Our Rule of Life - Hospitality Pt2

We are in our series called Rule of Life.

Everyone say Rule of life.

You missed the front word.

It's our rule of life.

We're trying to do this as a community.

We're doing this together.

It's not this individualism dynamic.

It's together We are doing this.

Right?

And so I wanna do a little bit of a recap because we've been a little

bit disjointed in this series.

Has anyone noticed that?

Has anyone bringing, forgot to bring their notebook this morning

because it's been so disjointed.

Thank you, Mike Abbott, you've got your notebook ready to go.

Very good.

So let me give you a quick recap.

Um, and so we're in a, we're in a series called Our Rule of Life, and we're,

we're sitting in a sub theme at the moment around the idea of hospitality.

So I'm just going to quickly just recap.

Jesus said in Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all

these things will be given to you as well.

If the kingdom is not first, guess what?

Something else will be first.

And so this picture of a rule of life is helping us navigate

towards a place of transformation.

How do we position ourselves for transformation?

Because transformation is not just gonna happen by accident.

It happens because we co-labor with the work of the spirit towards transformation.

And so vision.

Intention means is, uh, the ways that we are transformed, we get

a clear picture of his kingdom, and how do we play a part in that?

We get a, uh, intention is a settled decision to pursue God's kingdom

and then means is the concrete practices that we, that shape us.

And so I've just got a bit of a rule of life definition as

we've kind of been focusing on.

So a rule of life is a shared rhythm of practices and orders.

Uh, so that orders our lives around abiding in Jesus and

participating in his kingdom.

It's not legalism, it's training in grace.

It's not adding pressure or earning grace.

It's removing chaos so that formation can occur.

I was talking to Matt earlier and we were talking about the idea of removing lesser

loves out of our lives in order that.

The highest love, the love of Christ would abide more, uh,

more and more in our lives.

So it wouldn't actually be kind of in second place, but the reality

of the kingdom would turn into more of a first place position,

which means, means removing chaos.

Unfortunately, we don't like that idea because we.

Sometimes treasure our secondary loves.

But, uh, the idea of being trained in righteousness is we,

is about removing things, um, and becoming a people who, I love.

This little way of describing this idea here is we become a

people who abide deeply, which is this idea of reliance on God.

We live honestly, which is about being real and we love

generously, which is about being.

Relational, which is our three values of our church, rely on real and relational.

So it's not about managing behavior, but it's about being transformed for the

glory of God, for the good of the world, and for the deep joy of our own souls.

Does anyone want any joy this morning?

Man, the joy of the Lord is our strength, and he desires us to live not heavy,

anxious lives, but light, joyful lives.

And so currently we're focusing on hospitality.

So I wanna just do a little recap of what we did.

What was that, Luke, like three weeks ago now or something

when you first started sharing.

So here's my synopsis of your, um, of your message in seven points.

Here we go.

Hospitality is central to the gospel, not peripheral.

Hospitality is more than entertaining.

We might touch on a little bit on this as well today.

Hospitality is rooted in the life of Christ.

The early church took this hospitality image.

He, they took it literally.

And over time, unfortunately, hospitality became institutionalized, which was

where hospitality was only done by the religious leaders, so to speak.

Um, not.

Everybody, but everybody is participating in kingdom hospitality.

But kingdom hospitality today is actually still as radical as it was

when Jesus announced his kingdom.

And number seven, it's actually an invitation for

all of us who followed Jesus.

Not about how much I can do, but who is in front of me and will I receive them

as Christ has so generously received.

Me.

Ah, that's good.

And so our broader approach today in our rule of life is

focusing on these forces that.

Essentially culture is forming us, and if we don't, we're not aware of

that, we actually won't be formed, formed by the Kingdom of God.

We'll be formed by the culture around us.

And so individualism is pushing us towards self-sufficiency and in independence.

Consumerism conditions us to evaluate everything, including the church and

relationships through personal benefit.

The Kingdom of God is pushing us towards surrender, toward the

other, towards being, bringing glory to God, not glory to self.

This is not how the early church, uh, worked in this sense of

individualism and consumerism.

They were focused on the other, and we read about it in Acts chapter two.

And I'm just gonna read from 44, which is this is a radical way of living.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes.

They ate together with gladness and see hearts praising God and

enjoying the favor of all the people.

And the Lord added to their number daily.

Those who are being saved.

So this moment in Acts is actually descriptive rather

than it is prescriptive.

It, it reveals something that is essential about hospitality and central to the life

and witness of the early church, but it in the sense that it's not prescriptive.

It doesn't tell us line by line, how do we be hospitable, right?

It's talking about the posture of our hearts.

And today, this quote, which I can't take credit for because Dale showed me it.

And gave it to me.

So I dunno where she got it from, but let's just pretend it's mine.

Um, the call for us is to recover this posture.

This is so cool.

It's to see our homes, our lives, not as private retreats.

Oh man.

How much do I fall into the private retreat land of my home?

And that's not a bad thing, by the way.

But if it's only that we've got a problem.

But consider your home and your life to be an outpost for the

kingdom of God to be revealed.

That's a, that's a good vision to live for.

Like find something worth dying for and live for it.

There it is.

Found it.

As outposts of the Kingdom of God.

So let me explore just that Kingdom of God picture for a minute by

telling you a little bit about it.

What Hebrews chapter 12, verse 28 says, I love the scripture because

Hebrews 12:28

it's often overlooked, because it's right at the end of the chapter 12.

And then as we kick into chapter 13, we miss a little bit of the

implications of what the end of Chapter twelve's all about.

And it says this, now you can go away and read more of the end of chapter 12.

I'm just giving you a little bit of an excerpt just as though we

don't spend all our time here today.

But it says, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be

shaken, everyone say cannot be shaken.

Let us be thankful and so worship God, acceptably with reverence and

offer our God is a consuming fire.

That's a strong position, isn't it?

Would you say.

That's a strong position.

Okay, now that you're in a strong position, unshakeable reverence, or

God's a consuming fire, keep going and keep on loving one another.

As brothers and sisters do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by

doing so, people have shown hospitality to angels without even knowing it.

Wow, that's so good.

Here in Hebrews.

It's, it's like it's hinge.

It's a hinge moment between this cosmic vision of God's unshakeable kingdom.

And that's like, it's very, it's a very concrete kingdom.

It's solid, it's strong.

And then the other side of the hinge is this call to love hospitality, solidarity.

With people who are suffering.

And so the implications of the unshakeable kingdom is that our lives are not built on

the passing, shaky structures of status, comfort, consumerism, private boundaries,

but are founded on an everlasting kingdom.

That is already pressing into the present moment with an empowerment

to all of us to live lives that are open and generous with one another.

And so the question for all of us is, how much do you want to participate

in this unshakeable kingdom?

Or do you wanna sink a majority of your time into thoughts and passions,

into unha, into shakeable things, into temporary things, into worldly

things that actually limit our experience of this unshakeable kingdom.

All of us must be shaken out of the culture of self.

And so that ho, so hospitality is actually a means of participating

in an unshakeable kingdom.

'cause you can't give anything that you don't have.

Did you hear me?

If you don't attain and have and possess an unshakeable kingdom,

how the heck are you gonna give that kingdom to someone else?

You cannot.

And so the reality is let us be shaken today.

Yeah, in a good way because that is by being hospitable to others,

it's causing us to access and apprehend this unshakeable kingdom.

So in this place, the stranger's not kept at arm's length, but they're

drawn in the table is not a private club, but a sign that the true king

is served most clearly when we risk our comfort for the sake of the other.

Welcoming strangers.

I like this little bit at the end.

You read it there.

It's kind of crazy.

In case we might entertain angels.

Well, that's cool.

Hey, I think about it and going, wow, my train.

I, I, I wanna train my heart to live an expectation that through the very

ordinary moment of hospitality, I could be engaging in a spiritual dynamic

that I couldn't even comprehend.

Entertaining angels.

What are you talking about?

I thought it was just the man down the street

as we live as citizens of heaven, citizens of a kingdom that is unshakeable.

So that it can be tasted by others.

So Dale and I were married in March of 1999, and just recently we, we celebrated

our 27th year of marriage and we moved into, when we got married, uh, a house

in, in on Bishop Skate Street in Carlisle, uh, which is a, which is a street.

Um, that both my dad lived on and, um, Dale's dad lived on and at our, at our,

um, uh, our wedding, what do you call it?

Our engagement party, my Nana and Dale's, Gigi.

Um, they met, they saw each other and they knew each other.

It was like, wow, that's a small world.

And we moved into this brand new unit that, uh, I won't tell you

how much you bought it for 'cause you'll get depressed in 1999.

Um.

But the house was right next to a single, like a, a single

story block of state housing.

Now, at that time, we had this very large dog.

It was a ridgeback, uh, called Jay, and I would be regularly cleaning

up after that particular dog.

Won't tell you all the D details, just to keep you s, keep you sane.

It was a very small backyard, like a unit.

You can imagine this very small backyard and a massive dog.

And yeah, it wasn't great, but.

Next to us was the state housing.

So, so if I'm looking to towards the road, state housing was here

and the fence, when they built the house, they didn't change the fence.

So the fence was like, I don't know, 1942 fence, you know, asbestos.

But it was like really low.

So I think standard fence is about 1.8.

Yeah.

Is that right?

And this fence was like 1.3 or something.

Really low, right?

So there am I at the back cleaning up after my dog and I suddenly

discovered that there's a thing occurring with my next door neighbor.

And, um, what happened was, what my next door neighbor's name was Harvey, and

every time I walked out the back, he would be there, ready to have a good chat.

Um.

And it wasn't easy because, uh, he was an alcoholic and the conversations on

a regular occasion were uncomfortable, broken, difficult, and much to my

shame as an immature person in 1999, I found them a complete waste of time.

Um, and I didn't want to go outside and clean up the dog

'cause I was like, I don't wanna.

I've talked to this guy, right?

And, but God was on the job here, so you can imagine what unfolded.

So to cut a long story short of this unfolding journey with Harvey

Jones, my next door neighbor.

This connection continued and increased when a moment came where,

Adam, can you drive me down to the shops to get some cigarettes?

And that evolved that day going, driving through the bottle shop on Bishop's

Gate Street, uh, going through the drive through to get the cigarettes, but

then discovering that this was a setup because Harvey had a fairly large debt.

With that person who owned the thing, and all of a sudden I

find myself getting harassed and now I'm paying his bill for him.

I'm like, this is excellent.

Lord.

I love this stuff, so I wanna let you know my attitude was not good.

Okay.

I am whinging and complaining.

Um, now I'm picking Harvey off the ground because I feel of his porch.

He would stumble and fall and he couldn't get up.

So he, I'd sometimes pick him up.

I'd spend time in his house, um, and man that inside of

his house had such a stench.

I have no idea what was happening in there.

Seeing him a few days later, you know, I'm picking him up out of his

own neuron, uh, cleaning him up, man.

Ha ha ha I started having conversations with Jesus going, oh

Lord, so I must be, must be having conversations with Jesus about him.

You know, I've gotta be, I'm praying for him.

This is God's starting to change my heart here.

Right?

And, uh, Harvey's got this strange, um, dull looking thing and he, I

think he has a Catholic background.

And this doll was actually like a statute sort of thing of Mary,

but its head was all melted and looked like it got chewed by a dog.

And so.

And so it ended up looking like some sort of voodoo doll kind of thing, but the

way he embraced it, it was like that was his like faith in his little doll thing.

Which we can talk about that sort of stuff later.

But anyway, it was scary.

But he had this like little minute, little bit of faith.

Um, he didn't have a landline, so he'd come over our house and use the phone.

I think he came for a couple of times for a meal.

Um, he then come, then we finally got to coming to church.

So he came to church and um, I think, I think we got rid of his doll.

This is a little while ago.

I think so.

I think we got rid of his doll.

Anyway, one day, this was at Riverview Church.

Uh, Harvey came along and he walked down the front and gave his life to Jesus.

And then Adam Dale left Carlisle and we moved to Canning Vale.

And, uh, Sharon Menzies, who you might know, I don't know if Sharon's here today.

She's in New Zealand.

Okay, thank you Sharon.

Hello, Sharon.

You'll be listening.

I know you will.

Um, who I've known for ages, uh, she started helping out with Harvey, so

she'd pick him up, take him to church.

And, and sadly, Harvey passed, passed away.

Um, because what had happened was he'd have those falls regularly and

he fell outside and he got such, such bad sunburn that he had, they had to

amputate a finger and he got so infected.

And then the affection, uh, finished him off, and it was such a sad story.

Now, again, I think I've been relatively self-deprecating as

my telling you my story here.

But I'll tell you this, not because I crushing this whole

hospitality thing, right?

Or I feel like I represented, well, represented Jesus.

Well in that moment.

Um, I didn't do it for any of that, right?

I'm telling you that story.

For this reason today, I sit here in 2026 telling you this.

I wish I had a Harvey Jones living next to me today.

Sorry, just gonna get emotional

because Harvey was the guy who softened my heart.

And realize that there's Harvey Jones living next to me right

now, except I just don't see him.

Harvey wore his brokenness on the outside, and most of the person, people I live next

to live their brokenness on the inside.

They're hidden.

It's, it's, it's, it's not revealed.

Does that make sense?

You don't see it.

And um, the truth is, there's a Harvey Jones living next to you,

if you'd be willing to see it.

And so this brings us into this other word apathy.

Apathy can begin to be a way we avoid being overwhelmed by grief and suffering.

But biblically it ends by making a person less responsive to God and to neighbor.

A hard heart in scripture is not merely a cold attitude.

It's a heart that becomes unfeeling, unmoved, and resistant

to truth and compassion.

And the Bible actually treats, uh, this hardheartedness as

actually spiritually dangerous.

It's not emotionally neutral, and, and we use apathy because we

don't, we, we actually are trying to protect ourselves, right?

Apathy says this, I will not feel because feeling costs too much,

but the gospel says, feel rightly grieve, honestly, love deeply, and act

faithfully because a softened heart is part of faithful discipleship.

It's gone quiet in here.

Are we okay?

I can't lift the atmosphere now, so I'm just gonna change it,

um, by inviting to the platform.

My, my two good friends, Erica and Simon, and I just don't

want you to hear from me today.

I want you to hear from two other voices and so as they come up,

please welcome them as they come.

Yes, you can clap.

Let me introduce you to these wonderful people.

Um, this is Simon.

Everyone say hello, Simon.

Hello.

Put put my red thread.

Oh, dropped it.

Voice.

Excellent voice.

So Simon, uh, and his family are relatively new to Red Door,

and, uh, but I've known Simon.

I feel like it's probably around the 20 year mark, uh, for quite a long time.

Um, we were first at Riverview together.

Um, Simon is a husband of Fiona, father of two girls.

He's a creative artist.

He's a runner.

He's a minister for many years running a, a church out of his own

home, uh, called the Big Table.

And, um, Simon, if you don't know, um, is the son of Clive Elliot.

And Clive, uh, was a significant part of, uh, the formation of Red

Door, uh, when we first started.

And, uh, sadly he passed away.

In late 2022.

Um, but really grateful to the Elliott family and grateful

for Simon to be here today.

Don't you say hello real quick.

Hello, real quick,

and this is Erica and you may know Erica as well.

She's been here.

She's an amazing woman of God.

She has great insight into this, uh, area of hospitality.

Her other area of focus she loves is leading people to hope through the.

Through the reality of lament.

That's something that's really passionate for her and she's really

amazing at sharing that space.

I'm hoping there's a few stories that Erica might share today.

So I say, hello, Erica.

Hi.

I had nothing about Lament, but honestly I think we can talk five sermons

about what we have to talk about.

I know, I know we are under the pump time-wise, but, um,

we're gonna jump in and so we're gonna ask this first question.

How we would biblically explain hospitality.

But I wanna maybe focus a little bit on the idea of the difference

between entertaining and hospitality.

Do you wanna jump in Simon to that?

Yeah, sure.

Uh, I think there's these two threads that go through the gospel around hospitality

and one is the welcoming of strangers and the other is the one anothering

of brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so to, to go the first one, first, the welcoming of strangers.

The, the Greek word for hospitality is philo, Zenia, um, philo friend, uh,

lover of Zenia, stranger, foreigner.

So friend of stranger or foreigner.

And, and that is, that's quite different to how we perceive hospitality, which

is often dinner parties, but we can get to that later if we've got a chance.

Um, this hospitality, Henry Nolan said that hospitality is the creation

of safe spaces where strangers and enemies can become friends.

So that's the first one, welcoming of strangers.

And the second one, Eugene Peterson.

In his book, the pastor calls this Eucharistic hospitality and he says,

um, for hospitality not to become secularized into the hospitality industry.

Or privatized into exclusive dinner parties.

We need imagination, creativity, context and intentionality.

And one of the ways that this comes out most right through the New Testament in

particular, is this one anothering thing.

So Jesus says, um, the new commandment I give to you that you love one another.

As I have loved you.

And then there's this whole lot of one another's.

There's 61 all up a hundred if you count double ups.

Um, but love one another, pray for one another.

James five, uh, hold one another's carry one another's burdens.

Galatians six, encourage one, another one, Thessalonians four.

All of these one another rings.

And it's a kind of a self-evident truth, but you cannot one another.

One another unless you have others to one another.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you can do a bit of one another in here, but for you to know the burdens

of another, or what another needs prayer for, or how to love one another, there

needs to be intentional relationship.

Yes.

And that's the thread that goes through all of Paul's letters.

Do this to one another, care for one another.

Hold up one another.

Yeah, that's really different to a dinner party.

Maybe we can get back to the dinner party soon.

I know, I'm, I'm going with an artwork up first.

For me, one of the scriptures that have really changed my

life, I was 15 years old.

Not in a great place.

Never ever thought I could talk about hospitality in any way or shape or form.

Didn't think I was great at friendships.

And then I read Ephesians two, verse 10 that says, talks about us being God's

workmanship created for good works.

And that kind of gives you this eternal perspective of what

happened before we were even here.

What happened before we can even start thinking about hospitality.

And this is an icon.

Which I didn't really grow up with icons, but they basically just

used that to focus their attention.

So what we see there, it's by Andre Rublev is the Trinity around the table.

And in the foreground there's room for you to come and enter at that table.

And so what it says is God created out of an overflow of love and then.

We are, we are invited into that space, into that foreground.

So for me, when I think of hospitality instead of

entertaining is I am at that table.

I'm choosing to be at that table, yes.

And his love is flowing through me to others.

And every time I'm inviting somebody to say, come, let me show you the table.

Come sit with me at this table where there is love.

So no matter where, whether I'm out or I'm at home, it's like,

Lord, okay, what is this good work you're doing through me today?

How am I presenting you?

How am I inviting you in and others into this?

Because otherwise it can quickly turn to striving as well.

I've gotta do this, I've gotta look like that.

It's gotta be this, it's gotta be that.

Instead of going, okay, Lord, what do you think about where the table stands today?

Will it make them feel comfortable?

What about their culture?

What food should I prepare?

You know, you everything is inviting the Lord into that space.

And then I'll just go one more thing.

So, but not everybody finds it easy to come to a table.

And that's the issue is I was drawn to Isaiah 62 that says, um, go through,

go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, build up, build

up the highway, take out the stones, lift up a banner for the peoples.

And so we know the banner of God over us is love, but the

stones are the things that.

Disappointments hurts.

Nobody even seeing you, nobody hearing you.

And that's where lament comes in for me, is removing it that way.

And for me, you know, if we think of the parable of the sower, for

instance, I've often thought, okay, what's about the soil thing?

The soil of our hearts?

How can you receive the seed if the soil is hard?

So hospitality for me is.

Softening the soil, seeing somebody going, okay, let's remove, let me take

this weed out of your garden because maybe you will see somebody cares.

Jesus cares.

So with every weed you take out, you're bringing them one step closer to the Lord.

Very good.

Well done.

Excellent, excellent.

Love.

Um, maybe we'll go to this next question and we might be able to add this sort

of entertaining concept in, but how does practicing hospitality push against the,

the cultural dynamics that have found in 2026 of individualism and consumerism?

So why, why is there this, um, why is hospitality a tool to almost

combat individualism and consumerism?

And why does that, why does that even matter?

I'm happy to go.

Yeah, you please.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's, we can go back to that painting actually, because for me

the book of Genesis is amazing.

That first three like verses just brings it all because I think we are so

influenced by the Greco-Roman, you know, worldview that we think it's all just up

here, but we are people living in bodies.

That, you know, I've got boundaries around my capabilities, and you

have, and as a people, we have.

So there's this interdependence within that trinity where they

need, they work together and that's what they've put in us.

That's same DNA structure of needing people, needing God with part of creation,

needing creation as a whole as well.

So when we think of.

Our current world, it says you can do anything.

You can be anything.

You can go everywhere.

But the reality is we've got boundaries.

We can't, I can't be in two places, three places at the same time.

I have brokenness in me, so I can't.

Help you and help everybody.

So that means if we work together in our hospitality, that the hospitality

breaks down all those things that says I can do it all by myself.

Um, and I think that's.

Really seeing someone as made in the image of God is huge as well.

Like what is their value?

When you see somebody's value, you can really reach out to them and

it doesn't then just mean when they come to your house, and I think House

Church is a great way of doing it.

You don't always know who's coming to your house church, so you gotta.

I treat everybody like, who are you?

Who has God made you to be?

How can you, how can you work with me?

How can I work with you?

And as a body of Christ?

You know, we are the difference then.

Yeah, that's me.

It's good.

It's good.

Erica, do you have any thoughts on that, Simon, around this idea of

the pushback, the ho the cultural, pushing back against the culture?

I, I think our, our first nature is relational.

We were.

We were designed, created in the image of God who is a relational being

Father, son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so that, that is within us, often buried within us, but we have the second

nature, which is towards, um, selfishness, division, protection, all of those things.

And a friend of mine this week who runs a community development organization posted

a blog, which was that in these times of.

Polarization worldwide.

There is also this inner desire and this inkling in community spaces.

It's not just church spaces of how do I get a bit of that community for me?

Because at some deeper level, we crave it and it's, it's not

about, I'd love to talk about the entertaining versus if I, if I can, um.

Because I, we love having people in our house and most of that is

probably in the form of hospitality.

But I also love giving a dinner party a crack every now and then as well.

And probably four or five times a year we have a crack at a dinner party.

And we had one, two weeks ago, it was my siblings.

So my two sisters, their husbands, and I, um, like my vision for

the evening began with how the main course would be plated up.

And I had this vision of, um, handmade Canelo plated vertically.

Oh my.

That's,

I told you he was a creative artist, right?

Yeah.

So you, you guys gotta understand that's the context.

And really everything else that came in that night hung off the, um, vertically

so good.

Which apart from my own plate, worked for everyone else.

It, it was fortress by a ring of, um, chive.

Um.

Anyway, two weeks before that, we had some friends from church over.

My vision for that night was that we would end up praying for one

another and encouraging them in their walk with Jesus and, and how

they were living out their faith.

That's a pretty stark difference, and it's not as though great things

can happen at a dinner party.

Um, they absolutely can, but.

The bar doesn't need to be high.

Yeah.

And, and the challenge I would say, for all of us is to

lower our bar of invitation.

Yeah.

Keep it simple.

Absolutely.

But also if it's, if it's your.

Thing to have the occasional dinner party where you actually think about

which plates and which cutlery.

And

the vertical canone.

Vertical canone, which is possible, by the way.

Um, then do that as well.

So good.

So good.

It's interesting, the idea around, and I think that's two aspects of,

uh, we're talking about the stranger, then we're talking about our brothers

and sisters friends and so forth.

Is that.

The idea of entertaining enter or being hospitable to strangers, it may,

that may be a new territory for you.

Um, so then the question would be coming, are you having hospitality with

your brothers and sisters as a means to, I like the, always like the idea

of priming the pump, you know, like, like to get you in the mode of like,

okay, this is what this might look like.

Um, and I suppose as we jump into this next.

Question as we start to think about the practicalities of this, like

what, what can this look like?

Obviously we've got this idea of keeping it simple.

A lot of people might avoid hospitality because it's gotta be so,

you know, uh, decadent so to speak, or like so large or large scale.

But what are some, maybe just some simple thoughts around

how you can do this simply.

Have you got some thoughts there, Erica?

I don't think I'm that great at hospitality, but I think it's

good to be part of a team in your household and to involve everybody.

Well, I am good at it in the sense that I love, I think that.

Placemaking is huge.

I think we'll serve a placemaking God who created everything

and there's a room for it.

So I, I would more share something that in 2011 I was thinking,

Lord, how can I change my life?

How can I bring change?

There were certain things that were just patterns that would just keep going in

our life, and I felt like it was this uphill battle, and I really felt the

Lord was speaking to me about making.

Physical changes or things in the physical and there is that Es first

the natural, then the spiritual You and I've seen that work.

When you do something in the natural, there is a spiritual

knock on effect as well.

And he was basically saying to me, if it's broken, throw it out.

If you don't need it, throw it out.

And that's also so counter-cultural.

But when you're thinking of inviting people into your house, just thinking

about the physical room setup.

That you've got that they're going to come into.

What does it look like?

Like is it inviting?

How can you create a space where people feel like they belong in?

Um, so those are some of the things.

And bringing in something like flowers sometimes.

It works really well.

Something that's beautiful.

I've recently heard somebody say they were, had a big tragedy in their life

and they were working through trauma, and they said the only thing that

helped them with that trauma was beauty.

And I think God is a God that creates beauty.

And so those tips, but in saying all of this.

It's listening to the Lord going, he knows the person in front of you.

He knows who's coming.

He knows what they need.

So really your, for your spiritual ears and eyes to be open to see.

Um, I. I was reminded this week of that prayer of jbs, and if it's

triggering to anybody, I'm sorry.

If you've been in the church long enough, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Enlargement territory.

But it's, and so it talks about enlargement territory, but it also

says, and let me do no harm, and I think, Lord, okay, hospitality in this.

Yes.

Open my eyes so I can see who you want me to be hospitable

to today and in your house.

Church as well.

'cause I think one of the hardest things is we become so familiar

with people and we don't value them.

Instead of going, yes, God made this person reminding ourselves, maybe we

should all get a Rube left in our home.

So it can be reminded of, yeah.

Human beings.

As human beings, we're made in the image of God and we have this collective calling

as humans to bring the kingdom of God.

That's me.

That's great.

Erica, something fascinating about food.

Yeah.

And beauty.

Yeah.

There's something beautiful about food and if you are sitting here going, well,

I'm just not the best cook like in the world and so forth, there's means and

ways to do all these things, right?

Yeah.

But I think it's important to know that we talk about hospitality.

There are people who find that more of a natural dynamic.

And then there's people who.

Uh, learning that dynamic.

And if, if Dale would get up here, she would tell you a story

about how she'd always feel like a natural, hospitable type of person.

Right.

Um, but now she's like, she's crushing it, right?

Because she's developed it's like a muscle, right.

So part of, yeah, that's right.

Dar can do it.

So no one is off the hook on this particular dynamic.

Right.

Because if you need to start very gently.

Right.

And that could be like far out cup of tea, mate.

Yeah.

Just a glass of water.

A glass of water,

and just get a beautiful glass.

Okay.

Totally

changes the world,

the cup of hands.

That's right.

Um, yeah.

Simon, do you have any practical comments on how the application of that might look?

Don't,

what's that?

Don't do, Ken.

Well, I, I think it's, it's core to our identity as, as image

bearers and followers of Jesus.

And, um, Dallas Willard said that the gospel is necessarily social.

I love that gospel is necessarily.

Social and, and Paul says in Romans 13, practice hospitality.

And he doesn't say, once you've mastered the CRO bush, then,

then do it.

Practice hospitality.

It's, it's a, it's a universal invitation to all followers of

Jesus to practice hospitality.

And one of my favorite bits of advice for people wanting to grow in this.

Is not to consider awkward.

The opposite of good.

Yes.

But awkward is often the way that you get there.

And I, I think a lot of us go, I'm not gonna ask because I just, I just feel

as, oh, who am I to ask that question?

Or, um, what if they say no and here's the news flash.

They might.

And that's okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So good.

I don't think Steve and Carolyn Vis are here, here today.

Are you here?

Just throw your hand up if you are.

No, Steve's got a, I think he's got an operation this week on his

back, but Steve and Carolyn, um, they've got so many stories around

this arena to tell one quick one.

There's, for some reason, I think because they live opposite a.

Um, fuel Station.

Is I right in saying that?

Anyone can confirm that.

Am I right?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Um, they have random people just come to the front door and knock on the

door, and they've kind of grown in this habit of just come on in, you know?

And their natural default is cup of tea, right?

Anyway, they've got stories where cup of tea becomes.

Um, just encouraging this person.

They never met them before in their life and they're just encouraging this person.

And, and then most recently they had this encounter where they literally

encouraged this person, this person left right, and then was so touched

emotionally by this, this moment.

And they weren't there for long.

We're talking, they were half an hour cup of tea.

Tell me a story, da da da, da, dah.

See you later.

All good right now is there's a risk involved inviting people in the house.

You don't know.

Welcome, welcome to ministry, everyone.

Um, but that lady came back.

And she was so touched.

She's like, she almost like wanted another hit of the drug.

Like she needed some encouragement, right?

She comes in and she sits there for longer and ultimately now has actually

been given, gave her life to Jesus because of this trickle effect of

hospitality that these people were just willing to open the door and have a

say, Hey, you want a cup of tea, right?

And they're just available.

I just think that's profound.

Now, I'm not suggesting, uh, that's.

Like everyone's deal.

I'm just saying to you, these are just stories to prime the pump in order to

get you potentially from point A to point B. And point A might be, oh, I've

never been invited to someone's house.

Well, maybe you should be the one doing some inviting, you know, and

that that might be a challenge.

But heck jump in because the water's warm and it's really good.

You're like, it's a wasteless land.

Any further thoughts on any of that?

Hot food is always good.

Especially in a country where you've got so many migrants now

sandwiches don't always work, so they just go for, go for hot food.

It does, and I think part of it is like managing uncertainty is when

it is uncomfortable sometimes.

And as long as you just go, man, I'm just going to manage this now,

Lord, help me manage my uncertainty.

When you come to church and you see there's somebody who doesn't know

anybody, just come and, uh, yeah.

Just say, Hey, are you new?

If they've been here for 20 for, for a long time and you messed it up, it's okay.

You know?

Um, yeah.

I think that's it.

Humility and reverence was the only other thing.

That's what's needed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Such a strong word.

Humility.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Simon, you got some thoughts there?

Uh, yeah.

First thing, this is just might be a pet peeve for me, but if

you're having people over to your house, don't lock the front door.

I, I, I've just got, I'm, I'm actually related to people who even their biggest

event of a year, which is a Christmas thing, you come to the front door

and it will be locked and I'm like.

You know, we're coming and we're here.

Like, everyone's here.

There's 50 people out the back anyway.

Um, it's

a good, it's a good one.

Oh, just, just have it open.

Create a welcoming space, which begins from the street.

Yes.

Um, second thing is if you have someone move into your street.

I reckon the ideal window is the first 48 hours to welcome them into your place.

And I've done this badly and well.

Um, and I'll go with badly if I can.

Um, so had a new neighbor come into our street about seven years ago, and

I already knew this 48 hour thing, but.

I would see her occasionally as I was driving out in the front yard.

She's an older lady and I'm like Miss the moment.

Then got to like four weeks, five weeks, about six weeks.

I'm like, it's gotta happen.

And I'd gone for a swim that morning and I'm coming home in the car and I'm

like, Lord, this is the moment she's gonna be out her front watering her

lawn and I'm going to speak with her.

And I'm gonna have some questions for her.

My questions are, do you like doll?

Because I thought I can make her doll.

I can do that.

How do you take your coffee?

Okay.

And do you speak Italian?

That's selfish, that one.

Um, so anyway, I come around the corner.

Uh, her house is a bit blind.

As I come around that, around the corner off the highway, I come

around the corner and sure enough, she is watering her front lawn.

And so I almost break my neck getting outta the car to get across to her.

Introduce myself.

My name's Simon.

Her name is Donna.

And uh, I said, do you like Dar?

Oh, I love Dar.

Brilliant.

I'll be back with Dar later on today.

Um, how do you take your coffee?

I don't drink coffee.

I drink tea.

So I said, oh, I'll, I will have tea on your doorstep tomorrow morning.

Now, um, I might get back to that.

And she speaks five different languages from, she's from Luxembourg.

She also speaks Italian, has helped me with my Italian,

um, which is still very scant.

Um, but.

But I began putting tea on her doorstep every day of the week until such a

time as she went, I'm done with tea.

Can you start giving me coffee?

I'm like, yes, now we're getting somewhere.

But along the way, I've, I've been into her house a lot and I've heard

more of Donna's story, which isn't.

A, a sweet story.

It's a difficult story and most people when you get to know them, will also

share with you their difficult stories.

And hers was one of domestic violence and strange men and

a whole lot of tricky stuff.

And I found myself crying with my neighbor and praying for my neighbor, but then

also re reminding myself that what that began with is, do you like dial?

It didn't begin with, how can I pray for you and can we cry together?

It, it just began with the seeds of a relationship and um, oh, I

could keep on going about Donna, but

No, that's good.

Can I ask a final question just as we begin, 'cause still got

this little baptism of time.

Um, what would you say to someone who feels prompted to open up

their life, their homes to be an outpost for the kingdom of God?

If you were just to say one thing about.

Someone who's sort of jumping into that maybe for the first time, what would be

your maybe one thing you would wanna say?

One thing.

No believing, good intention.

It's always one

good intention.

Yep.

Yeah.

Uh, no, you've, this is too much, Adam.

Sorry.

I'll, I'll recap quickly.

Okay.

I think you have to know your own wounds because that's one of the things we come

up against when we go into hospitality.

Um, like it's taken me a long time to not.

No, shy away, like I've got good friends who will tell me, no,

that's not the truth about you.

Um, and then that encourages me to keep being hospitable, because what happens

is as soon as you feel rejected, then you have this tendency to pull back and to go

like, oh, maybe I won't be as hospitable.

Maybe I won't be as open to people as I, as I'd like to be.

And that's something that I think is a lifelong battle.

It, it improves, but then every now and again.

You get there.

And I recently had a dream and I feel like that dream was for the church.

I felt it was for me.

And then I was like, no, this is for the church.

I dreamt I was at a sports field, like it could have been either

hockey, soccer, whatever game you like to play, but for every position

on the field there was at least four or five people for each position.

And I thought, and most of them were young adults and I was like,

Lord, there's no space for me.

Where, how will this work?

This is chaos.

And then the next moment I just saw this looked like a cricket ball coming

at really high pace and I just stuck my hand out and the ball ricocheted of

my hand and missed the goals by inches.

And it happened twice.

And my first reaction was, why couldn't I just catch the ball?

Why didn't I do this?

But I think the moral of the story for me was there's always room.

For you, you know, for, to keep the enemy from scoring a goal in the church.

You know, even if you can just stick your hand out, you know, if we are

building bridges and we are building the kingdom of God, if you think of a

natural bridge now, how many people work on construction sites and we think only

a few people are needed in the church.

To be hospitable.

Yeah.

Um, and then my last thought is as let our tables at home, point to his table.

So going back to that, you know, it's like just giving a glass of water points back

to the cross, the breaking of the bread.

They come, come to the table each day.

They were added to their tables.

That is what this is all about.

Mm-hmm.

Erica, you crushed that.

That was beautiful.

So look at the wounds that you carry.

Yeah.

Um, there's always a place for you to have some level of involvement.

Yeah.

And point back to the father's table.

Point back to

the, that's great.

That's what it's about.

Simon, do you wanna add anything to that as a final?

Oh, a bit of contradictory advice.

Um,

it's

okay.

I've noticed that about you.

Yeah.

Um, lower the bar, but make an effort.

Yeah.

Um, and, and that is if we lower the bar so much, we just become apathetic

and we never actually do anything.

Um, so.

But the lowering the bar is of the space of maybe excellence,

which we might be attached to.

And we're all gonna deal with something a little bit different in

growing, in practicing hospitality.

And if you are a perfectionist, it will be, my house isn't perfect,

so no one can come into it.

Yes.

And you may be the opposite end of that.

And your house is a hovel and you don't even care.

Um, but so, so.

Make a bit of an effort because you want to create a welcoming space,

but practice and also be a front foot initiator of this stuff, and, and part

of that is the risk of rejection and all.

All I can say about the risk of rejection is face up to the fact

that it will happen, and that one rejection is not the reason.

To cease practicing hospitality because that's part of who you are.

So continue to do it even though someone mightn't be ready

yet to receive hospitality.

And I just found it interesting this morning when I was thinking

about this, the words that are used attached to hospitality, it isn't give

hospitality, it's extend hospitality.

It's welcome.

It's, and, and it's not a, it's relational.

It, it's a. Yeah,

it's an

invitation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So good.

So thanks for that comment about the front door unlocked.

I've always carried a bit of attention in that in myself, like, you know, when you,

when your life's vary with people, I know my home needs to be like a sanctuary, but.

We know an unlocked door is not just a welcoming sign to

the person coming in, right?

But it's also a massive sign to the internal of your own heart to

say, my house has an open door.

And I think that's an important thing.

I need to like take on going.

Oh yeah.

Actually our house is an open door and that's okay.

Yeah.

And I serve a unshakable kingdom, everybody.

So therefore, uh, I'm secure.

Even in the face of rejection, I'm secure.

Because I'm, I'm a part of an unshakable kingdom.

Have to say that.

Graham, this guy over here.

Yeah.

Graham to my house the other day and I'd come home, we'd all come home

through the garage door into our house and our front door was open, but the.

Flyway door security door, yeah.

Was locked.

And I said, come in.

He's like, I can't, the door's locked.

And I'm like,

Bob Ball.

So good.

Lemme just pray for us and then we're going do a quick time of baptism.

Father, thank you for every single one of us today, as we're all on this

journey of discovering what it is to.

Open lives where our homes, our lives, our tables would be places,

uh, for kingdom outpost, kingdom work.

Father, if it's a step forward in, in a small way, that each of us have

to take Lord, lead us that way, help us to, uh, face the hurts that we

carry, that we would become people who are whole and ready to extend

the invitation, uh, to welcome.

To help people be seen.

And also thank you Lord, that this is so rigged.

'cause we get to be seen as well.

And we're not just the ones who are giving here, we, there's so much that

we receive in the midst of all of this.

So thank you for the two way street that is hospitality.

And Lord, I pray, father, that you would help us to move in that direction

if there's things we need to let let go of, to renounce, to, to discard.

Lord, help us to see what those things are in order that we can step forward with.

With Gospel Kingdom Hospitality, help us to do that in Jesus' name, amen.