Humility & Hospitality

The One Anothers

We want to be a community of people who treat one another well.

This common unity, is found in Jesus Christ. He is our motivation.

Today we focus on Hospitality & Humility.

Busy Sermon.

Hospitality

Humility

Jesus Example

The Lord’s Supper

Prayer

Hospitality

Write/Say/Think of 3 words that define hospitality.

Hospitality Meme - from motivating giraffe

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Hospitality

HOSPITALITY To entertain or receive a stranger (sojourner) into one’s home as an honored guest and to provide the guest with food, shelter, and protection. This was not merely an oriental custom or good manners but a sacred duty that everyone was expected to observe. Only the depraved would violate this obligation.

The historic root of hospitality is kindness to strangers.

Hospitality in Jesus Day

The Patronage System

you had people over to build networks, so that you could advance in business, society, etc.

It was very self serving.

Is The Hospitality of Jesus Self Serving?

No, Jesus came to serve, not to be served. He was turning that system on its head.

A good example of this is an exert from Luke

Luke 14:12–14 HCSB

12 He also said to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. 13 On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Hospitality isn’t hospitality if its limitted to people who we like, and who see the world the same way that we do. Hospitality comes to life, when we offer it to those who we differ from.

Romans 12:13 HCSB

13 Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality.

Purse = effort. practice. learning.

Hospitality is a learned skill. Can you work on this skill this week?

Something to try - Stay an Extra 10 Minutes

Have hospitable conversations in foyer,

finish the thought with whom you are speaking before you move on

If someone is in a conversation, either wait for it to end, or humbly enter, without overtaking the conversation.

Humility

Write/Think/Say 3 words that describe humility

CS Lewis

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Humility

HUMILITY The personal quality of being free from arrogance and pride and having an accurate estimate of one’s worth.

Dwight L Moody Quote

The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons Humility

Did you ever notice the reason Christ gave for learning of Him? He might have said: “Learn of me, because I am the most advanced thinker of the age. I have performed miracles that no man else has performed. I have shown my supernatural power in a thousand ways.” But no: the reason He gave was that He was “meek, and lowly in heart.”

Matthew 11:29 HCSB

29 All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.

Matthew 5:5 HCSB

5 The gentle are blessed, for they will inherit the earth.

Charles Spurgeon ran a seminary for young preachers. The story is told by Al Bryant of one of these students

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 4826 Secret: Go up as He Came Down

One of Spurgeon’s students went into a pulpit with every expression of confidence but he had an extremely difficult time. He came down distressed, almost brokenhearted, and he went to Spurgeon about it. The words of Spurgeon to him were these, “If you had gone up as you came down, you would have come down as you went up.”

We are immediatly suspicious of anyone who claims to be humble.

if you are humble, then you don’t make that boast.

yes Jesus calls us to humbly serve.

How can we do this with straight face and good concience?

Do you want to be humble?

Then ask the question that I ask, how?

How can I be humble?

What do I need to learn?

What has to change?

I look to Jesus for my answer.

Jesus is the ultimate example of humilty. For he gave up every right, and every comfort of heaven so that he could serve and save a people who did not recognize him as their own.

This examplified at the celebration of the Passover Meal with his Disciples in the Upper Room.

John 13:12-17

Context

Jesus has been teaching and and discipling 12 men for over the past 3 years. (12 Disicples)

He knows that this very night he will be arrested.

They have made arrangments to celebrate the passover feast together.

Judas is planning to betray Jesus that evening, but no one else knows this. (Jesus knows, and that’s probably news to Judas).

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 13:5

It was a mark of honor for a host to provide a servant to wash a guest’s feet; it was a breach of hospitality not to provide for it (cf. 1 Sam. 25:41; Luke 7:40–50; 1 Tim. 5:10). Wives often washed their husbands’ feet, and children washed their parents’ feet. Most people, of course, had to wash their own feet.

Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet

Feet travelled in open sandals along the dusty roads of Jerusalem.

We know from Luke 22 that for at least part of the conversation, the disciples were argueing about which one of them would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus demonstrates humility.

Takes off his robe, ties a towel around his waist & one by one, he washes their feet.

Peter is taken back. “You will never wash my feet — ever”.

Would you ever say that to Jesus? What gives Peter that sort of confidence?

Peter doesn’t understand that Jesus is teaching a lesson.

Peter knows that it should never be the teacher, and certainly not the Lord, who does the foot washing.

Jesus shows Peter, (and the rest of the disciples, and those who will read this account), that we need Jesus to be made clean.

The passover started with a footwashing, but it will end in a crucifixion and ressurection.

It’s only through Jesus that we can be made clean!

John 13:12 HCSB

12 When Jesus had washed their feet and put on His robe, He reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you?

This is a great question, Do you know what I have done for you? Without looking ahead to see what Jesus says next, can you answer that question? Put yourself in the place of the disicples who have just had their feet washed, their teacher is asking, “Do you know what I have done for you?”

John 13:13–15 HCSB

13 You call Me Teacher and Lord. This is well said, for I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.

What has Jesus done? He has given us an example of humility and of service.

Jesus shows his heart of service and love by washing their feet.

Jesus entire life was one of service and love.

Mark 10:45 HCSB

45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life —a ransom for many.”

The picture of Jesus washing is disciples feet, is an amazing example for all of us to imitate.

Let me personalize this for myself.

There is no job that I am too good for.

There is no person that I can serve who is beneath me.

John 13:16 CSB

16 “Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

A servant is not greater than his master.

In that room of Jesus and his disciples, Jesus is the Lord, or the master. The disciples have committed their lives to serving him. Can any one of those disciples say that they are greater than Jesus?

Can any of us here today so that we are greater than Jesus?

Similarlarly, the disciples are the messengers and Jesus is the one who has sent them. In the same way, we are the messengers and Jesus is the one who sends us with his message.

Are we messengers greater than Jesus who has sent us?

Here is the Rhetoric that Jesus uses.

Since Jesus is willing to take on the job of washing feet, (which was viewed to be below any Jew), then we should be willing to take on that job and worse, for we are not greater than Jesus.

How can I be humble?

I can humble by God’s help as I follow Christ’s example.

an attitude of service

a heart of compassion and love

the power of the Holy Spirit. (God can bless people far greater than I can, and so I rely on his power and not my own.)

John 13:17 HCSB

17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

We’ve learned about hospitality and humiliy. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. Its where we get to know the truth by living the truth. Its where we experience the freedom that comes from Jesus, by obeying his commands. Its where his abundant life is experienced, when we follow his example. And its all by his help, his grace enables us to do these things.

Philippians 2:8 HCSB

8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

Look at that verse and answer the question. How did Jesus humble himself?

…by becomeing obedient.

This is not a self righteous obedience that puts you in a higher status than those who are less obedient.

This is a humble obedience that says, “not my will, but God’s will be done.” Its an obedience that trusts God above everything else.

Humility is found in trust, and obedience, and is exemplified in Jesus.

In John 13. Jesus models humility and hospitality by taking on the tasks of a servant. He does this to give an example for all of his disciples to follow.

John describes the foot washing. The other gospels describe the Lord’s Supper.

The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith Article: More Evidence for Life after Death (J. P. Moreland)

Only John describes the foot washing; only the other Gospels present Jesus’ words over the bread and the cup. But both fit neatly together as part of the same meal, a Jewish Passover feast, which Jesus reinterpreted as symbolizing His upcoming, self-giving death for the sins of humanity.

The Jewish people celebrated passover to celebrate what God had done for them when he rescued them from being slaves of Pharoah.

One of the central ingredients in the passover feast is the passover lamb.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus for the first time, he exclaimed...

John 1:29 HCSB

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus is the passover lamb. He is fulfilling what the Israelites were celebrating, freedom, life and being in relationshp with God. Jesus came so that he could take away the sin of the world.

The passover feast remembers freedom from Pharoah, and celebrates God’s saving power.

The Lord’s Supper celebrates freedom from sin, and remembers Jesus death and ressurection.

Matthew 26:26–29 HCSB

26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take and eat it; this is My body.” 27 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way in My Father’s kingdom with you.”

We take Communion, or The Lord’s Supper, once a month as a church.

INSTRUCTIONS

FOR Who?

Process

hold bread / cup, take together

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 HCSB

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

1 Corinthians 11:25–26 HCSB

25 In the same way, after supper He also took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant established by My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.