Loving the Stranger Among Us

Good morning.

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning, and I want to greet you in the name of our God, our God Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and to say it is a great thing to be loved by God.

And sisters and brothers in the Lord this morning, I want to say it's a it's a privilege to worship with you this morning and thank you for welcoming me.

And if you might be visiting here at uh Alexandria Perez uh this morning and you don't know Jesus, I want to say welcome to you as well.

A hearty welcome.

I'm glad that you're here.

The people of Alexandria Perez are glad that you're here, and we want you to feel the welcome of a God who has great love.

Um if you would um open your Bibles or your apps or your bulletins or I'm not sure.

Okay.

Um this morning I'll be reading Leviticus 1933 and 34.

Leviticus 1933 and 34.

This is the word of God.

When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.

For you are strangers in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

Let's pray together.

Our Father in heaven, we come to you now and we ask that you will instruct us from your word, that you will apply your word to our hearts.

Father, you know where we are.

You know our struggles, you know our joys, you know our hurts.

And we thank you for this, and we ask that you will bring instruction, that you'll bring comfort, and that you'll remind us of your love.

Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

Shortly after beginning with our UF International, uh, my wife and I started having people in our home, especially for international students.

And one week there was a master student from Cambodia, we'll call him Lee, not his real name.

But he came to our home because he had been invited by another international student who had been to our home.

And after the evening was was finished and I was driving him home, I was able to have some more personal conversation with him.

And so I asked him, so you've been in the States for a little while now, but what were your expectations before coming to the United States?

He took a deep breath and he said, Before I came to the United States, I was really scared.

I didn't know anybody here.

I um I'm not a rich man.

My connections were few, if any, basically just the emails that he had sent to his advising professor.

And he was he was worried about how he would be received.

His expectations were that he would go from his apartment, once he found one, that he would go from his apartment to his class and lab, then go from his class and his labs back to his apartment, and nobody would want to talk with him.

Because he realized that he was coming as one who was vulnerable, one without means.

And then I asked him a little bit more.

So what what what were the first few days in the United States like for you?

And he told me that he arrived at the Atlanta airport.

This was when I was serving at Auburn University, and he arrived in the Atlanta airport, really the closest international airport to Auburn.

And there are no trains between Atlanta and Auburn.

There are a few bus services, but they're hard to find unless you know about them.

So Lee did the thing that he thought would be best.

He hired a taxi to go the 90 miles between Atlanta and Auburn.

He didn't already have a place to stay.

He didn't think he wanted to stay on a bench in the middle of the town.

So he's he rented a hotel room.

And so in the first 24 hours of being in the United States, Lee had spent well over$200.

And as we're driving back, he's he said, Matthew, I spent all this money in the first 24 hours.

He's like, my normal monthly income, the normal monthly income for people in Cambodia is$200.

And you can understand him thinking, what is going on here?

How am I going to make it if I spend$200 in my first 24 hours?

And you can understand his fear.

You can understand his concern.

Because he realized that he was here in a position of weakness.

Though he was very intelligent, he realized he was disconnected from his support group.

And I tell you this to remind you of when we read about strangers so journeying with us, that they're often vulnerable, living life from a perspective of weakness.

And in here in Leviticus, God is giving these commands to the people of Israel who had also been coming out from a position of weakness.

They had been delivered by God with a mighty hand, and he had delivered them, and they are currently on their way to the promised land, the land that God had promised to Abraham, their forefather, and they're now on their way to take possession of this promised land.

And God tells them, not if, but when a stranger sojourns with you, this is the command.

And we know that it wasn't just Israelites going up from Egypt anyway, because in Leviticus, sorry, in Exodus 12, we hear that there is a mixed multitude that also went up.

It wasn't just the Israelites.

There was already a mixed multitude.

There were already people from various nations that were going up with the Israelites to the promised land.

And for those of you who like to take notes, we'll do three points today.

The first is the command.

In verse 33, it says, When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, and here's the command, you shall not do him wrong.

You shall not do him wrong.

Do not oppress the stranger who is living with you.

Do not oppress the one who is living in your midst.

It's often easy for people who are strangers in the land to be oppressed.

It is easy for them to be taken advantage of.

So in this case, with the Israelites and the people who'd be coming to be living with them, oftentimes people would be speaking a language that was not their own.

So they'd have to learn a language and gain a new language.

It wouldn't be their first language.

And so there would be language that would make things a little bit more difficult.

Maybe they'd be coming in from a different culture.

And so that might make things a little bit more difficult.

For the Israelites, they'd be receiving an inheritance.

They'd be receiving an inheritance of land based on their families.

When a stranger comes to live with the Israelites, where are they going to get land?

How are they going to get food?

And often it is easy to blame or to exploit those who are coming from a position of weakness, those who are vulnerable.

And so God is telling his people, as my people, you are not to do this.

Do not oppress them.

Do not do him, you shall not do him wrong.

And then God continues.

He says, You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you.

So in all the laws and just when there are disputes, they're to be treated as the native.

In my work with international students, I've heard several times of where they have needed a car to get around.

So they've gone to buy a car.

And people have cheated them in either purchasing a car or in car repairs.

Doesn't always happen, but it does happen.

And so international students are often taken advantage of in this way.

And so far we've seen God say, you shall not harm, you shall not harm the stranger who sojourns with you.

Then he says that you shall treat him as the native among you.

And then he says, You shall love him as yourself.

Do you see how God is building up this command?

Don't do him wrong.

Treat him as the native.

And for the way our care for our own affairs, whether our family relationships, our jobs, our businesses, our health, we're also to have for those who live among us.

Sorry about that.

And so for our context, this obviously applies to refugees, it applies to immigrants, it applies to international students, but I want to also expand the idea of stranger as well.

To be somebody who is different, somebody who isn't like you.

Hence the idea of a stranger.

Also to consider those who are vulnerable, those who are at the margins of society.

And so in God calling us to love the stranger who sojourns with us, the stranger who lives among us.

Hospitality.

And when I say hospitality, I don't just mean a show of hospitality.

I mean real hospitality, a real love of strangers, love of the people that you are welcoming.

So that your desire is to see this person have space relationally, maybe resources, but so that they can grow and so that they can flourish.

So that they can grow and flourish.

Because you are seeking their welfare just as you are seeking your own, because you are seeking to love them even as you love yourself.

And the idea of hospitality, of welcome, is so important that in Romans chapter 13, God tells his people to seek to practice hospitality.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

And in Hebrews 13, to not neglect to show hospitality.

It's so important that when God tells the qualifications of church elders, both in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, it says that the elder must be hospitable, given to hospitality, given to loving strangers.

And so the idea of hospitality, of loving strangers is important, but not just for elders in the church, but for everyone.

For men, for women, for boys, for girls, for the young, for the old.

The idea of welcoming others is important.

And to further strengthen this command, God appeals to the experiences and to the hearts of the Israelites.

And so you could call this point too.

You know how it feels.

God's telling the Israelites, you know how it feels.

He tells them, he reminds them, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

You were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Israel, the people of Israel, were in Egypt for over 400 years.

And now Israel was on their way to the promised land.

This was the land promised to Abraham by God.

When God promised that he'd receive the land, and in Genesis 13, look up, lift up your eyes, look all around you.

This is the land that I'm going to give to you and to your descendants.

And then in Genesis 15, God tells Abraham, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

So the Israelites knew what it was to be sojourners in a strange land.

They were strangers in another land.

So they knew what it felt like.

They knew what it was to be harassed and oppressed and mistreated.

In Exodus, this is what we hear.

We hear that the Egyptians enslaved them.

So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field.

And all their work, they ruthless ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

So the people in Israel were oppressing the Israelites.

They enslaved them.

And yet God continued to bless the Israelites.

So much so that Pharaoh was concerned about the growth of the Israelites.

So he told the Hebrew midwives, kill the boy babies.

When a Hebrew boy is born, kill him.

The Hebrew midwives did not go along with this.

And so God continued to grow and strengthen the people of Israel.

And then Pharaoh basically tells all the families: your boy children, throw into the Nile, throw into the river.

So the people of Israel knew what it was like to be oppressed, to be enslaved, to be mistreated.

And you know how it feels.

You know how it feels to be separated yourselves.

Some of you more than others.

You have felt the pain that it is to walk into a room and people look at you.

And you can tell on their face they're almost wondering, like, why are you here?

Why are you here?

And you sense that vulnerability.

You sense what how are they going to try to marginalize me?

How are they going to try to take advantage of me?

And you have felt that.

You can feel the divide, you can feel the vulnerability.

And especially for those of you who have moved to the United States.

Or those of you who are part of a minority group, a group that is easily marginalized, that has historically been marginalized, you know how this feels.

You know how it feels, and it's not right.

When you are not welcomed, it is not right.

And so you felt that vulnerability, you felt that separation from other people.

And I also dare to say that there are times in everybody's life where you don't just feel the separation from those around you, other people, but you've also felt separation from God.

You have felt the pain that there is separation because there's a broken relationship between you and God.

Because we have failed to live up to this command of welcoming the stranger and to loving them even as we love ourselves, and in disobeying God, and in rebelling against his commands.

You felt the pain of realizing that you've had divided loyalty between serving God and serving yourself, between serving God and seeking your own comfort, seeking your own pleasure.

You felt the pain that it is when you forsake seeking the power of God in your life and you seek power from other things, from other people, from other institutions.

And you felt the pain of being guilty because of our sin.

But here is the good news that we see in this passage in Leviticus 19.

And this is our third point.

It's when God tells the Israelites, and when God tells you, I am the Lord your God.

I am the Lord your God.

And this is good news for the Israelites when they heard it, and it is good news for us now.

Giving this command and saying, I am the Lord your God, in some ways it makes this command even scarier, even more daunting.

It's like there's this command where it says, we should love the stranger who sojourns with us even as ourselves.

And then God says, For I am the Lord your God.

He puts this extra weight on this command saying, I am the Lord your God.

It is the Lord your God who is commanding this.

And so there's the extra weight, there's the extra seriousness of that because this command comes from the character of God.

But that's also where there is hope and there is good news because I am the Lord your God, is saying that you shall love the stranger as yourself.

This is coming from the God who has shown love.

In this command, God enforces it by saying, I am the Lord your God.

And so oftentimes in English translations, when it says the Lord, Old Testament, all capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that's the way in English that we translate the divine relational name that God revealed to Moses.

So God is saying that we have a relationship.

He's using his relational name.

And he says, your God.

It's not just the Almighty God, but it is the Lord your God in relationship with God.

And so he's calling his people, God is calling his people to a higher way of living and loving for his people.

And we've seen God love.

He loved the people of Israel.

He'd given this promise, and though that they though they had been oppressed and enslaved for 400 years, he heard their cry.

He heard their prayers, he heard their cry.

And he sent Moses to help deliver the people, to be the instrument that God would use to deliver the people of Israel out of Egypt.

He showed himself powerful and strong in deliverance.

When they were in the wilderness and they were like, Where are we going to get food?

Where are we going to get water?

Why did you call us out here so that we would die?

God did not leave them alone, but he provided bread day by day by day, manna that fell from heaven.

When they were thirsty, he provided water from a rock.

So God provided for their needs, even as they were wandering in the wilderness.

And all this was based upon God's goodness and on his love and on his grace that he had for his people.

It was because of his relationship with them.

It was not because of anything the Israelites had done, it was not because they were strong or wise or powerful, but it was because God had placed his love upon them.

And so it is with us.

God also loves and cares and welcomes you.

God loves you, God cares for you, and God welcomes you.

Romans 5.8 tells us that God demonstrates his own love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

On the cross, Christ took all of our sin, including our unloving attitude toward others, including to the strangers around us.

He took that love upon himself.

Sorry, he took that sin upon himself.

And he died to redeem us.

He died to redeem sinners and to reconcile us to God and with one another.

We see God's welcome in that he loves us.

He gives us a place in the family of God.

He calls us sons and daughters.

We are no longer, we have no longer been called strangers, but we've been brought into the family of God.

We're now dear children of God.

And even now, Jesus prepares a place for us.

Jesus prepares a place for us.

And every time that you hear the gospel proclaimed, God, the Lord your God, is inviting you to come to fellowship, to rest.

And we get a picture of this every time that you celebrate the Lord's Supper.

Every time you celebrate the Lord's Supper, Jesus invites you to the table.

He says, Come, eat, drink, be refreshed, receive strength for your pilgrim journey.

Jesus welcomes us to his own table.

And he loves us so much that he has promised to be with us, not just today, not just tomorrow, but to the very end of the age.

Jesus is with us.

Your Lord, the Lord God, He is with you and He loves you, and He has welcomed you to His family.

So how do we respond to God's welcome?

How do we respond to God's love?

If you are here today and you do not know Jesus, you do not consider yourself a Christian, somebody following Jesus.

Jesus is saying to you, Come, accept my welcome, accept my love.

Be found by me, and you will find me to be a kind and yet powerful Savior.

I will care for you.

For those of you who consider yourself Christians who are looking to follow Christ in obedience, follow Christ in welcoming the stranger around you.

Welcome and love the stranger who sojourns with you.

Especially those that you might see as the most different or the most vulnerable.

Pray to God that He will give you open eyes to see the stranger, to see the vulnerable.

It is so easy for us to go about our lives and not have our eyes open.

It is so easy for us to be busy with work responsibilities, with family responsibilities, with social responsibilities, that we do not have our eyes open, that we don't pay attention to the person on the other side of the room.

That we may not notice the person two seats over on the metro.

So we need to ask God to open our eyes and for wisdom that we may love the stranger around us well.

We need to pray for strength to make room in our lives.

Life is very busy, life moves quickly.

And I'm not saying that you need to stop everything you're doing while you're at work for a two-hour conversation.

But it might be appropriate to take five minutes to talk with somebody, to greet them, to welcome them, and say, I would love to invite you to my home.

I would love to get coffee with you later.

Maybe we can eat lunch together sometime.

And when we're seeking to love others well, we can show love for others by being careful and limiting our assumptions.

So when you're meeting somebody new, I can think of right off the bat three really good assumptions.

The assumption that the person that you're hoping to talk to is created in the image of God, that the person that you're hoping to talk to has had joys and hurts in their life, and then that person needs Jesus.

After that, you need to ask some questions and then listen.

We need to listen well.

It's because we because life is quick, it's fast-paced, it's easy for us that when we're in a conversation with somebody, we're listening, and the person is talking, we see the mouth moving, but we don't necessarily hear what they're saying because we're thinking, how am I going to respond?

What am I going to say next?

And that can be dangerous.

Because listening to people is a great way to show love to people.

And how else can you respond to this love, this welcome from the Lord your God?

Rest in that welcome.

Rest in that welcome.

So often when we think of hospitality and rest, we think of a place that is relationally warm, where our needs are met, where things are might might even be called cozy.

Rest in that welcome that the Lord your God gives you.

He has welcomed you and brought you into his family.

Enjoy that.

Enjoy that welcome and enjoy it as a gift.

You didn't do anything to deserve it.

You can't do anything to deserve it.

You can't do anything to earn it.

But that welcome has been given to you in Christ.

Let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you are good and kind.

We thank you that you have made a place for us in your world, in your kingdom, and even in your family.

You have made us your dear children.

You have welcomed us to yourself.

Help us to rest in your welcome.

Help us to rest and to enjoy that welcome, to enjoy your love, to rest in it.

We ask that you will cause your love and compassion to so overflow our hearts that we cannot help but to show love and mercy and compassion and welcome to those around us for Jesus' sake.

That we will love well, that we will have eyes to see.

And so that in loving the stranger who sojourns with us, in loving those who are different from us, so that you will receive much glory, honor, and praise.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.