“Living Faithfully in the Mystery of the Day by Practicing Biblical Hospitality”
Hebrews 13:1-2
Bart W. Newton, Preaching Minister
To view a simple online worship service of “Word, Communion and Prayer,” and please click on the the following link: "Living Faithfully in the Mystery of the Day” Part 4 .
Summary: In part four of the series "Living Faithfully in the Mystery of Day" we're reminded of the importance of practicing Biblical hospitality and how, as a key aspect of the Gospel, it is a powerful way to demonstrate the love of Christ to those we may not know well or at all.
Basic Outline:
• Four weeks ago we began a sermon series titled “Living Faithfully in the Mystery of the Day.”
• Part 1: Living Faithfully in the Mystery of the Day by the Power & Promises of Jesus (2 Peter 1:3-11)
• Part 2: Living Faithfully in the Mystery of the Day with the Humility & Obedience of Jesus (Philippians 2:1-13)
• Part 3: Living faithfully in the mystery of the day by remembering we are strangers and exiles in this world.
• You see for the Christian, our citizenship is in heaven. Jesus rules as our King.
• Jesus told Pilate as recorded in John 18:36: …“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (ESV)
• So, we are to live with the same allegiance to King Jesus while we are here as we would if we were with Him at the right hand of His Father.
• I remember a time or two when a couple in their 50s demonstrated one aspect of living with allegiance to King Jesus.
• I’d just finished Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB in TX and begun six months of technical training at Chanute AFB next to Rantoul, IL. Deloris and I wouldn’t be married for another two or three months, so I was still by myself. I was lonely.
• One Sunday morning I decided to visit a fairly small Christian church on the other side of Rantoul. It was an enjoyable and edifying time of worship. But what really made a big difference happened after the service. As I was getting ready to leave the church building, a man who I’d seen on the AF base but never met personally introduced himself and his wife to me. And then he said those wonderful words that a lonely military person away from home likes to hear: “Would you like to come to our house for Sunday dinner?”
• What do you think I said? “Sure!” So I followed them to their nice home and enjoyed beef pot roast, potatoes, carrots and gravy. (It would not have mattered if we’d had peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips.)
• I found out the wife was an elementary school teacher in Rantoul. He was a civil service instructor of electronic principles on the air base and if my memory is correct, he was also one of the elders of the church. Their Christian hospitality shown to a lonely stranger made such an impact on me as a young Christian man of 18.
• Every Sunday that I hadn’t come back home to visit I worshiped with that congregation. And when Deloris and I married that same couple had us over to their home a couple of times for Sunday dinner before we left a few months later to go to Ellsworth AFB, SD where we experienced the same type of hospitality from the members of Rapid City First Christian Church.
• What I shared with you isn’t all there is to biblical hospitality, but it’s an example of one aspect of it. And I’m here to tell you this: Living faithfully in the mystery of the day requires practicing Christian hospitality by every believer to whatever degree he or she can do it.
• Sadly, in many of America’s Christian churches, biblical hospitality has fallen by the wayside. It’s a spiritual discipline, blessing, and demonstration of the love of Christ that needs resurrecting desperately.
• Now, when it’s more challenging to demonstrate than ever due to the Coronavirus and so many have experienced and are experiencing loneliness, it is all the more reason for us to begin to be reminded of what God has to say about it and start finding ways to do it. So let’s start to touch on it today by considering our Bible passage:
Hebrews 13:1-2: Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (ESV)
If we know Jesus, we are empowered to demonstrate brotherly love (v.1)
1Let brotherly love continue.
• 1 Peter 1:22: You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart. (NLT)
• One way to demonstrate brotherly love is in v. 2:
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
• What is hospitality? The word itself is related to the phrase “brotherly love.”
• Brotherly love = Philadelphia
• Hospitality = philoxenia = (love of strangers)
• It is the opposite of xenophobia (the fear of strangers).
Hospitality means using our homes and places of worship to show friendly, brotherly affection to strangers in need by providing meals and/or a temporary lodging in the name of Christ.
• According to Hebrews 13:2, sometimes when we obey this, without even realizing it at the time, we host angels like Abram and Sarah with their three visitors or like Lot did with his two visitors.
• Hebrews 13:2, Amplified Version: Do not neglect to extend hospitality to strangers [especially among the family of believers—being friendly, cordial, and gracious, sharing the comforts of your home and doing your part generously], for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.
• The Message Bible puts it like this: Be ready with a meal or a bed when it’s needed.
• 1st Century hotels were infamous for being not only expensive but places of filth and immorality. Christians traveling had to be able to count on brothers and sisters in Christ to open their homes to them, especially for evangelists traveling from town to town. (They often carried letters of reference with them.)
• The secular world was astonished by this since the believers often not only helped other believers but also non-believers.
• But not all Christians were always so into it:
• 1 Peter 4:9: Be hospitable to one another without complaining. (CSB)
• The reason they might complain wasn’t because they didn’t want to serve coffee and cake and give up an hour two of an evening or Sunday afternoon. It was because hospitality often meant feeding and/or providing temporary lodging for those in genuine need, sometimes for more than just a day or two. Caution and discernment was required.
• But Paul said that finding ways to be hospitable was worth going after: Romans 12:13: When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. (NLT)
• Both the OT and NT make a big deal about God’s children practicing hospitality to the degree they are equipped.
• Being a practitioner of hospitality was and is a mark of maturing Christian character:
• 1 Timothy 5:9-10: 9 No widow is to be enrolled on the list for support unless she is at least sixty years old, has been the wife of one husband, 10 and is well known for good works—that is, if she has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to every good work. (CSB)
• It’s a characteristic that church shepherds are to possess:
• 1 Timothy 3:2: …Therefore an overseer must be … hospitable… (ESV)
• 1 Timothy 3:2:…He must enjoy having guests in his home… (NLT)
• Remember, Hebrews 13:2 was written to Christians many of whom had lost most of their possessions due to persecution. And yet they are still to offer hospitality as best they could.
• Commenting on Hebrews 13:2 around the very beginning of the 3rd Century Chrysostom wrote: “If others have plundered your property, display your hospitality out of such things as you have. What excuse, then, shall we have, when they, even after the spoiling of their goods, were thus admonished?” (On the Epistle to the Hebrews, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary, V. X, Hebrews, p. 229)
• At least half of Deloris’ and my experiences of being recipients of others’ hospitality has been by people who lived in simple, modest, often very small homes.
• Maybe a good place for most of us to start is in our church buildings.
• Right now we can’t shake hands. Even though we cannot see faces clearly, we can find ways to be hospitable: “Air” handshake or speaking more loudly so we can be heard through our masks.
• Right now, we need to take our hospitality to others in whatever ways possible. Have you reached out with telephone calls, cards, even texts and emails are better than nothing, to members of FCC who may be especially isolated now? What about those of our flock in the nursing homes?
• Do you know one of the things that made the hospitality shown to me by the married couple in Rantoul, IL? Living in the barracks and just starting out I had little opportunity for showing them hospitality in return.
Followers of Jesus ought to make an effort to extend hospitality to those who have no way of offering it in return.
• Listen to what Jesus said to a man who hosted him and some others to meal:
• “When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,” he said, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. 13 Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.” (Luke 14:12-14, NLT)
• I don’t believe Jesus is saying not to have gatherings with family and friends. What He’s saying is don’t think that by having family and friends over for big meals is the kind of hospitality He’s concerned about us demonstrating. He was us to reach out to the least, the last and the lost!
• “When you have reached the point where you no longer expect a response, you will at last be able to give in such a way that the other is able to receive, and be grateful.” –Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, p. 76
• You might be wondering to yourself: “I wonder if I’ve ever entertained angels?” Or, “I wonder if I’ll ever entertain angels?”
• You know what I believe? There is a greater certainty that you will entertain Jesus through hospitality than you will angels.
• You know how I know that to be true? Do you remember the final judgement scene Jesus describes in Matthew 25? What did He say to the sheep? In part:
• Matthew 25:35: For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. (NLT)
• Matthew 25:35: … I was a stranger and you welcomed me…(ESV)
• The “sheep” replied by asking the King when they did those things to Him. The answer:
• Matthew 25:40: “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (NLT)
Two keys to taking the practice of hospitality seriously:
1. Seeing others, including believing and non-believing strangers, as Jesus.
2. Seeing strangers as fellow image-bearers of God.
• Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
• We were made in God’s image. Therefore we are His image-bearers. God is hospitable, therefore His image-bearers are to be hospitable.
We are to be hospitable to others because God has been hospitable to us:
• John 1:12: But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (NLT)
• 1 John 3:1a: See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! (NLT)
• Think about it. We were lost and without a spiritual home. Through faith in Jesus, He cleaned us up by forgiving us. He clothed us with His Son at baptism. He gave us His Holy Spirit showing that He adopted us as His own children! He feeds us spiritually and provides for us physically. He gave us eternal life. He did this by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins and gave us the promise of a resurrection unto life because His Son conquered the grave!
The Lord’s Supper
(Matthew 26:26-28)
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said,
“Take, eat; this is my body.”
• The body of Christ given for us.
27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying,
“Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
• The blood of Christ poured out for us.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
King Jesus has died! King Jesus has risen! And King Jesus will come again!