The Heart of Hospitality

So I have a question for you.

What if the kingdom of God was like a suburban home?

What if the kingdom of God was like a suburban home?

Think about this with me for a moment.

We put a ton of energy and resources into a typical suburban home to keep all of the hostility around us out.

We have uh fences and deadbolts, we have alarm systems and cameras, we have guns and political yard signs, right?

All of them working in a unified effort not to beckon the stranger to come in, but our homes scream for them to stay out.

And like I feel that.

I feel that when I'm walking the neighborhood with my wife, if you have a certain sign in your front yard, uh, I probably know me and you ain't gonna be barbecuing anytime soon, right?

And for me, it's always the ones with like love on the sign.

I'm just like, yeah, but when we get across from the table and we talk about what love really is, you're not gonna like me.

I know this.

But we do a lot of work to keep out the hostility around us.

If the kingdom of God was like a typical suburban home, the reality is you and I would have no hope in this world.

None.

You and I would be lost because the kingdom would work harder to keep us out, who were at one time hostile toward its kingdom and its king, rather than to chase us down, to call us in, to welcome us around the table, and to break bread of fellowship.

You see, if the kingdom of God was like your suburban home, you'd be hopeless.

Gospel hospitality, however, invites and welcomes us despite yours and mine's former hostility to a king in his kingdom.

So let's dive into the text.

As with any subject matter, here's what Paul does so eloquently, and this is something that is critical and core to our ministry and gospel understanding here at Sacred Mission.

It's that the gospel transforms every aspect of our life.

When we come under the Lordship of Jesus, there is not one part of our life that we are able to declare mine.

Every part of it is submitted to Him.

Hospitality is not omitted from that reality.

Right?

It is brought in under the Lordship of Christ, and it's shaped and informed by the beauty and truth of the gospel.

So Paul's gonna do something for us.

He's gonna remind us of the gospel, and he's gonna have us work from that identity.

Right?

That's what this Christian life is about.

Conformity to Christ is a deeper understanding of the gospel, a richer faith in what it has accomplished for us, and it transforms us into reflecting that image to the culture around us.

We become more Christ-like as we become more crucified through the cross of his gospel.

And so we're gonna work from that gospel identity this morning.

And Paul's gonna do that right here in his letter to the church at Ephesus.

You see, the beginning of this passage of scripture is a segue from the text that precedes it, where Paul is communicating our state before we were made alive through Christ, before we were made new by the power of the gospel.

In it, the apostle shows us how we were at enmity and hostile to God.

So here's one thing as we open up Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, I want us to understand something.

You and I were at one time the hostility that we judge and condemn today.

You were at war with God.

You were at enemy against uh enmity against his kingdom, you were a rebel to his throne, you were hostile toward him.

Paul helps us understand that.

Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins, and once you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

That was you.

That was me.

Hostile to a king and his kingdom.

But the work of God in us has changed our state.

We who were once hostile to God have now been saved and reconciled through the finished work of his son Jesus, no longer at enmity with him, but through his kindness brought into loving fellowship with him.

And so, Paul, what he's gonna do at the top of verse 11 is he's going to charge the church at Ephesus to remember.

And he's gonna give that charge twice.

He says, therefore, remember.

And he's gonna say it again, remember.

Remember what?

Remember, you were the one who was hostile.

Remember, you were the one who was at war against his kingdom.

Remember you were the one who was lost, separated, severed, and without any hope.

That was you.

Now we have to ask ourselves the question: why would Paul give this charge to remember our former state twice?

Our state of enmity and hostility that we were once in.

You see, this charge is a charge to be mindful.

When Paul's saying remember this, he's saying be mindful, but he's also saying keep this in your thoughts, keep this in the focus of your purview as you are navigating the culture around you.

Remember this thing.

The reason that we're called to remember our former life is because it should shape and form the life we currently live today.

It's the fullness of the gospel.

Here's one of the clearest ways that I think that you and I can see this.

In glory, when Christ brings his church into the new heavens and new earth, and we're around his throne, and we are praising the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world.

We're giving him glory.

What are we going to see?

Not only will we see Christ, the conquering king, seated on the throne in such radiant glory that he is the light of new creation, that we no longer even need a sun to light up the sky, but we will see him standing there with pierced hands and pierced feet.

And our only response to that is going to be holy.

Holy.

Why?

Because we're going to remember why those holes are there.

We're going to see more clearly.

We're going to understand more deeply.

It's going to grip us in ways that it's never been able to before.

Why those holes are in his hands, why they're in his feet.

And we're going to be full of gratitude.

Why?

Not because we earned our way before his throne, but because he carried our poor, pathetic bodies to the foot of it that we might worship him because of his immeasurable grace given to us through the finished work of his cross.

So forever, forever, you and I are going to look upon the glorious gospel of grace and say, Holy is your name.

We can't forget where we came from.

We're not going to be able to in glory either.

We're going to see the Lamb who was slain, and we're going to be so full of eternal gratitude.

Can we understand?

We'll get to this, but we cannot exhaust our efforts to discover the beauty of his gospel.

You can't do it.

Eternity will be spent rediscovering his grace.

And your only response will be holy, holy, holy.

Paul says in verse 11.

Your state has been changed.

We who were once hostile to God have now been saved and reconciled through that finished work.

No longer at enmity with him, but through his kindness brought into loving fellowship with him.

It's a charge to be mindful, to remember that our former hostile state meant something for us.

And he lays out what our former state meant for us in three key ways.

The first way he says is that we were separated from Christ.

You want to understand your former state?

You were separated from Christ.

I love that Paul starts there.

You know where Paul doesn't start?

Well, you didn't practice the Hebrew customs and traditions.

Well, you didn't uh um have the same worldview that we did.

You didn't value the same things that we did.

You you didn't think like us, you didn't act like us.

Where does Paul say?

Your despair was rooted in you were separated from Christ.

That's the first and primary thing.

We were dead in our sins.

We had no life because we were severed from the very life giver.

The second thing he says is that you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.

Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.

What's he saying?

You had no citizenship.

You had no identity.

You had no home.

You had no people to belong to.

Because what?

Christ makes that for us.

That's the argument Paul's gonna set up is that only in Christ do you actually have identity.

Without him, separated from him, you have no place to call home.

You have no people to belong to.

You're a wandering vagabond throughout this earth, just searching for someone who you can belong with or to.

I know I wrestled through that.

Like, who through high school?

Did you guys go through as many phases in high school as I did?

Just trying to find community, right?

Like I did the Hollister, popped collar polo, uh, spiked hair like David Crowder.

I uh I totally uh did the skater thing, the punk thing, the graffiti thing, the hip-hop thing.

By God's grace and mercy and kindness to me, I was never goth.

And I'm so thankful that those pictures don't exist.

Lord Jesus.

Um but man, you know what I was doing?

I was trying to find a place to call home.

I was trying to find an identity I could belong to.

Paul says, but apart from Christ, you're gonna just keep searching for that over and over and over again, and it won't be able to satisfy.

The third thing he says is that you are strangers to the covenant of promise.

You know what's beautiful about a healthy family?

A healthy family provides an inheritance to its children.

A healthy family gives those kids something to look forward to.

Paul's saying, you had no inheritance.

Because you didn't have Jesus, because you didn't have a family, you had nothing to look forward to.

You had no hope.

You had no promise that you could hold on to.

You had nothing that could satisfy the longing of your heart.

Paul beautifully summarizes what this former state actually culminated into, this state of pity and a despondent condition we found ourselves in.

He says this having no hope and without God in the world.

So for a moment, can we do something?

Uh your headlines, your newsfeed, your ex algorithm, your not the bee articles, whatever, whatever, has loaded you with people to caricature image bearers who you would declare have no hope.

There's no hope for them.

These people are wicked, these people are horrible.

We're gonna judge them in our own self-righteousness, we're gonna be angry against them.

I'm gonna argue for just a moment.

Is that temperament, is that hostility, is that volatile response because you've forgotten you were them.

You were them.

Some of you in this room are them.

No hope without God in the world from one primary reason.

You were separated from Jesus.

You see, we had nothing.

There was no hope for us as we wandered throughout this world.

And Paul is going to exhort the church in Ephesus to dwell on that reality.

Dwell on the former state of once you were in while also remembering and holding tight to the steadfast reality of your current one in Christ Jesus.

This is what's going to make a whole gospel identity for us.

That we remember where we were and we are living in the reality of where we are now because of Jesus.

And that's gonna make us healthy, holistic disciples of him, filled with gratitude and thanksgiving, a life that responds to him in worship and adoration and with compassion on the culture around us.

Paul says in verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus.

But now in Christ Jesus, this is critical to our gospel identity.

That we don't simply remember where we came from.

We cannot forget that.

Paul charges us to remember that, but we also recall and actively live out the new life that we now have in Jesus.

Because it keeps in mind who we once were so that we may more richly cherish what verse 7 says: the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

You know, um, Puritan pastors have said for a long time, and it's carried out through our tradition, that we can understand this kind of tension of the two, who we once were and who we now are now in Christ Jesus, through this image of stars shining in the night sky.

And they would say that just as a star is able to shine brightest against the backdrop of a black evening sky, so does the gospel shine brightest against the backdrop of our own sin.

You see, he must increase.

The beauty of the gospel must become radiant to us.

We have to remember the state of which we've been saved from, so that we might reflect and cherish the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So then Paul does something really wonderful.

He summarizes the reality of gospel hospitality in verse 13.

Verse 13 says this, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ.

You who were once far off have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

That's the heart of gospel hospitality.

We who were far off, we who were strangers, foreigners, aliens, hostile to God and his kingdom have been brought near by the seeking, saving, sacrificial love of Jesus.

The only reason you have an ability to sit in this seat this morning as a Christian is because Jesus chased you down, called you in, sat you at the table, and broke his body that you might feast with him.

That's the only reason.

And we cannot forget that.

You see, gospel hospitality does something.

Gospel hospitality brings hostile strangers near into close relationship.

That's the upside-down reality of the kingdom.

It looks insane, it looks crazy, it looks dangerous, it looks reckless.

Gospel hospitality brings hostile strangers near into close relationship.

Paul's gonna carry us through this passage by explaining to us how Jesus accomplished this for us.

He lays out the personal, costly sacrifice of Jesus to bring us from hostility to household, to bring us from strangers into children.

He says in verse 14, for he himself, speaking of Jesus, is our peace.

Here's how he accomplished peace for us.

Keep on, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

You see, it was the breaking of Christ's flesh that was able to tear down and abolish the wall of hostility that separated us, that separated us from God, but it also separated us from one another.

It was the sacrifice of Christ that brought that wall down, so that hostility could be abolished, so that unity could be known and understood, so that peace could be experienced and lived out.

That's what the cross accomplished for us.

You see, the finished work of Jesus not only reconciles hostile rebels to God, but it also reconciles people who were once hostile toward one another.

This is what Paul establishes in verse 11, and this is what he's helping us understand more clearly in verses 14 and 15.

And we have to understand, or we have to seek to understand, what was that dividing wall?

What was that wall that separated us, that created hostility between us?

Paul lays it out very clear.

He says that it was the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

The law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

So what was the wall that separated us?

That was fostering all this hostility between us.

It was in obedience to a law, it was obedience to a culture, to a worldview, to a value structure, to a right way versus a wrong way.

That was the wall that divided us.

And Paul says that the crucifixion of Christ, the cross for which he died, tore that down.

Jesus tore all of that down through his own costly sacrifice so that we could be reconciled to God and to one another.

And now through him, through Jesus, where there was once hostility between us and God and between us and others, there's now peace.

Because he is our peace.

Now, how does Jesus make peace through the cross?

That seems very strange.

It seems very peculiar.

Jesus makes peace through his cross because the cross satisfies the wrath of God's holy justice against our sin.

You know what Jesus did in the cross?

He looked at everybody who tried to appeal.

Please God and satisfy him by their own self-righteousness.

And he looked at everybody who tried to satisfy themselves in their own licentious, self-will, run riot life.

And he said, Both of you are so equally far from God that the only thing that's going to reconcile is for me to bear the fullness of his justice on myself.

That's how the cross is our peace.

That's how the cross becomes our peace.

That's how the cross kills the hostility.

Verse 16.

And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

How did Jesus bring peace?

How did Jesus kill the hostility?

It was in this way.

Through the loving, merciful, selfless sacrifice of the cross.

And so in the same way that it cost Jesus to bring hostile strangers near, it's going to cost us to bring a hostile culture into our living rooms, around our dinner tables, and ultimately in prayerful hope into trust and faith in Jesus.

You see, to practice gospel hospitality, it's going to cost you.

If it costs Jesus everything, it's going to cost you something.

And our homes need to be established as a reflection of the gospel hospitality of which we have received in Him.

You look around at culture and you see in it all of its hostility.

Have you forgotten that was you?

Have you forgotten what it took to bring you near into relationship, into hope-filled, saving faith in Christ's finished work?

Have you forgotten?

You see, the heart of gospel hospitality is the reconciling of the hostile one to Jesus.

Many of us though, we forget the heart of gospel hospitality.

We forget the heart of gospel hospitality.

I think this is really fascinating.

I don't know about you, but I was, if we look at the parable of the prodigal son, I was the younger brother.

I was the prodigal son.

I was the womanizer, the partier.

I was the one who was doing everything I could to retaliate and rebel against any sense of authority that was on my life.

That was me.

And Jesus hunted me down in some small little Pentecostal church in Lebanon, and he saved me.

And he welcomed me into his family, and he carried me to his table, and he invited me to feast with him.

But what I'm appalled at, what I'm shocked at, is how quick I became the elder brother that was sitting out in the field.

How quick I became the self-righteous one who saw the way that my father loved my rebellious, hostile brother and threw a feast for him when he came home.

Man, if we're honest with ourselves, I think a lot of us today function a lot more like the elder brother who questioned the father.

Why are you so kind to him?

Why would you be so gracious to him?

Why would you kill this fatted calf for him?

Why would you throw this party for him?

You've never done anything like that for me.

Rather than running down the gravel road with the father, stripping ourselves of any luxury, that we might lavish it on that brother, that we might cost ourselves our own livestock to throw a party like he's never seen before, to make him feel welcomed and wanted at the table, to rejoice in his coming home.

Shame on us that so many of us were rebels saved by grace and now we're just self-righteous prudes standing out in the field, judging everything around us like we are somehow greater.

No, you're a sinner saved by grace.

You see, there are many within our culture that are hostile to us and to the way we live, but we're supposed to be a peculiar people.

The church is supposed to be a peculiar family that doesn't look like the world and doesn't respond in the ways that the world responds.

You see, our primary problem is that we look out into the hostile culture around us with harsh judgment rather than with loving compassion because we forgot about our own former hostility toward God and his kingdom.

That apart from the grace and mercy of God, we deserve to be crushed under the wrath of his holy justice.

Where do you deserve to be this morning?

Where does everyone in this room deserve to be this morning?

Crushed under the wrath of God because of our sin.

Where are we?

But in Christ Jesus.

Because of the immeasurable riches of his grace and loving kindness toward us.

Man, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna eat at this table this morning.

You see, we forget the costliness of what it took to bring us who are far off, near to the kingdom and family of God.

And because of that, I believe that you and I engage in a hostile culture around us from one of two very self-righteous ways.

The first way I think we do this is that many of us, we believe that hostility is abolished by conquering.

We believe that we're gonna abolish the hostility around us by conquering.

Let me try to walk us through this for a moment.

There are many within our culture who see the only way to abolish the dividing wall between us is to destroy it and those who reside on the other side of it.

We engage in a culture war where our worldview is shaped by this tension between the oppressed and the oppressor, those who have power and those who lay victim to its abuse.

So we've convinced ourselves of something.

We've convinced ourselves that the only way to end the hostility we see around us is to actually become hostile against it.

And you don't just see this in progressive liberal ideology, you see this in conservative fundamentalism as well.

And look what's happening, right?

The marches with Antifa, the calls for anti-racism, all of what have they done?

They become hostile.

They become hostile because they've convinced themselves that if we conquer this hostility that oppresses us, that we lay victim to, then we'll be able to abolish the hostility that we experience, and we'll have equity and justice that just rules over the land.

But guess what?

Conservative fundamentalists are doing the exact same thing.

Oh, we've had the last 50 years just riding culture smooth, and all of a sudden the waves are coming in, and we say, hold up a second, we're gonna have to pick up arms and we're gonna have to fight.

We're gonna have to actually conquer the hostile culture coming toward us.

So we're gonna do everything we can to put people into the proper forms, uh, places, and positions of government.

We're gonna start businesses and we're gonna homeschool our kids and we're gonna only drink unpasteurized chicken milk, and we're just gonna do all these things to make sure, to make sure that we conquer the hostile culture around us.

But can I tell us something?

It's going to fail.

It's going to fail.

You see, we have tricked ourselves into believing.

If we can become the ones with power, then we will undo all the wrong that has been done.

And we will set the cultural stage for the future to be lived out in peace.

But there's two things we fail to see.

The first thing that we fail to see is that we've actually become the villains we so despise.

What's the problem with any movement that seeks to conquer the hostile culture it finds itself in?

It becomes the villain.

Why is anti-racism insufficient and unable to accomplish what it set forth to do?

Because it becomes fundamentally racist.

Why is conservative fundamentalism unable to accomplish what it set forth to do?

Because it oppresses the people underneath of them over time.

You see, our efforts to conquer the culture has cultivated more hatred, rage, powerlust, and self-righteousness within our hearts.

I see this.

I see this on your social media feeds.

I see this in things that you talk about with people around you.

I see this in that what comes out of your mouth is more about your candidate than your Christ.

I see this in the way that you position yourself around the people that are hostile towards you.

I see it.

I see it in me.

And I hate it.

I hate that I'm this way.

I've fallen prey to this lie that somehow if we just conquer, the hostility will be over.

And you know what it's done?

It's making me more judgmental, more angry, more volatile, more self-righteous than I've probably ever been.

The second thing I think this fails in is that our sinful hearts would fail ultimately to do the ultimate good for others with that much power and control in our hands.

We will never abolish the hostility through conquering, because here's what the cycle of history shows us we eventually become the very hostility we set out to overcome.

Every time, without fail.

And if you think you're different, you're a fool.

And I stand in that description with you.

Second thing.

So some of us we believe we're gonna hostility is gonna be abolished by conquering.

Others of us we believe the hostility is abolished by conformity.

Conformity.

This is dangerous too.

This is dangerous because here's what's happened: we we see our neighbor as hostile to our way of living, to our worldview, to our values, to our policy issues, to our candidate choice.

And we've convinced ourselves of something.

That if our neighbor would just conform to us, peace would be established.

You see, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to persuade others to think and live the way that we do.

We communicate that a relationship can only be had if they work hard to change themselves first.

We begin to buy into and exclaim with proud voices the cultural anthem that if you don't agree with me, then you are a hostile enemy to me.

When we do this, here's what we do: we sinfully erect the dividing wall that Jesus sacrificed his life to tear down.

Because we do this.

We put obedience to the law in front of the obedience of faith.

Let me help us understand this for a moment.

There is an obedience that Jesus requires.

The first obedience that Jesus requires is faith in his finished work, of his perfect substitutionary life, death, and glorious resurrection for us.

It is from that obedience that the obedience of his law flows from.

And say, no, if you think the way I do, if you value the things that I value, if you vote the way that I vote, if you understand culture the way that I understand culture, that's when, and so what are we telling them to do?

We're saying, get climbing over this wall, brother.

And then me and you can have a relationship.

But that's not the gospel.

That's actually contrary to the gospel itself.

That we are saved by grace through faith and of no merit of our own.

We could not have climbed the wall that was in front of us.

That's why the cross comes to tear it down.

And how dare we try to erect one back in its place and make our brother climb over it before we're able to break bread with them at the table.

Shame on us.

Shame on us.

You see, we exhaust ourselves in a cultural battle over secondary, tertiary, or eternally unimportant issues.

You see, without faith in the glorious gospel of Jesus, can I tell you something?

Your neighbor, your coworker, your family member, they could think exactly like you.

They could live like you, they could value what you value, they could have the same convictions around gender, sexuality, marriage, the unborn, the economy, immigration, education, healthcare, speech, bearing arms, go down the list.

They could think just like you in every single way.

But if they don't put their faith and trust in the finished work of Christ, you have done nothing for them, but you have given them the ability to, in their own self-righteousness, be convinced that somehow they are in right standing with their maker, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

You have never, never liberated someone by getting them to be persuaded to think like you think on these issues.

You have simply strapped a millstone around their neck so that they could sink faster into the abyss of their own sin and despair.

That's what you've done.

And shame on us.

How dare we put anything in front of the rock of offense that is the gospel of Jesus.

And so much of that language is Christless.

I don't care if my neighbor votes like me.

I don't care if they think on immigration the way that I think.

I don't care.

I've got thoughts.

I'm a very opinionated person.

You want to know?

Just ask me.

If they don't know Jesus, what am I doing?

Because guess what?

This is all gonna collapse sooner or later.

Right?

This chant that's coming out of the church, give me liberty or give me death, is trash.

I could not have more liberty than I have right now.

There is nothing that this election cycle, there's no legislation that could be put in place, there's no policy that could be established that would give me more liberty than I have right now in Christ Jesus.

Go ahead and kill me because I live because he died.

Give me liberty or give me.

What are we talking about?

Take everything I have, tax me till I can't eat anymore.

You have done nothing to me because to die is gain, is to let me go out preaching the glorious gospel of Jesus.

I don't care what happens in this economy, I don't care what happens in the political climate, I don't care what happens to our constitution.

We should be a peculiar people who stand on Christ alone.

And we are so peculiar that we look at the hostile culture around us and we say, Come on and break bread with us.

Because that was the invitation extended to you.

Eat at my table, drink my wine, eat my bread, be a part of me.

I think many of us have invited our neighbors to vote like us much more than we have invited them to believe in the Christ which saves us.

And we've magnified the hostility around us.

You see, because of the cross of Jesus, there is no longer a wall that divides us.

Church, there's only a gate to enter through.

And his name is Jesus.

Your efforts in conformity have liberated no one.

So for us, trying to conquer hostility only makes us the villains.

Trying to make others conform forces us on secondary, tertiary, or completely unimportant issues, and it neglects the real need that we have for Jesus.

We must contend against being a people who see the hostile culture around us and seek to abolish it through conquering or through conformity, but have our fight rooted in the only thing that truly kills the hostility between us.

Hostility is killed by the cross of Jesus.

This is already done.

You see, a good theologian understands something that we live in the already not yet of the coming kingdom.

Already Christ's cross has killed the hostility between hostile people who are at enmity and war against God and who were at enmity and war with one another.

And you know how you see them surrender, you know how you see peace ushered in?

Is when they submit to Him as Lord.

Man, when the gospel got a hold of my heart, when the Spirit made this dead man alive, you know what happened?

All of a sudden, I had peace with my parents like I've never had in my life.

I have peace with other kids in my school.

I was a junior in high school when I got saved.

Never had in my life.

I have peace in my own heart, never had in my life.

What was that?

That was a realization of the already accomplished work of the cross.

Because the cross kills the hostility.

This is what Paul lays out for us in verse 16.

And might Jesus reconcile us both to God and one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The only way that divided people, people hostile to God and to one another, will be reconciled is through the cross of Christ.

Because it's Christ's body broken for us that makes a way for us to break bread with one another.

This is the portrait of communion.

Think about what we celebrate every week: a hostility that was killed because of a Savior's cross.

And we who should not have peace with one another, like a lot of you, we should not be friends for a lot of reasons.

Mainly because of my own behavior and actions.

But uh guess what?

We're brothers and sisters united in Christ Jesus, and we come to the table of peace.

But this is a bloody table.

It's a bloody table filled with broken body fragments and blood that poured out from his heart inside.

Because that's what it costs for me and you to come to the same table and eat.

That's what it costs for me and you to lift our voices in unison to glorify God, our Savior.

That's what it cost us.

You see, he died at the hands of a hostile culture who wanted to conquer their oppressors, who wanted the surrounding foreign cultures to conform to their ways and customs.

Jesus was killed so that our hostility would be put to death, and we would know the liberation of being welcomed and wanted into the household of God.

God.

It's from this truth in response to this gospel identity that we have received through the finished work of Jesus that we live out gospel hospitality in our own lives.

So my prayer for us church is that we would demonstrate gospel hospitality among a hostile culture.

It's easy to look out around us at the cultural landscape and just see all the hostility.

I'm not saying it's not there.

I'm challenging the way that we engage with it.

I'm challenging the ways that we live out the beauty and truth of the gospel among it.

Which person are you?

Are you the one who thinks that hostility is going to be abolished through conquering?

Are you putting tons of energy and effort?

And you know what I love about those dudes?

Those dudes rarely ever even do anything.

They're the ones who just talk all the time on social media and post stuff and write blogs and make videos.

But those dudes rarely ever do anything.

Like hardly ever.

They're the worst.

I'm just saying.

Are you that dude?

I'm just joking.

But you probably are.

I don't know where that came from.

But anyway, are you that person?

Are you the person that thinks that hostility is going to be abolished through conquering?

Or are you the person that thinks that it's abolished through conformity?

Which one are you?

Maybe you're a blend of both.

Right?

I want to invite us this morning to engage this hostile culture around us through the cross.

Church, that's its only hope.

I cannot reiterate enough, it does not matter what happens to you in this life.

It does not matter what a government power puts you under.

It does not matter.

What matters is the cross.

What matters is the cross.

If we get that first, we can start working on some of these other things.

But if we try to jump over the stumbling block of the cross, we've erected a mountain in front of them that no man can climb.

The cross does something.

The cross chases down rebels.

The cross calls them to come and eat.

The cross opens the door and welcomes them in.

The cross breaks bread at the table of its enemies.

That's what the cross does.

And it's able to do that because it ushers in true peace with it.

You see, the costly work of Jesus was to reconcile a hostile people.

You and me.

Do our lives reflect that?

Do our living rooms reflect that?

Do our dinner tables reflect that?

And I stand here as a person who is working to repent because mine doesn't.

Mine hasn't.

And if I'm honest with myself, it's because I look at the hostile culture around us and I just default into self-preservation and shame on me.

Shame on me.

You see, I'm not willing to live a life of self-preservation any longer because I'm convinced and persuaded that the gospel will not allow me to.

It won't allow us to.

And guess what?

My neighbor has no hope if that's the way I live my life.

That's the worst part of it all.

And you know what the beauty is?

Jesus didn't choose self-preservation for me.

But he came into and he engaged with the fullness of my hostility with a cross.

So our homes should strive to reflect that gospel truth.

They should strive to look more like the kingdom than they do suburbia.

And so I close with this statement.

Listen to one thing.

A hostile culture's hope is rooted in a reconciled people committed to their lives and their homes, practicing gospel hospitality.

Let us live to that end.