I want to talk to you a little bit about hospitality, about unreasonable hospitality.
And I'm speaking out of my weakness, not out of my strength.
Joel and I have continued to grow in love, and hopefully our love has
grown over the years. We feel like our love has grown for one another,
and we feel like our love has grown for God's people and God's Kingdom
and God's House. We feel like that, but we still feel like there's
a lot of a growth that needs to take place. We feel like our
church has grown in love as well, and we want this to be a
love hub. We want this to be a center of hospitality. We want
this to be and so we know some of that has to flow out of
us, right, Like, one time we had people this is a bad
story, and this was many years ago, but one time, you know,
we had some people over to the church, over to the house after
church, and they continued to stay for quite a while and they and then
they weren't getting the hint that maybe they should leave, And so one thing
led to another, and pretty soon I had this is on a Sunday afternoon.
Pretty soon I had fallen asleep and I was sleeping in my chair and
the husband said that to Joel, maybe we should leave now, and she's
like, well, totally up to you, folks. I mean, anyway,
we joke about our lack in love and hospitality in a terrible way,
not in a funny way, but in a like, Holy Spirit help us
to grow in our love, because we have been very driven, and we
have been very driven people, and we've we we probably lean more on the
visionary side instead of the hospitality side, and so in that way, we
haven't we haven't been true examples of love many times, and we haven't been
truly as love being as what Father would have us to be. And so
we continue to bring this like our drivenness. And I don't know what you
have to bring to the cross, but we have to continually bring our drivenness
to the cross and yield ourselves to the Lord and the Cross, allowing him
to rewrite on us and on our hearts what he wants us to be,
so that we can be the manner the bread that is broken and fed to
the people who have needs around us. We don't want to miss, we
don't want to miss the needs around us. And I think that I was
meditating on this, and I think that There's something here is that when Jesus
said this do in remembrance of me. Remember that he took the cup,
and then he took the bread, and he says, he broke the bread,
and he said, this is my body broken for you. And then
he said this do in remembrance of me. There's something. There's something tied
to that that sometimes we haven't caught. Is that he was saying to us
as well, that we are to take our bodies, and we're to break
our body and give the sustenance of who we are to others. It's like
he was giving us an example to follow. This is my body broken for
you. He's called us also to be broken and for the needs around us,
and the give of our sustenance to those around us, so that they
can be supplied and met and encouraged and built up and changed through the sustenance
we have not retained. Remember Philippians too. He did not think of his
equality with God as something to be held on to. But he took on
the form of a servant, and he came and met us where we were
in our felt needs, and then he gave of himself. So this is
my body broken for you, and This is what he's calling us to,
is that we would be broken for people. And it doesn't matter that we're
driven. It doesn't matter that we're entrepreneurs, it doesn't matter that we're all
that in the bag of chips, it doesn't matter that we're amazing. We
still have to find the balance of giving ourselves away through the sacrifice of bringing
ourselves to the cross and saying, Father, not my will, but yours
be done. Rewrite your nature on me, Rewrite what you desire for me
on me, and flesh it out through me, so that others will be
touched, because they're not going to be touched except through us. People are
touched through us. So I'm saying all of this not in my strength.
I'm saying it in my vulnerability. It's easy for me to walk past the
need. It's easy for me to walk past it's easy for me not to
inquire of somebody's need. And so I have to continue to say, Holy
Spirit. Because this is Roma Chapter eight. I can wax eloquent about authority
and royalty and dominion and victory. Yeah, I can get you all fired
up about that. But there's another aspect to the sons of God. There's
another aspect of the sons of God and Roman chapter eight fourteen through sixteen,
the earth is groaning for the sons of God to be revealed. Well,
he defines it there. He says, the sons of God are those who
are led by the spirit of God, not led by their economy, not
led by their wallet, not led by their stunning entrepreneurial skills, not led
by all the things that they have to get done, or their drivenness,
or they're a great visionary ism preaching to Dwayne right now, But they're led
by the spirit. You know, Joel likes to watch these videos she watched,
wants to these videos on people that have come back, and so I
don't know, she's watched a hundred of these silly videos. But it's better
than watching something really dumb, right. And so these people, you know,
they have all these you know, crazy experiences. They see Jesus,
they see illumination, they have a visit with Jesus. Uh, they might
see a dead spouse and who tells them that you need to go back.
This one particular guy, it's interesting, but they had this terrible car crash.
The wife dies, one child dies, one child lives, and uh,
and he dies too, and they see each other in heaven and she
says, I can't go back, but you can. You have to go
back and raise our sun. And so it's just this wild, wild stuff.
It's just all these crazy and these stories are like their they're mind boggling
and their fun. They're amazing, and they really bear witness to, you
know, just the reality of the Christ and our walk in him. Right.
But the one it's interesting, he died like three times, and there's
a time where he's in an operating room and they're ministering to him, trying
to revive him, and they're working on him, and there's like a nurse
there, there's an operating assistant, there's the doctor, and he's hovering above
them in the room. So his spirit is lifted out of his body and
he's watching them and and he's out of his body. So he's like that
and they're trying to get him to come back to life, and he's hovering
in the room watching this happen. And he said that he could tell the
grief of the people that were ministering to him physically, he knew of what
was happening with the nurse. He knew in his nowhere, he knew in
his spirit what was happening with his nurse. He knew what was the hardship
of this doctor, he knew the hardship of the surgical assistant. He knew
what was happening in his spirit form hovering above them. And then he just
talks about, you know, after all that happened, He talks about how
that he felt like his spirit was so connected to their spirits, right,
And I think there's something here. There's something here is that when we have
no margin in our life and everything is about us and everything is rush and
push, then we it's hard for us to be led by the spirit,
like super hard for us to be led by our spirit. And what he
saw is that, oh my goodness, my spirit knows exactly what's happening with
each of those people. So there's something about slowing down. There's something about
calming down. Calmed down, come down. I was the hyper person like
maybe you were too, but I was the hyper person like I was the
troublemaker in every class. Every report card said he talks too much. I
mean, I was the problem. My mom and dad didn't know where in
the world I came from or what to do with me? I was the
problem I was, and so you know I got a calm down, right,
But for all of us, for all of us, because it says
those who are led by the spirit, they are the sons of God,
and the earth is groaning for them to manifest, for them to come into
the manifestation of themselves in the earth. That means getting more spirit tuned and
less material tuned, less five cents tuned, and loving better, loving well,
loving better, loving well, loving better, and loving well. This
guy will get airon. He made me think of the church a little bit
because we are a hospitality center. And he started as a young man in
restaurants in New York. You don't have to buy this book, but the
book is Unreasonable Hospitality. And he started in the restaurant business in New York
as a young man and then was privileged to buy a restaurant with a partner,
and then over time, in twenty ten, their restaurant was voted number
fifty of the top fifty restaurants in the world. So he was invited to
this gala and at the him and his partner were invited on the platform and
they're there with the top chefs of the world. It's the top fifty restaurants
of the world, and they're like, what in the world are we doing
here? But you know, something happened, something clicked, and they begin
to think, what if we could become the number one restaurant in the world.
And so something happened in getting a download of the wisdom from above,
and they begin to think that it's not just about the food, but it's
about the service. And what if the service is as good as the food,
what if the service is unreasonable as the food. Now, I don't
know, you know, if you think about there's so many parallels to church
world. But you know, when we come to church world, many times
we come with a spiritual palette, and we come to eat of spiritual food.
And we come even judging with our spiritual palate the spiritual food. And
so we're excited about a particular sermon, we're excited about a particular word,
a particular prophetic revelation, we're excited about the worship, and so we're looking
for something that is, you know, really relevant and powerful and life giving.
But there's another element that we don't think about in the restaurant of the
church. And that is the hospitality of the church, because I know that
believers and unbelievers are like are turned off from or shunned or pushed out of,
or pushed away from churches where the food is exquisite, but the environment
is caustic, where there's no hospitality, or there the lack of hospital and
hospitality means it just simply means to show love, like supreme love, unconditional
love, agape love, not just fileo. But to show unconditional love to
strangers. That's what hospitality means. It's to show love to strangers. And
I got to thinking about that. I was thinking, you know, could
we grow in that as a church? Could we grow more in that as
a church? We want to be such a hub of love. We want
to be such a center of love. We want fear to drop off of
people the moment they come through those doors. Right, every kind of fear,
fear of judgment. Doesn't matter where they're coming from, by the way,
it doesn't matter what lifestyle or what background they're coming from. We want
every fear to drop off of them. But we are the manifestation of love,
of which and through which hospitality has worked out. And I believe to
a degree we've grown in this and somebody, you know, not long ago,
somebody saw two hospitality angels in the Fourier and many will testify, and
we can assume that they're there on assignment to help people feel at home.
Every person coming in those doors, we want them to feel at home.
That's good. But we partner with that, We partner with the love of
God. We partner with that love in showing hospitality, in showing unconditional love
to those coming into this building. And you know, I've been thinking on
how can we do that even better? How can we do that better?
How can we show it's so good that we're all here, and it's so
good that we have each other, and it's so good that we're getting to
know one another. But the heart of Father is that as we're added to
the ninety nine, we never forget the one. The heart of Father is
that we are so mindful of the one that we will leave even fellowship with
the ninety nine, to make sure the one, the stranger in our midst,
is loved and cared for, ministered to, and that there needs are
met. And if you've been here a few weeks, welcome to the ninety
nine. Welcome to the ninety nine. But now the heart of Father is
that we would go after the one, that we would be always mindful of
the one that's good. And churches can get super and grown because we know
each other and we become family with each other, and so we're fellowshipping each
other. And we didn't see each other this week, and so we got
all of these fellowship clicks all around the room and all around the building.
And we have people that come in, but they're like the one. We're
the ninety nine, and they're like the one. Can we leave the ninety
nine that we already know and spend a little bit of time with the one?
Can we reach out to the one? And that's just in the house
and on the property, how much more in our neighborhoods. How much more
in our neighborhoods. You never really know the power of your love until you
begin to exercise it, unless you reflect on how much love transformed you.
And the problem is, the further we get from the point of transformation with
us, then the more we forget how impactful the transformation was when love impacted
us. So that's why Poul says, never forget the pit that she were
dug from. Anybody dug from a pit. The exhortation is that we would
never forget the pit that we were dug from, that we would always remember.
Fact is with any sin that hits the fan in the public dimension of
acknowledgment. Yeah, we just always need to be saying to ourselves, if
it weren't for the grace of God, there goes I. If it weren't
for the grace of God, if it weren't for the saving power of God,
there goes I. Right, So that way, we're refusing to walk
in judgment. Yes, I haven't gotten to the word yet, and we're
running out of a ton. Let's go to Let's go to Luke, Chapter
ten, verse twenty five. This is my this is my other favorite book
of the day. I want all of you to buy it and read it
several times. I've been talking about it for a long time. I'm going
to keep talking about it till I wear you out. It's called The Gospel
Comes with the House Key. The Gospel Comes with the House Key by Rosaria
Butterfield. I've been reading it again, getting more out of it. It's
what inspired us to start our neighborhood small group a year and a half ago.
In a year and a half, starting a small group, walking around
one and fifty mailboxes, putting a flyer on every mailbox. This is Wolf.
Doesn't want to put him in the mailbox because she says that's illegal.
The grace covers Pastor Wolf, so she tapes them on. I shove them
in one and fifty every time we have a meeting. Every time we had
a meeting, because we didn't know anybody in the neighborhood, right, every
time we had a meeting, walked that neighborhood, put one hundred and fifty
flyers out, invite him to the meeting. Now we've had over one hundred
neighbors to our meeting. We've met, connected with, shared the love of
God with, prayed for, ministered to, cared for over one hundred neighbors
in our neighborhood since we started that meeting a year and a half ago.
They don't have to go to our church. We're not trying to get them
to our church. We're trying to love them well. So she talks about
this, how that, if you haven't heard me talk about it, how
that her Presbyterian neighbor, Her Presbyterian pastoral neighbor and his wife led her to
the Lord. She was an activist for the lesbian gay LBG lgb Q T
plus community. She was writing the legislation, she was on the council for
the National Abortion Rights Something something. I mean, she was out there,
right, And when she was invited for dinner, she's like, what in
the world I wish I could read that chapter for you, just the beginning.
It's just like, Uh, it's just it's so crazy, right,
I don't have time. Then why are you doing it? Well? Just
because I said I didn't have time, so I could, you know,
going to dinner at the home of a Christian was not high on my list
of long for activities as a lesbian feminist leader in LGBQ t Q. You
know that rights and the recent co author of the first domestic partner policy at
Syracuse University, et cetera, et cetera. And then she talks about how
that she couldn't stand Christians. She literally and she talks about it's crazy,
how she was so puffed up and convinced because of the psychology of Freud and
because of the equitable social cultural fairness of marks and just you know, everything
she talks about, everything she had embraced, that had justified her lifestyle.
It all melted over five hundred dinners with these pastors, five hundred dinners.
The most powerful thing God's given you is your home and your dinner table.
Your home and your dinner table. We cannot rely on the congregational expression.
The congregational altars has the sum total or the full expression of what God wants
to do in our neighborhoods, in our communities, with our friends, our
enemies, and those who don't go to the Lord, those who far far
from God. We cannot think they're all going to come to this altar,
but they all will come to your dinner table. They'll come to your dinner
table. And if you and I will work the hospitality of breaking the bread
of what we have, and if we will tear down every excuse I don't
have enough? What about me? Where will I get the groceries? This
lady has up to thirty people over for dinner every single Tuesday night, NonStop.
She opens her home heard her husband. She's now a pastor's wife.
They pastor a Presbyterian church. She converted to Christ after five hundred dinners.
She came into the church where this pastor pastored the church received her. She
was discipled, She met a man, They became pastors. They've led hundreds
of people to the Lord through their dinner table. And every day crazy hospitality
come on on Tuesdays as they have people over for dinner on Thursdays or on
Sundays, or they have people over for dinner. They just closed the dinner
with sharing. They closed the dinner with prayer, They closed the dinner with
some scripture reading. People open up, dropped their guards. If you loved
every kind of people, they get transformed, lives are changed, somebody else
gets led to the Lord. What if the church is more of a barn
than it is a combine? What if this is where we bring the bushels.
But what if you're the combine? Isn't that Jeremiah fifty, I've made
you a sharp threshing sledge. I've made you the combine. You're the combine,
I'm the combine. We're the combine. This is the barn. We
bring the harvest here. We don't demand that it happens here. It can
happen here, but it doesn't have to happen here because we are the combine,
the sharp threshing instrument of the love of God every day twenty four to
seven, wherever we're at, and especially in our neighborhoods. Isn't that fun?
Luke Chapter ten, verse twenty five. On one occasion, an expert
in the law stood up to test Jesus. This is a scribe. He's
not a lawyer, but he's as good as a lawyer in that day because
of his knowledge of the Toro. So the law books right. And so
he stands up to test the Lord. He says, Jesus, teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, what's written
in the law. How do you read it? And he answered, love
the Lord your God, with all of your heart, all of your soul,
all of your strength, and all of your mind. And love your
neighbor as yourself. You've answered correctly. Jesus said, do this and you
will live. But him, being like pastor Dwayne, wanted to justify himself,
and so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? And then
replied Jesus said this a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he
was attacked by robbers, and they stripped him of his clothes. Everybody say
stripped, and they beat him up. Everybody say beat and they went away,
leaving him half dead. Everybody say half dead. Then a holy priest,
a great preacher, a man of God, a supreme one in the
church. Oh, I'm messing with you, of course. But a priest
happened to be going down the same road, and he saw the man.
And when he saw the man, he went out of his way to not
be bothered. He passed by on the other side, so to a levite.
Now these are guys that should know the law. They should know the
law as good as the scribe. So to a levite. When he came
to the place and saw him, he pass on the other side. But
a Samaritan, as he traveled, came to the man as he was,
and he saw him, and he took pity on him. The word is
compassion. Compassion comes from the word mercy. The word mercy means to not
give a person the judgment they deserve, withholding from them judgment they deserve.
He took compassion on him, or this translation says he had pity, took
pity on him and he went and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and
wine. Now the Samaritan had every reason to pass. On the other side,
the Samaritan had every reason to walk by, because the Samaritan was racially
they racially they were inferior. So the Jews were the head and not the
tale above and not beneath the Jewish people, the Hebrew people, they were
the supreme. Samaritans were half breathed, they were half jew and they were
mixed. They were of a mixed race, so they weren't full jew They
couldn't go to the temple, they couldn't go to Tourra school, they didn't
have the privileges of the Jewish people. They didn't have those privileges in Jerusalem.
They were segregated, they were left out. The Jewish people called them
dogs. And this Samaritan, he would have been abused by the It could
be he was even abused by the very family of the guy that's in the
ditch. That very family could have somehow been involved in abusing his family.
So if anybody had a reason not to stop, he had a reason.
But he listened to compassion. That he could have listened to the marketplace because
he was on his journey. He could have listened to his visionary mindset.
He could have listened to a lot of other things, but it says that
he listened to compassion. And because he listened to compassion, he connected with
that realm that I talked about, that the guy saw in the surgery room
over him. He connected with the need of the person in the ditch.
The earth is groaning for the sons of God to be revealed, not just
in their authority over devils, the sons of God who are led by their
spirit, Yeah, who are led by their spirit in such a way that
they're sensitive to the felt needs of the people around them. So then he
pays for the bandaging. He stays with him that first day and actually cares
for him, caring a Samaritan, a dog, caring for a Jewish person
who's been used of hating him. And then he says, you know,
Jesus says, of the three, which are the three? Which of these
three was the was the neighbor? And he says the last one. He
says, yes, Now go and do the same, and like that,
go and live like that, Go and live like that. Stand this morning.
It gets worse Matthew twenty five, race yourself. If you got a
cane handy, grab it. Then the King will say to those on the
right, Matthew twenty five thirty four, Come you who are blessed to my
father. Take your inheritance. The Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of
the world. For you went to New Horizon Christian Church, and you were
amazing, and you drove out devils and had great authority. Nope, nope,
nope, no, none of that. For I was hungry and you
gave me some to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes
and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I
was in prison and you came to visit me. And then the Righteous said
Lord Quinn. In the world did we see you hungry and feed you thirsty
and give you something to drink? When did we see you as a stranger
and invite you in, or needing clothes or clothe you? When did we
see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? And then the
King will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one
of these, the least of these. Whatever you did for one of the
least of these, brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
Let's go find the least. Let's be on assignments to find the least.
Let's be on hunger and thirst assignments. Right, maybe it's not mashed potatoes
and gravy somebody needs, but maybe they're starving of soul. Come on,
heads about all across this auditorium. Would you join Joel and I in our
prayer potentially a weekly discussion and a weekly prayer, if not more often.
We're asking, Holy Spirit, would you make my heart bigger? Holy Spirit?
Would you make my heart bigger? Would you expand the vision of my
heart for broken people? Would you break me for those that are broken?
Would you open the eyes of my understanding to show me the felt needs of
those before me? Would you make me brave? Holy Spirin, make me
brave, Make me brave? Even Paul said, pray for me that I
would be bold. Paul, the Great Apostle, writer of half of the
New Testament, is requesting pray for me. Pray for me that I will
be bold in my ministry of the good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
Father. We bring that same prayer before you today. Make us bold,
enlarge our hospitality, enlarge our love for the stranger, enlarge our risk taking,
minimize, reduce, remove our fears, and enlarge your love through us.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Prayer team, If you'd come,
I want to close this morning by just inviting you forward once again. If
you're here giving your life to the Lord this morning, I want you to
come and seal it. If you're here committing your life to him, come
and seal it in prayer. If you've been away from Him, come and
seal the security of your salvation in prayer. If you've not known what it
is to know Him fully and to know his love, come and be prayed
for and seal his love for you in prayer. To have any other need
this morning, physical, emotional, circumstantial. Just as we close and worship,
come and be prayed for. God, bless your church. We love you