The Church of Eleven22 - S02E04 - Offer Hospitality to One Another without Grumbling

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

In this episode, Pastor Joby talks about the fourth "one another" in this series: Offer Hospitality to One Another without Grumbling, and what that means for our relationships with others. This "one another" is referenced in 1 Peter 4:9 in the Bible.

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Hey, church family, welcome back to the deepening divo. We are so glad that you're tuning in once again. And we've got folks tuning in from really all over the country and even the world. And I especially want to welcome Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Carroll is in her 90s and is unable to attend her local church anymore. And so she has been tuning in with us online for the weekend services and then also to these debos about the one another. So welcome, Ms. Carroll. Glad you're here. The one another that we're going to talk about in our time together today is found in 1st Peter chapter 4 verse 9. And it says this, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. That's all for hospitality to one another without grumbling. Well, if you were in church

this weekend or if you tuned in online, you know that this week we talked about Jesus turning water to wine. And we talked a whole lot about the reason behind that, partly was because Mary, his mom, went to him and said, hey, Jesus, you've got to do something about this. But the reason that Mary was so concerned is because hospitality in that culture was a really, really, really big deal. It was a high honor culture. And so it would have been thoroughly embarrassing for the host of the party to run out of wine at the wedding. Now, again, we've talked about it, but there are some folks that, especially Baptist, this makes you really uncomfortable, right? What would Jesus do when the party runs out of wine? I know he gets more wine. And so my grandmother was thoroughly convinced that this

wasn't wine, this was like Welch's grape juice. But the context makes it very, very clear that this was just wine, like good old-fashioned wine, fermented wine. Because if it wasn't wine, then it doesn't make any sense for the host of the parties, say most people give out the good stuff first and save the cheap stuff at the end when everybody's had enough to drink. You don't have enough welches to drink. And also, when the Bible says don't be drunk on wine, you can't get drunk on grape juice. So this is regular old wine.

Now, this is not a devo about should you or should you not drink wine. Some of you should drink none. some of you should drink way less. Quite honestly, some of you should have a drink because you would just relax a little bit. But again, you're getting off topic. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about hospitality.

And so Peter says in 1. Peter 4.9, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Now, with that in mind, here's what I need you to know. When Peter writes his letter, he is writing to a people, and he's reminding them that we are but temporary, residents of this place. He calls them elect exiles. And ultimately, what he wants them to know is the end is near. Now, he's got to come back later and say, when I say near, you can't put a timetable

on the Lord, because with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. But if the end is near, Peter is saying, then how should we live? And in the first century, there were lots of different takes on how we should live with the east. in the near. The Pharisees, who we see show up in the New Testament all the time, their take was to be separated from this corrupt culture, and they wanted to be so separated that they would be the first ones to recognize God because of their holy living. Well, my grandma used to always say, too, some people can be so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. Turns out, this is what the Pharisees were. Now, there were another group of religious people, and they were called the Sadducees. Now, the

Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. That's why they were sad, you see. Now, I know that's cheesy, but you'll never forget it for the rest of your life. And because they did not believe in a resurrection, they thought, well, we might as well make the most of it here and now. So eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we may be dead. And so they didn't turn away from culture. They immersed themselves fully in culture. And the problem with that is there was no distinction between them and the culture. and there was another group of people called the Essines. And the Essines, their response to the fact that the end is near is they wanted to take over politically. And in fact, Peter comes from this group of people called the zealots,

that they thought that the answer was, if we could just restore the nation of Israel here on earth, then everything would be better. And then Peter meets Jesus. And Jesus changes everything in his life. And Peter realizes that there is another kingdom that we are citizens of, and it's not just kingdoms of this planet, because this planet is temporary. And with that in mind, he writes these words in 1st Peter chapter 4. I'll pick it up in verse 7. He says this, the end of all things is at hand.

Now, stop right there. What he's saying is it's not time to play around. It's not time to mess around with the temporary things of this world, to just get caught up in whatever the latest Netflix show is to binge watch and what kind of want you're not getting or to just dilute ourselves with entertainment and those kind of things. He's saying, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, in other words, how in the world should you and I be living with the end in mind? If it is true that at any moment Jesus could return, how should we live? And then what Peter is going to do is he's going to give us instructions on how we ought to live with the end in mind.

And I don't even mean like the end of your career or the end of your life. I mean the end of the world as we know it. And here's what he says. Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. In other words, don't get caught up in emotionalism or over-indulgence, but be sober-minded, be self-controlled for the sake of your prayers. And then he says this, above all. And any time the Bible says above all, you want to pay close attention to this.

He's saying the most important thing that you can do is this. Ready? Keep loving one another earnestly. Now, there's another one of our one-in-others, one of our 59 one-in-others. And we need one-an-an-other to one-and-other. And what Peter is going to do here is, I want you to see it, like the banner over all of his following instruction is details on how you and I are to keep loving one another earnestly. And here's how. He says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly

since love covers a multitude of sins. So I don't know if you're taking notes on this, but you might write down the word forgiveness. Because when we love one another earnestly, a part of the manifestation of our love towards one another is this, is forgiveness. Because when we receive the unconditional forgiveness of Jesus Christ towards us, then what that means is when we love others as Christ has loved us, then there will be a whole bunch of forgiveness. So the way he says it is, since love covers a multitude of sins. And then we're going to get to the one that we're looking at today. He says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Now, what do you think of when you think of

the word hospitality. I usually think of dinner parties and doilies and candles that smell different and lots of different forks and different knives. And if that is our definition of hospitality, then it would be clear to all of us that I do not have the gift of hospitality. In fact, when I was in college, I had one fork, one knife, one spoon, and one plate. That was it. Because I was thinking my roommates lying about, I didn't use your fork and I didn't use your plate. So I threw all of them away except one. I had one of each, okay? So I was not even able to host a dinner party. And even today, even though I get to eat at nice places and all of that, that sort of decoration on the table and what the centerpiece, I think that's what it's called, that stuff means almost nothing

to me. Well, if it means a lot to you, praise God. That's great. We need people like you to keep our world beautiful. And if it doesn't mean anything to you, I've got really good news. That has nothing to do with what hospitality means in the first century. Again, hospitality was crucial in the first century, okay? It was very expected. It was almost demanded. But the word here, hospitality, it comes from, it's a Greek word where they took two Greek words and jammed it them together.

Xeno, filo. Zeno means outsider and filo means like brotherly love. So when he says show hospitality to one another without grumbling, what he is saying is this, what Peter is saying is this, in light of the fact that the end of all things is at hand. And in order for us to love one another earnestly, what we really need to be doing is trying to get some more one another's. We need to get some people that are not a part of us yet to be a part of us.

And the way that we are to do that is we show hospitality to one another without grumbling. We show love to the, outsider and don't complain about it. In fact, like, you remember the parable of the needy neighbor that Jesus shares? And the point of that parable is how much God loves us. And what he was saying is, you understand how big hospitality is in our culture. If somebody got up in the middle of the night and they knocked on the door and said, give me some bread, I've got a neighbor coming over, even if you didn't want to get up as the neighbor who had a neighbor in need, if he just kept on knocking because of his persistence, he could convince you to get up and you can meet that guy's need.

And he's saying, in prayer, how much more does God want to meet your needs if you would just go to him in prayer? That hospitality in the first century was that big a deal, but it doesn't just mean that you host a party. Like, it doesn't mean that you just call all your friends over and that you can throw one heck of a party because your tailgate and your barbecue is better than everybody else. That's not what biblical hospitality is. Biblical hospitality is, biblical hospitality is, when we show that kind of love, not to the people that we already know that are on our inside, but that kind of hospitality is when we show love to the outsider, the people that don't believe like us or think like us or vote like us or go to church like we do. And so he says,

show that kind of love hospitality to one another without grumbling. He goes on to say, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. Now we're going to come back to serve one another in an upcoming week. But here's what he's saying. Part of the way that you could, part of the way that you could love the outsider, part of the way that you could show hospitality, one of the ways is serving at the local church because our church is a movement for all people to discover a deep in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you have the gift of singing, you should sing. And if you have the gift of preaching, you should preach. And if you have the gift of standing in front of a door looking pleasant and handing somebody a worship God, then you should do that. And in doing so,

what you're doing is showing love to the outsider. That is hospitality. But it's not just in God's church, and it's not just in God's house, it's also in your house. He says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. As good stewards of God's varied grace, whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that everything God made may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory and dominion. forever and ever. In other words, we all have a gift and we should be using it for God's glory and for the benefit of those around us. So I think most of you, if you're watching this, you have a home. And it may be a cruddy little apartment with a futon as your kitchen table.

I don't know. Or it might be a mansion. But either way, every single one of us has been given a gift of a home and a table. And I want to challenge you, this week to show hospitality to one another. In other words, this week, I want to challenge you to invite somebody over that's not like you, that's different than you, that doesn't believe what you yet, and that you would demonstrate the love of Christ towards them by inviting them into your home, not just your friends and close family, but this week that you would invite somebody over that one has never been at your table and doesn't look, think, or believe like you. This is what Peter's saying.

In light of the reality that the end is at hand, show love to the people that are not on the inside of God's family. In fact, Jesus says it this way in Luke chapter 14, he says, 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. others 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 cripple, 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. So, we live in a divided nation these days. Let me tell you what is not going to make the difference. it's not going to happen from the top down.

The difference is not going to be made in the White House. The difference is going to be made when believers like me and you make changes in our own house. And even though our church is growing in diversity, and I praise God for that, the goal is not that the rooms on the weekends look more diverse.

The real goal is that the living rooms and the members that make up the church look more diverse. And I mean, whatever kind of diversity you want to say racially, economically, socially, politically, whatever. So 1122, I challenge you, I challenge you to be hospitable to one another this very week without grumbling. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you that you are hospitable to us, that you love the outsider.

In fact, you loved us so much that you exited eternity and you stepped into human history. and you didn't just come down to establish a religion or some kind of religious rituals, but in fact, your invitation is to come into our lives, sit down at the table with us, and eat with us and us with you. And God, as you have loved us in that intimate around the table kind of way, may we show that same kind of hospitality, that same kind of love to the outsider that you have shown to us. I prayed in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for joining us for Deepen with Pastor Jobi Martin.

If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit co-e-22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.