Live Free with Josh Howerton - Vitality of Hospitality | Ep. 402 | Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Kitchens are what typically sells the house and what makes your house a home. When we share a meal, we are living on mission like how Jesus exemplified in Matthew 9. Today, ask yourself how you are hosting your table, who is welcomed into your kitchen, and who needs to be invited in. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hope your week is off to a good start and wherever you are. And whenever you're listening to this podcast, thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive.

My name is Bro, and yesterday we started a discussion about the value of being around the table together. It seems like Jesus was always around someone's table. And we read yesterday in Matthew chapter 9 how Jesus invited a guy named Matthew to follow him to leave his life as a tax collector for the Roman government and become one of his disciples. Then it says this in Matthew chapter 9.

Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. Now, when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with such scum? When Jesus heard this, he said, healthy people don't need a doctor. Sick people do. And then he added this. Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture.

I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. For I have come to call not those who think, they're righteous, but those who know their sinners. Now, did you catch that term sinner in those verses? In Jesus' day, sinner was a derogatory catch-all label for anybody who wasn't religious or someone who was involved in something like prostitution. So here's Jesus, this esteemed rabbi, actually God in the flesh, eating with the most despised and looked down upon people of the day. And I hope you're perhaps getting a more accurate picture of what God is really like through the person Jesus. Well, the Pharisees, the leaders of the religious establishment, were offended by this

scandalous dinner party, so they don't ask Jesus to his face. They pull a disciple or two aside. They say, hey, why does your teacher eat with such scum, these tax collectors, and all these sinners? Well, Jesus overhears them, or he already knows what they're going to say before they say it. And I don't know if this is the case or not, but I kind of picture Jesus with a mouthful of food responding with, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Now Jesus is not saying that the Pharisees were healthy, good people who did not need a doctor. He alludes to them, in fact, being lost in their sense of self-righteousness. He says, go and really learn what this means, that is our mercy, not sacrifice.

And Jesus is quoting the Old Testament, which the Pharisees were famous for knowing forwards and backwards. The Pharisees were all-stars at performing religious rituals. But while they were busy keeping all the rules, putting labels on people, they were ignoring the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. So Jesus is saying, you know what God says. He says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. But you don't really know what that means, because if you do, you certainly aren't living it out.

You see, Jesus was on a mission with his life, and the Pharisees just didn't get it. And this tension between Jesus and the Pharisees over who Jesus ate with is not an isolated incident. They were on him all the time about it. In Luke chapter 7, Jesus calls out their criticism when he says, the son of man, his favorite way of talking about himself, on the other hand, he feast and drinks, and you say, oh, he's a glutton and he's a drunkard

and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners. But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it. Now, the truth is, Jesus wasn't a drunk, and he wasn't a glutton, but he so frequently ate with people who were that he got accused of it, a lot. What we see in Jesus' life is that eating, being around a table with other people was important. It was integral to his mission. Jesus was, you might call him a missional eater. He blessed people by sharing meals with them. I like what Henry Nguyen once wrote, he said, when we invite friends for a meal, we do much more than offer them food for their

bodies. We offer friendship, fellowship, good conversation, intimacy, and closeness. When we say, help yourself, take some more, don't be shy, have another glass. We offer our guests not only our food, and drink, but also ourselves. A spiritual bond grows, and we become food and drink for each other. When we eat together, we're doing way more than simply sharing a meal. We're living on mission. You know, real estate experts will tell you the kitchen, man, that's what sells a house. You watch one of those like house hunter shows and they'll say, oh, this is my dream kitchen. I can see me standing here preparing where I can see everybody in the family room. I mean, the kitchen's a significant room.

People love to hang in the kitchen. I was talking with a single girl in her church staff who invited a bunch of friends and neighbors over, kind of through a Matthew party. She has kind of a cool, loft attic vibe in her little house, and she said, I could not get people out of the kitchen. I cleaned my entire place. I had candles going.

I fluffed the pillows on my comfy couches, and they spent the entire night sitting on the countertops. And I just think that says something about her. She has the ability, to make people feel at home. Just like with Jesus, people sense that she genuinely likes them, that she values real community. They feel like they can just be

themselves around her. Her kitchen feels like a place where they belong. They know that her fridge is their fridge. There's this famous study from Harvard, a very comprehensive study of the lives of 7,000 people over a nine-year period, and the study indicated that connection and belonging

is vital to life. In fact, the most isolated people are three times more likely to die than those who maintain strong relational connections. One of the leaders of that research, Robert Putnam, writes in his book Bowling alone, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half. Which is why we say around Lake Point Church, join a group or die.

I'm just kidding. We don't say that. But that is pretty staggering, isn't it? They also found that the value of community, the value of regularly being around a table with other people, was a stronger indicator of a healthy life than diet and or exercise. In fact, people who had bad health habits, but strong social ties, lived significantly longer than those who had great health habits, but no meaningful connection. Gang, the table, matters.

Who's around it? Matters. Hospitality matters. Kindness matters. Inclusion matters. Humility matters. Generosity matters. So who you're sitting with today? I pray you'll extend your table and open up your fridge and open up your life and just see what God does in and through you today.

I'll see you back tomorrow. Have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe. dot church slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out.