Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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The Blessings of Hospitality

Sermon Transcript

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

Life Group Shares

Good. Did you get the memo about some of you wanted to share about Life Group? Anybody get that memo? Raise your hand. Only one person, two people, only, oh, come on, more. Only three people got the email. Is that possible? Mike Dean, did you get it? So people are pulling their phones out right now, to email. All right, well, of the three people that got the email, would anyone like to share? Over here, what’s your name? Where’d the microphone go? Oh, hey, how you doing? Good to see you. All right, is it working? Oh, that was a joke. No, no, now you have to share. All right. Josh, come on up.

Let’s give it up for Josh Beatty, the one and only. Yes. [audio unclear] “Because I read that first chapter of the intro, even, that book, and I had like a revelation, like, oh, yeah, Jesus came to the earth and walked the earth eating and drinking with men, and told men to go out and eat and drink with us. You know, and it was like, whoa, what? It was that easy? So it was really, it was a simple revelation, but when I explained it to people, they were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s it, yeah, you did it. That’s all I did. And we’re like, okay. You know, but I mean, Jesus was, you know, Jesus, He performed miracles. He was above, you know, any man, but He was man, you know. So, but that really struck me. It just kind of opened my eyes to how simple it was. And then, you know, further reading the book and then listening to Pastor Vaughan’s sermons, you know, just putting them in practical purposes. It just opened your eyes to how simple it is to bring people into your home, to seek out others. So as we walk in this world as Christians and we try to show people the gospel, it’s just a simple matter of having an open door and having a heart for other people. Stranger-love, I loved that. That was awesome. That was another revelation. I was like, oh yeah, that’s easy. So that’s all I got.” It’s good. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Saw another, yeah, Laura. Laura, by the way, is the esteemed wife of? The one that’s missing today. The one that’s missing today. One of the one. Is he driving today? In the rain. Oh, not good. We need to remind me that we pray for them before I preach. “So for hospitality, I’m just reminded kind of like Josh said, the simplicity of it, just having an open door, just inviting someone to a meal, just inviting someone to engage in fellowship with you. And I think for some of us that is stepping outside of our comfort zone, but for some of us it really is probably more simple than we make it out to be. And as an example, I have a cousin that I’ve been trying to reach for years. And really, in college, I invited her over, and I think I was really in the flesh doing this. I invited her over to college and gave her the gospel. I just presented it. And maybe at the time, I thought that was the right thing to do. And she completely shut me down. She said, it’s my decision, and it’s no. And she walked out. And so maybe the Lord used that. His word never returns void. But I do think that I was doing that out of the flesh, and that I was not attempting to personally develop a relationship with her first. And so recently, my husband and I have spent time with her and her husband developing that relationship, and we’re always praying, Lord, open doors. The Lord has chosen really not to, and really reminded us that relationship is so important. And yes, sometimes God just says, give them the gospel. But sometimes He just says, speak and talk and be the light, and I will show you when that door will open. And so we got that opportunity last week after the devil messed with it the week before—the morning of, someone got the stomach flu and I was like, I know this is Satan. Satan made the stomach flu. I’m convinced. But all the same, we were able to meet with them and it was a really beautiful time to engage in fellowship with them. And so now we have that relationship. We have something to build upon and I’m really grateful for that. So I’m just, to invite people over that I haven’t seen in a long time and new people and just to engage in relationship with them because that’s really what it’s about. That’s what we’re taking. That’s what we’re taking to heaven. So let’s engage in that.” That’s really good. Amen. Thank you, Laura.

Erin, one more, give it up for her. “I have to say I haven’t, I’ve actually been missing Life Group, but the topic of hospitality has just been pretty big. You know, when you invite somebody into the home for a dinner or whatever it might be, to learn something, how much you learn from that person, their life experiences, things that they go through, is just great. And what it can lead to from there, what you learn from them, ways you can help, things you can do, it really makes you grow inside and makes you really feel God’s love. And then whenever you’re able to share it with somebody else, even though you may not see, you may be able to sow a seed, you may not be able to see the fruits of that labor, you may never know it, but you just hope and pray that later on down the road, somebody else can still touch that person and water that seed and let it grow and flourish even more. These past few months, I’ve really learned a lot from a couple of different people, just inviting them into my home, sharing with them, praying with them, and just really trying to help them cope and deal with life, to see that love in their heart, you know, once you share that with them, and for them to, I don’t know, it’s just hard for me to explain.” No, I think we understand. “Yeah, it’s just, it’s amazing whenever you see them grow and even though things may not work out, you know, you expect them to go a certain way and they don’t. You just know that that seed was planted and you just hope that somebody else can water it. I just hope everybody can plant a seed somewhere and don’t expect anything out of it. Just invite them in and talk to them. It means a lot to them.” It’s good. Thank you. Anybody else?

Oh, wait a minute. Should we let the lady go first? Lady first? Old men last. Oh, I thought it was. [audio unclear] “We had a lot of crazy conversations. And we got off topic a lot. Not in a bad way though. I think we were off topic still talking about Jesus and good things, but it just, conversations go all over the place. Have you met me? I mean, but we went through the book and we didn’t necessarily stay focused 100% on the book, but we mostly stayed focused on the topic hospitality in general. So I actually hosted Life Group this year which was really different because in the past I really haven’t had very many people over to my house, especially living in apartments that are smaller, it’s really challenging to have more than a couple people over, and also I like, I don’t know, I think I was just like embarrassed that I had like all this old really disgusting furniture in my apartment. But anyways we bought a condo this year and it’s bigger and more open and I was like, I’m going to host Life Group this year, and it’s funny because I had no idea at the time, because this was last July or something, that we were even going to be talking about hospitality, like having people over and talking to them, but it was a huge blessing because I have been here and feeling like I don’t really like have friends, like even though like you see people all the time and you talk to them and you make small talk, like having actual friends is like a different thing. And so like it’s cool because I feel like I’ve grown into friendships with people, having people over. And I’ve even had people over outside my Life Group, a few of you probably have been over. I’ve just been like, David and I have made a point, starting last November or December we were like, we’re just going to start inviting people over from church. Like, we’re just going to be like, hey, come over, have dinner, like let’s get to know each other. So it’s been really neat like getting to know people. And I just say, man, I really encourage people to just have people over, even if it’s super uncomfortable. I don’t consider myself to be the most spectacular cook or amazing host or anything, but people need to be loved. And the church even needs to get to know each other better than just at church. We can only have so many conversations here at church. Inviting someone in your home is inviting somebody into your life, and people need to be invited into your life. That’s where people feel the most loved and cared about, I believe, and that’s where you can get to know people the best is like, you know, you can be comfortable in your own home and know it might not be comfortable to have people over, but it’s loving. Like, Jesus calls us to love people, and we should become friends, and we should want to become friends with the people we go to church with, and want to be invested in their lives as a whole, and not just like showing up to church and being like, How’s your life? Great. How’s your life? Great. Go. Have a nice day. And like for real, we don’t get to know people that way. So I mean like hospitality is so important in that aspect, including like Laura said, building relationships with people outside of the church. Like even just having people over who, you know, you might have talked to at some point two years ago and was like, oh yeah, cool. We met each other. We should hang out sometime. Like the other day I like reached out to like three girls that I’ve, I’d been saying I’m going to get together for like a year and a half. And I was like, we’re doing it. Planning a date, so I just had one over and having one over on Monday and it’s going to be really awesome. So like God blesses those conversations though and like I’ve gotten to know so many people and just like it’s important to be invested in people’s lives and love them and care about them.” Thank you. Awesome.

“So you know I always thought about Life Groups as being hospitality, having baby showers, wedding showers, and we’ve done that, we’ve got a big house and we can accommodate a large number of people, but you know here, more recently, particularly with this hospitality book, I think we might have been doing a little bit before this book came out, but we sought out this particular individual and started inviting them over to our house. You know it’s not someone that we, you know, it’s not within our age range or common interests necessarily, but it’s somebody that just the Lord laid down on our heart that this person has struggled, and they needed that human contact, that relationship, they’ve got some things going on in their lives that kind of separate them from being able to really get some good Christian fellowship. And although we don’t go out of our way to, you know, proselytize this person and preach to them, we just invite them into our home. We have dinner and befriend them. And we’ve been seeing some changes in this person’s life and it is so awesome to see this. Of course we’ve been praying for them but it’s just such a glory. Praise God to see the changes in this person’s life. We love it.” Thank you. It’s good. It’s all very good.

So I noticed you shared about cook. You don’t think you’re a good cook? What’s one of your favorite things to make? Fettuccine Alfredo. Let me tell you, my wife is the most awesome cook in the world. I can blame her for me being a little overweight because she’s such a good cook. I’m just shifting responsibility there. It’s really my overall. Unless there’s anybody else, I’m going to share briefly from the Word. So anybody else? No? Oh, there is somebody. All right, come on. This is the Life Group. By the way, before you go, Jordan, how come you’re not in a Life Group? Did she really say that? So I guess being married is bad and being older is bad. Okay. Next round we’ll sign you up. Jordan can join ours. Okay. Anyway. It’s like how do you follow Jordan? You really don’t, but you just go with it.

“So remember we were talking about Mary and Martha. And if you don’t know, basically, they were like sisters, had people over. Mary was doing her thing, hanging out with the people. And Martha was doing it all, and she was complaining to Jesus. And He was like, girl, chill out. It’s fine. Just be with Him. And so I’m totally Martha. And it was a moment of conviction. I’ve read that story before, but I guess I didn’t really think about it, because now that we actually do host people, totally Martha, Chris is definitely Mary. And I like, I put him to work cleaning. I’m like, we have to be, it has to—” That’s exactly right. Yeah, yeah, it totally is. “And so I put him to clean. Like it has to be super clean, but also like it has to look like it’s comfortable. So people come over and they feel comfortable. It’s like has to meet that middle. And I’m like really like, I stress-clean and Chris, poor Chris. So we had people over for Chris’s birthday and I’m also very bad at separating my friends that are believers from my friends that aren’t believers. And, because I think it’s more of like, oh my gosh, I don’t want my believer friends to judge me for having a lot of unbeliever friends and for what they say. But like here, the way that everybody is here, I was like, okay, you know what, Chris, like, we’re just going to invite everybody. And they had a great time. They really connected with friends from, we have here from Liberty, and my friends who curse Jesus all the time that I’ve been working on for years. So it was always, I think it was also like, I was a Mary. So that was good. I prayed really hard to be a Mary. And I think God was just showing me that I can’t always do it alone. I have to invite everybody in because the home is like a sacred place, you’re inviting people to your valuable things, your personal life, like when people come over, they don’t just bring their physical mess, they bring their like emotional mess. And like, I just need to be more of a Mary and chill out. So that was, I was, I’m working on it, but I was really glad to like, that was my biggest thing for picking out was like, okay, don’t be Martha.” So shout out, that good? I wish I could have been at that party. You got the room over there, they’re smoking pot. That room they’re reading, studying the Bible, that room. That would have been, that would have been fun. I would have enjoyed that. Great sharing, you, man.

Hey, you don’t have my, you don’t have my clock on back there. What’s that? Uh-oh. Oh, I don’t want to go long. You know me. I say finally and then we’re 30 minutes later.

Introduction: Hospitality Is Being Friendly

Okay, so since we’re sharing, we share about hospitality, I’d like to share a little bit more from the Word on the topic. And today I’ll try to keep it brief, talk about some of the blessings, and they’ve already actually, some of them have already been mentioned, some of the blessings of hospitality. But by way of introduction, let me say this. I think there’s some misconceptions, and I guess I could do a whole sermon on misconceptions about hospitality, that cause us to not hear what’s really being said. I think the simplest way to think of hospitality is just being friendly. I mean, really, being friendly. Being outside of yourself, if you will. One of the things striking to me about modern culture is that we—does anybody like keep up on political news and stuff? Anybody like politics, headlines? You know Zuckerberg was in D.C., right, for his hearings and Facebook has the motto, what is your motto? We connect people. Is that what it is, or we bring people together. And I was, what’s that? No Jake, good try. But the point was this mantra kept on being repeated about how we bring people together. So even though we’re selling everybody’s data, we bring people together. And it dawned on me is that if you really look at the current landscape, people are more hateful and divided now than they’ve ever been. And there’s an old saying that says good fences make good neighbors. Seriously, seriously. The problem is now you know everybody’s business and most [audio unclear] which are unsavory, and it actually is alienating people. People are not being brought together, so it’s kind of ironic, it isn’t really working. It isn’t working. We’re not more together, because sitting behind a screen at the keyboard is not the same as sitting down with someone face to face. It’s not the same as holding their hand, shaking their hand, giving them a hug. It is a completely different experience, and it changes the way you interact with people. People say things on the internet they would never say to somebody’s face. They would not do it. And so we’ve impersonalized being connected. And we’re saying we’re connected when we’re just passing information back and forth. We’re not connecting. And so there’s a deep sense of loneliness in our culture. And even in our churches, I’ve talked to two people, two or three people in the past couple weeks, random conversations like at restaurants, when they ask me what I do and I say I’m a pastor, they say, how big is your church? And that can mean, oh, I want to go to a big church that has the latest whatever big churches have. But in every case, they said, I go to a big church and I don’t know anybody. I don’t know anybody and I feel totally disconnected. I feel lost when I go to church. I want to go to a smaller church. Why? Because they want the human connection. So the quality of life in America is deteriorating on a number of fronts, but one of those, one of the fronts is the sense of loneliness that people feel in their lives because they’re not connected to any community. They don’t have meaningful relationships with anybody other than their spouse, and if they have trouble there, then they feel totally isolated, even though they may be connected through LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all these things, they’re not connected with flesh-and-blood people.

And this, of course, produces other problems. As Josh shared, Jesus came incarnate. He could have sent us a text. Jesus could have put together an Instagram story. I am the Savior. Hit the like button. If you want to be saved, hit the like button. I want to be saved. But no, He became incarnate. Literally became a man, dwelt in our midst, ate and drank. Not only ate and drank with us, He fed. He fed us—many stories of Jesus feeding, several stories of feeding the multitudes, Him dining at people’s homes. He didn’t have a home. The closest thing He had to home was probably Mary and Martha’s house, which was referenced already, because they were dear friends, and He stayed once in a while. So hospitality is incarnating the gospel. You know what I’m saying? It really is living like Jesus. And another, I think, facet of the digital age that we live in is that I think it’s very easy for us. I think this is a human nature. People have always done it, but I think it’s easier for us to do it, is to have a kind of a faith in our head that’s not really lived out in our life. You know what I’m saying? Kind of a separate, just like you can have your digital persona and then your real persona. You can have your digital facade on Facebook and then you have your real life and they’re very different. I told you the story about this woman who was in crisis, literally talking on the phone to her about the crisis in her marriage. I mean freaking-out crisis. I mean, I have to fly across the country to get my husband before he leaves the country and deserts our marriage. That kind of crisis. Two hours later on her Facebook, she’s talking about how great her marriage is. That’s why I’ve always called it Fakebook, right? The false image that’s created, the persona that just doesn’t match the reality. Jesus calls us to walk in truth, amen. And the truth of our lives is a lot messier than the image we put on Facebook. The truth of our lives is that although we might get on Twitter and Instagram to celebrate an event or celebrate a person, we’re not celebrating every day. Every day isn’t a party, right? Every day isn’t cloud nine. Life has its ups, it has its downs, it has its trials and difficulties. Life can be messy, that’s real life. But that’s the life we’re supposed to walk in. That’s the life where the gospel comes in. The gospel doesn’t save us from all of this. The gospel gives us victory in and through it. We triumph in tribulation. We don’t triumph because we get to avoid tribulation. See the difference? In it. So Jesus came and lived in the world and experienced all the challenges of hardship. He incarnated the Godhead, and in the sense in which we incarnate the gospel throughout how we live. Okay, that was a random introduction, I apologize.

Blessing: The Promotion of Unity

Point one, first blessing, and there’s many, I’m only going to mention a few for the sake of time. One of the blessings of hospitality is the promotion of unity, okay, unity. I believe that we often labor under a very shallow idea of what unity means. It’s talked about a lot in the church, unity, and that kind of unity is really just mutual indifference. Okay, we’re not fighting. Not fighting doesn’t mean you have peace. That means you have a truce. That’s not unity. Often today, unity is the attitude, don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. That’s not what the Bible means when it refers to unity. Look at Philippians 2:2. Look at Philippians. Philippians chapter 2. Here’s a great description of unity and there’s many, many in Scripture. We’ll start in verse 1, it says therefore, Philippians 2:1, “Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” Now I’m reading the New King James, your phrases might be a little different, but mine has four phrases here: like-minded, same love, one accord, one mind. This ideal of unity as expressed is far deeper than simply holding the same views or even cooperating in the same practice. Rather Paul’s describing a unity which is a [audio unclear] churches these days is not primarily disagreements over issues but it’s really based upon a lack of genuine relationships which means a lack of genuine love, genuine love. The psalmist says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” So if we’re going to have unity we have to draw together. [audio unclear] I’m simply going to read some Scripture to you. Romans 12:10, “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love.” Again, Romans 12:10, “in honor giving preference to one another.” Romans 15:7, “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us.” Romans 15:14, we should be “full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.” Romans 16:16, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” By the way, this “greet one another with a holy kiss” occurs five times in the New Testament. When something is repeated five times, we should pay attention to it. It means it’s important. In New Testament times, this was a common way of greeting somebody. Jordan’s laughing. All right, let’s hear the joke, Jordan. “I get to kiss some boys today.” Greet one another with a holy kiss. This could degenerate quickly, so I’m going to bow out of that conversation. Get back to this. I mean, we still see this in many cultures where people kiss, usually on both sides, both cheeks, if you will, very common expression. So this is a cultural phenomenon today, but in the Middle East at the time of Paul, and he’s saying, do this. This is a good thing. Today, we generally shake hands. If you know someone a little better, you give them a hug, right? Occasionally, you might give them a kiss. The point is, connect, greet, be friendly with one another. Today, it’s not uncommon for people to walk into church a couple minutes late, leave church as soon as it’s over. They have no human interaction with people at church. That’s not the biblical model for fellowship. The biblical model for fellowship is you come early enough to spend time talking and greeting and then you linger a bit after so you can do some more talking and greeting. You’re spending time with other people. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Galatians 5:13, “do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Ephesians 5:21, “submitting to one another in the fear of God.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.” So true fellowship means all of these one-another precepts. But in order to observe them, of course, we must develop relationships with people and we must spend time with them. We can’t actually do these things. We cannot fulfill these exhortations to be members of the body of Christ and encourage and exhort and serve and admonish and all of these things one another without spending time together. So hospitality facilitates the ability to have genuine fellowship as defined by Scripture.

Blessing: Using Your Gifts

A third blessing is that in the context of hospitality you get to use your gifts. You get to use your gifts. A lot of ministry can, and we might say should, occur in the home as opposed to in the church. Or we should say much ministry should occur outside the walls of the church. Often in your home, or at Starbucks, it can be in many places. So we don’t come to church to minister, then leave church and don’t minister, right? We come to church, we minister, we’re ministered to, we’re built up, and then we are even more equipped to minister outside the walls of the church. And when you read the Gospels and the book of Acts, you see a lot of ministry took place in homes, right? We think of Philip’s daughters who prophesied, they were in Philip’s house, prophesying. Paul taught from house to house. Remember his famous sermon where Eutychus falls out of the window, right? Paul preached so long a guy fell asleep when he was sitting on a window ledge and then fell out. So don’t get on me for preaching too long. Jesus was in Peter’s house when He healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and Jesus of course did all kinds of miracles in people’s homes, when He’s in a home. He didn’t say, wait a minute, we got to go to church, we got to go to synagogue, then I can heal. No, it was integrated into His life. And so we can have people in our home or we can be in their home or maybe we can be out for dinner and a lot of ministry can and should be happening outside the walls of the church because of hospitality.

Blessing: A Vehicle for Evangelism

Another blessing, I’m going to skip that one, another blessing of hospitality is, it’s a vehicle for evangelism. This also is referred to in the sharing today. There are many people who will not come to a church. It doesn’t matter how many times you invite them, they will not come to a church. Now this anti-institutional attitude toward the church I’ve been around for a long time. Even when I was unsaved, and we’re talking way back, Jordan, because I’m old. I got saved in the basement of a basically a storefront union building. Because that’s the only building this church could find, where they wanted to do outreach outside the church building intentionally, because a lot of people didn’t want to go to a church building. So there are people that you know that, if you say, hey, you want to come to church? No. Try again later? No. No. Go to dinner? Sure. Something about the institutional church, maybe they’ve had bad experiences. Maybe they’ve seen some of the hypocrisy in the church. They have all their reasons, right? Your home can be a haven for the lost, for the hurting, and your table can be a pulpit for preaching the gospel. So our homes are strategically placed in the world by God. And each one is an evangelistic center, if you will. And you are, you are as the light of the world, the salt of the earth uniquely placed where you are by the Lord. Now, I know that you’ve seen these different movements over the years where Christians are like, I’m getting out of town, right? I’m moving. I want to be out there where I got a bunch of acres and I can’t see anybody. Well, you know, put your light under a bushel basket. I understand the impulse to get away from the madness of the modern world. The impulse to get away from people, but how can we reach people if we run away from them? I mean, where’s the light needed? Where it’s the most dark, right? That’s where the light’s needed. So don’t run away, don’t organize your life in such a way that you can avoid people, because it’s people that Jesus died for. It’s people we’re called to reach with the love of Christ. Jesus loves the people that we’re often running away from. So hospitality is just one way that you can reach friends, neighbors with the gospel of Jesus. And Brittany, I’m thrilled that you have unsaved friends. I applaud you because many Christians avoid the unsaved like the plague, and then therefore they never reach them with the gospel. So I applaud you. Don’t let them stay unsaved too long.

So Henry Chadwick, who’s a church historian, said this, and he’s talking about the success of the early church, and he says this, he says, “The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success. The pagan comment, quote, ‘See how these Christians love one another,’ was not irony. Christian charity expressed itself in care for the poor, for widows and orphans, visits to brethren in prison or condemned to the living death of labor in the mines, and in social action in time of calamity like famine, earthquake, pestilence, or war. Hospitality to travelers was an especially important act of charity. A Christian brother had only to give proof of his faith to be sure of lodging for a period of up to three nights with no more questions asked. The bishop or overseer had the prime responsibility of providing such hospitality, especially for traveling missionaries. The bishop accordingly controlled the church revenues.” Chadwick continues by saying this, by the year 251, now you think about it, think about this, Jesus died in what, 30 something? We don’t know the exact date because His birthday really wasn’t zero, but just say He died 30, what we call A.D. Then Paul gets saved shortly after that. Paul wrote his last epistle in what, 67. So you’re talking, let’s just say 70, 70’s when Jerusalem was destroyed. So if you deduct 70 from 250 what do you get? I’m not good at math, somebody help me. 180. So in 180 years in the Roman Empire, which is a predominantly pagan culture, hostile pagan culture, he says, the church in Rome had grown so much that it was supporting over 1,500 widows and needy persons, all of whom were fed by the grace and kindness of our Lord, which means by the church. So the church in its birth was an expression of charity, love, and hospitality. And this was a witness to the pagan world that something was different about these people. And hospitality got the attention of the surrounding culture.

See How These Christians Love One Another

So my question is, when the world looks at us, would the world say, see how these Christians love one another? Or would the world say, see how these Christians divide and start new denominations every week? See how these Christians leave their church every few years for a new church? See how these Christians don’t get along? See how these Christians sue each other, and go down the list? But does the world look at the church and say, see how these Christians love one another? If the world doesn’t see us loving one another then is the world really going to believe that we love them? You know what I’m saying? [audio unclear] He didn’t say that, did He? He doesn’t even say they’ll know by the fact that you’re preaching the gospel. He says they’ll know by your love for one another. Because the one thing that cannot be mimicked by the world is true love, because the Scripture says God is love, and if you don’t have the Lord you don’t have real love. The church needs to be walking in that love and that love being expressed in tangible acts of kindness.

You know, I’m going to conclude with this, I thought it was really funny. So what’s that movie about the modern-day Noah, what’s that movie called? What is it? Evan Almighty, and then the one before was Bruce Almighty. Is that it? So in Evan Almighty, you know, they took the word ark and then they did this anagram, ark stood for what? Acts of random kindness. Remember, ark, A-R-K? Well the original really, random acts of kindness, right? But that didn’t work. RACK. But I got on, I Googled random acts of kindness. Did you know there’s a Random Act of Kindness Day? I didn’t know that. There’s a RACK, a RACK. There’s a Random Act of Kindness Foundation. And I’m like, well then it’s not random. You have now legislated my kindness, you have a foundation, you have policies and guidelines, rules, you have a day. It’s not random anymore, that’s no fun. Anyway, I was shocked at all the random-act-of-kindness organizations and things out there. Right? Well the striking thing about that is how that kind of thing strikes a chord in our culture. You know what I’m saying? This almost craving for tangible expressions of kindness. And that is like the pathway of the gospel right there, right? Because when we do it, as Paul says, “whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God,” do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. See, so when we do it, we don’t do it randomly, we do it thoughtfully and prayerfully and we do it in the name of the Lord as a testimony to His kindness and therefore it is a testimony to the gospel. Amen.

Concluding comment by one author, he said this, he said, “Eating and worshiping together in homes demonstrates the close family relationship of the new community. I believe many Christians today long for this same sense of a close family community. This need is not met by sitting in a large auditorium and looking at the back of other people’s heads. Brothers and sisters, if you want to enhance close brotherly relationship and strong Christian community, you cannot do it in a large sanctuary for one hour on Sunday morning. Your home is essential to developing rich fellowship, brotherly love, and close relationships. The first Christians were known for their strong loving community. Their community made the world sit up and take notice.” Amen. “One of the most common complaints made about churches is that the church people don’t know one another or are not friendly. One scriptural way to solve this complaint is for people to open their homes to one another.” Amen.

Let’s stand and pray. Lord I’m just so thankful that You have given us Your Scripture. As we live in a world where there are so many different voices coming at us, so many different messages, we thank You that You have spoken in Your Word and Your Word is a sure Word. Your Word is a rock. Your Word is true. And we thank You that those of us that know You have been enabled to understand Your Word through the gift of Your Holy Spirit, and I pray that we will continue to understand how to live it out in practical tangible ways like hospitality, and that Your Word would shape us and ultimately conform us into the image of Your Son Jesus Christ. We thank You, Lord, for Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, His burial and His resurrection. We thank You, Lord, because of Your love and His love, He demonstrated hospitality toward us. We thank You that we have been invited to dine with You. Jesus, You say that You stand at the door and knock, and if anybody will answer the door, You will come in and that You will have a meal with them, that You will fellowship, You will sup with them. And so if there’s anyone here, Lord, that’s never opened that door of their mind and heart to You, they’ve never invited You in, I ask that they might do that today. I pray that they would understand that You want to come in to their life and have a relationship with them. And that relationship is based upon what You’ve already done for them by dying for their sins to remove any barrier between You and them. Jesus, we thank You that we serve a living Savior and You are alive in us and You want to work through us, through each other. What a privilege it is. May we glory in our calling to be the salt and the light. I pray this in Your name. Amen.