Hospitality

I am indeed happy to be back
and I want to express my appreciation even though Jim Greenacre isn’t
here. I’m thankful for his availability
to fill the pulpit that first week I was gone and so thankful
and so long overdue and my only regret was not being here to
hear Dan Harper and the Saints have already communicated that
God used you greatly. So I appreciate you brother. And that won’t be your last time
in this pulpit. In fact, I told the saints we
had visited Hill Rose one week and visited Grace the next, and
I said, if the Lord provides somebody to preach this Sunday,
we’re going to go up and worship in Wellington. I think it’s important. That’s part of that cultivation
of those relationships. And for us to be there was an
especially good thing. I did miss you all. But it was indeed good to get
away. I escaped to the mountains three
separate times. We went up to Avon as a family
and really just did a lot of nothing, just kind of hung out
a long overdue time together as a family. And then we took,
as I said, the opportunity to go out and worship with the saints
at Hill Rose. I had been to Hill Rose on numerous
occasions preaching, but my family had not been there, and so it
was encouraging both to them, and it was encouraging for my
family to see God at work there, even as at work way out. Anybody know where Hill Rose
is? Okay, go out past Greeley. Yeah, Steve knows. You go out
past Greeley, past Fort Morgan, past a little town called Wiggins,
who knew that there was a Wiggins, past Brush, you take a county
road angling up and you come across this tiny, you think it’s
just a silo, you come across this tiny little town and there
is this gem, a work of God. And it reminded us so much of
our first couple of churches. And then some of you will hear
more about this. Some of you have heard and some
of what you have heard is not entirely true. I was not stuck. Some of you heard about my trip
alone down to Crested Butte, my windy, bumpy mountain drive,
which my family hates. So often I will do at least one
of those in the summer. This, I told Frank, was truly
the adventure of a lifetime because I have no intention of duplicating
it. It was exhilarating. It was great. It was great to
get away It was I often watch those Bear Grylls things and
I think that’d be kind of cool to be in this predicament, right?
I was in a predicament And a short version of this is
I had taken a Google suggestion to add 24 minutes 24 minutes
turned out to be more than 12 hours 24 minutes would take me
into Crested Butte the back way Well, I took it because my whole
purpose of this little trip was adventure. And the road started
getting worse and worse. And by the time it was absolutely
dark, with the exception of this little half moon, I was at 12,000
feet. And when I crested the hill,
Tin Cap Pass, the other side of the mountain was wet and slippery
because it had not enjoyed the light of the sun. And so I’m
bumping and clunking down this wet, slippery road that I literally
thought was a mountain stream. It was that bad. And I just,
in wisdom, even though I knew that I owed my family a phone
call or something, and I didn’t have cell service, I decided
that the wise thing to do would be to shut it down for the night.
And so I slept at 12,000 feet in my truck, toasty and warm,
in my down sleeping bag. And it was just an incredible
time, an incredible time with the Lord, an incredible time
of really putting myself, intentionally or unintentionally,
entirely in His hands. And I just thought it was too dangerous
to drive even another foot. So I just parked there and slept
and woke there at 12,000 feet. This cool little spot that I
had found The the next two days were perhaps less eventful Just
taking in the beauty of God’s creation During the day And then
last Lord’s Day, we worshipped at Grace Church in Greeley, as
I mentioned, maybe my daughter’s future church. And then we were
likewise encouraged by them and encouraging to those saints in
Greeley. And just the thing we came away
with is just that these are great churches, good, solid, churches
and that we are a good solid church as well and that the Lord
is equally doing work here and then lastly came my I really
do have a message from the scriptures here this is my pre-introduction
Lastly came my four days up in Steamboat, which was kind of
a working vacation because I had to begin to get back into the
study of John’s gospel. Remember John’s gospel? We’re
in John chapter 14, which, by the way, we’ll have to wait at
least another week. There was plenty of rest. A couple
of days I slept 10, one day 11 hours, which is very uncharacteristic
of me. I usually am content with five.
There was more exploring, more adventure. I found myself again
at 12,000. I cooked myself breakfast at
7 in the morning at 12,000 feet. Just a cool thing watch deer
just feet in front of me just hanging out. I was just hanging
out with the deer and the moose and Mrs. Moose and the baby moose
there was just a cool time and I took I took up I have a new
thing photography and I took what Emily I don’t remember exactly
how she characterized it, but it might be a winner of a picture
and I So I said that John 14 will have
to wait. It has been said in my ministry
circles, and I think maybe it was Walt Kaiser. I remember that
blue book that everybody learned to love in time. Walt Kaiser said that a man ought
to preach a topical sermon at least once a year. and then repent
of it and get back to the business of expository preaching. Now
I know what Walt Kaiser means where you just go on to this
topic and you’re just really spewing your own thoughts and
musings and you know it may be a biblical concept but you’re
really just shooting from the hip. All joking aside there’s
no reason that a thematic or a topical message cannot reach
to the level of a sequentially preached verse-by-verse exposition,
that’s what you really mean, that’s what most people really
mean when they say expository preaching. What they’re really
talking about is a verse-by-verse sequential message that fits
in a perfect context. But if you think about it, the
last two weeks you heard those kinds of messages where they
were taken from a passage and then preached to the Saints expositorily. So a message isn’t an expository
message just because it’s sequential. Does that make sense? What makes
a message expository is that it’s derived from the Scriptures
and not from some so-called pastor’s skull. Essentially, If you think
about it, a theological position, a doctrinal position is the fruit
of the testimony of scripture, multiple passages, which would
be a thematic or a topical study. And that’s essentially what I
want to do today, this morning. Blended sort of with a kind of
an update slash church meeting. There’s a lot of information
out there. In fact, there’s even some misinformation out there. And so I want to preach a topical
message, and you can tell me at the door whether I should
repent of it at the end. A topical message, but one that
I hope in the end you will agree was biblically derived and profitable,
scripturally oriented. The concept or the theme that
I want to consider this morning is that of hospitality. And I probably see some of you
already squirming. Because if you preach on prayer,
or giving, or evangelism, or now hospitality, you step on
everyone’s toes. Because those are the things
we’re not really so good at. Please don’t squirm. Just hear
me out. I’ve done some study into this
whole topic. And the word translated in at
least the New American Standard as hospitality is found five
times in the New Testament. I want to peek at each of those
passages. That ought to shorten our study a little bit in the
fact that there are only five. The Greek word was also used
a number of different times than the Septuagint, but those remain
unimportant for our particular study. The Greek translation
of the Hebrew Old Testament is the Septuagint. And in those
particular passages, it alludes to maybe providing a meal or
some such thing. But for our purposes, we’re going
to stick to the New Testament today. And so with those five
passages, we have some work to do, and so let’s get started. And I think in order to do so,
it would be best to consider each of the passages in their
context, that’s expository preaching, as far as we’re able, and then
we’ll draw some conclusions here at the end. So the first time
that this word occurs is Romans chapter 12, and you can turn
to Romans chapter 12, but I’m going to set the context just
a little bit. We spent five years in the book
of Romans, and I can do this. I can do this overview in just
a minute or so. After Paul gives his very traditional
introduction there in that book. He embarks on a discussion of
sin and the judgment of God. And the first thing he points
out is that all of the Gentile world is completely under sin. Now the Jew might have heard
that and gloated that the heathen world absolutely is under sin. They’ve been saying it for thousands
of years. But Paul says, guess what? Jews
are also under sin, and how else could he come to that conclusion
there in Romans 3? All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. So sin, the concept of sin, the
fact that all are under the judgment of God in sin, that fact is established
in the first three chapters. And what a What a dreadful message
that would be if Paul stopped there. But he goes into the salvation
of God. First, in the opening part of
that discussion, which is actually the end of chapter 3, he begins
that incredible discussion of justification by faith. Now,
you see what I’m doing here. I’m just trying to skim along
the treetops because if I get too low and I get into this,
we’re doomed. The plane’s going to crash and
I’m going to end up in the trees. So he starts this discussion
of salvation with justification by faith and he points out the
glory of this salvation is that boasting is absolutely, we had
nothing to do with it. God effected it all there at
the end of chapter 3. He gives us an example of justification
by faith in the faith of Abraham chapter 4 And then he begins
to extol the blessings of salvation in chapter five. Having communicated how we are
saved, we’re saved by faith, that we have, because of that
faith, the very righteousness of Christ, the obvious question
is, then why do we still sin? That’s chapter six, sanctification. That part of it is a process.
And he walks us through that rich section in chapter 6 on
God’s work of sanctification in the believer’s life. The law
is not unimportant there. That’s what chapter 7 discusses. And then opens up into that incredible
section, Romans chapter 8, where there is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. And we have divine assistance. Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit,
and God the Father all contributing to the life of the believer there
in Romans chapter 8. Then we come into chapter 9.
We spent several months here on the sovereignty of God. That
really is what the theme would be of those chapters 9 through
11. The sovereignty of God ending with that powerful doxology. That’s the context of the passage
that we want to look at this morning. Now in Romans chapter
12, it’s almost like Paul turns the page and says almost, let’s
get practical here. We’ve talked about sin, we’ve
talked about salvation, we’ve talked about sanctification.
Now let’s put it to use as we get to work in the kingdom of
God. And he talks about service to
God. First of all, presenting ourselves
as a living sacrifice submitting ourselves to be transformed,
usable, made usable by God. And it’s in that context that
we come across Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 9. He’s dealing here with people. And I remember when I preached
this passage, I printed up a little list. If you think about it,
we would be the greatest Christians the world has ever seen. if it
wasn’t for people, right? Because we have to deal with
people. We have to interact with people.
And they make us sin. That’s really how our reasoning
goes. And I’m not going to read the
entire list, but I put together a very lengthy list of five columns
of all the ways that people bother us. They’re aloof. They’re bothersome.
They’re cheap. They’re critical. They’re foolish.
They’re lazy. They’re ornery. They’re rude.
They test our patience. They’re thankless. On and on
and on the list goes. And so Paul’s first order of
business says, look, if we’re going to serve God, we’re going
to need to learn how to deal with people. We’re going to need
to live out our Christianity. And that’s the context of Romans
chapter 12, beginning in verse 9, if you would. Let love be
without hypocrisy. abhor what is evil, cling to
what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give
preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in
diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in
hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing
to the needs of the saints, practicing Hospitality that’s the first
time that word is used in the New Testament So Paul says look You were sinners
you’ve been saved you’re in the process of sanctification Part
of God’s sovereign plan of redemption, but we need to serve Christ and
this is the first order of business this is the first application
of How we are to do that? in the body of Christ. Unhypocritical
love is literally what he says. Love that isn’t phony. And you
think of in our world and the interactions that we have with
people, how many times we come away just with a feeling of insincerity. That should be on my list of
things that people do. Abhor what is evil, cling to
what is good, be devoted to one another. We’re devoted to very
few things in our life, right? But Paul says here, in the scriptures,
we’re really called to be devoted to very few things. Devoted to
Christ, devoted to prayer, devoted to one another. Be devoted to
one another in our brotherly love. The world should know a testimony just by how we interact
with one another. And then Paul essentially applies
that. Be devoted, give preference to
one another and honor, and he applies that with all these particulars. Not lagging behind in diligence.
Don’t start and quit right afterwards. Don’t give your Christian life
fits and starts in the way that you interact with one another.
If you’re going to be devoted to one another, get into it and
don’t quit. Be diligent. Press on. Be fervent
in spirit, and I take that to mean your own personal spirit. Serving the Lord, ultimately,
you know, we talk about Sunday school, and we’re gonna have
this barbecue, and that’s all well and good, but ultimately,
you’re not serving me. You’re not serving my brother. You’re not serving even those
that you teach, really. Ultimately, your service is to
Christ. It’s a great reminder. rejoicing
in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing
to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. It’s a funny way
that he says that. I’ve often kidded my lawyer’s
friends. You know, you go to school all these years and you’ve
been a lawyer for all these years and you’re still practicing law. You don’t have it down yet. And
so Paul uses this in an interesting way that we, we’re never really
that great at it anyway. We’ve never perfected it. And
so we have to constantly press ourselves into this mindset of
hospitality. Okay. So what is it first and
foremost? A lot of times people, when they
think of hospitality, they think, well, We’re going to have somebody
into our house. And I suppose that is a form
of hospitality. I was talking to some people,
I think you’ll recognize or affirm this point. I’ve lived in a variety
of different areas. If you go to church in Dallas,
in the South, down in the Bible Belt. If you go to church for
the first time, you’re going home with somebody. Be prepared. You’re going home with somebody
for lunch. You’re going to their home. You’re
going to have a meal. You’re going to have fellowship.
That just is the South. Now, in California, it’s a little
different. In California, they’ll talk about
meals. They’ll talk about, we need to
get together. And then one day they’ll set
it up, all right, this is the day we’re gonna have lunch, and
they’ll take you to a restaurant, and they’ll even pay. Typically
speaking, they don’t have you into their home. I know that’s
a generalization. They get better. The Midwest. See, we’ve ministered in the
Midwest. Now here’s how it goes in the
Midwest. In the Midwest, they’ll talk about it. They’ll mention
it, they’ll talk about it, and they’ll talk about it, and they’ll
talk about it. Six months later, they’re still,
we gotta have you into our home. We gotta have you over for lunch.
And they’ll talk about it, and we’ll talk more about it. And
then one day, finally the day comes. And when you go, you’ll
understand why they talked about it so long. Because lunch starts,
and lunch lasts for like three hours. And you’re just eating
and eating. and you’re realizing, you know,
you’ve got night church, and you were hoping for a nap, but
maybe that’s all right, we’re eating. And it goes like this,
and they’ll say, have you ever had beets? Oh yes, I’ve had beets,
I love beets. I’ll be right back. Down to the
cellar she goes, grabs the can of beets, pops it open, and now
you eat until the beets are, right, you’ve been to the Midwest,
they’re gone. And then they say, you like peaches? I’ll be back. And she goes down to the cellar,
comes back up with a big can of peaches, pop open the peaches,
and the peaches get distributed until the peaches are gone. And
then more discussion, and then there’s coffee and other things,
and dessert, and then they say, have you ever had canned meat?
Nope. Yes, I’ve had plenty. That’s the way it goes in the
Midwest, and that’s what most people think. And you’re saying, OK. The South covered in California,
we know how they operate in the Midwest. Well, how do we do in
Colorado? This is hospitality in Colorado. We have them over, and then we
wait, and we wait, and we wait, because it’s their turn, right? Everything in Colorado, it’s
reciprocal. We had them over, so now they
have to have us over. They had us over, now it’s our
turn to have them over. That just, and I’m just saying,
this is a quirky little mindset that is indigenous to Colorado. It doesn’t make it necessarily
right or wrong, it just is how we operate. But that’s not really
the extent of hospitality. The verb from which this word
is derived here is ultimately used in the sense of persecution. But we’re not, we don’t have
to limit our understanding of this word to providing hospitality
only when somebody asks for it, but that we should really be
looking for opportunities to exercise it at all kinds of different
opportunities, it means to pursue, to chase something. Like when
you’re in a war, pursuing the fleeing armies. It is used a
lot of times of not just waiting to take a stranger in, but going
and looking for the stranger to bring them in, looking for
the opportunity to serve them. And so it speaks of a, an energetic
effort. It speaks of something that is
really part of our life, that is something that we cultivate.
And what it points to is that we’re supposed to be active in
the exercise of hospitality. And at the end of it, when we
do exercise it, it isn’t out of drudgery. We don’t exercise
it grudgingly. It is literally the love of strangers. Now in that day, and the day
in which Paul wrote, and the day in which this context, there
weren’t these hotels and motels. They certainly didn’t have mints
on the pillows. There were very rough provisions, if at all. And so when a stranger came to
town, they needed very practical care. And that’s why this word
is used so frequently in the New Testament, that we should
be ready to befriend or put up, literally to have them into our
home, anybody who’s destitute or traveling or persecuted believers. And so hospitality, at least
in its basic form, doesn’t have anything to do with having our
friends over for dinner. There’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s more a true service to those who are in real and legitimate
need. But there’s another place where
this word occurs, and I want to have you turn there as well.
The word also occurs in Paul’s writings in 1 Timothy. You know the context already,
even as I say it, it’s 1 Timothy chapter 3. Let me just give you
a thumbnail sketch of 1 Timothy. Immediately after his greeting,
Paul… gives a very clear charge to young Timothy. Timothy had
probably gotten somewhat timid. He was up against false teachers.
Paul gives his own testimony, trying to shore up this young
pastor. And then he closes out those
first chapter with not only a doxology to God, but a charge, a very
stern charge to Timothy. Paul takes up the great subject
of the local church. He takes up prayer and church
ministry. He gives an admonition to prayer.
He gives a commendation to prayer. He talks about the specific practice
of prayer. That’s when he says, I want the
men to pray. Here’s who I want you to pray
for. And then he takes up women in church ministry. Always a
delicate subject, but Paul takes it up unabashedly. He talks about
a godly woman’s wardrobe, what she should wear, how she should
carry herself in the house of God, her relationship ultimately
to authority, her role within the local church. And then Paul
turns his attention in chapter three, as you know, to elders
in the church, if you would, Just consider the first three
verses there of 1st Timothy 3. It is a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires, and that
word really is too soft. It literally means, the word is epitomeia, which
is lust. If any man really desires to
do this work, this office of overseer, it is a fine work he
desires to do. Nothing wrong with the work.
An overseer then, and Paul immediately goes into the qualifications
of an elder, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband
of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able
to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious,
free from the love of money. It’s one of the absolute requirements
for an elder that he be hospitable. that he’d be looking, actively
looking for ways to serve and care for others. Now that command
in the third place that it’s used in the New Testament, we’re
not gonna turn there, it’s used also in Titus in the same context. Paul writes to Titus and he says,
for this reason I left you in Crete that you might set in order.
Go ahead and turn to Titus chapter one. Titus chapter one. Pick it up
in verse five. For this reason I left you in
Crete. Very simple outline here. I left you in Crete, one, that
you might set in order what remains. A lot of times I hear people
talk about a reformed church as if that’s a completed task.
The church is always reforming. It’s always in need of effort. It’s always in need of reforming. And that’s exactly what young
Titus was tasked with here. Set in order the things that
remain. one of which was leaders. Set in order the things that
remain and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.
Now, what I picture Titus as is not a bishop, but a servant
of Christ, a very unique servant of Christ who had the authority
to go into a variety of different churches, locations in particular
cities and go through the process of identifying and examining
elders and appointing them as needed. And he gives the same,
almost the identical, lengthy list of qualifications. Namely, verse 6, if any man is
above reproach, the husband of one wife having children who
believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer
must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not
quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not
fond of sordid gain, but hospitable.” He’s got to be that. He’s got
to have a love of strangers. based not only on the need of
the day, but based on propriety, based on testimony, based on
the opportunities that we have. It isn’t about just having our
friends over for dinner. One said it this way, the true
test of godly self-giving hospitality is what we do for others solely
out of our sincere concern for their welfare. So there is no
reciprocation in that. We’re concerned about them, and
we care for them. So is it travelers? Absolutely,
it’s travelers. In fact, when we hear that a
Christian is coming to town, that ought to be the first, are
they taken care of? And this church has done that.
This church does that. When we hear about a traveler,
we put 62 of them up last year, right? By God’s grace. That ought
to be the first thing that comes to our mind when we hear traveling.
You’re here from somewhere else, where? We ought to be concerned
with their accommodations. That’s godliness. Christians,
absolutely. It ought to start with a household
of faith. And if we hear that a Christian,
a pastor, a missionary, just a good Christian family, if we
hear that they’re coming through town, then it ought to be our
first order of business to make sure that they’re taken care
of, whatever their needs are. Put it on my tab. That ought
to be our heart. But not just Christians. That
doesn’t mean that we, you know, throw open the doors of the church
and turn this into a shanty of some sort. Our time and our resources
are included in this, not just having people over for dinner.
Our home ought to be used for hospitality, our car or our truck,
our money, our food. Whose food? It’s God, the one
that provides it, right? are, hang on men, are tools. See, when we open ourselves up
to hospitality, we don’t draw a line. We say, how would you
have me be used today, Lord? What would you have me do? Alex Strauch, the one that wrote
that great book on biblical eldership said of hospitality. Giving oneself
to the care of God’s people means sharing one’s life and home.
An open home is the sign of an open heart, loving, sacrificial,
serving spirit. Those who love hospitality love
people. That’s the bottom line, isn’t
it? There’s another place where this word occurs. We don’t know
who wrote the book, the book of Hebrews. If you would turn
to Hebrews chapter 13, As hard as it is, there is an
outline for the book of Hebrews. I remember one time I was reading
in chapter 10 and there’s a therefore and so that sends you backwards
and you’ve got to figure out what that is talking about and
then you kind of trace your way back. It flows in a linear fashion
all the way through those first 10 chapters. Now, Dan is much
more fitted. He has trafficked and studied
this, but this is my quick effort here. He preached last week,
now I have to step up. Essentially what the first 10
chapters are, is they’re doctrinal. Not unlike what you have in Ephesians,
the first three chapters, doctrinal, then he gets into the practical.
Not unlike what we just saw in Romans chapter 12, for the first
12 chapters doctrinal, then very practical in chapter 12 and following. Here in Hebrews, it always cracks
me up when people say, oh, it’s just a theological treatise.
As if there is no practical exhortation at all when the last three chapters
are soundly practical. So the first 10 chapters is this
doctrinal treatise, which is really the preeminence of Christ
and Christianity. Here’s how it breaks out. In
the first few verses, you have the preeminence of Christ as
God’s final revelation. God has spoken and God spoke. And he spoke in these last days
in his son, Jesus Christ. Then you have the preeminence
of Jesus Christ over the angels through chapter 2. You have in
the third chapter, the preeminence of Christ over Moses. How am
I doing, Dan? I’m tracking. Then you have the preeminence
of Christ over Joshua in chapter 4, early in chapter 4. Then you
have the preeminence of Jesus Christ, his priesthood. Then you have these several different
brief interludes. And then he picks up with the
preeminence of Christ in chapter 8, the preeminence of Christ’s
atonement. And then that takes us to the
lessons that we derive, the practical section, the lessons that we
derive from the preeminence of Christ. Okay, so what are they? He gives us an approach, that
we approach Christ differently than God was approached previously,
beginning in chapter 10, verse 19. We confess Christ differently,
we confess him doctrinally, and practically there in chapter
10 verse 23, which passages we’re very familiar with, we cultivate
a confident faith, we consider examples of faith, there we come
into the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, and then we begin
to make sound application of that faith in chapter 12. Chapter
13, opens up with a series of exhortations
regarding life with others. Does this sound familiar? That’s
the ultimate touchpoint of our Christianity, is how we interact
with one another. The first one is brotherly love,
but when you come to verse 2, here we come across this very
familiar exhortation. Chapter 13, verse 2, do not neglect
to show hospitality to strangers. For by this, some have entertained
angels without knowing it. That is astounding, isn’t it?
Then you have the conclusion to the book at the end of chapter
13. So if you look at Hebrews 13,
2, Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers. One of my favorite commentators
on Hebrews is John Brown. One author called the venerable
John Brown a faithful man of God, rich, rich in what he brings. But he said this, this sounds
familiar. To be hospitable in the common
use of this term is descriptive of the disposition and habit
of liberally entertaining friends, relations, neighbors, or acquaintances.
He basically says what I just said, having people into our
home for dinner. He says, that’s when you think
of hospitality, that’s what you think of. You said, well, he said it much
more fancy than you did. That’s true. And he goes on to
say, where such entertainments proceed from genuine kindness
and are unstained by excess, where they do not occupy too
much of our time, Martha, where they do not, in their expense,
trench on the demands of justice and benevolence. So in other
words, he says, you can’t just break the bank having parties.
They are at least, if all those things are in check, they are
at least innocent and may serve a number of useful purposes.
And I say this, of course, on the day when we host an open
house. But he goes on to say, the Christian
duty here in Joint is something here totally different. It is
the gratuitous and kind entertainment of Christian brethren who are
strangers. Then he goes on to the same point
that we’ve already made in Romans and in 1 Timothy, that we are
to be watchful for those in need, especially Christians, but not
just Christians. Travelers, but not just travelers.
We’re to be watchful. We’re to be quick to provide
for their needs. And then he gives this little,
what do you call it, motivation? Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, for by this, by this showing hospitality to strangers,
some have entertained angels without knowing it. Now, if that
doesn’t prompt you, to at least have the dinner party, or to
do some kindness, or to look for some opportunity, to stop
with the lady with the flat tire to offer help. If that doesn’t
motivate you, nothing, I’m telling you, nothing will. What it points to here is if
you remember Genesis 18 and 19, Abraham and Sarah, they hosted
those three men. Turns out that those three men
were Angels and then lot later in chapter 19 lot hosts two men
Those two men turn out to be Angels, I don’t know for sure
That i’ve ever seen an eight, but I wouldn’t doubt it. I wouldn’t
put it past god and it’s not like god He you know, he doesn’t
have the information. So he’s got to send an angel
down to see how ron handles this situation Right god sees it all
god knows it all But it heaps up our accountability to know
that we hosted an angel and were either faithful or unfaithful
in that moment. Hospitality is a is a key. To ministry in any local community. One pastor put it this way, dear
to the heart of the believing church for ages have been these
precepts to love the brethren, to love the stranger, to remember
Abraham, Gideon and Oprah with their angel guests and to see
a possible angel visitor in every needy stranger at the door. We
don’t know who’s at the door, really. There’s another place where this word is used. The last one that
we’ll look at today, the fifth and final one, occurs in Peter’s
epistle. And for the sake of time, I’m
just gonna let you set the context yourself. Peter is writing to
saints that are really literally, they believe, in the throes of
perhaps the end times. Opportunities are waning, the
church is being heavily persecuted, and you can tell that the era
in which I preach this, because I alliterated every point, right?
I said that there are four, it’s the eleventh hour, right? It’s
the last time that these people have the opportunity to serve
Christ. And so I said that there are four specific fruits for
this 11th hour intensity that we ought to have. The urgency
of the hour ought to affect our head. It ought to touch our hearts. It ought to open our home. I’ve
already ruined my illustration that it’s not just about having
people over for dinner. and the urgency of the hour should
move our hands. Here’s how it flows. The end
of all things is at hand. I’m in chapter 4. Did I tell
you that? Chapter 4, verse 7. See, I’m
out of practice. It’s going to take me a few weeks
to get synced back up. Chapter 4, verse 7. The end of
all things is at hand. Therefore, be of sound judgment
and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. That’s where it ought to affect
our head. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another
because love covers a multitude of sins. That’s where it should
touch our heart. Be hospitable to one another without complaint. I’ll come back to that. The urgency
of the hour should open our homes. As each one has received a special
gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God. It should move our hands. Now,
that said, I want to go back to the one that really is the
whole point in looking at this passage, hospitality. Be hospitable
to one another without complaint. See, this is a lot of times too
often how our hospitality, or so-called, goes. We do the thing. We are magnanimous. We open our
wallets. We liberally take care of the
wayward traveler, Christian or not. We do what is right and
just. And then we shut the door and
grumble about how they put their feet on our coffee table and
how could they stay until almost midnight talking and talking,
all the talking. Right, we immediately commence
to grumbling. And our service just fritters
away to ashes, right? We undo what we just did when
we complain. We’ve been given an opportunity,
an opportunity by God himself. And I told you at the outset
that there would be a point to all this, and there is. We have
an opportunity. at least six times this fall, thousands of screaming. They’re gonna descend on this
area because they’re gonna go to a football game and they need
a place to park. And so we’ve talked about this.
We’ve prayed about this for two, three months. We’ve talked about
this at the leadership level. We have an opportunity. All they
really wanna do is use our asphalt. our parking lot. We want to pull
in and park. And my only appeal is that we
should show hospitality. Our parking lot, we finally decided,
is going to be used. It’s just absolutely going to
be used. We are the largest unused parking
lot, undedicated, within two miles of the CSU stadium. the
new CSU on-campus stadium. So we do want to accommodate
and the men, when I say the men, the leadership of the church
has decided that the men, we decided for you, we’re going
to have a breakfast on that first day and we’re going to go out
there And we’ve got it all lined up. We’ve got all that we need
in order to make this happen. We are going to charge a nominal
fee to park here. Part of what we want to manage
in that is we don’t want tailgating. We’re not going to allow tailgating.
And I think that’s our prerogative to manage this property as we
see fit. And so we’re going to charge
a nominal fee. And we’re going to allow them
to park. Ask them to back into their space so we don’t have
people backing into each other or people when they go to leave
at the end of the evening. And we’re going to manage it.
And we’re going to do it together as brothers, together as a team.
We’re going to show hospitality. And so over the last couple of
weeks, there’s always a way I thought about this. And this is my personal
commitment. I haven’t approved this. I didn’t
think that I needed approval for this part of it. I’m going
to get 150 water bottles and everybody in the car, we’re just
going to hand them a bottle of water. They’ve got a mile to
walk. We’ll point them in the direction.
Lock your car. We’re not responsible for damage
or loss to your vehicle. Here’s your water. But then I
started thinking, why would we stop there? Why would we let
them park here for the low nominal fee of $20 and give them a bottle of water
and call it quits. I love the way one brother thought
that we ought to put our church information on the back of the
window card that we put on the dash. And we will do that. We’ve already essentially done
that. But I thought about that little
booklet, Ultimate Questions. What a cool thing. What a cool
thing when a CSU fan, and they Did I tell you how I did this?
About two years into this work, somebody said, when you picked
Fort Collins, did you do your demographics? I said, you know
what? I did. I looked at Fort Collins,
and I studied Fort Collins, and I realized that in Fort Collins,
there are a lot of sinners. That’s the only demographic I
needed to come to Fort Collins. These people are CSU fans. They
desperately need Christ. So I thought, Why not give them
a copy of Ultimate Questions? Now, at its maximum, I think
the booklets are $4, but if you think of it, there’s a number
of people in that car, the chances of the thing, finding it into
somebody’s hand in that car, or finding it into someone else’s
hands, and we offer it to them, we don’t force it upon them,
we don’t fling it in their car as they drive by, I thought about
ultimate questions. I thought about, what about just
a hospitality table? Hey, what did you forget today?
Earplugs? You need earplugs? We got earplugs.
Toothpicks? We got toothpicks. There may be some other things,
Advil and Tylenol, that we would have to be somewhat careful about.
Tissues? There are things that we can
do. And what we basically need to do is think of what would
we need if somebody forced CSU tickets upon us and we had to
go to the game. If we went to the game, how would we do this
and what might be our needs? That’s how we think. One of the
really cool things about traveling and sleeping in different places
and other people’s homes is As you think of those hospitality
items, you know, I’ve never really thought about providing somebody
with multiple pillows. I can’t sleep without multiple
pillows. In fact, the more pillows, the better. Six, eight. I’ll
settle for three, but multiple pillows. I don’t even think about
that. Providing that. Traveling does that to you. It
helps you think out of the box. And that’s what we need to think.
We need to think as CSU fans traveling to the game for the
first time, how can we serve them? What might they need? And then I know, ladies, this
is a guy’s thing. You guys have your Titus 2T and
the men decided that the men are going to do this, this is
our deal. And you’re saying, Ron, there isn’t anything for
us to do. Well, I thought of something. The men are having this breakfast,
you see. And I thought about those really
cool casserole breakfast dishes that you make, the kind with
the potatoes and the cheese and the bacon or sausage. And I just thought, what a cool
thing that would be. And then maybe a fruit salad
here or there. Some dark coffee. Those are just
some ideas. I’m sure the Lord will lay some
other things on your mind. We need to think how the Lord
might use us in this situation. Wouldn’t it be cool if a year
from now there were somebody sitting in our midst that came
to know the Lord Jesus Christ just simply because of the kindness
of a water bottle and a toothpick and an invitation to church.
Pretty simple stuff, let’s pray. Merciful God, we throw ourselves
at your feet in need of your grace and guidance. And Father,
we acknowledge this incredibly challenging but incredible opportunity. And Lord, we plead for your direction,
for your grace, for your provision. We think of these booklets. We
think of, there are many things that we haven’t even thought
of yet. Lord, we pray that you would guide us, that you would
lead us, and that you would use us for your glory in just proclaiming
Christ in a unique way. We thank you, and we praise you
in Jesus’ name. Amen.