The Power of Hospitality

If I was to ask you this morning what is our responsibility as Christians. What would your answer be? Most of us would probably respond currently by saying something like.

As Christians we are to Love the Lord our God with all are heart and we are to love our neighbor.

Others may then go further and say because we love God we must be willing to be a disciple of Jesus. Or as I like to think of it, we must be an apprentice of Jesus.

As an apprentice we must be willing to do what our teacher, Jesus did.

Now, if I was to ask you what did Jesus do or what was Jesus mission while on this earth, most of our minds would go to Luke 19:10

Luke 19:10 ESV

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Because of this passage, rightfully so, we as apprentices of Jesus believe that this is our mission as well.

Because we love God and we love our neighbor we must be people who are willing to seek and save the lost.

Because this is a huge part of what the church must be about over the years there have been countless seminars, meetings, retreats, and books written to explain the best way to successfully seek and save the lost.

I don’t have a very big library compared to most ministers but I bet I have a least 20 books that discuss how to best seek and save the lost and everyone of them have a different approach.

This morning I am not here to discredit any method that has or is currently being used to seek and save the lost but as an apprentice of Jesus the more I learn about my teacher the more I am convinced that his approach to seeking the lost is the best approach.

So what is the approach that he used more often than not to seek and save people.

Was it hosting a big get together with fun activities for all ages?

Was it going door to door asking people if they wanted to learn more about who he was.

Was it giving away free stuff just to get people to meet him? Well, maybe he did give away a lot of food and gave away a lot of free medical care.

What was the one thing that Jesus used to his advantage over and over again throughout his ministry in order to get to know people better so that he could share with them the good news that He had to offer?

Over and over again throughout the Gospels Jesus did one of my favorite things in all the world. He ate food. If you know me and have ever talked to me about the vacations that I have been on my vacations all center around finding the best food.

I have come to realize that Jesus and I are a lot alike because Jesus came to this earth for the purpose of eating and drinking.

Throughout the gospels it is mentioned that Jesus ate with people. But not just his apostles or his family but over and over again Jesus is seen eating with the outcast of society.

Its for this reason that the Pharisees labeled Jesus as a glutton and a drunkard who was friends with tax collectors and sinners.

This morning we are going to take a look at two examples from the book of Luke when Jesus chose to eat with others.

But just to give you an idea of how often the idea of eating with others is mentioned in the New Testament. If we were just to take the book of Luke is has been said that there are over at least fifty references to Jesus and food. In the book of Matthew there are some 94 references.

It has been said that in “Luke’s Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal or coming from a meal.”

Now let’s quickly look at two instances in Scripture where we find Jesus eating with others and see what we can learn.

First let’s look at Luke 19:1-10

Luke 19:1–10 ESV

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

So here we have the story of Zacchaeus the wee little man. Now like with most stories in the Bible to the original audience this was not a cute little story where Jesus invites a short man to eat dinner with him.

This encounter with Zacchaeus infuriated the the religious leaders. Why? well becasue Zacchaeus was the worst possible person that Jesus could have chosen to eat with. The only other type of person that the religious people hated more were prostitutes.

During the time of Jesus eating with others was very important. But it was known that you only eat with those who were like you.

But what we see here in this story is that Jesus flips this model on its head and says that not only do I want to eat with people who are like me but more so I want to eat with the people who are different than me so that I can invite them into my family.

Notice with me verses Luke 19:9-10

Luke 19:9–10 ESV

And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Now here is another example of why the way the structure of our Bible’s can be a hindrance to us being able to fully grasp what is taking place here.

If we lived during the time when Luke was written it would have been read to us in one setting and thus we would pick up on key phrases. And here in verse 10 is one of those phrases.

When the people heard the phrase the son of man came they would have realized that that was an important phrase becasue they have already heard it before.

This phrase was said over in Luke 7:33-35

Luke 7:33–35 ESV

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

After this Jesus is invited, you guessed it to share a meal with a pharisee and it leads to a women who would have been hated just as much a Zacchaeus was hated, it lead to Jesus ministering to her.

Now, what is the significance of the phrase found here in both of these stories. One author, I believe correctly makes the point that the phrase “the son of man came” tells us about Jesus Mission and is method for spreading his mission.

In Luke 19 we have his mission. The son of man came to seek and save the lost.

In Luke 7 we have the blueprint for how he accomplished this. The son of man came eating and drinking.

Many people have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to reach people. And the more I read the gospels it seems clear that Jesus answer to this would be that one of the most affective way to reach people is by doing it one meal at a time.

This type of evangelism is called Hospitality.

Now I know for many this idea of hospitality has gone by the wayside in our culture.

Most of us like to work then come home and and stay in our house with our family until it is time to go back to work.

But church I want to challenge you this morning to revive Jesus method for seeking and saving the lost.

When I was in college at Harding University, One of my professors by the name of Flavel Yakely, he was known as the church statistician. If you wanted to know a number about how many people attended a particular church or any statistic about church growth or decline he was your man.

I remember towards the end of the semester when he was teaching the book of Acts he spent the last few weeks talking about church statistics.

And at the time he talked about interviewing the fastest growing religious group in the country and asked them why they were growing so much.

They like many churches had activities and gatherings to invite new people but they said the thing that worked best for them was inviting people to share a meal with them.

They said that almost half of all the people that they invite into their homes to share a meal with. Almost half of them begin attending worship with them.

Is sharing a meal with someone the only form of evangelism that works? Of course not. But of all the examples of how Jesus and others shared the gospel, I believe it is the one that we need to revive.

Now to be successful at showing hospitality we must first understand what it is?

Hospitality in the Bible most often refers to how we treat strangers. It is the love that we have for strangers.

A couple definitions that I find helpful is one:

Hospitality is turning strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family.

Comer defines hospitality as expressing the welcome of God the father to all through tangible acts of love. Ideally through giving food, shelter, and relationship.

Now not only do we need to understand what hospitality is but we also need to understand what it is not?

It is important that as we think about the importance of hospitality that we understand that hospitality is not the same thing as entertainment.

Many of us when we think of hospitality we think about inviting are friends over from church to share a meal together. Although there is nothing wrong with inviting your friends over it is interesting that Jesus tells a parable in Luke 14 and in this parable he tells them to not invite their friends or the in crowd but rather to invite the people who are not a part of your circle.

Also many of us when we think about hospitality we think in order to be hospitable we must have a big enough house to entertain in.

If that is what hospitality is than that excludes a lot of people.

Hospitality is simple. It doesn't require a big house or a fancy meal. It just requires your willingness to invite someone to your table.

If you don’t have a house invite someone to a coffee shop or a restaurant and sit across the table with them and get to know them.

Teens hospitality for you may look like finding that person who sits by themselves at the lunch table. Identify that person and sit across from them and get to know them.

For some hospitality may look like inviting someone who has no home into your home in order to share multiple meals with them.

For others hospitality may look like getting up out of your assigned seat during our meals here at the building and going and sitting across the table with someone who is different than you.

There is so much that could be said about the importance of Hospitality. The importance of hospitality is not something that we see only modeled by Jesus it is taught over and over again in the New Testament. We are not going to have time to look at all these examples but I encourage you to take a picture of the screen and then go back and see what you learn about the importance of Hospitality from these verses.

Luke 7, Luke 19, Luke 14, 1 Peter 4:7-11, Hebrews 13, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 25:31-46

I want to close this morning by telling you a true story of a woman who was shown true hospitality.

Her name was Rosaria Butterfield. She actually wrote a book about her experience when someone showed her true hospitality. The book is called the gospel comes with a house key.

Mrs. Butterfield was a very liberal Dr. who was an atheist and she was in a homosexual relationship. Before her life was radically changed she was in the middle of writing a book to explain why Christians were so mean spirited.

So for her research she decided to put an editorial in the paper about this topic. And she got a lot of feed back from the editorial but one of the things she recieved was a letter from a local pastor.

And in that letter instead of telling her why she was going to be condemned because of her lifestyle he took the time to introduce himself and his wife and then he invited her over to his house for dinner.

Thinking that this would be good research for her book she agreed and so she went and had dinner with this family. And to her surprise she actually enjoyed her time with this family. And at the end of the meal the pastor asked her if she would like to continue coming over once a week.

To her this was really weird because she didn’t like their kind but because she enjoyed herself she agreed. Part of the reason why she enjoyed herself was because they never brought up scripture to her to show how her life style was wrong.

Mrs Butterfield continued to go to their house for dinner for two years. Over time they began to share scripture with her and after two years she eventually started going to church with them.

Today Mrs. Butterfield has left her former lifestyle behind and is a Christian who is married to a preacher.

Mrs Butterfield says that Hospitality was the highway that the gospel traveled on in order for her to be reached.

In her book she shares this quote that I want to share with you because I needed to hear this and I’m sure in some way you can benifit from these words to.

She said “ What trips up Christian is this: Too much time waging war with people and ideas on social media, and too heavy a reliance on church programs to filter strangers, weeding out the creepy ones and bringing to your table the nice and safe ones. The post Christian world won’t stand for this. And we shouldn’t either.

Get close enough to the stranger to put their hand into the hand of the Savior.

This morning I hope that you have been reminded why it is that Jesus came. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And he did it by practicing genuine hospitality.

I want to challenge you to start practicing this type of hospitality. Invite someone to sit across the table with you and get to know them.

But here is the key, begin by meeting people where they are at. Get to know them for who they are. Rather than trying to immediately get them to where you think they should be.

Imagine how the makeup of this congregation would change if we all practiced the same type of hospitality that Jesus practiced.

Jesus came to this earth for the purpose of eating and drinking let’s do the same.