Hospitality Must Resist Fear

Um that are here at Walnut Grove, and today we're broadcasting the sermon, not just online, but we're broadcasting down to social circles.

So would y'all give them a big time uh Walnut Grove welcome?

Uh we love our church family, and so my name's Russ.

If I hadn't met you, it is awesome to have you guys with us down in Social Circle.

Um great to have you here in Walnut Grove as we continue uh this series um beautiful resistance.

I have I have been overwhelmed at times.

Well, first of all, let me say this that if you watch the news and you watch what's happening on the world stage, it is quite depressing.

It can be quite discouraging, it can be quite overwhelming.

And so you you've got to make sure you you pull away from that and you spend uh time in God's Word, you spend time with God's people, you spend time um uh finding encouragement um in what God has for us.

But I have been encouraged and overwhelmed in a positive way at how some of the European countries have responded to what's happening in the Ukraine.

And and so these countries um who, and we know, we know what it's like to try to want to um uh to to to wall ourselves off and and in in times uh of crisis, it's good to see countries respond with hospitality.

I I was moved emotionally by this picture um that was taken in in Poland.

Um hopefully it's on the screen, and and and and all of these uh mothers and these families in Poland brought these baby buggies to the train station knowing that all of these refugees from the Ukraine would be arriving with nothing, no belongings, no way to take care of their babies and their children, and they just left the baby buggies um at the train station for the refugees.

I my last count, what I saw, is there there's been over three million Ukrainians that have been displaced and have fled the country in the midst of this horrific demonic attack upon their land.

And so this beautiful picture of hospitality is a bit of a picture for us as we dive in today.

I believe we're living in a time where a healthy, simple, theological understanding of biblical hospitality could spark something, revival, even among followers of Jesus and in the body of Christ.

People are desperate and hungry for hospitality.

They're desperate and hungry for inclusion.

And so we live in a culture that is the opposite of that.

We live in a culture where exclusion is predominant.

We live in a heavy culture of exclusion.

We live in a culture where it's us against them.

It can be politics, it can be religion, it can be, it can be all types of things, racial, ethnicity, it can be, it can be all of the above.

And so we must, as believers, allow our hearts to be awakened to what God wants us to see in this message and this understanding of biblical hospitality.

We've got to guard our hearts, guard our hearts from the pull of the culture toward exclusion, towards fear.

And we've got to remember what God's word tells us and the heart of Jesus rather than us against them.

It should be us that has to become Jesus to them.

Us becoming Jesus to them.

Now, I love when I see this in action.

I love my church when I see biblical hospitality taking place, and I see it a lot.

But let me point out one story, one brief story of how that's happened recently.

Um, my friend, my brother, Andal, is sitting right back here to my left.

Stand up, Andal.

And so I don't like the fact that he's sitting by himself.

Usually he's got somebody sitting with him.

Thank you, Andal.

We are so glad that you're here.

We're glad that you're here.

And so uh some of you know Larry Black.

Larry Black is a part of our church.

Larry Black is a church planning strategist for the Stone Mountain Association.

He's part of our church.

And so Larry just oozes hospitality, and Larry has a background.

He's very comfortable with with people that come from all types of different backgrounds and ethnicities.

And so so Larry is in Loganville with his wife Margaret, and they run into Andal in Loganville, and they befriend him, and then they invite him to lunch, and then they invite him to church.

And he came for the first time a few weeks ago.

And so the last two Sundays, I've looked down, and Andal is sitting with another gentleman by the name of Michael Smith.

Now, if you know Michael, you don't miss Michael, right?

Michael is this audacious loving.

He said he's watching online.

He and his wife are on an anniversary trip this weekend.

And so we love you, Michael.

But Michael is just, I mean, he just walks in and he he is a people person and and and and he just oozes hospitality.

But Larry is discipling Michael.

And so Larry takes Michael and says, Michael, I want you to make sure that Andal meets people and is befriended by this local church.

And so Andal came back after one week and he said, This is my church.

Yes, that's that we can clap.

That's and he, Andal, if I'm correct, he's been in the United States from Liberia for six months.

He's been here, and and he says, he said, This is my church.

You are the first Americans that have shown me kindness and hospitality.

And that's the way it should be.

That's the that's the that's biblical hospitality.

It's a picture of discipleship, too, because Larry, it comes natural to Larry, but Larry has taken Michael, who is a, I think, native Walton County, and introduced him to this idea of biblical hospitality.

And now we have an example of hospitality and discipleship working together.

And so I, in my own spiritual journey, I look back at how the grace of Jesus, the gospel news of Jesus changed my life, gave me hope, saved me, and rescued me from the wrath of God, from hell, from separation from God, from being isolated, and God saved me.

But what made the difference in my life was people inside the church that included me into their community and discipled me, taught me the word, taught me how a follower of Jesus should live.

And so it's the grace of God and the hospitality of God's people together that makes the difference.

And we're in this series, beautiful resistance.

Today's big idea and this this resistance is this that hospitality must resist fear.

Hospitality must resist fear.

Because here, let me let me be honest with you.

I think our church, our church is a loving, kind church.

But sometimes we don't know how to approach the stranger, the person that's different from us, that looks different, speaks different.

And it's it's it's a little bit of fear.

It's not that we're we're anti, it's not that we're uh want to be inhospitable, but we've got to learn biblical hospitality and how it overcomes, it resists the fear.

And we we talked in the beginning of this series about about Diedrich Bonhoeffer saying, talking about his underground seminary as he was being a pastor during World War II, and he saw the church aligning itself with Nazi Germany, the Nazi Party in Germany, and he started this underground seminary to build a community that would reflect the heart and the teachings of Jesus.

And if you remember, he told his friend as he pointed to a Nazi airfield and he pointed with his other hand the opposite way to the underground seminary, the community of believers.

He says, this must be greater than that.

The culture of Jesus must be greater than the opposition we face in the world.

That is the beautiful resistance.

It's not separating ourselves, it's not building a monastery and hiding from the culture, it's living in the culture, but but building a culture that is the culture of Jesus, the community of Jesus in the midst of this broken world infected by sin.

And so the text for today, the scripture for today is out of Hebrews chapter 13, verses 1 and 2.

Hebrews 13:1

Hebrews 13, 1 and 2, we're gonna look at a couple other verses out of uh some different places.

But the writer of Hebrews, in chapter 13, verses 1 and 2, here's what he says.

He says, keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.

Don't forget to show hospitality.

Circle it, underline it.

Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers.

For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.

Who would like a visit from an angel of God?

I would love that.

And you know, here's what the writer is saying is saying, listen, if you treat people with hospitality, you never know because you might be entertaining an angel.

Some some of you are angels.

You might be.

And so that would be that that would be awesome.

We live in a hostile culture where the risk that the people around us will become strangers or the other.

Theologian Miroslav Voss suggested that our entire culture has been built on this persistent practice of exclusion.

And it might mean that our instincts are continually sharpened to push people away to the margins, our minds and our hearts and our lives rather than see people as a gift, see people different than us as a gift.

Others are seen as a threat.

And our security becomes predominant rather than our call as followers of Jesus to share the gospel.

And so Andrew Shepard, a sociologist, says this.

He says, this process of exclusion, it it takes place in culture.

And it and it has four kinds of steps.

The first step is to eliminate people.

It might be violence or politics.

Then we say, hey, if we can't eliminate them, we'll assimilate them.

They have to become like us.

They've got to become like us and assume our culture.

If that doesn't work, we seek to dominate them.

And then the next step would be to demonize them, make them feel or make them in our minds less than human.

Followers of Jesus are called to be different than this.

The call is to be different.

See, the world looks at us and wonders.

They look at us, the church.

Here's what the world says about the church.

Listen, I have these conversations with people.

My children have conversations with people.

Some of you and some of your kids have conversations with people.

And the conversations are hey, I don't have a problem with Jesus, but why doesn't the church look like Jesus?

And it's possibly because our hearts have become hardened.

We've listened to outside sources.

We've given outside sources our ear, our hearts, rather than scripture and the word of God.

We've been overwhelmed with circumstances, and we've given in to fear.

We've taken our eyes off of Jesus.

We've taken our eyes out of the world, off the word, and put them on the world, and we've forgotten about the purpose for which Jesus came.

So let's dive in just for a second.

Let's look at this idea, not just of hospitality, but biblical hospitality.

And there's three questions I want to ask.

The first one is, what is hospitality?

The second question is, why is hospitality central to the Christian faith?

And the third question is, how do we practice biblical hospitality?

So what is hospitality?

Let's look at this passage.

Hebrews 13, 1 and 2.

Let's take that word.

He says, be hospitable.

Show hospitality.

You never know.

Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers because you might be entertaining an angel.

What does that word hospitality mean?

It comes out of the Greek and it's the combining of two words.

And it the actual word in this passage is Philo Xena, Philo Xenia is the word.

And it and it comes from two words.

And the roots of these two words are Philo, which is one of the Greek words for love.

And it means brotherly love.

You've heard of the city, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, which they're really not.

They're mean up there, but that's a whole other story.

But but so so Phileo is brotherly love.

The root is xenos, which means foreigner or stranger.

And so this word hospitality literally means brotherly love, kindly love towards someone who is a foreigner or a stranger.

Love for the one who is not like us.

Love for the one who looks different, talks different than us.

Theologian, writer Joshua Jip, he says this, and this is a little bit of a long quote.

I think it's on the screen.

He says, hospitality is the act or process whereby the identity of the stranger is transformed into that of guest.

While hospitality often uses the basic necessities of life, such as the protection of one's home and the offer of food and drink and conversation and clothing, the primary impulse of hospitality is to create a safe and welcoming place where a stranger can be converted into a friend.

The practice of hospitality to strangers very frequently hopes to create relationships and friendships between those who were previously either alienated at enmity or simply unknown to one another.

Basically, hospitality is creating environments where people that are strangers and unknown can become known and friends.

Outsiders become insiders.

We turn the other into another.

You've heard the Bible's full of one another's, right?

We humanize those that have been dehumanized.

We bring them into our family.

I mentioned that three point something million people have left the Ukraine.

See, statistics don't give us the story of every person.

The story of every person that has had to leave their home and go find a place that is safe.

And on the other end of that, here's on the other end of that, you have people who say, you know what, I will open my home.

I will make room at my table.

I will bring in the stranger, the other.

How many of you ever heard of Corey Tin Boone, the hiding place?

What a beautiful story of hospitality.

A Christian lady that saw what's happening in the Holocaust and she opens her home and she's arrested.

And she suffers for doing so.

And so I can't help but think where would my story, how would my name be linked in history to this moment?

Which side would I be on?

Generations from now, there will be stories told and books written about believers and how they responded in crisis.

And we've got to figure out now, we've got to decide which where do we want to fall when it comes to the next generation understanding our story?

And so biblical hospitality is bringing the other into a relationship where now they are another.

Now, why is hospitality central to our faith?

Second question.

Why is hospitality?

Why does it matter?

Why does it matter?

So if you are a believer in this room, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, then you have experienced the hospitality of a heavenly Father.

We are all beneficiaries of hospitality, heavenly hospitality.

Your salvation is an act of God's hospitality.

The gospel of Jesus is an act of hospitality.

God's creation is an act of hospitality.

God creates Eden and He brings humanity into his world.

We know the story where Adam and Eve decide they know better than God.

They disobey.

God says, all of this is yours.

This over here you don't touch.

And like a toddler, they can't help it.

And so they grab from this, even though they have all of the rest of the garden, all of God's perfection.

And so they resist and they reject and they face the punishment of God.

There's always consequences for sin.

So they sin and they rebel and they have to endure death and separation, eternal separation from God.

And all of humanity has been separated from God.

We're born into sin.

And so even though we've made a mess of God's world, we've rebelled against God, we've rejected his initial hospitality, he takes the initiative to come and bring us back in.

It's the gospel story.

God becomes man.

Jesus comes to this world and he says, Hey, come.

Come, follow me.

He tells his disciples.

He tells all of you, hey, you weary?

You're exhausted.

Sin takes a toll on you.

Come, come, come.

Unto me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, take my yoke upon yourself.

I will give you rest.

And he's talking about eternal rest.

And so this idea of hospitality, it is in Scripture.

It is the story of God.

He loves us despite our wrecking his creation.

Romans 5.8.

God demonstrated his love in this way that while we were yet still sinners, while we were still aliens?

We are enemies of God, the Bible says.

We are inhospitable by nature.

While we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us.

The gospel story is hospitality.

Exodus, the redemption story.

God rescues his people out of slavery.

He brings them out of slavery, and he brings them into covenant relationship.

That is the story of hospitality.

That's God's hospitality.

Hospitality is central to our faith.

And he commands his people all through the Old Testament.

I'm going to read a few verses.

Exodus 22, 21.

He tells his people, they've been rescued.

He says, You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way.

Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19, 33 and 34.

Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land.

Treat them like native-born Israelites and love them as you love yourself.

Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

Exodus 23, 9.

You must not oppress foreigners.

You know what?

You know what it's like to be a foreigner, for you yourselves once were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

And so hospitality is biblical.

It's God's heart.

It's significant in the life of Jesus.

The life of Jesus.

Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Jesus gives his purpose statement.

He gives his life manifesto.

I'm not going to read the whole passage, but basically he says, hey, I've come to bring good news to the poor.

I've come to set the captives free.

I've come that the oppressed will be set free.

And so good news for the poor.

Freedom for those that are enslaved.

John 4, Jesus breaks every cultural barrier.

He says, I must travel through Samaria.

That's not how they traveled back then.

They didn't travel through Samaria.

They crossed the Jordan River going east and then they would travel north and then they would cross back to get to that Galilean area up north in northern Israel.

You know why?

Because of racism and because of their attitude toward the Samarians.

And Jesus says, I must travel through through Samaria.

He gets into Samaria and he stops by a Starbucks.

It wasn't a Starbucks, it was a well.

But it was the Starbucks of the day.

It's where people would stop to refresh themselves and talk.

And he tells his disciples, he said, you guys go find something to eat.

And he's approached by a woman who comes to the well in the middle of the day.

And there's a reason she comes in the middle of the day.

You don't come in the Middle East, you don't go to the well in the middle of the day.

It's burning up hot.

She came because she was an outcast.

So he crosses all these barriers.

He crosses into Samaria.

He speaks to a woman, not only a woman, a Samaritan woman, and a woman who has been divorced five times.

She's living with someone out of wedlock.

And he he talks to her.

He shows hospitality.

And she becomes an evangelist.

You say women aren't supposed to be pastors or evangelists.

This woman's is an evangelist.

She goes back to her hometown and she starts telling every person she knows about finding the Messiah.

So Jesus shows this hospitality in Luke 5.

Jesus goes to eat a meal with Matthew at his house.

Matthew's a tax collector.

He's hated.

You can imagine he's an outcast.

Today it would be he would be the equivalent of a drug dealer or somebody the farthest from your imagination from somebody that would show up at church.

And so Jesus is hospitable.

He feeds thousands of people at one time on multiple occasions.

All of them are not believers.

He provides for them.

But he gives his attention to individuals.

He comes upon this woman who's about to be stoned for adultery.

And he stands in between her and these men who've picked up these stones and about to throw stones at her.

He writes into the sand and he looks at these men.

He said, You whoever has no sin, you without sin, you cast the first rock.

And they drop it and they walk away.

He says, Woman, your sins are forgiven.

Go and sin no more.

Hospitality and the gospel go together.

Jesus eats a meal with Zacchaeus.

He's in Jericho and Zacchaeus is in the climbs up into the tree so he can see Jesus.

He's a hated tax collector.

He's like, he's kind of like Matthew.

And Jesus says, I'm gonna, he's come down, Zacchaeus.

We're going to your house to have a meal.

You're going to Zacchaeus' house?

He is a traitor to his people.

He's collecting taxes for the enemy, for the Roman, the occupiers.

And he's not just collecting enough for the Romans, he's collecting enough to make himself rich.

And Zacchaeus repents.

And you know the story?

He not only puts his faith in Jesus, he gives everything away and pays back multiple times over what he's taken from people.

Hospitality with the gospel has the power to change lives.

You know the story of the good Samaritan that Jesus tells.

It's cross-cultural hospitality.

A Samaritan helping, a Jew.

It is the story of the gospel.

God's hospitality is extended to lost, broken, needy, and often stigmatized people.

Divine hospitality comes to us.

If you've ever experienced salvation, whether it was in your home, whether it was at VBS, whether it was at youth camp, whether it was at the invitation of a friend, somebody shared with you the gospel, which is God's divine message of hospitality.

The other becoming another.

God's embrace of humanity into friendship with him is the ultimate form of welcoming the stranger.

Joshua Jesus.

Robert Karris says this.

He says, if you read Luke's gospel, I mean, just I'm going to encourage you, go back to read the gospel of Luke.

Luke's gospel, Jesus is either going to a meal, having a meal, or coming from a meal.

That's that's I mean, there's something significant about sitting at the table with people.

So the credibility of our faith rests on the quality of our hospitality.

Third question.

How do we practice hospitality?

We've got to learn how to first practice it inside the church.

That's what the writer of Hebrews says.

Hebrews 13, 1.

Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.

So what he's saying is, you've got to practice hospitality inside the church.

We've got to love each other well.

We've got to love each other with kindness.

We've got to show hospitality with one another.

We've got to be emotionally healthy.

We've got to be secure.

We've got to uh practice biblical hospitality.

We as Christians can be some of the most insecure, emotionally unhealthy people.

We're needy.

I mean, we will just suck the life out of somebody.

And I mean, listen, I know I know the stories.

I know pastors.

Churches fall apart because they're broken and they're inhospitable inside the church.

No wonder they can't see a lost world come to Christ.

I don't know if this is true, but this is something I came across.

Augustine, St.

Augustine, theologian, pastor, bishop.

He had a sign that hung in his home in the kitchen, in the area where people would eat.

And it would say this He who speaks evil of an absent man or woman is not welcome at this table.

So you imagine being at a dinner table with Augustine?

You want to know how he practiced church discipline?

You're sitting at a table and you're just you're having your meal.

Hey, did you hear about so-and-so?

They um, they uh how they, you know, their uh their their child did this, or they're, you know, they they kind of uh Augustine wouldn't even let him finish.

Get out, get out.

What?

Get out, get out.

You see that sign right there?

Get out of my house.

Get out.

I'm gonna practice that one time.

I'm gonna do that one day.

Get out! Don't talk badly about somebody that's not here.

He took it serious.

Then we so we've got to learn how to practice hospitality inside the church.

We've got to learn how to practice hospitality outside the church.

Those outside the faith, those that are uninterested, those that are spiritually curious.

Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers.

Strangers.

For some who have done this, have entertained angels without realizing it.

It's the ministry of Jesus.

And I I was trying to think of all the people, there's so many people in our church that do practice hospitality.

That there's one couple that came to my mind, and I and I started asking a few questions of who do you think is among the most hospitable in our church?

I mean, people without without any hesitation, they would rattle off this name.

Y'all know who I'm gonna say, don't you?

Who is it?

Craig and Tanya Calhoun.

So I want you to hear from Craig and Tanya this morning.

They're gonna preach to us a little bit.

Hey, I'm Craig, and it's my wife Tanya.

We got three kids.

We got uh Miranda's 23, Jack's 19, and uh Angley's 17.

Uh we've been going Church to Grove for 15 years, and um we've been asked to speak about uh what hospitality means to us.

I think um one of the questions that they ask us was is it more intentional or is it natural for y'all?

And I think for Craig it's definitely more natural, and for me, I have to be a little bit more intentional.

Um, I have a much shyer personality, and Craig is the much more outgoing one.

And for me, it kind of comes just from like being around people, carrying on conversations and uh common interest, uh kids, sports.

Um you know, it's just easy for me to talk to people and just kind of get the ball rolling, I guess.

So we when Tanya and I first got married, we were going to a different church when our neighbors invited us to another to uh to summit.

We were still kind of a little bit worldly and and not making the best choices in the world.

And our neighbors knew us uh before we got married and and uh before we started going to church on a regular basis.

And so they knew a lot of our background.

They invited us.

And they invite us anyway.

And so we were able to go over to um Craig and uh Lori Ellington's house, they invited us over there for a Christmas party.

And um, it was really the first time me and Tanya had been to a uh, I guess to a churchy party.

Uh, I guess was a good way to put it.

And you know, we got over there and we really didn't fit in.

We were so much younger than them.

And uh so we really didn't fit in that well.

But when we got over there, they just opened up their house and they just made us, but they made me feel super welcome.

I mean, they made me feel welcome and they, you know, it was just it was cool to be uh that they knew that we had a ton of luggage that we brought with us and they still love us anyway.

Craig and Lori, I think, when they opened up their house to us, and it kind of like, you know, something that it was very attractive.

So I think that that made us we were attracted to that, and it made us, you know what, I mean, if they can do it, we can do it.

You know, I mean it they just made it, it just so it kind of set the bar for us to go to where, you know, when we invite people over here, we don't care if you got any bugs.

It doesn't just none of my business what you got.

You know, it's just it's we've been there, done that, we've uh uh made poor choices in our lives, and and they love almost anyway, so why shouldn't we love our other people also?

I was just thinking about like when we when we had kids, you know, it made us think that you know Lori Ellington would bring us chicken, uh chicken and duffins.

That's the best thing.

I don't know.

I mean, it's chicken and duffins, you know, you give them the cracker.

You know, so it ain't like it's something that's super spiritual, uh, but it just meant so much to us that she brought us dinner just because we had a baby.

You know, they probably had no idea what kind of impact they made on us, and they were just doing what the Lord called them to do.

They weren't necessarily doing anything, um, I mean, anything super spiritual or super, I mean, it was special, but it wasn't, you know, it's really cool.

Real cool.

I think that um God provides us all with blessings and we feel like our home is one of them and that, or anything we have is one of them, and that they're open to be used by God's people.

So when He anybody calls and says, Hey, can we do this at your house?

We say yes, because it's not ours, it's God's, and we want to glorify him with everything that we have.

So um, hospitality, that's how it plays in our life, it's just uh loving on others and um making them feel more comfortable here and feeling like this is their home.

It's it's not our home, it's um God's just entrusted us with it.

So we use it for his glory, not ours.

It's kind of it's kind of like you know, when we open our home up to the kids for D now and we opened our home up for NG3, you know, it's they're down there, you know, doing whatever, making a lot of noise and doing what who cares, you know.

Uh I mean I can go with lack of sleep for work, so why can't I go with lack of sleep for doing ministry?

It's gonna be all right and we can recover.

So I I feel it's good for us to open up our house to other to boys and girls because uh we didn't have that when I was a kid.

And I think it it's uh you know, in a safe you know, in an environment where uh so I think it it's kind of giving them a different choice and know that you know we we don't want anything from them.

They just come hang out and eat some junk food and play video games and and we're cool with that, you know.

Talk about Jesus.

Talk about Jesus.

Um we can get that we can get a little bit of Jesus in there and uh and we just try to be uh a good influence on them also while they're here.

I think some of the way that we have grown in our faith by hospitality is just seeing God's faithfulness over the years.

Um, we can pray and we can ask God to show us someone that needs love, and I mean it's within minutes, hours, we may get a phone call or something, and or just run into somebody that we know that God's telling us just to love on them somehow, whether it's just a meal or just talking to them or praying with them or um just finding out what's going on in their lives and just seeing God's faithfulness and watching the kids' um lives change.

Um it's it's been amazing and blessing to see.

And just uh not everybody has the gift of hospitality, but everybody likes to eat or drink a cup of coffee, buy somebody a cup of coffee or go to the waffle house or anything like that.

So I think that even though you may not have the the gift of hospitality, we all like to eat, but we all like to do we could do something to minister to people uh without having the gift of hospitality.

I think a lot more people would come to know Christ if we all lift out our faith and we all listen to God when He tries us to go say something, you know, oh hey, you got a pretty shirt or I like your hair, or you know, just those simple comments that come to our mind and where we we let them go by and not say them to the person if we just really just spoke to somebody and noticed them.

Um I think that we could um change the world.

I mean, we could people would know a lot more of Jesus if we acted out on our faith.

Isn't that great?

Craig and Tanya, they're they're the real deal.

Alan Hirst, the writer, he says if every Christian family in the world simply offered good conversational hospitality around the table once a week to neighbors, we would eat our way into the kingdom of God.

And I think about all the people in this room, as I look around, there's so many that have shown radical hostitality to me and my wife.

The least we can do is to extend that to others.

And sometimes I'm guilty of thinking someone is so far from God, I don't even think they would accept an invitation to a meal, much less come to church.

And I don't know if you've heard of this name before.

Her name is Rosaria Butterfield.

She wrote a book called The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

And before she came to Christ, she was a professor at Syracuse of postmodern studies, a a self-professed lesbian.

And she heard about this group of men that were coming for this gathering called Promise Keepers.

And she wrote an article in a local newspaper about why the city should not allow these men to come meet, and she called a misogynist, and you can imagine all the things that someone with a liberal mindset would have written about promise keepers, and I don't know if you know what that was, but that was a movement back in maybe the 90s of men who were who were growing in Christ, coming to faith in Christ.

And a local pastor wrote an article in response to her article, editorial, and she read it, and when she read it, she said, He is he is disagreeing with me, but he's doing so in such a kind way.

And so she reached out and and thanked him for the kind way in which he disagreed.

Well, the pastor reached out and invited her over to his house for a meal with his family, and she shares.

I would encourage you, great book, easy read, encouraging.

She shares about how that meal began her journey to Christ, changed her life, changed her mindset.

She repented, she repented, and she put her faith in Jesus.

And so I want to encourage you, you should have an invite card at your seat.

And I want you to think about the names.

If you're here in Walnut Grove or if you're in social circle, think about the names of neighbors, associates, or people that are that are maybe you don't know that well, that you could begin to pray for and not just invite the church.

Think about how you can show some hospitality beyond just a church invitation.

Because a church invitation is great, and that's better than nothing.

But it's biblical radical hospitality that will make the difference.

It will not only invite people to Christ, it will include them into a community, into friendship, into a relationship that has the potential to change their life.

And so right now we're going to go into a time of prayer, and I want you to start praying over these names.

We've got a few weeks before Easter arrives and before we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

And that is a great time to invite because a lot of people, that's just part of our culture.

Maybe one of the good things about being in the Bible Belt is a lot of people will go to church at Easter or Christmas.

And we're trying to help them understand what it means to become a disciple of Jesus.

And so, would you bow your heads with me?

And let's pray about these names.

And let's pray for God to lead us to people that have been alienated.

Maybe they're different from us.

Maybe they're they're from another land, or maybe they're just native to our area, but they just haven't been shown radical biblical hospitality.

So let's just lean into that moment for a second.

Let's lean into this and I want you to ask, ask God to just begin to bring people, faces, and names to mind.

Lord, one of the faces you brought to my mind is just somebody that that in my natural self, I just think there's just no way.

There's no way they would come to my house.

No way that they would accept an invitation.

But I'm praying, God, since you brought them to my mind, I'm praying that that is the Holy Spirit and that God, you would lead and you would guide and you would provide.

God, you would you would begin to work in their heart.

God, you would begin to give courage to me and my wife.

And God, you would do the same for other people in this room.

Give them courage and boldness.

I think of Acts 4, where it says the disciples were bold.

In the face of opposition, they were bold.

God, would you give us love?

Give us a spirit of hospitality.

Would you help us to understand how we ourselves were once enemies, deserving of your wrath, but you poured out grace and invited us into a relationship.

And God, as a result, God, that you would make us available, that we would make ourselves available to join with you in what you want to do in redemption and salvation in the lives of people.

And so, God, would you do a work that will transcend and be way beyond just Easter Sunday?

But God, it would be something that would that would impact our community, impact individual lives.

Stories will be told, generations will be impacted.

And so, Father, we make ourselves available to you.

We say yes to Jesus.

We say yes to using us, yes to hospitality.

It's in Christ's name we pray.