Luke 14:12-24 — "Kindom-Minded Hospitality Reveals God's Character" — Rick Graumlich

Open your Bible to Genesis chapter two.

Genesis chapter two.

So I mentioned how last week we were in 3 John, and Gaius was showing hospitality through the love of Christ, this hospitality rooted in the kingdom, a kingdom-minded hospitality.

And just to recap briefly there, we see in 3 John that kingdom-minded hospitality requires effort.

Kingdom-minded hospitality requires love.

It requires sacrifice.

And it requires humility.

It requires all of these things.

If we're going to be like Christ and show true hospitality, it's easy to invite into our homes people that we just naturally get along with, people we know well, people that we're just comfortable with, and people who are just like us.

That's an easy thing to do, but what we see in the New Testament, when we see in 3 John, when we see what the Lord calls us to, is to show hospitality in a way that's contrary in some ways to the world.

We're to strive in this, to labor in this.

And then what hospitality does is it puts on display some of the characteristics of the Lord and his attributes.

And this is why it's commanded to show hospitality.

Romans 12, 13.

Contribute to the needs of the saints, seek to show hospitality.

1 Peter 4, 9.

Show hospitality to one to another without grumbling.

That's, you know, sometimes we have people over and it's great, you know, but sometimes you're tired, or it's not even that I'm grumbling about the people we're having over.

I'm grumbling about my own children.

And what are they doing?

You know, what's going on?

And and why can't we, you know, just seem to be at peace and have people over and have like a 10-minute conversation without being interrupted?

You know, if you have kids, you you probably know that.

And so it's a good word for me and for all of us.

1 Peter 4 9, show hospitality one to another without grumbling.

Hebrews 13, 2 says, Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.

So it's a duty that we're called to do.

1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, both talk about the qualifications for an elder, and it talks about being hospitable.

It's a requirement.

He is to be someone who is hospitable.

So clearly the Bible, in there, there's an expectation that followers of Christ are going to be hospitable people.

Kingdom-minded hospitality does flow, as I mentioned, from the heart of God.

From Genesis, as we're going to see, to Revelation.

And we're just going to look at four passages this morning, four areas of Scripture.

But it's all throughout the Bible.

You see stories again and again of people showing what it means to help provide for and care for, to notice and give attention to people.

It's an effective way for us to communicate the character of God.

So first we here we see God in the garden.

Right in Genesis 2, verse 8.

Genesis 2:8

And the Lord God planted in a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the ground the Lord made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Verse 15.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the Lord commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat it you shall surely die.

Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper fit for him.

Verse 19.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all livestock and the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field.

But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh, and the rib of the Lord, in the rib the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman, and brought her to the man.

So here we see here just the beginning of Genesis 2, God creates this Eden, this paradise to be enjoyed, this place that's good.

Here, the relationships were good.

The relationships between Adam and Eve, the relationships between God and His creation, they were good.

It was to be enjoyed.

Even the work that Adam was given to do was good.

The work that Eve was given was good.

And there was rest in this place.

Even in the midst of laboring, there was rest.

And so we see that God creates this space to be enjoyed, to give life.

As you know, if you know your Bible, you know in Genesis 3, the very next chapter, all that is broken.

The unity is broken, the goodness is broken.

Death enters in.

As Genesis 3 tells us, the fall happens.

Adam and Eve disobey God.

And all those good things, the unity they had, the rest they had, the joy they had, the fulfillment they had, it's all God.

And now the whole world is trying to get back to the garden.

Your souls and my souls, in a sense, long to be back in the garden, in this place that God has created for us that's good, that's life-giving, that brings joy, that we were made for.

See, even as they had sinned, they something changed, and they knew something had changed.

Look at verse 8 of Genesis 3.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.

He said, Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten of a tree of which I have commanded you not to eat?

This openness, this transparency, this being fully known reality pre-fall was gone.

Adam knew something was different.

I hid, I was afraid, I was exposed.

I did not want you to see me for who I really am.

You might think, well, I thought this was like a sermon on like hospitality, just kind of baking some cookies, cleaning the house, welcoming some people in.

But what the truth is, is we're in our hospitality, in those things, what we're seeking to do, to the best of our ability to say, listen, this is a place where you can be known.

This is a place where you can share who you are.

Now, nobody is God, obviously, who can just not have any kind of sin issue or can hear and then give just perfect counsel and wisdom.

Even in our brokenness, though, we can model this.

We say you don't you don't need to be afraid to share who you really are.

You know, we're not judging you based on worldly standards.

We're not measuring you against the standards that you might have or you might think that we have.

Rather, we are inviting people to come and to share, to be known, to be loved.

Even in Genesis, we know that the Lord was gracious to provide for them, even after their sin.

Yes, they were cast out of the garden.

Yes, death did come.

Spiritual death came, and physical death would come.

But yet, even in their sin, in their rebellion, in their fear, the Lord provided.

Genesis 3 says that in verse 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them.

Maybe you've heard this before, but here, Genesis 3, in one chapter, we see this perfect unity, this paradise, gone.

Unity with the Lord, gone.

But yet the Lord begins to pursue.

Yet the Lord begins to provide.

And even here in verse 21, blood was then shed.

An animal was sacrificed for them, foreshadowing what would be to come.

So we have God in the garden showing his provision, his creation, his kindness.

We move to Ruth 2, and we see God in the wilderness.

And the story of Ruth happens in the Bible during the time of the judges.

This is a time when there's this lawlessness everywhere.

We went through Judges in our CG several years ago.

Um, and Dan often likes to remind me of how we should never do judges again because it's just depressing.

Um it kind of is.

It's just a cycle, again and again, of wickedness and wickedness.

And someone was righteous, and then the wickedness and wickedness.

The people God had provided for them.

He brought them out of Egypt, had given them the promised land.

I mean, just again and again and again, God shows them his faithfulness.

And in the season there is this wilderness.

What are these people doing?

What's going on?

They're not obeying the judges they have.

Most of the judges they have are wicked, and even the righteous ones don't last very long, don't make much progress.

And yet, here in the midst of all this, there's a story about God providing, God caring, God loving his people.

See, Naomi had a husband and two sons and two daughter-in-laws.

Her sons died, her husband died, and one of her daughters goes back to be with her family.

Understandable.

But Ruth stays with Naomi.

She says, I'll go where you go.

Your God will be my God.

And Naomi's like, there's nothing here for you.

I don't have any more sons.

There's nothing for you.

But Ruth was committed.

She stayed with Naomi.

Ruth is in a foreign land, Ruth and Naomi, and they come back.

Naomi comes back and to her homeland, which is now Ruth for Ruth, a foreign land.

And we see the Lord's provision here in chapter two.

Ruth, this Moabite, said to Naomi, Let me go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain after him and those whose sight I shall find favor.

And she said, Go, my daughter.

So she goes out and went and gleaned in the fields after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.

And something you need to know about Boaz is he was viewed as a righteous man.

He was a man of means.

He had authority.

He was able to provide protection for Ruth.

There's all kinds of weird ways that people in our culture can take this story and do weird things with it.

But the reality, what scripture is telling us, is Boaz had heard of Ruth's faithfulness.

He said, I've heard of you.

And how you had cared for Naomi.

So he made sure that she was safe.

He made sure that she had what she needed.

And had even more than what she needed.

It's amazing how the righteousness of Boaz protects Ruth.

I think one of the things that we think is as Christians is we want to be a righteous people.

But even in our hospitality, whether that's our home or caring for people in our congregation or knowing people, is our righteousness, part of that is us providing for them.

Now that might be physical tangible, like we see here in Ruth.

That might us say, hey, you know, this person has need for food and clothing.

We don't want to be the wicked people who say, go and sin no more, but hope you be well fed and all those things.

We want to be a people who are righteous.

We do unto them as we'd hope others would do unto us.

We do unto them what Scripture has commanded us to do.

So we trust the Lord.

And what Boaz was doing in this story is he was providing for Naomi, he was providing for Ruth.

And he was providing protection as well for them.

And then look at verse 11 of chapter 2 of Ruth.

But Boaz answered her, All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me.

And how you left your father and your mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.

The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under those wings whom you have come to take refuge.

Look at verse 12.

The Lord repay you.

This is what I love about showing hospitality.

Is as Christians, it's our job to do this.

What Boaz is saying is the Lord repay you.

He doesn't just then sit on the sidelines and say, all right, let's just see where that's going to come from.

Boaz is the one who steps in.

Boaz is the one who understands his role.

But he doesn't say, Well, Boaz is going to protect you.

I will make sure that you're good.

I'm the one who's going to do all these things.

He's looking to the Lord because what does he understand?

All good gifts come from the Lord.

Every resource that Boaz has that he can provide protection, provide food, and help Naomi and Ruth has been given to him, entrusted to him.

And so he takes these good things and he provides for others.

Even in the wilderness and in foreign lands, God shows kindness to people.

See, Boaz was a righteous man.

But listen, it wasn't because all of his friends just said, Yeah, we think that Boaz is a righteous man.

No, no.

It was because according to God's standards, he was a righteous man.

If you know the story, you know that Boaz goes on to redeem Ruth, to marry her under a covenant, and that he is the one who then becomes a permanent provider for her.

As Brother David prayed, it is a wonderful foreshadowing of the Lord's kindness and coming to us and being our Redeemer.

And you live differently if you understand yourself to be redeemed.

Right?

You live differently.

We see the Lord's hospitality also in the Gospels.

When Jesus is walking the earth and he gives us a parable in Luke 14.

If you can turn to Luke 14 in your Bibles, Luke chapter 14, Jesus gives a parable.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

And keep in mind that Jesus is showing hospitality.

He's modeling it.

He's providing food, bread.

He's breaking bread with others.

He's making provisions for these things.

The Lord shows hospitality.

But here Luke 14, God in the flesh teaching us how we're to show hospitality.

Luke chapter 14.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse 12.

He said also to the man who had invited him, When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

But he said to him, A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many.

And at the time of the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready.

But they all alike began to make excuses.

The first said to him, I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it.

Please have me excused.

Very polite.

And he said, Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I have to go examine them.

Please have me excused.

And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

So the servant came and reported these things to his master.

Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and lame.

And the servant said, Sir, what you have commanded has been done.

Still there is room.

And the master said to the servant, Go to the highways and the hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.

For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.

Jesus is teaching a people who know what it is to hold a banquet, know what it is to show up and to kind of get it with your buddies and kind of show off your your wealth and all these great things and the food and the linens and all that stuff.

But he's saying, listen, if you're gonna be like me, if you're gonna be like Jesus, you're gonna be followers of the kingdom or in the kingdom, this is what it's gonna look like.

You're gonna go to those who wouldn't you wouldn't first invite.

There are many people who, when given the opportunity to they hear the gospel and given an opportunity to respond, they say, that's that's that's good, and I will do that.

But let me first go fill in the blank.

Let me finish college, let me get married, let me kind of enjoy my twenties, let me save enough money, let me whatever.

And full with full intentions, with full intentions that, yeah, I will I'll get to heaven because I will follow Jesus eventually.

I'll show up eventually.

And what the kingdom of heaven is like is those who don't deserve to be invited to a banquet, those who are outcasts, and yet the Lord has come for them.

He's come.

And yet there's room.

There's always room in the kingdom.

And so, in our own hospitality, it's nice that we have people at home or we get to know people, we show them provision and care and all those things.

But if we leave out the message of the gospel, if we leave out this most important reality that Jesus.

Jesus Christ is real and he really came and he died for our sins that we might have life and be with him forever.

And not only that, but he is the only way.

And it's good.

We can be as kind and hospitable as we want.

We can throw all the parties, we can invite all the strangers, we can do all those things.

But if we leave out the gospel, we have done a great harm.

We've forgotten the most important thing.

Because listen, there is still room.

There is still room.

What Jesus is getting after in this parable and in chapter 14 is the self-righteousness of the heart.

We're gonna surround ourselves with those who are like us, those who are make us comfortable rather than going after the lost, the downtrodden, those who have different political views than we do, they have different moral values than we do.

Inviting those in that we might share the goodness of God with them.

And this is what we see again and again in in in the Gospels.

Jesus going to the lost.

And I think it's there's a regular knock on the church in our day and age.

You see, Christian, this is the the accusation, kind of the slander comes something like this.

You see Christians gathering in their buildings every Sunday, but Jesus was going out.

And he was going out to sinners, and he was going out to prostitutes, and he was eating with them and spending time with them.

I just want to encourage you to frame this correctly.

Jesus was always at the temple, always obeyed the commandments.

Likewise, when we gather on the Lord's Day, on Sunday, our gatherings are primarily for believers.

Now, hopefully, in our preaching, in our fellowship, we know there's people in who gather with us who are not Christians.

And not only are we happy they're here, we encourage them to come and be here.

But what we're doing here is gathering as saints so that then, like Jesus, we scatter.

We go, we go to our homes and our neighborhoods, we go to our places of work, these areas of influence, and there, like Jesus, we share the gospel.

Does it make sense?

So if we're showing hospitality to one to another, praise the Lord, that's great.

We need to do that.

But if we're but if that's all we're doing, if that's the end of what we're doing, then I don't think, church, we're being faithful in showing hospitality like God shows hospitality.

We're not doing hospitality the way that He's called us to do.

So we must be faithful, knowing, yes, there is room in the kingdom, and we have a message that matters, and we're gonna share that with others.

And then we see God in all his glory.

Look at Revelation.

Turn to Revelation 19 if you can.

Revelation 19.

It's always fun getting into Revelation.

You never know what you're gonna find.

Well, you know what you're gonna find, you just don't know what people are gonna believe about it.

Revelation 19, the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is verse 6.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, like the sound of money, peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exalt and give him glory.

For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready, and it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.

For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, Write this blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

These are the true words of God.

Blessed are those, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

What a blessing.

If you're a Christian, this is gonna happen.

You will be a part of this literal meal.

You will be there.

You are invited, and it will be glorious.

We will be with our Creator, we will be with our Maker.

It will be wonderful.

And then there will be this the new heavens and the new earth.

Look at chapter 21, verse 1 of Revelation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more, and I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God, and I will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

And he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.

And he said to me, It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty I give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Revelation 22, 7 gives us this encouragement and this warning, and behold, I am coming soon.

Blessed is the one who keeps the words of this prophecy, of the book of this book.

And so here we are, in between Genesis 2 and 3, and Revelation 19 and 21 and 22.

We have a God who has invited, who's created all these things for us.

And they were good and they were wonderful.

It's what we were made for.

And sin came in and destroyed and broke all those things.

And yet God provided.

Yet he welcomed us in.

Even in through all the wilderness, God provide for his people.

He was faithful to provide for them.

Even through Christ's coming.

The first Advent, Jesus came and died on the cross for our sins.

And he compels us to go and be hospitable, to share the good news of the gospel, and likewise invite others to show hospitality, to show provision, to show mercy as he has shown us mercy.

Because there is coming a day where Jesus will return and he will set all things right.

And this reality that the bride will be perfected.

The bride is the people of God, the church of God, his bride has been invited.

And his bride could not come to the feast in rags.

His bride could not come to the feast with sin, marked by sin, stained by sin.

So, in order for the bride to come to the feast, the bride must be purified, must be cleansed.

And that's what Jesus has done for us.

Because we've been invited.

And now we will come and we will partake of this marriage sufferer of the Lamb, the church, us walking, dwelling with God again.

Chapter 21 of Revelation, when it says in verse 3, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

This does not elevate mankind.

This doesn't make, wow, we're really special.

God wants to dwell with us.

No, he has chosen us, he's come for us.

And we're special because he says so.

He will dwell with us.

So this longing that Revelation talks about with creation.

The longing we see all throughout the old covenant, all throughout the new covenant in the Bible.

We see it in our own lives.

We look into our neighbors' lives, our friends, we see this longing to dwell with God again.

We might view that as it's just kind of human nature.

We want to dwell with God.

But no, we've been made for this.

And we will dwell with God again.

And what a joy that in our hospitality, in this effort to show, like Christ, like God shows, that we're loving, that we're caring, that we meet needs.

We're seeing people for who they are.

And we're loving them as Jesus has loved us.

One of the most freeing things of the gospel is that it's not by works.

You can't work your way into it.

And why one of the things that's that does in our heart is it then it makes us and compels us to show that kind of love to others.

We don't get to turn around and say, well, I worked my way into salvation, and you need to do your bit.

You need to buckle up, you need to double down.

No, it creates this joy and this excitement.

Like we didn't deserve this, but God has lovingly lavished his grace on us.

And I want you to know about this.

And I want you to know about this.

And you need to understand that he loves you.

He's not loving you after you've done all these things, he's loving you now.

And his love is going to change you.

So even in our hospitality, our homes, to gather on the Lord's day, the way that we interact with people, what we're trying to tell them is they matter because they're made in the image of God.

God has come for them.

And there is a feast coming.

There is a banquet coming, and we want them to be there.

So we're going to love them.

We're going to show them God's mercy, and we're going to preach to them the truth of the gospel.

Church, let's pray.