Embracing Hospitality

Well, good morning to all of you. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. And thank you for Being here today to worship, with us through song and prayer, and now to worship God by opening our ears to, to Him and allowing him to speak to us through His word. And with that intent in mind, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12.

Romans chapter 12 for our time of study in God's word this morning, we're in a section of, of, of Romans 12, where we're learning about how to walk in agape love, and Paul is, is very careful with, very deliberate strokes of the brush to describe for us what, what walking in agape love actually looks like. And so we're learning how to love one another in this, this passage. And so if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be loving one another, Part 7, but our focus today will be on one aspect of agape love, and that is practicing hospitality.

Our entire message this morning will be on the two words that end Romans 12:13, where Paul says, practicing.

Hospitality. before we get underway, In looking at the passage in Romans 12, let me just, throw a few facts your way when it comes to the subject of hospitality. first of all, a quick and partial definition of hospitality. We'll fill in and complete this definition a little bit later in, in the message, but for now, hospitality.

Speaks of reaching out to and welcoming others into your life and into your home. So hospitality is more than what you do with your home. It speaks of having a hospitable disposition towards other people, where you, you behave towards people in a way that conveys to them, I've got room in my life for you. I've got room in my heart for you, and so you are welcoming to them.

Welcoming them into your life. But hospitality, anytime it's ever used in the New Testament, or anytime the word hospitality is used, even in extra biblical literature, it always refers to something that you do with your home, with your house. And, it speaks of reaching out to and welcoming others, not only into your life, but also into where you do life. And that is your home.

So that's a basic working definition of hospitality that's enough to get us started this morning. Some quick facts about hospitality and how largely it looms in the early history of the church. We, we observe in the early chapters of the Book of Acts that the church of Jesus Christ was birthed in the context of hospitality. It was birthed in the context of hospitality.

You guys know the story in Acts 2 about the day of Pentecost, the coming of the, the Holy Spirit. but think about it from the hospitality point of view. We learned in Acts 2 verse 1 that when the day of Pentecost had come, they, the 120, were all together in one place, but we're not sure where that place is. It could be outside, outdoors, or in the temple.

But in verse 2, it says, and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were staying or sitting. And so we don't know who this house belonged to, but somebody on this particular day had opened up their house and hospitality. To the 120, and they're all gathered there and no doubt whoever's house this belonged to, they had made some preparations, provided food, whatever, and accommodations as best that they could to where this group of people was gathered there.

And it just so happens that in this venue of hospitality that the Spirit comes and tongues of fire descend upon.

these 120, they begin speaking with tongues and a crowd gathers and the gospel is preached and 3000 people get saved inside of the matrix of hospitality. Whosever home this was, and whoever had opened up their home on this occasion, I'm sure at the end of the day, the man said to his wife, I think that went well, don't you, honey? what an amazing moment that must have been, and a privilege this must have been for whoever opened up their home. The gospel makes a radical advance beyond Jerusalem into, the Gentiles, and when the gospel broke out among the Gentiles, that happened inside of the context of hospitality.

in Acts chapter 10, we learned that basically a messenger from the Lord had told Cornelius to send for the apostle Peter. And so he sent some messengers to go find Peter and bring Peter to his house. And the messengers find Peter. And when they get to Peter, they said, Cornelius was divinely directed to send for you to come to his house and hear a message from you.

And so while Cornelius is waiting for them to arrive on the day that he figured they would be arriving, it says that he was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends to where they're all gathered in In his house by the time that Peter had arrived. Peter then enters, he enters into Cornelius's house where Cornelius and, and relatives and friends were there waiting. Cornelius speaks to Peter and says a number of things, one of which is we are all here present before God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.

In this setting of hospitality in Cornelius's home.

He is now inviting Peter to come in and speak the good news of the gospel, which Peter does. And those gathered there in that home believe the message of the gospel and the Spirit falls upon and fills them. They began speaking in tongues, giving indication to Peter, and those who were with him, that they too had received the Holy Spirit, and that the gospel goes to them, the Gentiles, also. So this is a wonderful occasion of hospitality in which a wonderful breakout of the gospel occurs.

And again, I can imagine Cornelius at the end of the day. saying to his wife, that went well, honey, don't you think? what a wonderful breakthrough of the gospel, and it happened in the matrix of, of hospitality. another thing that we can observe about the early Christians is that hospitality, seem to be at the core of how the early Christians lived out their faith.

You read the Book of Acts, and you don't just observe that these Christians practice hospitality, but you observe that hospitality was who they were. It was at the core of how they lived out their newfound faith in Jesus Christ. It says in Acts 2:46, and following day by day, devoting themselves toward one-mindedness in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They weren't just gathering in the temple, but they were gathering from house to house.

And what were they doing? They were taking their meals together with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and I would suggest translating the next. clause this way, having favor toward all the people. Most English translations say having favor with all the people, as if it's the people in the surrounding area that were having favor towards the Christians.

That's very possible. I wouldn't want to argue against that. But literally, the preposition is toward. and so I think the idea is that they, the Christians, they were praising God, and they were having, literally, they were having grace toward all the people, they were showing grace to the people in Jerusalem.

So they're not just inviting their brothers and sisters in the Lord over and worshiping and praising God and enjoying meals together. But the indication is that they were inviting nonbelievers into their home. And showing favor and grace and love towards these nonbelievers that they were bringing into their homes. So if you would have walked into many of these homes, there would have been a collection of believers and nonbelievers.

And in that environment of the rich practice of hospitality from house to house, We observed that the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved. The growth of the church happened in the context of hospitality along with many other things that are described here. In fact, if you read what Luke says carefully, you observe that Luke is saying more. Then that there were people being saved.

Look again, Lucas just described, they're devoting themselves to unity or one mindedness in the temple, they're breaking bread from house to house. They're, they're taking meals together with gladness, simplicity of heart, they're praising God, they're showing favor towards all the people. So he's just described the way these early believers are living. And behaving.

And then Luke says, and the Lord was adding to their number, those that were being saved. He could have just said, and the Lord was saving people. But what he says literally, is the Lord was adding to their number. In other words, the number of those living this way, the number of those who were practicing their faith in this way, the Lord was adding to their number.

In other words, the number of people who were behaving and living out their faith in this way kept on growing. The Lord was saving people and adding those saved people to the number of those who were living out their faith in this way. Indeed hospitality. was huge in the life of the early church at the very core of how they lived out their faith we see.

How from time to time in the New Testament, the virtue of hospitality is, is commanded. In 3rd John 8, John says we ought to show hospitality. First Peter 4:9, be hospitable to one another. Hebrews 13:2, do not neglect to show hospitality.

Speaking of elders, 1 Timothy 3:2, an overseer or an elder must be hospitable. Titus 1:7-8, an overseer must be hospitable. Again and again we have these instructions or commands upon believers to practice hospitality. And guys, when you look at these commands to practice hospitality, I don't want you to feel burdened by these commands like, oh man, commanded over and over again.

I've got to do this, so I've got to add that to the list of things that I need to do. I've got to show hospitality on top of everything else that I'm commanded to do in scripture. I don't want you to respond that way to where you're burdened by this. I want you to be encouraged by this, because when the apostles deliver this command, they're, if we could just see their countenance, we would know they're on to something here.

And they're pointing to hospitality saying you've got to do this., if I were to eat some delicious ice cream, and I absolutely enjoyed it and loved it, and I wanted to share it with my family, and I come to my children with this ice cream. And I say to them, eat this, you have to eat this. How would my kids respond? Would they say, Whoa, Dad, what's with the imperatives here?

These commands, I feel like it's, you're weighing me down with law and responsibilities. Would they respond that way? No, they, they would, all they got to do is look at my countenance and know I'm on to something. And I'm pointing to this saying, eat this, you've got to try this.

And I want you to feel something of that from the writers of scripture when they give this command. They point to your home and say, be hospitable, because they're on to something, and they want you in on it as well. There is great blessing for you, the host, and for those that you bring into your home. Epic things happen.

In the context of hospitality, so be hospitable. There's every indication that the early church, the early Christians lived this out. In AD 95, Clement of Rome, he's writing to, a church, and he says to them, indeed, was there ever a visitor in your midst that did not approve your excellent and steadfast faith, or did not proclaim the magnificent character of your hospitality. Anyone who ever hangs out with you guys, they come away bragging about, just boasting about and raving about your hospitality to them.

One church historian says of the early centuries of the church, one of the most prominent features of the picture of early Christianity, which is so rich in good works is undoubtedly its hospitality. Unfortunately, in modern Christianity, a lot of ministry happens on the campus of churches. People leave their homes and come onto the campus of a church where ministry happens, but in the early church, it seems like a huge amount, not all by any means, but a significant amount of life, body life and ministry and blessing back and forth happened in the context.

Of the way people, people were loving each other with their homes.

We know from the early centuries of the church that churches met in homes. There were no buildings that were built until, I think the first one on record is in the middle of the 3rd century, and even that was a renovated home. Believers were content to meet together and to do life in the context of Of their homes, and they lived this. Hospitality was not something they merely did, but it was who they were and at the core of how they lived out their faith, and God blessed.

And so I think all of us would say that we want something of that in our lives and in our midst as a church. And so our passage this morning is something that we ought to have a keen interest in and the way we're going to frame things. this morning we're going to observe five truths in Romans 12:13 that will help us to deepen our appreciation of hospitality. in our lives and also move us towards a deeper Practice of hospitality.

The first thing we will observe, guys, is this, just from this passage, we observe that hospitality is one of the fundamental ways to express agape love. It's one of the fundamental ways to express agape love. Paul, in verse 9, begins the subject by mentioning agape. That's my topic, he says, and by way of describing what love looks like, he includes hospitality.

In fact, let's read the literal rendering that we've been adding to week by week, beginning in verse 9. Paul says, Agape, this is my topic. This is what I want to explain to you. This is what agape looks like and how it expresses itself.

Here's agape, no hypocrisy, hating the evil, clinging to the good. Devotedness to one another in brotherly love, leading one another in honor, in diligence, not lagging, in the spirit being fervent, for the Lord's serving, in hope, rejoicing, in tribulation, persevering, devoted to prayer, sharing in the needs of the saints, and practicing hospitality. Paul is explaining to us that agape love expresses itself in a variety of ways. One of those ways is through hospitality.

So we read that and we realize that if, if I want to be an effective lover of other people, if I want to walk in agape love, then I will want to be someone who practices hospitality. Agape apparently extends to what I do with my home with regard to other people. Agape means that I look at someone that I want to show love to, and somewhere in my thinking is I want to use my home to show them agape love. Alexander Strau in his book, The Hospitality Commands says that this way, through the Ministry of Hospitality, we provide friendship, acceptance, fellowship, refreshment, comfort, and love in one of the richest and deepest ways possible for humans to understand.

I think all of us know. What that's like. It's one thing to receive some token of love. It's another thing to, to be brought into somebody's home, and for them to make their home available to us to be able to stay overnight or for a few days.

Or for longer and to put their food before us and to eat with us and allow us to eat with them. This is one of the deepest ways to show and to receive love, and this is a crowning virtue of the early church and Paul wants it to be a crowning virtue of the way that we go about showing agape love to to other people. It seems like Strau would suggest that hospitality is one of the fundamental ways. that we can show love to other people.

And let me ponder this for just a moment with you guys. It, it is important that we think of hospitality in connection with agape love, because we all know that it's possible to do, quote, unquote, what appears to be loving things, but we're not really being governed by love, right? 1 Corinthians 13, we learned that you can give your body to be burned, you can give all your possessions away to the poor and still not have love. And so we can then infer That even though love expresses itself in the form of hospitality, it must be possible to show hospitality and not be rightly governed by agape love, right?

Someone can show hospitality. perhaps with a selfish motive to further their reputation as a great host. To cause others to think more highly of themselves maybe out of a spirit of competition and then in the way that they prepare their home for the guests that are coming in, they can just be all in a in a boil about what are they going to think of me and so they're obsessing over every little detail as if it's all about them. And we all get caught up in, in that to where even we, we, our motive may have been to love a person, but we allow so much selfish thinking to come in that it bogs us down as we're preparing for someone to come into our home, and as they are in our home, we're thinking more about ourselves than we are about the person that we're seeking to show love to.

And so it's helpful for us to, to remind ourselves that hospitality should be an expression of agape love, and agape love is other centered. It's not about me. It's not about what other people think about me. It's all about serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and blessing this other person.

Every Sunday morning before I get to the pulpit. I have to say almost these exact words every Sunday at least once and sometimes 20 times. That this is not about me. And this is not about what people think about me.

This is all about you, Lord, and serving your kingdom. And if you, when I get to the pulpit, want to make a fool out of me, then I will happily be a fool for Jesus. If you just promise me, Lord, that you will glorify yourself through me. When, when I'm in that frame of mind, I can get up here and not be freaked out in front of all of you.

Otherwise, I would be frozen with fright and nervousness. But I have to tell myself it's not about me, otherwise I get bogged down with a self-absorbed orientation. I'm here to love you, not to further my reputation as a pastor or a preacher. And when we show agape love to other people, it's not about us.

It's not about what they think about us. It's about loving them. And being caught up and blessing them. When you think about it this way, you begin to realize there's a difference between Christian hospitality and social entertaining, which often get confused.

Listen to what one brother sent me this, this week from the Life Application Bible. We were talking about this subject and listen, listen to this. I love this. This writer says Christian hospitality differs from social entertaining.

Entertainment focuses on the host. The home must be spotless. The food must be well prepared and abundant. The host must appear relaxed and good natured.

You guys know the drill, and man, if you do your job, they're going to walk away saying, Whoa, what a host this person was. That's social entertaining. But this writer goes on to say this Hospitality, by contrast, focuses on the guests. Their needs, whether for a place to stay, nourishing food, a listening ear, or acceptance are the primary concern.

Hospitality can happen in a messy home. It can happen around the dinner table where the main dish is canned soup. It can even happen while the host and guest are doing chores together. Don't hesitate to offer hospitality just because you are too tired, too busy, or not wealthy enough to entertain.

We need to get our eyes off of ourselves and say, I want to walk in agape love, and one of the ways I'm going to do that is to open up my home to other people and be a blessing to them. There's a second truth that we observe in this passage, and that is that hospitality should be pursued, not just practiced. It should be pursued, not just practiced. look at what Paul says in verse 13.

In the New American Standard, it says, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. OK, fair enough. It does mean practicing hospitality. But literally the word that is translated practicing in the new American standard is the word dioko that literally means to pursue.

so he's literally commanding us not just to practice hospitality, but to chase after hospitality, to pursue hospitality. In fact, this word Dioko, usually in the New Testament, means to persecute, with the idea of pursuing someone to do them harm. That's normally what the word means. In fact, it means exactly that in verse 14.

It's an interesting use of this same word verse 13. Contributing to the needs of the saints, pursuing the OO hospitality. And then he says, bless those who dooko you. In other words, bless those who pursue you with the intention of doing you harm.

But in verse 13, he says, you pursue people with the intention of doing them good with your house, with your home, with your stuff. This is a call, not just to practice hospitality, but to pursue it. So the idea is that someone says, I want this to be at the core of how I live my life and live out my my faith, so I'm making a decision that I will be committed to practicing hospitality. My home does not belong to me.

It's not just going to be a castle in which I can retreat into and hide from the world. I will not use the walls of my home. I will not use my home to hide myself away from the world. I will use Home to reach out to the world and invite them in.

That's the decision I have made. My home, my house will be in itself a minister of the gospel. And then having made that decision, you then pursue opportunities to live that out. You don't wait for opportunities to come to you.

You don't wait for someone to come to you and say, hey, can I come over? Can I come into your home? No, you pursue opportunities. To bring others into your home.

We're commanded in the New Testament to pursue different things. In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul tells Timothy to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, chase after those things. And here in this passage, we're being told to pursue hospitality. It ranks right up there, as important as righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

That we should pursue. Paul says, pursue hospitality, go after it. Don't wait for it to come to you. Don't, don't respond to people who, that you may get a phone call, someone needs, a place for care group to meet or someone needs a place to stay for a few nights or what have you, and then maybe you respond by saying, what, I don't, if, if you can't find anyone else, then, then call me back.

I'll be a last resort. now, there may be legitimate reasons why in a given circumstance that might be totally OK. So, I'm not trying to put a guilt trip on anybody, but I think you get the gist. That it's not letting yourself show hospitality as a last resort, but actually being aggressive and going after opportunities to live out your faith in this way.

A great example of this is a gal named Lydia in Acts 16. Paul comes into the city and, and preaches the gospel and Lydia, ends up embracing Christ as our Lord and Savior. And what's amazing? The very first fruit of saving faith in her life is the pursuit of hospitality.

That's the first evidence. That's the first good work that came out of her as a newborn believer in Jesus. It says, and when she and her household had been baptized, she, Luke is writing this, she was urging us Saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. And the literal idea here is that she was urging us, she was pleading with us, and she was repeatedly saying, come into my house and stay.

Implied in that is that, that Luke is suggesting that they did not immediately say yes to her. They had reservations about it. Maybe there was something that made them hesitant or maybe they had other plans, but she kept on saying, come into my house and stay. And Luke says, and she prevailed upon us.

All right. This is a woman who's used to getting her way as a businesswoman, and she insisted, and Luke says she prevailed upon us, and he uses the word that actually means to compel by force. And, and so he's basically saying she almost practically forced us to stay with her. That's, that's a woman who's pursuing.

Hospitality, and that's the very first fruit. That is manifested of her saving faith in Jesus. So hospitality is something that ought to be pursued by us, not just practice. There's a third truth that we can observe that's very much tied to this, and that is that pursuing hospitality is to be a habitual pattern of our life.

The verb here practicing or pursuing is present tense, so it's not just something that occasionally we do. Among all the other virtues, sometimes we will practice hospitality. No, what's being suggested here is that agape love is characterized by ongoing habitual. Pursuit Of hospitality.

Some truly walking in agape love will consistently, habitually practice and pursue. Hospitality. It ought to be the case that if someone were to follow you around for two months, at the end of those two months, among the many things they might be able to write about you, that they would write the words, this person habitually pursues hospitality. It's just how part of how they live out their faith.

And so this is to be the pattern of our lives, the pursuit of hospitality. And what, guys, I understand that in our culture today, And I feel this as well, my wife and I, we're in the beginning stages of learning about this. I could point to 100 failures in this area for any single thing that we have done right along these lines, and we've got much to learn, and we are learning. but there, there are many influences that are in our culture that scream against hospitality.

the busyness of our, our schedules, the technologies that are in our homes, just one walk around our block, at night. it's amazing. No one hardly is outdoors. Everyone's inside.

The doors are closed, and emanating from, from the front window is this blue light of the television that's on. We are all so anonymous from, from one another. Earlier generations would not have been able to even imagine anything that would so pull us away from each other the way that modern technologies tend to do. and, and there's many other reasons that, that are at play.

There are things that work against us really making hospitality at the core of how we live out our faith. And what, it would make sense that that is the case because if hospitality is the powerful thing that the scriptures present it as being, and if you were the devil, then you would put your guns right here, right? And really fight against. This practice and pursuit of hospitality, you would do everything you can to keep believers from being in one another's homes, and we have reasons, we have excuses, rationales for why we don't pursue hospitality.

A number of years ago, we here at Cornerstone used to have what was called hospitality night. How many of you guys remember that? OK. We stopped it in 2002.

and, what, people would sign up weeks in advance, on the 5th Sunday night of every, wherever there was a 5th Sunday in a given month, we would cancel our evening service and have hospitality night and people would, they'd sign up to either be a guest or a host, and what we noticed as the years rolled by is that there was an increasing number of people signing up to be a guest and a decreasing number of people signing up to be hosts, and it just seemed like every time we had a hospitality night, it was the same people that were, that were hosting and the same people being guests, and it just became a burden.

And we were trying to figure out a way to make that more equitable and as a part of that strategy, I assigned a person who was in charge of that ministry to survey all the people who were signing up as guests and to ask them why is it that you always want to be a guest and don't want to be a host. And, and this person who did this work for me, they, they wrote out the answers that they received and then they gave me the list of answers, and without any names attached to them, just for my benefit.

And I have that list with me this morning.

So are you interested? All right, well, I'm gonna tell you anyway, here's the Here's what they said. Here's what one person said. My house is too messy and it takes too much work getting it ready for guests.

Another person said, I'm too lazy. Another person said, my house is too small. Another person said, I'm not a good cook. Another person said, I'm too tired to host, but I'll be a guest.

Another person said, My yard needs re-landscaped. And that's a biggie. you've got to have a landscaped yard if you're going to have people over. There have been times I've been invited over to someone's house and I folded in front of their house and their yard, believe it or not, was not landscaped properly, and I just got in my car and went home.

That's just terrible. it's just funny how, and people, most people don't even really notice that thing. And yet as hosts, we obsess on things like that. Another person said, I'll host if someone gives me $15,000 so I can fix up my home.

Another person said, my dining room chairs need reupholstered, so, I, I can't be a host because of the condition of my chairs. Another person said I can't afford it right now, and another person said I don't have the gift of hospitality, which is interesting. I have the gift of being a guest. I am.

I am an excellent guest. But I don't have the gift of having people into my home. Guys, I don't read this to bust anyone up. In fact, the only reason I'm comfortable reading these things is because, many of these things, I have found the same rationale surfacing in my own heart.

To one degree or another, I've been guilty of thinking most of these ways. And we just need to acknowledge that there are always reasons not. To do this. That will always confront us.

It will probably be rare that everything will be pointing in the direction of, hey, show hospitality, and there's not one obstacle that presents itself. But what we need to do as a community is just say this is who we are. And this is how we're going to live out our faith. This is at the core of how we're going to live out our faith in Jesus Christ.

And we're going to do this. There's other things that we all do, and there's always reasons not to, but we always overcome those. But for some reason when it comes to something like hospitality, we let those reasons prevail and we become lazy and we end up disobeying what we're commanded to do and we cheat ourselves and others of the blessing that can come from pursuing hospitality. There is 1/4 truth that we can observe from this passage.

That is that our pursuit of hospitality should extend to strangers. Our pursuit of hospitality should extend to strangers. It's interesting the Greek word that is translated hospitality here. He says practicing hospitality, and this word hospitality in the Greek is the word pylos, that is one of the Greek words for love, and then xenos, which is the Greek word for stranger.

OK. You've, you've probably heard the word xenophobia. You, you may have never used that, but you may have heard that xenophobia is a fear of Strangers. And so Plos Xenos is a love of strangers.

And so with that breakdown or etymology of the term, we can then complete our definition of hospitality. It is reaching out to and welcoming others into Our life and home, including those presently outside of our circle of family and friends, whom we know well. Now, in referring to, or in using this term to speak of hospitality, Paul is not saying if you invite someone over to your house that you already know, then it's not technically hospitality. That's not his point.

If you have some believer over that you're a dear friend of, and them well, they know you well. Paul would not look at you and say, no, it's not good enough. That's not hospitality, sorry. it's got to be someone you don't know, someone who's a stranger.

that's not Paul's intent in using this term because we are commanded in other passages to show hospitality to one another. And obviously, we know each other, right? using the word stranger, denotes basically the extent of our hospitality. The point is that we reach out to and welcome others into our life and home, including all the way to the extent of including those presently outside of our circle of family and friends, whom we presently may, may know well.

So what's being denoted is the extent of the love that we show. This word itself does violence to the natural cliqueishness that is deeply rooted in all of us, that just being friendly and welcoming to those that we know, those that we know well, family and friends that we're already close friends with. No, someone who is making hospitality at the core of how they practice their faith is someone who, yes, they love those whom they know well, but their hearts are big enough and wide enough to welcome and include those who are presently outside of their circle of family and, and friends.

You say, Pastor Milton, my life is busy enough.

I just, I don't, I don't have room in my heart and my soul for more people. In my life. I think if Paul heard you say that, he would say you're way selling yourself short. I think we set the bar too low.

Who told us what we're capable of and what we're not? I think we say that and we're being somewhat honest because our souls have atrophied. They're so small that they can only include a certain number of people, and then we just say, well, I guess that's all that I can handle. Rather than realizing That if I enlarge my heart to embrace others, my soul will be enlarged.

And I will find myself, my soul being expanded by the embrace of other people presently outside of those that I know and love well. Think about it with kids. You have a child and you're like, Oh, I love this child so much. Could I ever love another child as much as I love this one?

And you have another one, and guess what, you love that child just as much. And then maybe another one and then another one. And what, your heart just keeps expanding. With each child that God brings to you, and it's the same.

I marvel at the expansiveness of the soul of the apostle Paul, how his soul was so large that it could accommodate so many people, and he could be in the city of Corinth, and he's praying all the time for those in the city of Thessalonica, and he sends a messenger. I've got to find out how you guys are doing, and, and he's teaching them and encouraging them. Praying for them, sending a letter to them, and he's in Corinth, and he's bogged down and afflictions, he's experiencing in that city, and yet he's still got the capacity to be embracing other people with his loving concern.

Paul is a man whose soul was so large, And when Paul encountered someone who was presently outside of his circle of family and friends, what his thinking was?

He's like, what, I don't know you, but my soul is going to embrace you, and I know that my soul will expand with that embrace. And our souls expand as we enter more and more deeply into community. So don't sell yourself in Christ short. You can do better than you're doing.

I can do better than I am doing. Let us be on that journey of expanding our souls as we go deeper and deeper into the wide embrace of community. There's a 5th and final. truth that we observe in this passage, and we got to end here, and that is that our pursuit of the gospel should be tied to and motivated by the gospel.

guys, this, this description of love, practicing hospitality is not just some floating instruction that's just hanging suspended, attached to nothing. It's profoundly attached to everything that Paul has been. been saying Paul has in chapters 1 through 11, been giving us the gospel. And, one of the ways of looking at the gospel is this, the gospel is the good news of the amazing hospitality of God towards us who were total strangers.

And God sent His Son Jesus into the world, to be a savior to the Jew first, that was the people of God, but also to the Gentiles. That's us. We were strangers. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2.

And to us as strangers, we get the benefit of the saving work of this Messiah. And God through Christ brings us into relationship with Himself. We used to be alienated, and having nothing to do with God, we didn't want anything to do with him. Even if we did, our sins separated us from God.

But God at great cost to himself sent His Son into the world to live the life that we could have never lived and died the death that we deserve to die, so that we by believing in him could have all of our sins forgiven. and receive the perfect righteousness of Jesus so that we are now properly attired to come into the presence of Almighty God. And Paul says, having now been justified by faith, we have peace toward God. We have a relationship with God now, that is characterized by the luxurious presence of all that is needed for a rich and vital relationship with Him.

In fact, God went beyond that, guys. He didn't just bring us into relationship with Himself. We learned in Romans that he adopted us. He said, I don't just want you in relationship with me as a friend.

I don't just want you to be in heaven with me forever. I, I want to adopt you into my family. Adoption is the ultimate act of hospitality. God reaching out to us and saying, I will make you my son, I will make you my daughter with full rights and privileges of sonship.

In my presence, and you will be a member of my family forever and nothing will ever separate you from my love. You get to be in relationship with me now. And not only that, but my son is preparing a place for you in heaven so that you can live in my home forever. That's the gospel.

It is the good news of the eternal hospitality of God to us who were strangers. And Paul lays many of these facets open to where we're overwhelmed by this love that God has shown in reaching out to us. And then in Romans 12:1, he says, therefore, therefore, I'm going to say some things and give you instructions now. I want you to know that every instruction I give you is tied to everything I have just said, as I have presented to you the gospel.

I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, and then here come the commands, the instructions, one of which is practice hospitality. You are the recipient of the eternal hospitality of God. Turn around and use your home to mirror that to other people. Don't just go to the world and, and preach to them that hey, I want to give you the good news of the hospitality of God towards you.

You can become a member of his family by believing in Jesus and live with him in his home forever. Don't just say those words. Live it, and open up your home. And thereby show them what your father is like.

Live out the gospel in who you are, and the way that you live out your faith, and showing hospitality to To other people. You see, when we open up our homes to one another, And love one another with our homes, and we go out and invite others into our home, even those presently outside of our circle of family and friends. Guys, when we do that, we're putting the gospel on display. And we can preach till we're blue in the face about the hospitality of God.

But if the world observes us with our doors closed, And we're not living out that hospitality. Then we should not be surprised that our words would fall on deaf ears. You are never more like God than when you go out to others and invite them into your home. Can I say one more thing before we shut it down?

Raise your hands. Yeah. All right. Someone in this room is probably thinking this thought has occurred to you, and I just want to say this before I pray.

You might think, OK, yeah, we do want to be like God and show hospitality, but Pastor Milton, it's easy for God to show hospitality because He's got a perfect home. A flawless home. There's streets of gold, there's mansions, jewels everywhere. Everything is pristine and utterly perfect.

So, man, God would easily just want to bring people into that. Well, first of all, and I know this, It was not easy for God. He paid the ultimate price to make it possible to bring you into his home, but I know you already know that. But I do want you to think about this.

Though heaven is our eternal home. and it's where we're heading and where God ultimately wants to bring us. It's the place Christ is preparing for us. That's not the only way to look at God's home.

Where does God's special presence reside here on Earth? It's in the church, which is the household of God. It is the temple of the living God where God's special presence dwells. And who makes up that temple?

What are the living stones that compose the structure of that house? It's you and I, we are the living stones that compose this house in which God is worshiped. It's not this physical building, it's us who are God's house. And part of evangelism is going out into the world and preaching the gospel to others and inviting them to come into God's house, amongst the people of God where his special presence dwells.

When we evangelize others, God is through us sending out an invitation to come into his house right now. Before we reach our eternal home, my question to you is, is God's earthly dwelling place perfect? If we are the living stones that make up the composition of that building, are there any cracks in those living stones? Yeah, are there flaws?

Yeah. In fact, if there ever was a fixer upper, it is the church. Of Jesus Christ. And yet amazingly as imperfect as this dwelling place is, God through us is going out into the world and inviting people into what is as yet his imperfect, deeply flawed home.

In fact, once someone gets saved, God says, I've got a responsibility for you, edify, which is the Greek word for build a house. In other words, here's a hammer and nails. Get busy. In furthering the construction of this dwelling place, for me, there's work to be done.

And so we can say that you and I are never more like God than when we open up our imperfect home and invite others into our imperfect home. Let's pray together and ask God to help us to To live this out. Father, we have so much to learn. If there's anyone here today, Lord, that just has never come into your family, just work in their hearts, draw them to yourself, maybe they even right now where they're seated, just cry out to you, Lord.

And embrace your love and invitation to them to believe in your son and to become your sons and daughters. OK. Thank you for the hospitality that you have shown us. us who are strangers, and we live daily in the good of this ongoing hospitality as you lavish so much upon us, Lord, help us to turn around and just mirror this and be a living embodiment of this and express this through who we are and how we live our lives, and to show the world and one another what our Father is like.

We have so much to learn, Lord, but thank you for your word and for your patience with us. And for just this precious opening of your word and giving us a glimpse. Of another nuance of what agape love looks like. Help us to walk in this love.

Lord, thank you also for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you. Receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. We give ourselves to you in His name. And all God's people said, Amen.