Our Rule of Life - Hospitality Pt3

Let's get into the word for this morning, and I am gonna pray first.

So, Lord, we steal ourselves in this moment right now as

we come before your word,

and we just remind ourselves in this moment that your word is indeed powerful.

It is sharper than a double-edged sword.

And Lord, may your word indeed be powerful in this place this morning,

leading and guiding us through the ministry of your spirit into all truth.

Lord, grant us have eyes to see, ears to hear, and willing hearts to respond.

What it is to what it is that you are saying to each one of us this morning.

Oh Lord, I pray that there would be such an eager willingness.

Lord, may we come with hungry and expectant hearts to hear you, to

lean in to what it is that you wanna say to each one of us, and as a

church family this morning, we pray.

Amen.

All right, let us begin this morning in Matthew's Gospel

22nd chapter from verse 34.

Something of a familiar passage.

I think hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got

together, a lot of Pharisees love.

Good little get together.

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question, teacher, which

is the greatest commandment in the law.

Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

So let me begin this morning with this story, and this is a story of a

woman by the name of Odessa Settles.

She's a Christian woman, an African American woman, a retired

nurse, and a current musician.

And I heard her tell this story this week, and I thought it was

very powerful in light of what we are talking about today, which is

hospitality, loving your neighbor.

So Odessa says this, and this is some decades ago, she's writing.

I was a new nurse on the evening shift and there was a white middle-aged woman

who had come in for a surgical procedure and I was introduced to her by the charge

nurse, but this was a well-to-do woman, so I'm sure that's why the charge nurse

had to preface it and do an introduction.

But when I went into this room and once she introduced me, the

patient said, I don't want that.

Insert racial slur to touch me, and so the charge nurse was visibly upset.

You know, more so than me because I grew up in the south.

So I asked the woman, if you allow me to take care of you this evening,

maybe there will be someone else tomorrow that you would be pleased with.

She never spoke to me the entire night.

During her dressing change, her food trade, I, I offered to change her linen.

But as a new nurse, I also set aside time afterwards at the end of my

shift to talk with my patients, to ask them if there was anything else that

they needed, and also to thank them for allowing me to take care of her.

She never said a word to me.

And so my time was up and I told her I was about to leave and if there

was anything that I could have done better to let the charge nurse know.

So I go home and I come back the next evening, I'm on evening shift,

and I look at my assignment and the same patient is on my list.

I look at my charge nurse and I'm smiling, laughing, actually surprised,

and she said, she asked for you.

And I said, well, that's interesting.

She asked for me every night that I was on.

She didn't really talk much, but you can see this warming towards me.

And so on the day of discharge, I was working the day shift and I ended up being

her nurse on the day she was discharged.

She tried to give me a monetary gift and I told her I can't accept that.

But what I am pleased with is that she's healing and that I hope she

continues to heal and I thanked her for allowing me to take care of her.

She teared up, she cried.

She gave me a hug and she just kept saying, thank you, thank you, thank you.

So I tell this story this morning because it is a powerful testimony

of the power of hospitality to heal.

That woman was in hospital for his physical healing, but because of the grace

filled, humble hospitality of a nurse that she initially hated and despised.

She received a deeper healing, the healing of a hate-filled heart.

Such is the power of hospitality.

So hospitality has the power to heal.

Why?

Because it is rooted in the very heart of God.

As Simon said last week, scripture.

So Simon over here, when Adam had a chat with both Simon and Erica

last week, he made this point.

Scripture holds two threads together, hospitality to the stranger and

hospitality to the one another.

And so the question becomes from the passage of scripture that we read at

the beginning, who is my neighbor?

Well, it is the person next to you.

It is the person in need before you, whether they be stranger,

whether they be friend or even foe.

And so the heart of the command that we hear Jesus speak of from this passage,

Jesus says, love God with your whole life.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

So that's what he says in this command here.

But when we go to John's gospel, wow, he raises the bar even more

because in our legalistic Fara little hearts, we might hear Jesus say.

Love your neighbor as yourself and then go, well, I don't love myself very

much, so that gets me off the hook.

So then we come to John's gospel, and in John 1334 to 35, Jesus

says this to his disciples, A new command I give you love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

So just in case you thought you had an escape clause, because you're like,

well, I don't love myself very much, therefore I don't have a great requirement

upon me to love my neighbor, then Jesus says, but as I have loved you, as I

have loved you, so you well, must, must.

Hmm, not a little wiggle room in must.

Is there?

Must is a fairly strong word.

Why would Jesus say must?

Because he likes making us do hard things.

'cause he wants to guilt, shame and condemn us.

No.

Why would Jesus say must, why would the son of God who is

loving carnet tell us to must.

Well, it must be because that is the loving thing to tell us.

It must be because in love, that's what each of our hearts needs to hear, and it

must be because that is where true and abundant and the good life is found as.

We must love

must.

How has he loved us?

He has loved us sacrificially generously at very great cost to himself.

He has loved us in order to meet our deepest need, and that is

what Odessa did in that story.

Her patient needed deep kindness and she gave it not because it was deserved,

but because it was what was needed.

She gave not what was deserved.

She gave what was needed.

Man, that is the heart of Christian hospitality.

It is to give not what is deserved, but it just to see the need in the person

before you and to with holy imagination, go, how do I meet that need by inviting

this person into my life, to my table, to my home, whatever it might be.

And it is this kind of love that undermines evil, the evil that seeks.

To divide and to cause us to turn on one another rather than turning

towards one another in love and to actually disobey the commandment

of Jesus to must love one another.

And so hospitality is love in action.

When we hear Jesus's words here about the greatest commandment and

the commandment that he gives to his disciples to love where we go,

well, how, what does that look like?

We're not just, I think we get so influenced by our worlds.

Um.

Understanding of love, which is this emotion, desire driven thing.

And you know, it's not that that kind of love is necessarily wrong, but

if that is the only kind of impulse we're relying on when it comes to

loving, we're going to struggle.

And this is where the beauty of the hos of hospitality, the

practice of hospitality comes in.

'cause it makes love tangible.

Love is not primarily about feelings.

It is about practice.

And so the New Testament word, Simon, um, highlighted this last week.

Philia, the New Testament word for hospitality means love of the stranger.

Hospitality is not entertaining.

We've gone to great pains to say that hospitality is not

the same as entertaining.

It is the deliberate act of creating space in our lives, our homes, our

tables, our time where the stranger is welcome, dignity is restored, and

the love of God is made tangible.

And we all need that.

We all need hospitality because deep down, no matter how much you try to cover it up.

We are all vulnerable and we all have a need within us to be seen, to be

welcomed, to be known, and to be included.

And the gospel tells us that God has made room for us when we did not deserve it.

And that then is how we are to engage with the world around

us with that same posture.

So how we have framed this, and we've said this multiple times,

but we'll keep hitting it again.

Is that with this practice?

So this fits under our value of being relational.

Can we just have that next slide up there?

So we're, we resist individualism and consumerism these.

Demonic forces that are at work in our, in our culture, by the sharing of

our whole lives through the practices of hospitality, opening our homes

tables and lives to others, and then witness and service and generosity.

And we're gonna get to those in the coming weeks.

But here we still sit in hospitality and we did feel to really

sit in hospitality for a bit.

And so we are.

All right.

So hospitality begins though with the love of.

God, it begins with the love of God.

We love because he first loved us.

We extend hospitality because he first extended hospitality to us.

We do not generate this love on our own.

It flows from experiencing God's love.

To love your neighbor as your stealth is actually quite a staggering.

Command to love others as Jesus has loved us is a staggering command, right?

Is beyond our power in and of ourselves to love this way, but praise the Lord.

There is a power available to us to love this way, but it requires

something supernatural to happen in us.

This is key.

We've gotta get hold of this.

We love because we have first been loved and where love for others is absent,

it's often a sign that we're not yet fully living in and from the love of God.

So if there is no compulsion within you to step into the waters of hospitality,

then that is a potential sign.

You're not abiding in the love of God because the love

of Christ will compel you.

To love others.

The love of Christ will compel you.

So if you are not compelled, something is interrupting your

abiding in the love of God.

And that is not to put guilt, shame, or condemnation on

anybody that is just to allow.

The witness of your life to be a signpost.

Yeah.

A temperature reading to go right.

Something's out of order here, Lord.

How do we bring this back into order?

I'm, I have lost sight of your love.

I've stepped out of it for whatever reason.

Disobedience, sin, idolatry, carelessness, whatever it might be.

And we go, okay, the signpost of my life, what the way my life is ordered

right now is bearing witness to something other than the love of God.

And so there is an invitation here to not beat yourself up, to not make excuses,

to not justify, but just to go, Lord, what is going on with my heart right now?

Where is this hardness?

Where has this separated this?

Come in and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you in that place.

And so just to touch on that a little bit more, why don't we live this way?

Why might some of us here be struggling to live hospitable lives?

Like, uh, where we're willing to just share our lives, our tables, our homes,

our time, our resource to, to share?

If this is so central, so deeply connected, deeply to the greatest

commandment, why don't we do it?

Why often do we not do it?

And I think it's because of this.

There are one of the reasons is there are powerful forces shaping

us in the opposite direction.

So we've talked about individualism and consumerism.

Let's just have this next slide up here.

Sabrina.

Individualism.

This cultural force that we are immersed in in Western

culture says, my life is my own.

I don't need others.

Community is optional, right?

This is the lie.

That we get tempted to believe, and then there's consumerism.

This hideous, hideous deforming force, demonic force of consumerism.

Awful, awful.

What it does to the human soul, the way it makes us use one another is vile.

Consumerism says, what do I get out of this?

Does this serve me?

If not, I'm moving on to somewhere that will meet my needs.

It's all about me.

It's all about what I get out of it.

And thing is when we're given over to these forces, when we're molded and

shaped by them, we end up just destitute.

Internally destitute.

You know, we might have everything that the world says is important,

and yet inside we are just corrupted.

It's horrible what it does to the human soul.

And so because these forces, how, where does their power come from?

It comes from fear.

'cause these forces are grounded in fear and not love.

And then coupled with this, underneath this, there are these deeper idols.

Just have this next slide here, Sabrina, the idols of power and control.

A need for approval and acceptance, a desire for comfort and convenience,

a longing for security and safety.

Hospitality confronts all of these core idols that we can so

easily give our allegiance to.

And yes, you might come to church and you might serve, and you might give and all

of that, and you can still be beholden to these idols of power and control, approval

and acceptance, comfort, and convenience.

Security and safety.

And if you do not practice hospitality, if there is a resistance towards

practicing hospitality, chances are one of these idols is raging in your life.

And again, this is not to guilt, shame of condemn anyone.

It is to allow these things to be a signpost is allow a moment of the

conviction of the Holy Spirit to come.

Why?

Because when we are living life bound to these idols, we are enslaved.

We are not free.

And the Lord wants freedom for you.

Yeah.

Do you know that church?

He doesn't wanna give you another religious things to do because the way

of hospitality is the way of freedom.

It's what you were created for.

It's who you've been created to be.

You've been created to be a person of love.

And these idols, they distort you.

They do horrible things to our souls.

They dehumanize us and cause us to dehumanize those around us.

And this is why hospitality is not just a nice practice.

It is actually a quiet rebellion against the idols of our age.

And so the real issue here at the core, we tend to live like this.

And this is what our culture encourages us.

It is my life, it is my time, it is my home, it is my resources, and we

hold tightly and we justify and we protect, and we're like little goms.

Over our lives and our staff in our homes.

This is my precious.

I've worked hard for this.

I deserve this.

I deserve my me time.

I deserve my sanctuary.

Be so careful of that wicked little narrative that gets whispered to our ears.

I deserve.

You deserve this.

You deserve to sit and binge in front of Netflix for 12 straight hours.

You deserve to just indulge yourself on the couch.

Be careful of that little whisper.

It rarely takes us to a place that is good.

Scripture says, you know, as we hold tightly to our lives what we deserve,

my time, my home, my resources, scripture says this, what do you have?

You did not receive.

You are not your own.

You were bought with a price.

Everything we have is a gift to be shared.

That is the testimony of scripture.

Scripture.

If your heart is hard and small and stingy and contained, if you grip tightly to

your time, your schedule, and the order of your life, open the door of your life,

your home, and watch your heart change.

Don't always have to wait for your heart to change first.

Sometimes you just gotta do it until your selfish, old, fearful self to just.

Get back in its box and I'm gonna do it anyway.

It's amazing.

Sometimes when we just step on an act of obedience, how the freedom that

we're longing for comes as we go.

So often we just, we wait.

We wait for the feelings to come.

Or when the Lord has delivered me from this, when the Lord has magically made

me unselfish, then I will do this.

It's really up to him and he's like a bay.

And then you watch it break in you.

You watch your heart begin to break open.

Proverbs, uh, 1124 to 25 says this.

This is in the message.

Paraphrase, the world of the generous gets larger and larger.

The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed.

Those who help others are helped.

There's a beautiful promise in that, a beautiful encouragement in that for those

who maybe hesitate in this space, and I think another reason why we can struggle.

In this area of hospitality to give our lives away sacrificially to share in ways

that are inconvenient, uncomfortable, awkward, sacrificial is I think we fail

to take to heart and to trust Jesus' teaching and his promises in this space.

In Acts 2035 says, remembering the words, the Lord Jesus himself said, it

is more blessed to give than to receive.

Do you believe that church?

Yeah, some of you do.

Some of you give mental ascent.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Because I'm a Christian.

I gotta believe that.

But do you live like this is true.

Right?

Again, signposts, just things to let settle on your heart

and go, Ooh, where am I?

And do I actually believe is my li life a living testimony to the truth of Jesus'

words here that it is better to give.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

What about Matthew 16, verses 24 to 26, the promise of Jesus Here.

Matthew 16:24–26

Jesus says to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny

themselves, take up their cross.

Follow me.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their

life for me, you're gonna find it.

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

Do we believe what Jesus says here?

You know, we have, well I personally have really been confronted with, will I

choose to believe this or not recently.

So with the journey that, um, Mackenzie and Luke are going on this

year, and I do have permission to.

To, uh, speak about this from them.

So, uh, earlier this year they made the call to enter into fostering.

So they've now been married a, a couple of years, and the opportunity

to foster beautiful little girl by the name of Ebony came up.

And so Kenzie and Luca put their hands up to say.

Yeah, we will take her on, she's currently five and, uh, by the grace of God, an 18

year order will come through this year.

And, um, so over the next few months, Ebony will be transitioning to

full-time care of Kenzie and Luke.

And now that's quite a lot for a newly, relatively newly married couple.

And then, uh, we're what about a couple of months maybe into this?

Bit less.

And then, oh, they're pregnant.

So

yeah.

So if you haven't heard, haven't heard, yes.

They're also pregnant.

So this year is gonna be a dynamic year in, uh, the Rad Bone House and.

So when they first said that they were thinking of taking Eon, you

know, my initial reaction was, oh gosh, that's gonna cost them so much

as a young, and then even when they found out they were pregnant, it's

like, oh my gosh, they're not gonna get the joy of just having a newborn.

The first newborn just.

Just them and the baby, right?

There's gonna be this other complex reality.

And for those of you who foster, you know, it's not just as simple

as welcoming a child into your home.

There is all the chaos that comes with that child.

There is a reality of dealing with DCP, which is its own special reality.

Um, and then so, so you start to count the cost for them,

and then you start to feel bad.

And then I remember this moment of just being brought

back to that scripture there.

Can we just set that back up, Sabrina?

Thanks.

Do I believe this?

Do I believe as they lay down their lives for the sake of Ebony,

that they're gonna find life as they lay it down, as they take

up this cross, as they take up this, this pathway of obedience

that the Lord has set before them.

And I was talking to them about it last night and Luke said

something beautiful that's me.

Like, oh, thank you Lord for great son-in-laws.

Um.

You know, you're saying how he had this moment when he married Mackenzie and he

also had this moment when they agreed to take Ebony of just this overwhelming

revelation that my life is not my own.

And oh, that is profound, and that is beautiful.

And I think we all need that revelation, don't we?

I say, how about we just pray right now?

So Holy Spirit,

may we all be deeply humbled.

Mean, we all have a sense of this revelation that our life is not

our own, and that is actually where the good life is found.

There is no true life to be found in grasping hold of things, but the

life, the abundant life that you came for us to know and to share

is only found as we understand this revelation that our life is not our own.

Our life is to be poured out.

For the sake of love, for the glory of your name and for the good of the

world, Lord, may all of us who need to receive a deepening understanding

of that revelation, may that happen by the power of your spirit.

In this moment right now, our life is not our own.

Amen.

So if this is true, hospitality is central, and if everything

in us can so often resist it.

Then how do we actually become this kind of people?

I think sometimes a pathway can be helpful because, uh, some of

you are gifted in hospitality.

It is a spiritual gift and, uh, you operate in it beautifully.

And perhaps the challenge for you in this space as we talk about hospitality,

is just a, just a little gentle warning around spiritual pride that can come in.

You know, if you're sitting here going, oh no, I nail this.

Right?

You know, this is where our hearts and tricky little things, aren't they?

And so I don't want anybody in here feeling condemned, right?

Because you're like, oh, I'm a terrible Christian.

I suck at this.

Um.

Nor do I wanna stoke the fires of spiritual pride either.

And so narrow ro, we walk, Hey, and, uh, and some of you, you

are, you are beautiful at this.

And may you just hold it all very lightly and freely knowing it

is by God's grace that you, um.

And so beautifully hospitable.

Um, and it doesn't make you better than the person struggling next to you.

And, um, and that is a journey of maturity that we all go on in learning

how to manage our spiritual gifts.

Hey, um, whatever our gift may be.

Um, so sometimes in the space of hospitality though, uh, a

pathway is helpful and to draw on.

Again, we talked about this a couple of times, just this, um, little

idea that Dallas Willard offers in this space around spiritual prac.

Is this idea of vision, intention, and means, and um, just have that

next slide there, Sabrina Vision.

So we gotta first begin to see the beauty of a hospitable life in Jesus.

Do you see it as beautiful or do you just see it as an onerous thing?

And if you just see it as onerous and difficult and inconvenient, uncomfortable

and awkward, you need to engage a better imagination in this space, right?

You have the capacity to do this.

You have the Holy Spirit.

You have resources at hand, even if they are simple.

Sit before the Lord and go, Lord, help me to cultivate.

A sense of beauty around this prac practice that I would be compelled

into it, and then intention choosing to become a hospi hospitable person.

Not just waiting for it to just happen, but go.

I am going to make a choice, a decision here.

I will be a hospitable person and I may suck at it to begin with, and that's okay.

Right?

None of us learn to ride a bike and just nailed it first time.

Yeah, it was wobbly and it's difficult and it's awkward, but just embrace it and make

that volitional choice to be hospitable.

And allow the Holy Spirit to lead you on that adventure.

And then the means.

So practical habits, practicing habits, how am I gonna do this?

And developing some clear strategies, routines, rituals, in that space.

Without vision, there's no desire.

Without intent, there's no decision.

And without means, there's no pathway.

And so without practice, nothing ultimately changes.

And so I just wanna offer up some practical suggestions for us this morning.

So the first one is, this is to do with loving your neighbor in your neighborhood.

I thought this was genius.

So this is from a uh, organization called Art of neighboring.com.

And so what this is, so imagine that's your house in your neighborhood, and,

uh, sitting here right now, your A, B, CA Rec represents the name of the person

who lives in the houses all around you.

B is just some basic facts about their life.

C is what do you know about their story?

So how much of that would you be able to fill in right now?

Some of you're like, oh yeah, I know everybody.

I love my neighborhood.

And others have be like, oh gosh.

I know, I don't know.

I thought you can even buy, you guys even have like a giant fridge magnet

of this you can put on your fridge and then you just gradually fill it

out as you, you know, as you begin to learn things about your neighbors.

So they have a whole pathway of this is where you begin to, to then

conducting a full on block party.

Um.

And it's just a gradual step-by-step process.

But I thought this was just a very simple, tangible tool.

Praise the Lord for us.

We live opposite a park, so we miss out on those front three houses.

Lord is gracious.

No, we miss out.

We miss out.

'cause we live opposite a park.

Yeah, we miss out.

So maybe this might be just, just a helpful little tool.

And you imagine if you did stick something like this on your fridge, right?

And then every time you're looking out, you're praying for these people too.

What might the good Lord do through that?

Oh my gosh.

So simple yet, potentially so very powerful.

So just as you begin to learn their names, you put them up facts, you

know, just basic facts about them.

But then the third level, the C level, what do you know about this story?

What do you know about this story?

And then you pray and then you see where the good Lord leads.

All right.

And the next one is, so this is just a practical tool about

how we can love our neighbors.

And this one is within our church family here.

So we used to do this years ago and I don't know, somehow it

dropped off the radar, so we're putting it back on the radar.

And so Feast Sunday.

Anybody remember Feast Sundays?

Yes.

See those hands?

Beautiful.

The hospitality hands went up.

Yes.

Where did it go?

I miss it.

Um.

And so we're bringing it back as a simple tool, a simple practice.

So we're gonna make the first Sunday of each month, we make room at our tables.

So Feast Sunday, a simple practice where we intentionally share a meal or time

with someone from our church family.

This is specifically for our church family.

Hospitality is making room in your life for others, especially those you

would not normally spend time with.

That's that's real key there.

It's like stepping out of the comfort zone, right?

Of those that I just really know and like I'm just so joyfully easy

to be around and actually going, Lord, who are you leading me to?

Who do you want me to see?

Right?

Next slide there, Sabrina.

Thanks.

And so what, what do we actually do?

It's not complicated, really.

You either host, you gather, you join, invite someone to your home, or you gather

some people, be it a park or a cafe or wherever, or you accept an invitation.

Beautiful or initiate one.

Um, who should I invite?

Look, this is where it gets a little awkward, right?

Has anybody seen those memes of like, you know, when the pastor

at church talks about, um.

Being nice to the lonely, awkward people and suddenly you

are inundated with invitation.

This is where this can get a little, little bit uncomfortable, right?

Uh, but whatever.

Sometimes we need to be directed very clearly, okay?

Because we just gravitate to our comfortable spaces, um, so easily.

So it's looking for someone who's new, not yet connected.

Someone who's outside your normal circle and somebody

who seems to be on the margin.

So not just friends making room for somebody who is new, not necessarily just

new here, but maybe new to you as well.

And you know, it's, it's okay.

You can, you can do this.

I think we've gotta get good at at awkward, right?

Some, some of you're just like, already like, eh.

I just even imagining it, it's just like giving your heart palpitations.

Can I, anybody else like watching Love on the spectrum?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Harrison and I, my son, so this is one of our favorite things to do together,

is to sit and watch love on the spectrum.

Does anybody not know what love on the spectrum is?

Like, oh, it's just the most wholesome.

It started off as an Australian series and American now, um, cottoned onto it,

and there's an American series that's now on Netflix, and if you're looking for

something wholesome to watch on Netflix.

It is just, it is just beautiful.

And so people who are on the spectrum and their desire to find connection and love

and there is so much awkwardness in it.

Everybody knows what the spectrum means.

Yeah.

It's with people with varying degrees of autism.

Yes, and it just captures their longing for connection.

Oh, they're so precious and they're so honest.

And then just the communications can be so awkward, but just the sheer joy when

they find that person who sees them.

Oh, it's just beautiful.

Now, if people who struggle with being on the spectrum, who struggle in social

situations can put themselves in a vulnerable position with television

cameras, surely we in a church family can do this church family.

And if you need some inspiration, go watch Love on the spectrum.

It's just so wholesomely Beautiful.

What's the next one?

What should I do?

Lunch after church, dinner at home?

Take away together your coffee.

Just, just small.

You know, if, so, if, if this is something that's really a struggle

for you, then you know what you do is you set real clear boundaries on it.

Now let's go get a coffee for an hour.

You know, we gotta get better at just being remedial in these things

and not putting these idealistic notions on ourselves set the bar so

high that we just make it impossible.

Yeah, and you can have def def defined start times and end times, right?

It's okay to make this, at least in the early stages, have training wheels on.

It's all good.

Simple.

Keep it simple.

Next one, what if I don't feel ready?

Your home doesn't need to be perfect.

Look, it's nice if you've cleaned the toilet.

Um, food doesn't need to be impressive, and you don't

need to be naturally outgoing.

This is not about entertaining.

Remember, it's just about welcome.

Next one, simple rhythm for practicing this.

Share a meal, share a story, share a prayer.

What if that was your little framework that you took?

Little frameworks, they're helpful Little tools.

Share a meal.

Share a story.

Share a prayer.

Next one.

Is there our next one?

Nope, that's it.

All right.

Thanks, Sabrina.

All right.

So the heart behind all of this we love because God first made room for us.

Feast Sunday is how we practice that to together.

And just as a quick aside, if you're a House Church leader here,

chances are if you're a House Church leader, you're just, you're probably

already practicing this already.

I just wanna say though, you know, you guys do give out a lot.

All right, so you are already doing this.

By having House Church Sunday in your home by doing House church table.

So if you wanna embrace this, knock yourselves out, but also go, okay,

if your world is full and you're already practicing this through House

Church, then that is, that is good.

All right.

I wanna end this way here.

The power for this comes through the power of the gospel, the power

for us to be hospitable people, even to the depth of an Odessa, who we

heard about at the beginning of my message, where we could show that

degree of hospitality to somebody who.

It's so hostile towards us.

It comes through the gospel.

The gospel reframes our identity.

So at the core, hospitality is resisted because we are trying to secure ourselves.

The gospel says you're fully loved, you're fully accepted.

You are fully secure.

So you don't need to earn approval.

You don't need to perform, you don't need to self-protect.

Because of this, you no longer need to use your life to secure it yourself.

You are free to give it away.

'cause you've got everything you could ever need already.

The gospel replaces scarcity with abundance.

So without the gospel, we can so easily live with a scarcity mindset.

I don't have enough time.

I don't have enough energy, I don't have enough resources.

And the gospel says, God has given you everything in Christ Jesus.

Your life is received.

It is not achieved, and this ref reframes everything.

Hospitality is no longer a loss.

It is a participation in God's abundance and grace.

And the gospel redefines what your life is for.

Without the gospel, your life is for you.

With the gospel, my life is received from God and it is given away in

love, and this is the decisive shift.

Hospitality becomes not an add-on, but a natural expression of a reorientated life.

The gospel frees us from needing to protect ourselves so we can

begin to give our lives away.

And one of the simplest ways we do that is by making room.

For others at our table and in our lives.

So a call to action for this day as we consider Feast Sunday,

which is like two weeks away.

Here's the invitation, maybe even now today.

Think about who you might invite on that first Sunday in May,

which I believe is the 3rd of May.

Even now.

I'll be thinking, who might that be?

Who might I invite to my table?

Can I suggest something too?

If you are feeling bold, particularly single people who

are here, right, invite yourself.

I love the chutzpah of some people, right?

Not to beat obnoxious pain, but if you're a single person here and you know I'm

sick of being overlooked and left out by all you people with your families, right?

In kindness, but with.

Confidence.

Right?

And it's, and it's a humble thing to do.

I go, actually, the Lord's put you family on my heart.

Could I come to your place for dinner?

Oh, who's what?

And if anybody says, no, come and tell me.

Um, you know, they might have a really good reason.

I don't anticipate, you know, knowing most of you like I do.

You're beautiful, beautiful people, and I think we all just need a little bit of

encouragement and vision in this space.

We are a beautiful church here.

We are a beautiful, generous church family here.

And I think sometimes we just get a little distracted and sometimes I

think we just need a little bit of encouragement back into the ways of Jesus.

And um, and may that this morning have been that for you, just a little bit

of encouragement in this direction.

And I wanna do, do just quickly just feel prompted, just to touch on something

that Erica mentioned last week too.

We've gotta know our wounds in this, right?

Some of you, man, you've got massive rejection wounds.

These are, these are tricky waters to wait in because you're like, if

somebody says no, it is gonna mortify me.

Right?

So just have that honest, then I don't live with that.

Don't live with that nasty festering wound.

You go.

If you go.

Oh, there's a fear in me that has me.

Don't let that fear be a justification.

Go.

I'm not living with this anymore.

I wanna be, who wants to get to the end of their days?

Who wants to be looking down on their own funeral?

And the testimony of those who knew you best was, gee, they did an

excellent job of living for themselves.

Gee, their life was so ordered and contained and controlled.

It was so neat and tidy.

Nobody wants that.

Don't we all at the end of our days, want those around us?

Who knew us to testify?

They were big hearted.

They gave, they were so generous with their lives.

We all want that legacy, don't we?

Do we want people just to tell a bunch of lies about us because

they feel like they've gotta be nice when we die, but really, they

know we were just selfish, fearful, anxious, turned inward on ourselves.

Well, think about that legacy you wanna leave and that journey starts today.

And if there is anything hindering you, the fear, the woundedness and

these wounds, man, they're nasty, horrible things and they rub us and they

become footholds for the enemy in our lives to keep us small and contained.

And they go, okay, well it's time.

And it will begin with repentance, and it'll begin with confession.

You gotta tell somebody, I have this gaping wound.

I'm terrified of entering spaces like that.

Because what if, you know, what if, even as I've been talking

this morning, has there been that?

What if rising up?

What if, what if?

Or the justifications of why you can't, or, oh, I can't.

I can't What?

Self protection.

Self protection mechanisms, you know?

You know like when you hit your knee?

There and it's just reflex and it just kicks some of you that's gone on for

you right now as we talk about this idea of hospitality, of sharing your life,

of opening your door, your table, and there's that reflex self-defense posture

of, oh, I can't, and it'll be justified.

Justify excuse, ah, 'cause that ain't living friends and the good Lord

has freedom for you in this place.

Okay, I just wanna give a bit of space for the Holy Spirit to minister right now.

Yeah.

How about you stand church.

Let's stand.

And close your eyes

and just take a deep breath.

Holy Spirit, would you come in this moment?

Right now we yield ourselves

to your leading, to your guiding, to your comfort, to your conviction.

Holy Spirit, would you come and minister in our midst in this moment

right now?