Sermon Title: Community = Hospitality Pt2

Jesus’ evangelistic Strategy

His mission: seek and save the lost

His method: eating and drinking

“hospitality” comes from the Greek philoxenia = “love for the stranger.”

Hospitality is about expressing the welcome of God through tangible acts of love; practically through giving food, shelter and relationship.

“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice Hospitality” Romans 12:13

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” 1 Peter 4:8-10

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:1-2

“Radically ordinary hospitality - those who live it see strangers as neighbors and neighbors as family of God. They recoil at reducing a person to a category or a label. They see God’s image reflected in the eyes of every human being on earth…Those who live out radically ordinary hospitality see their homes not as theirs at all but as God’s gift to use for the furtherance of his kingdom. They open doors; they seek out the under-privileged. They know that the gospel comes with a house key.” (The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World” - Rosaria Butterfield)

It is good to be reminded that the table is a very ordinary place, a place so routine and everyday that its easily overlooked as a place of ministry… At its base, hospitality is about providing a space for God’s spirit to move. Setting a table, cooking a meal, washing the dishes is the ministry of facilitation: providing a context in which people feel loved and welcome and where God’s spirit can be at work in their lives. Hospitality is a very ordinary business, but in its ordinariness is its real worth,…whatever it looks like, your table is a sacred place. “Eating Heaven: spirituality at the table” - Simon Cary Holt

Additional Notes