Themes the last few weeks
-
Judgement as an invitation to repentance
-
Repentance as the gateway to Kingdom of Heaven
-
Radical Hospitality
- A response to everything else
-
The keys to a growing spiritual life is the discipline of hospitality
- Hospitality is the key to a community of faith unlocking the Kingdom of Heaven
Hospitality
- It is hard. It’s really easy to have a closed posture and decide who is welcome at the table and who is not
- If Jesus condemned people when they kept others away from the Kingdom of Heaven…every time…then it would behoove us to stop doing that.
- When we identify people that we think shouldn’t be at the table, we should repent, pray for ourselves, pray for them, and then practice radical hospitality
“I think a mature Christian is someone who is very difficulty to offend.” Dallas WIllard
Christians get offended so easily…why?
Could you imagine how our world would change if Christian people decided that at any cost we would be hospitable to anyone we find in front of us?
Grace is for everyone: any person who has ever existed at any time
Welcoming people to the table isn’t a begrudging action, but something we should be doing with grateful and glad hearts.
- We do this because Jesus is Lord
- If we proclaim that, then the only response we should have when Jesus offers an invitation to us, is “Yes”
Luke 14:25-33 (NIV)
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
- These parables speak against the worldly pursuits of more and bigger and better (consider construction costs) and expanding empires (army and peace)
If we aren’t clear about the patterns we keep that are rooted in brokenness, then we will continue to be steeped in brokenness
- Know what forms you, and know what shapes you, and instead of doing that, love the kingdom of God rather than that.
- That’s “hate”
Jesus invites us to love people more than we love standards
“If you sit at Jesus’ table, the one thing you can longer be is the same.” Jonathan Odom