THE GOSPEL TO GO

Text: 1 Peter 4:8-11

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

1. Loving each other deeply includes offering hospitality to one another without grumbling.

“If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides…”

2. Hospitality is one gift we can use “to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
I.e. we have all received grace from God to serve others in various ways. Hospitality is a vital way we can serve one another!

The New Testament church was founded on hospitality. It started with Jesus sitting and eating with people that the ‘religious” would never associate with…

Matt 11:18-19, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ‘But wisdom is proved right by her actions.” (See also Luke 5:29-32; Mark 2:15-20)

Jesus gave people “the gospel to go” and then founded his church in the same way. It started at the Passover meal, and that’s the way it continued. In fact, every major event after the crucifixion happened over food.

1. Jesus proved He was really risen by eating food

Jesus gave the disciples on the way to Emmaus a Bible study that covered the Hebrew Scriptures: “he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

Luke 24:30-31, “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”

Acts 10:41, “He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

1. Jesus restored Peter and the disciples at a meal
   The disciples were very discouraged by Jesus’ death!
   John 21:1-14, Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast”

3. Jesus gave the great commission at a meal
Mark 16:14-16, “Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”

4. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit at a meal
Acts 1:4-5, “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

5. The first church did life together over food
Acts 2:46-47
“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Later in the Book of Acts, God uses food to reinforce the acceptance of everyone by the gospel ~ even the gentiles ~ even those we struggle with thinking that the gospel just might even be for them as well. You know, those same people that Jesus sat and ate with and received criticism about.

And so, let us follow the example of Jesus. Let us love each other deeply by offering hospitality to one another without grumbling, and use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace!