Sermon Series June 8th to June 22nd
Holy Hospitality
We want to make a difference in our world, but how? Jesus shows us a beautiful, simple, and powerful way to be the light: hospitality. Your very own living-room, deck, yard, or kitchen table can become the place of healing and hope, a true city on a hill. Hospitality has always been the foundation of the church because it makes space for proximity, friendship, and living out the Good News of Jesus. Pour a drink, pass the salsa, and know that Jesus is there with you, too.
Go Deeper: Resources
Our intention is to create or share resources to help people explore these topics in further depth. Here are a few resources you might find meaningful during this sermon series.
The Simplest Way to Change the World: Biblical Hospitality As a Way of Life - How can you balance daily responsibilities with your desire to make a difference to others? Willis and Clements help you be hospitable even if you "don't have enough space," get creative in order to make an impact right where you are, involve your church community, and open up your life while still setting boundaries.
Sermon Audio Files
Invitation to Hospitality
When God says, “you shall be holy” it’s a declaration. You will be part of my love. You will be part of my hospitable plan to make things right. You will relearn how valuable you are, and how precious your neighbours are, and how good your world is. You will be mine, my very own friend, child, beloved and welcomed at my table. You will open your door, once closed, with me, I’ll show you how, and we will once again be together, working side by side, to make all that is dark, bright. All that is dead, alive. All that is left out, welcomed at the table again. This is holiness. You shall be holy as I am holy.
Hospitable People
This is why Jesus is surprising to many. Those who met Jesus were transformed in moments of hospitality. He did what Israel was supposed to do, perfectly. He welcomed, ate with, drank with, and slept over in their homes. He was simply enacting the heart of God. Not a set of rules, but a life of open doors, long ago shut by Adam. This New Adam, Jesus, the perfect Israelite was inviting others to be children of Abraham, to revisit the hospitality of God. He was doing it under trees, around tables, in people’s homes.
Hospital(ity)
Our hearts were made to fit a Stranger-Loving Lord Jesus. The shape of our lives involves loving strangers with our own lives. It’s on the instruction manual for your life. Now I wish our faith could be a private affair, hidden and kept away from the unknown, found on a screen or in our perceived safety. But Jesus and the early writers of the New Testament did not see it this way. As long as our faith only welcomes the known, and keeps the unknown at a distance, we miss out on the promise. Even promises of entertaining angels.
Holy Hospitality
Jesus enters and his work becomes clear. He is nourishing us, restoring our heart, and making it a home. He transforms our hearts from a place of shame where we hope to always flee, to a place where we can live. When we start to sit with this more clearly, we see that our heart does not carry him, so much as his presence carries us. His presence makes our heart a home we can live in. What is he doing in you? What does it feel like when Jesus dwells in the home of your heart?
All the times you feel safe, true, kind, warm, and full of joy - it’s because he lives in the home of your heart. God is crafting moments of rest, so that you might taste it and enjoy rest that comes from him, alone.