will be saved. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord, Jesus, will not be ashamed. For God so loved the world, the world, that’s how much hospitality God has, that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. God wants to give you eternal life and forgiveness of sins. The meal’s been prepared. He’s done all the work. He says, come. Come to Jesus in simple faith. Father, grant faith to those hearing today. Open their eyes and their hearts to know how much You love them, how much You desire them to come to the feast that You’ve made. And may they do so, Lord, for Your glory. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.