Hospitality

Introduction and Scripture

Ephesians 2:19–22 NIV

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Pray.

Hospitality intro. Matriarch of the church found a person sleeping in the choir loft.

This week is all about setting a foundation for hospitality. In a world where divisiveness is rampant....this is the most important piece of our series. Everything builds on this. What does the bible say about hospitality?

Paul and Ephesians:

Well the bible is going to make the case for this work in the new testament and through Jesus by way of talking about the joining of Jew and Gentile.

See from the beginning God, revealed himself to a specific people. Called the scandal of particularity....it kind of makes us mad if we are honest. Why not now, why not to us. But God chose a people in Israel to bring forth revelation of who he is.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Biblical Relevance

God’s covenant with Abraham created, via Jacob, the Israelite nation (Gen 12, 15, 17). God set Israel apart from other nations as His chosen people (Deut 7:6–8), and He gave them a land to possess (Gen 15:18) and the Law to obey (Exod 19:3–6). Thus, being a Hebrew was a matter of ethnicity, politics, and religion. A Gentile referred to anyone falling outside of these delineations (e.g., Deut 15:6; 2 Sam 7:23; Psa 115:2–8).

Now the bible does not say that Gentiles are outside of the scope of God:

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Biblical Relevance

God rebukes Gentile nations when they fail (Ezek 25–32; Amos 1–2) and employs them as vehicles to deliver His judgment on disobedient Israel (Isa 44:28; Jer 51). It was God’s desire to bless all nations—per His covenant with Abraham (Gen 15) and His words spoken through His prophets (Isa 25:6–8).

Gentiles are found in the geneaologies of Jesus, they play roles in the narrative of Scripture.

Jesus crosses over to minister to gentiles:

Matthew 8 and the centuirion and Mark 7 and the Syrophoenician women.

But still, there was a divide. God wants to make sure that Israel is other and different from the world....focused and tied through covenant with Him as the #1 identifier of who they are. So food laws and ceremonious laws and marriage and everything that goes into life is countercultural. It has purpose, it is teaching Israel what it means to be faithful and holy, and it is witnessing to the world around them.

Still you give people this kind of privilege and it can be abused easily. It is human nature. And from generations before Jesus there is a spiritual wall built that eventually is a physical wall meant to keep Gentiles our of the Temple.

And so Paul now as read today preaches that in Jesus this is no more. What God promised in Abraham is real for all persons. Even before our readings today, verse 13 sets the scene:

Ephesians 2:13 NIV

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Hospitality of the Jew to the Gentile

Now we might be tempted to place ourselves directly into this passage in a series about hospitality. We are the Jews and those out there are the Gentiles. God came to us and now Paul is telling us to be nice and play nice.

No no, we are all the gentiles, unless there are any messianic jews in the house. We are only here because of Christ. Or again, as verse 13 puts it two different ways, we are here:

In Christ

By the blood of Christ

By the blood:

Through the blood of Christ because this is the sacrificial death by which we are reconciled to God and to each-other. God came and died on behalf of humanity so that we might be near to Him again.

In Christ:

But we must be in Christ so that the reconciliation he achieved is received and enjoyed.

His life and death makes a way, But our union to him seals it.

One of the first reasons that I think the church can be so inhospitable today....

The church is full of people that believe in the blood of Christ, but no nothing of being found in Christ.

We tip our caps at the Holy week teaching. At the gospel presentation, but if we are full of consumers of moralistic, therapeutic, Christianity to just help life out a little down the road, then we will not find hospitality.

See if I believe I am the Gentile, if I believe that it is because of the blood of Christ, and if I am found in Christ, then that changes how I approach family, stranger, and yes enemy.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Ohio for a week long intensive for my Doctoral program. We spend time with our focus group and talk about our projects and get help from our colleagues and mentors. But the whole group of doctoral students also receive some plenary teaching that is all focused.

This week was focused on racial reconciliation.

By the way folks, we still have a long ways to go. We have work to do along those lines. If you would like to talk more about that with me then please do.

But one of the speakers gave a powerful witness/talk to the possibility of racial reconciliation by pointing to the church. He talked about the church becoming the embodiment of Christ for the world. He implored the church to be about the work of making saints again. Helping people to come alive by Christ and to have their lives transformed by his grace. In the grace of Jesus racism SHOULD fall apart.

(I promise this has connection here)

After the talk, people that have been affected by racism directly or have worked for change, lined up at the microphones during Q&A.

There was some tense moments as the speaker received attack after attack because his vision was too passive, too weak, too slow.

Afterwards our focus group debriefed what was going on and at first it was disorienting to hear such a kingdom minded talk, face such opposition from Christian leaders.

Then it occurred to us, that most do not believe in divine action. For the speaker to call us to holiness and spiritual practices like what we are talking about in this series, was not attractive because to that means you are expecting to find a God that actually interacts with us and our world.

We actually struggle to think very much about being in Christ.

Kingdom, Family, Temple

Paul gives us three images for this new reality, look at verse 19 again:

Ephesians 2:19–20 NIV

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

Kingdom

God’s family

Temple

These have political, social, and religious implications.

Citizens of a new Kingdom:

This word is quick and undeveloped here but it is distinct and obvious. He says Jews and Gentiles are now citizens, alluding to this new kingdom of heaven. Other places Paul develops this further....

Philippians 3:20 NIV

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

His power will bring everything under his control.

Let me just pause here…in the last several months we have seen a political mess in front of us. There have been times that the church has had to try and speak into some of what is happening in our political sphere and sometimes we get wild push back over seemingly common sense Christian statements. “Preacher, stay out of the politics.” If you think that Jesus has no room in your politics, then you are sorely mistaken. Perhaps what gets him and his followers killed is this radical political movement that declared that Jesus is king and his governance puts any human “king” in a place beneath him.

What does this have to do with hospitality? Politics has everything to do with hospitality:

If your allegiance is to a political party, how you treat others in the family of God is actually shaped by your political commitments.

If your allegiance is to yourself: you will make decisions always based on what benefits you and your family

If your allegiance is to God as king: then is shapes how you treat people right next to you that might be different, it shapes how you treat the stranger, how you treat the immigrant. How you treat your enemies.

We are all now a Family in Christ

Now the metaphor becomes more intimate, you are members of the household of God. In the kingdom, you need to get along, in the family you need to like eachother....haha

Again it looks like a quick phrase Paul throws out there but he develops it even in this letter:

Ephesians 1:5 NIV

he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

and

Ephesians 3:14–15 NIV

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

Ephesians 4:6 NIV

one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

This word in our passage denotes a close relationship of affection, care, and support.

Last week, I shared about Cyndi and one of our people took the call to prayer seriously. Fasted on Monday and prayed for him all day. This is an act of family.

Built together to be a temple

Now a third picture…we are built together to be a temple. So much we could say here, but do not have all the time to unpack it. The foundation is the apostles and prophets. They are both teaching roles, so does not matter about their offices as much as their teaching. The foundation is the gospel. The cornerstone is Jesus. When we are built together around Christ, we become the location in which God is pleased to dwell. Gentiles were not even allowed in the temple and now they are the temple.

In Christ is the necessary qualifier. As you are built into the cornerstone. As we are built into Him.

Closing:

nametags

silly video

business cards

None of it matters without being in Christ.

Transformational question:

How are you living like a son or daughter of God? How are you living like a citizen of heaven? How are you committing to the building of the temple?