Feasting with the Stranger

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 Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 14. We’ve really been in the book of Luke a lot for this series. Uh, this month we’re looking on how can we make friends and love other people through Integrating the practice of hospitality into our hearts, but also very much into our schedules week one We talked about feasting on the Savior So this is the Lord’s Supper or communion or some of you your new favorite is the love feast That’s it’s biblical to call it that probably don’t so we’re very excited about that week one I know Ron was thanking me that we actually had big bread For communion and that was a great great week and week two was the challenge of feasting with the Saints And I’m encouraged that we even like last week, I literally said, Hey, there’s college students in this room.

If you guys go take them out to lunch, better than Top Ramen. And we had college students go out to lunch with people in this church. We’re practice, but we do what we’re taught to do in the scriptures. I love that we’re doers, not just hearers only. I will say though, I have not been invited yet to falafel Fridays.

I forgive you, but if someone can get that together and invite me on a Friday night. I’ll pray over it, that’s all I can offer you, but I will enjoy it. Although we were at a home this week, it was just so great. But today, we’re transitioning to the hard part of hospitality and the heart of hospitality.

Two grounding texts for us has been Luke 19. 10 and Luke 7. 34. Both of them have the same beginning. It says, For the Son of Man has come. If you know your Old Testament, specifically Daniel 7, the Son of Man is a title that really points to the Messiah, this ultimate one who’s going to bring reconciliation to the full.

So when he told, Jesus said this to a Jewish crowd, this was more than saying, I’m running for president. This is saying, Jesus is saying, I am God. In the flesh, and I’ve come to make all things right. So, their ears perk up, for the Son of Man has come. What has he come to do? Well, in 1910, after Jesus dines with Zacchaeus, who is the worst of sinners, he says the following, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.

The lost has, has kind of become a pejorative term in today’s like cultural Christianity. Um, oh, they’re just lost people. We don’t hang out with those lost over there. But lost actually just like is a really great term that I love Jesus uses because it’s very much what it sounds like. It’s people who are looking for the best way to live and they can’t seem to find it.

It doesn’t mean the lost are just really dumb people. It doesn’t mean they’re not searching. It means they’re looking. But haven’t found the answer to life and life in abundance. And that is the heart of hospitality. Rescuing the lost is at the heart of hospitality. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and that his as his apprentices or his disciples were called to do the exact same thing.

So that’s Jesus’s mission statement. He comes and says this is my mission to seek and to save those who are lost. But now, what is his method? His mission is to seek and save the lost. Luke 734 points to his methodology, how he gets it done. His mission is so compelling. His method is where it gets really tough.

Luke 734, Jesus says, The Son of Man has come, eating and drinking, and you say, look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. What this is saying is eating and drinking with the lost is the hard part of hospitality. We’re going to look at this a lot more next week, but tax collectors, sinners are the worst of the worst.

These are people, a lot of us today on social media will debate, are we allowed to hang out with those people? And Jesus is very much known as one to do that. But I want us to recognize this is, again, we started the first two weeks, it was fun. Now, it’s going to get hard because it’s a whole lot easier to give to the homeless than to eat with the homeless, right?

It’s a whole lot easier to pray for refugees than it is to open up your home for a refugee. I was convicted by that. I was at seminary this week and we were in Glendale and I’m just, you know, East Valley is better. I’m just saying, but I was in Glendale and I. Had a, I was hungry at 10 o’clock, and so I saw a sign for Cane’s.

It was five miles down. Why did they do that? On the freeway, it’s like, hey Cane’s, just turn right, and then I turn right, and it’s 15 minutes down that direction, but anyways, I finally turned around. Not the greatest part of Arizona, and I was thinking, how hard would it be for me to host these people I’m seeing at 11 o’clock at night in my home?

This is where it gets really, really hard. I’ve even found it’s really nice to wave to your neighbor as you drive into your home and quickly hit the garage right after, right? But it’s one thing to keep it open and bring people in. But, we believe at this church we can do hard things, amen? And at its core, hospitality literally means loving the stranger.

As philo xenia, you’re hearing this every week, philo is family love, xenos, xenia is stranger or foreigner. This is actually, we hear this term a lot in today, especially politically, maybe you hear the term xenophobia. It literally means, philo xenia. Fear of the foreigner or fear of the stranger.

Hospitality is literally the opposite of that. Um, Ann Voskamp, she said, uh, in a book I read recently, she says, In these strange days, we must put on stranger love. And I love that. So this is going to be challenging. Buckle up, especially for the introverts in this room, which according to my data is like 80 percent of you.

Uh, we’re going to, as a church, feast with the stranger. That’s the title of today’s message. And if you feel like this is hard, you’re in the right place. We here operate off of the power of the Holy Spirit, not the power of our flesh. And that’s why we can do hard things because of His grace. Let’s pray.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for your grace and your mercy. Thank you for the fun announcement today. Thank you for our team. Thank you, God. Just how you’re moving us on mission. And God, I know, Jesus, when you lived here on this earth and you quoted this parable we’re about to read in Luke 14, you were confronting a religious group of people who were not willing to love the other.

But God, we praise you that we can receive this text in a different spirit because we don’t have that of Bogged down man made religion, but God, we have a genuine relationship with you that empowers us to live this Jesus life. And so God, I ask you that you would inspire us, that you would help us see this task is what we’re called to do, and may we actually do it.

In the name of Jesus, I pray, everybody says. Amen, amen. So our rabbi Jesus has a lot to say about hosting strangers. And so I hope you’re there. We’re in Luke 14 now Warren Weirsby He’s like my favorite commentator. He gives a really helpful outline of Luke 14 If we had enough time, I would teach all of Luke 14, but we don’t so let me summarize using Weirsby’s outline up to verse 12 So in verses 1 through 6 what we see here happening is Jesus is invited to a Pharisee’s house for Sabbath hospitality.

This is a very common thing to do. But, uh, Warren Weirsbe calls this section, the first six verses, the false piety of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were trying to look very religious and very great. And yet what they were doing was quite corrupt. They actually brought a man who had dropsy. This is a painful disease in which because of like kidney trouble or heart ailment or liver disease, the tissues begin to fill with water.

So it was hard for them. To move and operate but also you can visibly see something is wrong with this person Now they brought this man filled with dropsy in order to trap jesus because it was the sabbath They made up a bunch of rules That on Sabbath you can’t do anything. We talked about this in our Sabbath series last year at formedbyjesus.

com slash Sabbath. We, they had these rules of the Mishnah saying you can’t do anything at all. And so what they were trying to do is say, okay, if Jesus heals this man, he’ll be considered lawless. But if he doesn’t heal this man, he’ll be considered heartless. So no matter what, we trapped you. And read verse 1 through 6.

Jesus turns the situation around on them, shows how corrupt they are, heals the man. And it’s just the best ever. I’m a fan of Jesus. Anybody else in this room? Alright, so, verse 7 through 11. So that’s the false piety of the Pharisees. 7 through 11 is the false popularity of the guests. I used to alliterate a lot more back in the day.

You’re welcome. I don’t do that anymore, but shout out to Warren Weirsbe. So he notices, Jesus notices people are vying for the, the top seat at the table. Back in the day when you invited people over, there was anybody, oh, I get so much anxiety when we go to restaurants with friends. I’m like, where are we sitting?

Anybody feel that? And it’s like, and then when they come with the food, it’s like, can we all pay attention? Who has the burrito? With no whatever in it, you know, anyways, that’s just my own little thing. So, at the table, it would be, the host was seat number one, and the closest you were to the host, the more powerful you were.

This is actually, we make fun of, you know, the Jesus, uh, the Lord’s Supper photo, where, like, Nobody’s on the other side of the table. That’s actually how it was though. It wasn’t just for the photo. What you would have is this long table and they’d all be kind of in order from best to worst all the way down and they left that open table, um, open because servants would come to wash the feet while they were getting ready for dinner and being served.

Did you know that? You learn something new at church. And so, what we have here though is these people were trying to get to the top of the table to show, look, I’m better than everybody that’s to the right of me. So Jesus calls this out. He says, look, essentially he’s saying exalting yourself is exhausting yourself.

True joy in life actually comes from promoting other people, not yourself. So he says, hey, from now on, when you are At a table, go to the very last position, because how great would it be if the host says, Hey, why are you down there? Come up here. And now you’re honored in front of all the guests. But what if you rush to get this best seat?

And now the host goes, Johnny, you’re down there, brother. You don’t deserve to be here. And now you are dishonored in front of everybody. So Jesus is just real practical. He’s saying, just don’t live this way. So good. And do this next time you are, you know. Being hospitable with each other. We don’t have that same kind of system, but verse 12 now is Warren Weersbeck calls the false hospitality of the host and we’ll start reading there.

Verse 12. He, being Jesus, also said to the one who invited him, When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, Invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind, and you will be blessed.

We really believe this word can also just mean happy, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous, which is we believe in the resurrection of our bodies at the end of all time, which the true reward is. So is Jesus saying here that you have sinned if you have friends and or family over to your house to host?

No. He’s just saying if that’s all you do, you’ve missed the whole plotline of hospitality. You should have your friends and family over. That’s fine. But you should also have the least of these, the stranger. What we learn here, just in these first few verses, if you want to write this down, hospitality is marked by curiosity and generosity, not animosity and reciprocity.

What is curiosity? Jesus, we see all throughout the Gospels. He commands us to love our neighbor as ourself. And it’s so important for us to know this is partially a metaphor. So a neighbor is everybody. Anybody you come into contact is considered your neighbor. But I think it’s also kind of funny. We’ve so made it a metaphor that we don’t actually care about our actual neighbors.

Jesus says, be curious about, like, who you’re around. If God puts you in a neighborhood, it’s for a purpose. Let’s learn about the people. around you. Rosaria Butterfield, she’s in our recommended read in our church merch box, and I’ll quote her again later. She has this great quote. She says, God never gets the address wrong.

Where you live right now is on purpose. So be curious, get to know your neighbors. The opposite of curiosity is animosity. This is what happened a lot in this time. If you made it to the table, that declares who’s in, and if you weren’t at the table, you were also declaring to the world who was out. New Testament scholar Scott Barchi says the following, it says, it would be difficult to overestimate the importance of table fellowship for the cultures of the Mediterranean basin in the first century of our era.

Mealtimes were far more than occasions for individuals to consume nourishment. Being welcomed at a table for the purpose of eating food with another person had become a ceremony richly symbolic of friendship, intimacy, and unity. In other words, it’s a big deal if you get invited to eat at somebody’s house.

I would argue it’s also a big deal today. But also, knowing that, the reverse is true as well. If you aren’t invited to the table ever, it’s also communicating, I’m not friends with you. We are not unified together. There are certain things that make you an outsider and I am an insider. And so Jesus says the heart of the gospel is the exact opposite.

We’re curious people. We don’t have animosity towards anybody. We bring them to the table. But also it means that we are generous. 14 again, it says, given away where you’re not going to be repaid. The reality is you are not generous if you always do something to get something back. Right? To be generous means to give something and not care what happens.

Okay, I’ve given it. I’m not waiting for you to give anything back to me. But what a lot of us do today is not generosity, we do reciprocity. That’s like a 10 word in Queen Creek, I know. Reciprocity is I did something for you, so that you do something for me. In other words, if we find out my neighbor has a really cool pool Guys, let’s invite them over because then they have to invite us and now we get to go enjoy their jacuzzi.

That’s kind of like the whole mentality the Jewish people were having in that day. It was always to do something in order to get something back and that’s not the heart of the gospel. Warren Wiersbe, uh, has this quote on commentating on this verse. He says, our modern world is very competitive and it is easy for God’s people to become more concerned about profit and loss than they are about sacrifice and service.

What will I get out of it? May easily become life’s most important question. We must strive to maintain the unselfish attitude that Jesus had, and share what we have with others. Again, this is the heart of the gospel. We give, not to get. But to bless those around us. And so now in verse 15 and following, Jesus illustrates this point by sharing a parable.

Let’s read that together. It says, When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. They really believed, and so do we, that like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be at this final feast. And so these people, we get to feast with their Their ancestors, their forefathers, the founding fathers.

And so they were very much looking forward to the end of all things to celebrate. And so do we, we call it the marriage supper of the Lamb. But verse 16, then he told him. So now he’s going to teach him a lesson. Here’s a parable. A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited, come, because everything is now ready.

So in other words, he had a bunch of guests who accepted the invitation, and in this culture, okay, I’m going, just now tell me when to go. Sometimes the food might take longer, so just let me know. This is all happening in real time. Verse 18, But without exception, they all began to make excuses. The first one said to him, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it.

I ask you to excuse me. Every commentator notes, you have a feast, a hospitality dinner at night. Y’all didn’t have electricity like we do today, in case you didn’t know. And so, when you buy a field, you don’t check it out in the dark. So, is this a legitimate excuse? No. He’s just making something up and we’ve all been there.

Amen? Isn’t it so terrible to try to come up with an excuse? And, uh It just always falls flat. Verse 19, another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen. I’m going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me. Again, do you try out oxen in the middle of the night? Also, do you buy them without first trying them? Bad principle with dating, but amazing principle with buying oxen.

You check them out first before you buy them, okay? You did not hear from the pulpit. Try before you buy. All right, so next one, verse 20. I’m gonna get in trouble. And another said, I just got married. Oh, man. Therefore, I’m unable to come. Like, this guy forgot. Like, I’ll go to the dinner. Oh, yeah, it was my wedding today.

I am so sorry. You know the wife. She’s, this, it’s been kind of rough. I got to be home for that. Again, it’s a silly excuse. I do remember one time, though, me and Jordan invited a friend from church, like, eight years ago. And we kind of wish they came up with the lame excuse, because, do you remember? They texted me, like, we were at Oreganos.

Like, hey, man, we’re here. Like, this is how far along, I feel like the Jesus in parable here. Like, hey, we’re here. And they’re like, we just don’t really want to go out with you guys tonight. So you have a good night. So we ate at a table of four, just us two, all night. And just Pazuki made it better. Um, anyways, I don’t know why I told you that.

I just feel better now. Uh, so, these guests, they wanted the feast if it didn’t get in the way of their own agenda. That’s the point we need to see here so far. Okay? Jesus was actually using this as a call to the Pharisees. Hey, you say you want to be a part of the kingdom, but as long as it fits all of your rules, this isn’t how it works.

This could be true for us today as well. Yeah, I want to follow you, Jesus, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of this, this, and this. This is why, again, if we had time, we would keep going. I encourage you to study it this week. Twenty five and following, the rest of this chapter, Jesus makes it very clear.

To follow me, you need to denounce everything. There’s no agenda that can get in the way of following me, and if you, if you let an agenda get in the way, you’re not actually following me, Jesus says. So we have to see this metaphor. What does the host do? All of these people backed out. A bunch of flakes.

Verse 21. So the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city and bring in here the poor, maimed, blind, and lame. Master, the servant said, what you ordered has been done and there’s still room.

I love that. Then the master told the servant. Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in. Hedges, by the way, is like a fence. Anybody ever, I pray for a hedge of protection. Anybody know that prayer, right? This is a hedge. This was literally the, the, the, the line between the Jews and the Gentiles.

So he’s saying go out even to the Gentiles and bring them in. Which, praise the Lord, if you’re not of Jewish descent, this, he’s talking about us here. And make them come in so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, notice how he now goes in first person, not one of those people who are invited will enjoy my banquet.

In other words, those who had an agenda are missing out on the greatest feast of all time. So I have a question for you, church. Do you know who we are in this parable? Well, number one, God is the great host. Jesus makes that abundantly clear. He has set us up for a wonderful feast. We call the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This, we see this in Revelation. We talked about that this last summer. But number two, people are his desired guests. Here’s what we believe wholeheartedly. Everyone is invited into the kingdom of God. Everyone has a seat at the table. Everyone. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter your past, all the sin you’ve done in the past, how much condemnation you feel.

There is forgiveness at the cross, amen? And you can come to the table and enjoy the feasts. Everybody’s invited. But the reality is, it’s not everybody comes. Now don’t show the next slide yet, Jeremy, you’re wonderful. Who is the church? Think about it. In this parable. Well, before we get to the answer, we were the poor, but now we have the riches of God’s inheritance.

We were the maimed and lame, but now we have the power to walk. We were the blind, but now we see. Notice how Jesus invited those people, like, in other words, the poor, they don’t have the excuse about buying oxen. Cause they don’t have the money to buy the oxen. The blind, they can’t go see and examine a field if it was worthy of purchase.

Right? The maimed and lame, sadly in that time, were never given in marriage. So he’s saying, these people who think like, I have nothing to bring, I have no reason to come to a table, I don’t have an excuse. Jesus says, those are the people who I’m bringing and who come. Those who realize, I have no excuse.

Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Christ I cling. So I want us to see, before you came to Christ, you were the poor, but now you came to the feast. But here’s the beautiful thing as well. What is the church now? The church is the gathering servants. This is who we are. The front row was right. Good job.

We’re the gathering servants. We make room and we invite more people in. I said, God, thank you. We’re announcing this week about two services and Jesus, you made my point. Thank you. Right? This wasn’t planned. I promise. Well, you know, we, we make plans, but you get what I’m saying. So we add more chairs to our table.

The gathering servants make space. The Heaton’s are in California today, but I love the post they put on Instagram this week. They said, we love this table of all the mismatched chairs because we made enough room for people to come in. I thought that’s so cool. Get those mismatched chairs out there. I have another Rosaria Butterfield in her book.

She mentions no matter how many people come, they always make sure another chair is open because they’re always declaring to their kids and their guests. There’s always more room at this table. I love it. We, me, that means we add more chairs by literally adding more services. This is what the servants of God do.

We bring the people in. And how do we get them to come? I think we have reached a tipping point in our society. We cannot reach those in the streets, alleys, highways, and hedges. With a door hanger ad. Anybody else just get mad when anybody brings anything to your door now? I like immediately hate you. I don’t even care if you come to my church.

Like, I all of a sudden don’t like you. If you have a card and you’re coming to my door, pray for me. Hospitality, we’re all a work in progress. We’re in a culture now where, you know, we love ads, we use them. But we’re in a post Christian culture. We believe those things maybe work. But more than that, you know what works?

The dinner table. John Tyson, he’s a pastor in New York City. He explains the three levels of hostility towards Christians in America. He calls the first culture the green light culture. I’ve mentioned this to you before, if you’ve been to our church for a while, but I think it’s so helpful. This is the parts of America where there’s no hostility at all to Christians.

We have a team from Tennessee coming. Uh, in March to help us with our soccer camp. And they said, honestly, right now, here in Nashville, in this part of Nashville, we’re a green light culture. Like, nobody gets mad at us for being Christians. In fact, they clap for us. They don’t always come, but they think, we need more churches here.

Our city’s better when you are there. But then you have the yellow light culture, where church is weird, but not necessarily harmful. Right? So like, if your neighbor knows you go to church, they’re probably like, that’s great that you have religion and that works for you, but please don’t invite me to Easter.

Like it’s those kinds of people, right? Like don’t be too public about your faith, but you do you and I’ll do me. I would say it’s a lot of my neighbors. We’re in a yellow light culture, but also there’s some of my neighbors who are in the red light culture, uh, where church isn’t just weird, it’s harmful.

So, Christians stance on things like sexuality and morality are not just wrong, they’re destructive. And so they now have this belief private faith isn’t enough. They will not rest until we as Christians are eradicated. Maybe they won’t use that language, but it’s kind of what they believe. This world would be a better place if these people leave.

Now, I don’t want us to ever be a church that complains about those people. I don’t want us to be a church that does a rally cry. Those people are so bad, they don’t know what they’re missing out on, you know. We’re the best, you know. What we do is, hey, how can we make dinner for these folks? How do we bring them in as the gathering servants into the feast?

I’d put it another way. Strangers will always expect your hostility until they experience your hospitality. We so believe in this mission. There’s something significant that happens at the dinner table. And my neighbors, over the last few years, they find out I’m a pastor, they get very nervous. And it isn’t until we cook for them, that things begin to open up and we’re not as weird as they thought.

We’re not as hostile as they thought. Hebrews 13 1 through 2 in the NLT, it says keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it. He’s pointing to a story of Abraham and Sarah entertaining angels and hearing that they’re going to have a baby and she laughs.

It’s a great story. Check it out in Genesis. But something, in other words, something spiritual happens at the dinner table. And I love that because I love to eat like I love this guy. It’s like, Hey, food is what you amen. I’m in. I’m in. Rosaria Butterfield. She has this wonderful book. Again, I’ll reference it one more time, um, Radically Ordinary Hospitality.

It’s in the church merch box. Her story is like really amazing. She went from being a lesbian feminist academic who hated the church and was writing books talking about how evil we are. She was red light culture, hates Christians, to now today she’s a pastor of a very conservative, reformed, uh, sorry, not pastor.

I just said that wrong. She’s a pastor’s wife. to a pastor who is very conservative and reformed and they serve their neighborhood by like literally having 20 to 30 people over their house every single night like their grocery bill’s insane so go buy her book to help her get some more food and it all happened though i love the story because she was about to write another extensive hit piece on the church and um a pastor reached out and said hey i know you kind of have this position Can you just come over to our house and we’d love to get to know you.

We host every Thursday night. You’re always welcome. So she came because she thought, let me get dirt on these mean people. And so she would come one week and she’s like, that was kind of weird. They ended with hymns. Like they literally would sing at the end, but the food was decent and I have some more material to make fun of them.

And time and time again, though, she kept telling her lover, she calls, I’m going to this pastor’s church house again. Don’t worry. I’m here to make fun of them. But secretly she started to love these people. And as the story goes, she actually went to their house for two years, two years worth of dinners.

Y’all, you hosted your neighbor two times. It’s all right. Keep going. Two years of being hospitable. She gave her life to Christ. She completely changed her identity and she realized God is the one who I’ve been looking for. My identity is not in my sexuality at all. It’s in that I am a child of God. And she writes this wonderful book, and in her book, she encourages us to be more hospitable, to save people just like her.

Quote, too many of us are sidelined by fears. We fear that people will hurt us. We fear that people will negatively influence our children. That’s a real fear, right? We fear that we do not even understand the language of this new world order, least of all its people. I feel that. I don’t know the words to say and the meaning behind those things.

But look, he says, we long for days gone by. Our sentimentality makes us stupid. I love that. We need to snap ourselves out of this self pitying reverie. The best days are ahead. Jesus advances from the front of the line. She goes on to say, the front of the line is the dinner table. So, If hosting strangers is at the heart of hospitality, how do we do the hard part of actually hosting strangers?

Let me be the first to admit, I’m, I have a shaky track record when it comes to my neighbors. I am, here’s what I am, I’m an ambivert, right? So I’m an introvert with spurts of extroversion and I don’t know when it’s gonna come. That’s just who I am, right? I just love people until I don’t, you know? And, um, in 2014 we bought our first home We laugh about this.

We were telling, uh, oh man, Steven and Cynthia this the other day when they were over at our house. We told them, guys, we looked at a home and 10 minutes, we’re like, we’ll take it. We never saw another house. We never checked anything. We’re like, all right, cool, I’ll take it. And we’re so dumb. All right, but we got it.

It was a great home. And we had a neighbor. Actually, we got lucky. I remember thinking I was lucky because the front of our house was a brick wall. So we didn’t have a front neighbor. I was like, oh, good. I’m not bothered. You know, this is great and all this stuff. And we were the last one on the street. And honestly, we said hi.

I had a neighbor. We’d always wave. And that was it. Hi. All right. Bye. And, um, and, and I got super convicted by that because I went to a church planners assessment around that same year. And one of the big questions I had to answer is called the shark tanks. You had to answer in front of like five people who were going to give you a million dollars.

They never gave me nothing. But you know, maybe because I messed this one up, but they asked me the question. They said, Hey, who are your neighbors and what are their spiritual conditions? I was so convicted. I don’t know. I think his name’s Johnny. I’m not sure. And I have no idea if he follows Jesus or not.

And so I remember thinking, I need to change. I was so embarrassed and I barely did anything. So in 2019 We moved. We decided to, you know, use the equity, get ahead in life, all that stuff. Jordan wishes we never moved. We went from like a nice house to a smaller, it’s fine. In the middle of January, we came in and so the kids were outside on the street.

All our kids age, they’re all girls too. It’s like a weird thing. And so we were like so excited. Literally, the parents were like sitting down on lawn chairs. And we’re like, this is the community we’ve been looking for. They never did that again. Like, it was the one day. It’s like, hey, we have a new neighbor.

Let’s look like we love each other. Ever since, I bring out my lawn chair the next day, only one, the next day only one, no, everybody was gone. But I have, we have been really thinking through, like, we need to be neighborly. And in the summer, it’s always hard, right? Nobody wants to be outside, you’ll die. And so, we always, okay, let’s punt the summer, but let’s, let’s bring them inside.

And so, we’ve tried, like, we’ve gone to our, this is always hard. Let me just say, I can give more details, but I’m always praying my neighbors actually come here, so I’m going to be kind here. But we go to, Holiday parties and it’s so weird like I now know how you feel like when I’m running something I feel great But I’m somebody else’s thing.

I’m like, what is this? How do I where’s the food and how do I get out? You know, and so we’ve gone to those things. It’s a little bit awkward, but we keep saying this is what Jesus people do We host and we’re also willing to be hosted and some amazing things have happened Honestly, the best blessing that’s ever happened to us is my Terrible GMC Acadia, always, uh, breaking.

The AC never works. And this is the worst state for it not to work, but it’s paid off. So we just keep trying to make it work. And our mechanic, our mechanic neighbor, we just use it as an excuse. It’s the Acadia again. Let’s hang out. Alright, teach me this, teach me this. I want to learn about you and your life, and it’s been awesome.

I have another neighbor, he added to his front yard, and so I just put on gloves and take a shovel and, you know, introvert itself. I can do this, I can do this. Alright, let’s go out there, look like I’m all happy, and, uh, hey, do you need some help? And we’ve been helping, and it’s hard. Again, this is what Jesus people do.

And so we host. It doesn’t always mean they come into our home, they have. But it does mean I’m hosting a conversation out in the front of the yard and answering a lot of their questions about what they assume what church is. I love hosting saints at my house. It is harder. I have to admit it’s harder to host strangers, but that it’s at the heart of hospitality.

And so for me and my wife and my family, we will serve the Lord and we’re doing all we can to make that. Reality, so let me be clear. It’s very hard, but here’s a few tips. I really encourage you if you haven’t yet It’s over at on the front table here is pastor Caleb put together this form by hospitality booklet It’s also available online at for my Jesus comm slash hospitality.

He gives a lot of great tips I’m just gonna highlight a few one Hosting is not the same as entertaining. Guys, you don’t need a nice house. You don’t need a million dollars. Just be present with them. You don’t have to do a ton of games. Just be present in the moment. Don’t do the office scene where everything is super awkward.

Any office fans, right? What are their names? Mike and Jane? Michael? Why did I say Mike? I promise I’ve seen the episode a bunch of times. But it’s just like super awkward, right? Anybody seen the show? Please help me. Wonderful. This fell flat. Um, but yeah, so it’s just like Anyways, I’m not, I was about to do a quote, but let’s move on.

Anyways, it’s not the same thing as entertaining. Bring down the pressure, okay? Alright, number two though, take over with generous authority. Uh, here’s what I mean by that. First of all, set the table. So, in other words, hey, here’s where we’re gonna eat. Like, when they first come in, take over. Here’s where we’re eating.

Tell them when we’re gonna eat. I remember, I was at somebody’s house. It wasn’t this church, it was another one I served at. We didn’t eat for two hours. I kept thinking, are you Are you cooking yet? Like, it’s noon, I’m exhausted, I’m hungry, are you gonna kill us? You know, like if there’s no, are we the food?

I had all these questions. So, hey, we’re gonna eat this food and at this time, hey, it’s almost right, 15 minutes. Let’s, let’s go sit over here. Tell them what to do. Don’t be at the house, be like, I don’t know, what do you want to do? This is your house, you tell me, I don’t know. Where do you sit? Where’s the bathroom?

Take over and be a good host. And set the tone, right? Hey, here’s our house rules. Here’s what we do here. Here’s what we don’t. Take off your shoes. Oh, never mind. Your feet stink. Put them back on. It’s fine. Set the tone. Let them know. Don’t. Everybody feels weird, but everybody’s there because they want this.

So take over. Be a leader. Number three, don’t shy away from small talk. So don’t skip the pleasantries of the weather. I know you’re always, Oh, we’re talking about the weather again. Yeah! It’s what we do. I don’t know what. Talk about the weather. Talk about your favorite sports team, you know. Allowed, it allows everybody to get comfortable.

Talk about Taylor Swift, whatever. Number four, don’t shy away from deep talk. Uh, whenever we have meetings, I’m just going to bring it out. If we’re meeting with you and I have Caleb with me, it’s because if we’re hanging out, we’re going to go small talk the whole time and be like, Caleb goes, so how’d it go?

Oh, I don’t, we just kind of talked about a bunch of stuff. We never actually talked about the thing I was supposed to call him out about. Okay, I’m coming to the dinner next time. And so, I remember one time, Caleb’s like, So here’s why we’re here. Because I just kept going off, just small talk for days. I love it.

But don’t be afraid of deep talk. Bring up meaningful topics like family origin, where they’re from, what are your dreams and aspirations in life. And then lastly, end with honor. Speak life into who that person is. Thank them for their time. Either if you’re going to the house, thank them for hosting, but also hey, thanks for coming and look, we realize success is going to look different for every person in this room.

Being hospitable with strangers requires a lot of humility and a whole lot of the grace of Jesus. And so you’re going to talk about it in your together groups this week. You’re going to kind of wrestle through one of these five steps. And I hope that we all commit to one of them or more of them. Again, I’m so impressed.

We were at people’s house this week because they practiced the challenge from last week. Let’s do that again. So the first one, the very easy practice to be hosting a stranger is to have a conversation with a neighbor. So say hi when you’re walking the dog or they’re walking the dog. Walk a dog, buy a dog, I don’t know, be hospitable.

Uh, don’t buy cats. You can’t walk them anyways. It’s a commercial and it’s fake. Um, check the mail. I check the mail every day because I want to get stopped. Um, Take out the trash slowly. I don’t know. We’re trying to help you. Make it a regular routine to look for interruptions. Number two, the easy thing is to put a fire pit in your front yard.

You have about 12 days left of doing this, but do it. It’s about to get hot folks. But put a fire pit or something or basketball hoop in the front of your yard and be open to interruptions. This one’s really fun. There’s literally scientific evidence of people opening up, even if they don’t want to. If they’re around a fire, they’re like, I have this in my life.

It’s amazing. It happens every time. And so do that. Say hi as people walk by, maybe even have some like little snacks. Hey, come sit down. Let’s hang out. Uh, solo stove is my recommendation for the best fire pit and it’s portable and it’s amazing. And it’s smokeless. Uh, no coupon code. I wish. Okay. Number three, moderate know the names and the names and needs of your neighbors who live in front and next to you.

Right, so find ways to get to know the people who live close to you and figure out what they need in life. Not just their name, but that’s huge for some of us. But what are their needs? It’s amazing. I have some neighbors. We’ve been able to meet their needs because I found out about them because I was talking to them.

Crazy thought. Number four is really hard. I mean, sorry, it’s just hard. Invite someone who doesn’t go to church over to your house for dinner and invite them to church. Anybody else like kind of freaking out yet? Do it. Think of someone you know, but maybe you don’t know them too well. This could be a neighbor, a coworker, or just an acquaintance in your relational network.

Keep the dinner low key, right? Don’t feel any pressure to give the full gospel presentation. Don’t, like, spill boiling hot water on them on accident and be like, You think that’s hot? You know, just, just stay cool, literally and figuratively. Um, but some questions to ask is like, Hey, what do you do for work?

If you work at the same place, don’t lead with that because, bro, I work with you. Um, what are some things you enjoy to do outside? What are some of your hobbies? How long have you lived in Arizona? That’s always an easy one because almost nobody, and if you are from here like me, we’re proud of it. So we’ll talk about it for a long time.

Um, and then just have a good meal and then use our invite cards. Uh, on your way out, you’ll notice right on the right hand side of the door. Also put it on your seats. We have Easter cards. We have soccer camp cards. Just have it. I always have them in my back pocket. Am I a Good, I do. Uh, I have it in your back pocket, and just to be able to invite people.

Last one, very hard, and I need to close. Throw a neighborhood block party. This sounds super intimidating, but this could be as easy as having an open barbecue in a neighborhood park and inviting others to come. Um, I actually, in reading that book, Rosaria Butterfield’s book, she has it. Every single Thursday, she tells the whole neighborhood.

Anybody have that Nextdoor app or something like that, or Neighbors app? Next door. They use the next door app and they invite, Hey, just saying it again. Thursday night. Here’s my address. Everybody’s invited and they make it work. Maybe that’s a lot, but throw a block party, something. And what I’ve been hearing is lost people.

There’s so many people who actually are suffering silently and abuse or in bad situations. And so maybe they wanted to come Thursday, but they had a, they were stuck in their home or what have you. And so a great, if you really want to host a stranger, just say, Hey, every Thursday, if there’s ever a time it works for you in your life.

I’m going to be here out front grilling. I hope to see you there. Guys, what could God do if we began to do things like this? How amazing could it be? Well, you imagine what if we are actually gospel people who talk about God being so hospitable to us and putting, uh, giving us a seat at the table? What if we became people who also added more seats around our dinner table?

Because we actually believe in the word of God and we actually believe he’s a god of love And we actually believe that he has truth that will set you free And so we’re bringing everybody over we’re doing the awkward thing. We’re doing the hard thing Thing. Sometimes it will feel like the office episode, but that’s fine.

Do it again. This is what Jesus people do, and as for me and my church, we’re gonna serve the stranger. Amen. We’re gonna be the gathering servants that look to the highways and hedges and bring them in. I believe that in the name of Jesus. Let’s pray.