Christian Hospitality
Luke 10:38-42
James 2:1-4
The most important thing you can do in serving the Lord is not serving the Lord. Living for Jesus is more about “being” than “doing.”
When I was a student at Central College I had a classmate who was an outstanding student. After he graduated from College he became a principal of a Junior High School in Shawnee Mission Kansas.
When I graduated from Asbury Seminary he called me and told me that he had talked to the Kansas Superintendent of the Free Methodist Churches in Kansas and received his permission to invite me to become pastor of the Kansas City, Kansas First Church. After some days of prayer we finally accepted. What challenged me was what he said. “We don’t have a pastor and the church may have to close if we don’t find one.”
I served five years in Kansas City. My second year my college friend became the Director of our Sunday School. He was also active in working with me to raise funds to build a new parsonage and church. He told me he would do all he could to serve the Lord since he could not afford to tithe and give any of his money to support the ministries of the church.
Years later I talked to his wife at a Central College Class reunion and she told me that she was no longer married. Her husband had left her for another man. He was then serving as Superintendent of School in the Leavenworth, Kansas area. He was willing to serve but he did not service from a heart of love for the risen Lord.
The story found in Luke 10:38-42 is about the priority of “being” rather “doing.” Two sisters demonstrated hospitality in different ways.
In this story we see that Christian Hospitality is about heart-felt ministry.
Christian Hospitality first welcomes Jesus into your heart.
I. Welcome Jesus into Your Heart
“Mary sat at Jesus feet, listening to what Jesus taught.” Luke 10:39
Christian Hospitality means just that. Out of a heart of love for Christ and others we invite people into our homes for fellowship. Martha had the gift of hospitality and she invited Jesus into her home for dinner and fellowship. Martha had the gift of hospitality and when Jesus arrived she continued to prepare the meal for her guest. Jesus didn’t criticize her for her service.
Mary may have started helping her sister prepare the meal and then when Jesus came she left the kitchen and sat at the feet of Jesus listening to his teachings. Martha must have felt abandoned and called out to Jesus, “Lord is it no concern to you that my sister has left me to serve alone?”
From a human point of view, Martha had a legitimate complaint. But Jesus made it clear that “being in His Presence” and being a fully devoted disciple has precedence over doing good works.
We shouldn’t be too hard on Martha. She didn’t know Jesus was only going to have a short three year public ministry. If Martha knew that Jesus was not going to be with them for a longer time she might have also set at His feet listening to his teachings.
Jesus looked at life from a Kingdom perspective. We tend to look at life from a human perspective. We tend to put the task or activity over the importance of heart felt relationships. We get up in the morning and look over our to-do list and determine that we have too much to do and need to skip our time of devotions of Bible reading and prayer.
Jesus is waiting in the devotional room quietly while we plunge into a frantic lifestyle. Jesus would remind us to keep the main thing the main thing.
In John 4 Jesus traveled with his disciples through Samaria. It was lunch time so the disciples went into Sychar to get lunch. Jesus stayed by Jacob’s well outside of Sychar. A woman came to the well for water and Jesus engaged her in conversation. Jesus was more interested in talking to the woman about eternal and moral issues than he was in eating. In talking to the Samaritan woman Jesus crossed all kinds of cultural and gender barriers.
The disciples were more interested in satisfying their hunger needs than delaying personal gratification and listening to a Samaritan woman living a sinful lifestyle. The disciples had a hard time understanding the response of Jesus when they asked him if he wanted lunch. Jesus said, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Jesus was telling Martha that good preparation and eating are important, but not of greatest importance. Jesus emphasized the importance of spiritual things over material things.
The reason I’m emphasizing the value of daily Bible reading and keeping a Spiritual Life Journal is because to Jesus, welcoming him in your heart and taking time for His Word take priority over all your good works. Jesus knows that good works and ministry naturally flows from a heart ablaze with the love of God.
Like the family of Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany we should welcome Jesus first into our heart and then into our home.
II. Welcome Jesus Into Your Home.
Luke 10:38 – “Martha welcomed Jesus and his disciples into her home.”
Jesus had a great friendship with sisters Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus.
Jesus was happy to have a friendly home – bed and breakfast-- to go to. Families in Nazareth his home town rejected him. Religious leaders refused to befriend him. They were looking for ways to stab him in the back with accusations.
From the example of Martha we should welcome Jesus into our home and have an open-home attitude toward others.
Christian Hospitality teaches that people have priority over property. Relationships matter more than a neat and clean house.
Jesus was not impressed by a beautiful home, clever decorating, and gourmet cooking. Jesus is impressed with those who put him first and experience joy in serving Him.
By exercising your gift of Hospitality you have the opportunity to have a great influence for the Lord. Many people seeking God will be more apt to come to your home than to church. For many people being invited to dinner and fellowship with a Christian family is their first step toward becoming a Christ follower. A great way to get acquainted is around a dinner table or getting together at a local restaurant. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to their home. Take the initiative and invite someone to dinner or dessert.
III. Welcome all people into your home.
All people of diversity and cultures are to be welcome in our homes. The Free Methodist Church of North America has this mission statement:
The mission of the Free Methodist Church
Is to make know to all people everywhere
God’s call to wholeness
Through forgiveness and holiness in Jesus Christ,
And to invite into membership
And to equip for ministry
All who respond in faith.
There is no room for prejudice in the Kingdom of God. Jesus said that “God so loved the world…” No one is excluded from God’s love.
The Apostle Peter learned to confront his prejudice against Gentiles. Peter believed that God only loved Jews. To Peter, God so loved the world, and the world did not include Gentiles.
Acts 10 Peter is taught that God loves both Jew and Gentile. Peter said with conviction: “I see very clearly that God doesn’t show partiality. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” Acts 10:34-35
In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India. So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned to church again. He said, “If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain a Hindu.”
In God’s sight there is no caste system of race, culture or color.
The dictionary defines prejudice: “An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. A preconceived preference of idea, bias, Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion or culture.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “I have a dream” speech was giving a Biblical truth when he spoke on August 28, 1963:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self
evident: that all men are created equal.’ …I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and ever hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last? Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
James 2:1-4 declares: “My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes ands say, ‘Here is a good seat for you’, but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet’, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thought?’ “But, if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
We need to confront all our prejudices:
Intellectual—the educated should not look down on the
Un-educated
Gender – Genesis 1:26-28 states that “God created male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Together they are to rule over all creatures.
Galatians 3:26-28 – “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothes yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Age – young or old, all have value to God.
Disability – minor or severe disability they are equal in God’s sight.
Political – Democrat, Republican, Independent, labels don’t matter to God.
Socioeconomic – rich or poor are precious to the Lord.
Appearance – Whatever your shape or looks – God loves you and you are attractive to the Lord.
Racial – We all bleed red blood – all races are loved by the Lord. I John 4:20 “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”
Back in the 1950’s Billy Graham said, “Christians should be the ones most active in reaching out to other races.” During the 1953 Evangelistic Crusade in Chattanooga, TN ordered that the ropes separating blacks from whites be taken down.
We need to ask the Lord Jesus to search our hearts and see if there is any sin of prejudice there. There is only unity in the Body of Christ when all are treated equal and accepted as one in the Lord.
Christian Hospitality involves first inviting Jesus into our heart, then into our home and we should be open to all people of all backgrounds coming to our table for dinner and fellowship.
Hymn: “We are One in the Spirit” – They’ll Know we are Christians by our love” #284
