Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast.
Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others.
We're glad you're here and we hope you enjoy this message.
Hey man, if you died tonight, do you know where you would go?
This was my question to a random stranger at the Tyler Mall as they were walking out of a
clothing store with what I could only imagine was a nice new outfit for the weekend plans.
And I can't even begin to think about what he was thinking in his own mind.
Like, die tonight, bro.
I just bought some new jeans.
But surprisingly enough, this would be a question that I would sometimes use as an opening
line as I was sharing with people what faith in Jesus was like.
Now, as I think back to that time in my life when I did what was kind of referred to at
the time as street evangelism, I can only imagine that there had to be other ways to do
this, and I share that brief story because I know I'm not alone in this.
I would imagine that many of us today are at some level very oblivious or unaware as to
how we share our faith.
We struggle to know what to say or how to share, especially in a time when evangelism just
feels terribly out of style.
Like today, no one likes to be evangelized to, whether it ishares in the Bahamas essential
oils business plan or Jesus of Nazareth.
And those who are most found often speaking God's truth in love, are very confrontational
and seemingly unloving.
So what do we do with evangelism?
Because let's make no mistake about it, it was very much a priority of Jesus.
He summed up his entire mission as this the Son of man has come to seek and to save the
lost.
And then when speaking about his Father in heaven, he said, man, there is more rejoicing
in heaven over one sinner who comes to repentance than 99 who don't.
So the lost were and are a priority of Jesus.
Lost for him.
I think when Jesus uses that word, he's describing people who are outside of relationship
with him.
Lost, meaning people who are actually searching for a home.
Lost people are not bad peOple.
Lost people are not less than we are.
Lost people are looking for safety.
They're looking for a place to go.
Loss is that feeling in the pit of your stomach you get when you know that you have lost
your directions and your spouse looks at you and says, Fredo, do you know where you're
going?
No, I don't.
Right.
Lost it.
I think Scripture uses loss as a word of compassion and not condemnation.
And so when we take a posture and say the world is lost or culture is so lost, let us say
it with a tone of compassion and not condemnation.
Which is why we're addressing this topic today.
Because often, if we're willing to be honest today and take a deep breath in, we are
oblivious as to how we share our faith.
So much so that we often kind of stumble and even mumble our way through evangelism.
Which is why Barna, a number of years ago did this research in which they titled it is
evangelism going out of Style.
And they said in this study that 100% of Christians agree with the statement that they
believe they have a personal responsibility to share their faith with others.
But only 69% of Christians agreed that during the past twelve months, I have explained my
beliefs to someone who had different beliefs than me, in hopes that they might accept
Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Which means, if you're doing the math, there's a 31% gap between what people say they
believe and what they actually do.
We all have this gap, and I think that's because for a number of reasons.
One being in previous years, it would have been common for social norms to be the king,
right?
And so the individual was required to kind of conform to social norms.
Not so today, the individual self is king or queen, and the rest of the world is meant to
conform to me.
Which means then one of the most universally agreed upon moral rules today is simply,
don't evangelize anyone.
No one's in a position to tell you or I what I should be doing with my life, so that if
someone does feel like you are telling me what I should believe, then you are committing
one of the few sins left this culture still agrees on.
Which now leaves us in a difficult place, torn between two realities.
One being the priority of Jesus to seek and save the lost, and the other being that
evangelism, if we're being honest, is just kind of strange and weird, and we are often
unaware of what we are doing.
So that if you're like me, when I started following Jesus, there was a part of me that
genuinely thought I needed to join Jesus's PR team and now start doing public advertising
for God, as if God needs more advertisement.
I don't know if that's the case, but what ended up happening was to share good news in a
very spiritually open, yet religiously skeptical, Internet educated, deeply distracted
culture.
Felt like me sharing Jesus was just very bad product placement.
A lot like when I'm at home on the couch, enjoying my favorite Hulu show, only murders in
the building.
And there's this scene where it hits you, and you're like, oh, my gosh, we're about to
discover who the murderer is.
And then it cuts to an ad for a medical cream that's going to help deal with your rash,
and you're like, hey, yo, that's not for me.
At least I don't think it is, right?
So I don't know what the Hulu algorithm is saying about me, but it just feels terribly out
of place.
Our methods of evangelism oftentimes feel like an attempt to get people where we want them
to be and not where they're actually at in life.
Yet meeting people where they actually are, at least to me, seems like a more genuine
expression of God's love.
Because, after all, did he not meet you and I where we actually were, not where he wanted
us?
And so where do we go?
For many of us, there's option one, which is to privatize Jesus, and that is to create a
clear disconnect between your private life and worship and your public life and what you
do with other people.
Option two is to normalize Jesus, almost just to communicate.
Man, me following Jesus is so normal in culture, as if God is in heaven, pleased with our
ability to disguise following Jesus like he's really, really cool, and we almost project a
kind of Christ like coolness rather than a Christ like sacrificial love that is somewhat
surprising to our world and culture.
And my pastoral concern today is that we are more concerned, myself included, with living
a comfortable life, choosing a normalized Jesus, rather than something that actually
catches people off guard.
And so my option and our consideration today, as we are ending our series, oblivious, is
to go back and embrace a practice that Jesus actually modeled for us together.
And to do that, we're going to read from Luke, chapter 19.
And so I'm going to ask, wherever you are at today, if you are willing and able, that you
would stand with us for the reading of God's word, and then I will pray for us.
Luke writes these words, Luke 19.
You can join us there if you got a Bible.
The sermon note app.
Luke says this, Jesus entered Jericho, was passing through.
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus.
He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd,
so he ran ahead, climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him.
Since Jesus was coming that way, when Jesus reached the spot he looked up and said to him,
Zacchaeus, come down immediately.
I must stay at your house today.
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter, he has gone to be the guest of a sinner.
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my
possessions to the poor.
And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.
Jesus said to him today.
Salvation has come to this house because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.
This is God's word.
Let's pray together.
Spirit of God, in this moment, we ask now that you would speak as we have heard your word.
Would you now speak to us?
And as Jesus said, would you give us ears to hear and eyes to see, so that we might become
what we are not yet in Christ?
We pray these things in his name.
Amen.
Before we continue in our message, I want to let you know that this message is shared with
you today because of people who give and support the work and ministry of Sandals Church.
If you'd like to be a part of that work that we are doing, I want to invite you to go to
donate SC but for now, let's get back into our message.
Thank you so much.
You guys can be seated now for all kinds of reasons.
You guys know this.
Sunday schools love Zacchaeus.
At least they love to act out the story and sing the song, right?
Zacchaeus was the wee little man, we little man that climbed a tree.
But when you think about the story, is a scandalous story.
Why is that?
Because nobody in Jericho liked Zacchaeus, which is, I think, why it's so fitting that
thousands of years later, millions of people would be reading the story about him.
God seems to pursue the people that you and I just despise and would rather forget.
God makes sure, as we remember.
Now, here's the thing.
Zacchaeus was a tax collector, identified there in the text in Jericho.
Here's what you got to understand.
Historically speaking, from our best guess, Jericho was a generally wealthy city and
community, which means he was collecting taxes, not from the poor and taking little, but
he was collecting wealth off other wealthy people.
If there's anything we know about shows like succession, it's that that does not go well
for you.
But he was a tax collector, meaning that he would go door to door, or he had people
working for him who would go and enforce Rome's tax so if Rome charged 50%, which for even
us in California would gasp at, he would add a little extra to the top.
Let me take 60, 65, or 70, and then he would have the Roman muscle to back that up and
enforce it.
So he was doing well for himself, which is why he was despised by his community, which is
why I think Jesus, when he goes into this town and everybody is there, Zacchaeus is
looking for a spot to see him.
He's likE, no, I'll take the man in the tree.
The short man knows him by name.
Surprisingly, that's the one thing in this text that I've been thinking about.
Like, I wonder how he knew the man's name.
Zacchaeus, come down from there.
But I think this is why Zacchaeus, in his interaction with Jesus, is so clear.
Lord, half of it goes to the poor and whatever I have taken fourfold in return.
So he's already embodying this kind of repentance.
Though people still, in that moment, despise him, yet this is the kind of person that
Jesus loved to eat with.
Let's make no mistake about it.
Jesus regularly found himself relaxing in the company of the wrong sort of people.
And somebody just ask us right now, who's on the bottom of your moral ladder today?
What side of the political aisle do they sit in?
What's their story, what's their sexual orientation?
What's their ethnic background?
And imagine for a second Jesus eating with them, saying to them, you now are in my family.
This is a son of Abraham.
He's welcomed him in.
He's made him new.
He's saying, you are in the family of God.
How does that make you and I feel?
The Jesus that we love, the Jesus that we're excited to see, is now declaring that over
someone we despise.
Notice his language there today.
Salvation has come to this house over a meal.
You see, sharing a meal in this day and age meant a whole lot in the New Testament.
A meal was a way to bring people together, and it was also a way to segregate others, so
that being welcomed at a table for the purpose of eating food had become a ceremonial act
that symbolizes both friendship and intimacy, so that even estranged people who were not
on good terms, like you beefing with someone, a meal would be the act of reconciliation.
It was the offer of peace and forgiveness.
To share a meal was to share life with someone, and this was the tradition that all of the
ancient Near east had practiced.
Hospitality was important, dating all the way back to the days of Abraham.
You can see that in the text he hosted God and some angelic Figures were told, right.
And this was Jesus'primary way of being with people.
So much so that historians would argue that what got Jesus killed was the people that he
ate with.
Tim Chester, in his little book, A Meal with Jesus is a great read, says that the Son of
man came to seek and save the lost.
That was Jesus'mission.
But then he says, the Son of man came eating and drinking, and that was Jesus's method.
Right?
That's how he did it.
So here's the point.
Jesus brought people into the kingdom one meal at a time.
One meal at a time from the text.
Zacchaeus, come down immediately.
I must stay at your house today.
Now, what's amazing is that this is a pattern and a theme, a picture, if you will, that
Luke paints often throughout his gospel.
In fact, we're told that almost 50 times.
There's references to Jesus and food in John.
I'm sorry, Luke chapter two, Jesus was born in a feeding trough, almost to symbolize that
he's going to be food for the whole world.
Then in Luke chapter five, we read this.
It says then Levi, who Jesus had just called to follow him, held a great banquet for Jesus
at his house.
And a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his
disciples.
Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Then in chapter seven, we see Jesus at the home of a Pharisee.
He's keeping it fair.
He'll eat with anybody.
And he's there with Simon, giving an astounding message.
If you're not familiar with the story, you got to read it.
In chapter nine, we're told he feeds 5000.
Miraculously, in chapter ten, he's at the home with Mary and Martha.
They're preparing a meal.
In chapter eleven, he addresses religious leaders starkly over a meal.
In chapter 15, we get the parable of the prodigal son in which the Father welcomes his son
back.
And guess what?
They throw a feast.
In chapter 16, Jesus tells a story of a rich man who was eating like a king while a poor
man named Lazarus was begging for his liFe.
In chapter 19, what we just read, Jesus invites himself over for dinner.
It's kind of a faux pod today.
In chapter 22, he has a last meal with his disciples, what we commonly refer to as a
Lord's Supper or communion.
Then in chapter 24, after the resurrection, we're told that Jesus broke bread with a
husband and a wife, and then went and found his disciples and he asked for fish.
Apparently, rising from the know works up a bit of an appetite.
Getting the mail for me gets me hungry, right?
Robert Keras, a New Testament scholar, said it like this.
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is either going to a meal, coming from a meal, or at a meal.
I like that kind of Jesus, a Jesus who was eating all the time.
I can follow him 1000%, right?
But this is who he was.
He walked people into the kingdom of God one meal at a time.
If Jesus had a method of evangelism, this is what I think it was.
If you find yourself in your regular life right now with people who are culturally
religious, in other words, they have a background in God, they know something about
Christianity, then you get as many of them in front of you and you preach.
You preach like you're Pastor Matt.
But if you are with people who are hurt, skeptical, unsure, came from a bad background,
want nothing to do with church or religion, then you break bread with them.
You open your home, you meet them at lunch, at the workplace, right?
You crack open a bottle of wine, you make small talk, you listen, and you really listen to
them.
Not just, oh, Christians got to listen today.
People are going through a lot.
No, you really listen to them.
And you learn what it's like over a meal to meet people right where they are at and not
where you think they should be.
That's what it means.
To be oblivious today is to be unaware of where people are actually at.
Sandals church.
No more.
No more of that.
Because over a meal, you can begin to invite them in to experience the normal life that
you now enjoy with God.
They get to taste that literally over food.
In the New Testament, this very act of eating and drinking with the lost is referred to as
hospitality.
Here's my thought.
Hospitality is a powerful way to share my faith.
Let's think about the word for a second.
Philoxenia.
Can you guys say that?
Philoxenia.
Philoxenia.
All right, you guys did your best.
Yeah, hopefully at the campuses, you guys did better.
It's a compound word, philo, meaning love.
Xenos meaning stranger or outsider, guest or foreigner, even immigrant.
It's the love of the stranger.
Now, a common word we hear today a lot in our culture is xenophobia, which is the fear of
the outsider, the fear of the stranger.
So philoxenia is the welcoming in.
It's literally the loving of the stranger.
And so if I were to define hospitality for you, I would say it like this.
Hospitality is the practice of welcoming in our neighbors through relationships, safety
and food, in the same way God has welcomed us.
Now, when you think about it, hospitality is first a posture of the heart that then leaks
out into your calendar, your budget, your time and your relationships.
And so a worthwhile question for us is this.
Where in your life are you marked by hospitality?
Where.
Where in your life would you say there's an openness to you in which you welcome in
people?
Or at least you try to make a habit of being open and aware and welcoming to people who
are around you?
Because make no mistake about it, hospitality is an essential practice of being a disciple
of Jesus.
Listen to the New Testament, Paul, real easily and short, says it in Romans twelve.
Practice hospitality.
That's it.
No qualification.
Practice hospitality.
The word practice there means to do something with an intense effort, with a kind of
definitive purpose or goal in mind.
How about first Peter?
Above all, he says, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.
What a statement covers over a multitude of sins.
How do we do that?
Listen to what Peter says.
Offer hospitality to one another.
And then I think he threw this line in there for the introverts without Grumbling.
Because if you're anything like me, I've become more aware in my life that I have a word I
use when it's time to end things.
And I'll be like, all right.
And I'll do a little knee slap.
I'll kind of stand at a distance.
And it's a social cue that y'all need to leave, right?
And so I feel like that is a special phrase just for me, without grumbling.
Or like, another family of mine, member of mine.
I won't mention his name because he does attend Sandals Church, and he's actually great at
hospitality.
But my favorite move of his is he'll literally just fall asleep, even with people still at
his house.
He'll do his job.
He'll host you so well, and then he'll just knock out.
And then that's your cue.
Okay, I guess we're leaving now.
But he is amazing at hospitality.
He actually really is.
But I also love these words, Peter goes on.
He says, each of you should use whatever gift you have received.
Sorry.
Whatever gift you have received to serve others.
Listen, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.
How about this crazy one from Hebrews 13?
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.
Okay, kind of got that.
Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers.
For so by doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
That's bizarre.
I went to seminary.
I still don't know what that means.
Right?
But then later on, Paul, in writing to Timothy, will go on to offer him a list of
requirements for your elders in your churches.
And on that list of requirements is hospitality.
Now, I think about that, and I say to myself, man, I have rarely heard of a church kicking
out their pastor because he was not a hospitable person.
Like, we're well aware of the scandals, the abuse of power, the sex issues in church when
it comes to its leaders.
But, man, not a lot has been said about, well, this pastor lost his job because he don't
open his door.
But there's something to be said there, I think.
And even in my own life, as I think about where this is coming up, man, I owe so much to
My wife Ashley, because you'll rarely see her up front.
You'll rarely see her in front of a lot of people.
But she has a beautiful posture in welcoming people, in making them feel seen, asking good
questions.
She's amazing at it.
I get drained.
I'm so nervous before we host something and she's ready to go.
She's so good at it.
I'm grateful.
It's one of my favorite things to watch her do is just to be hospitable to one another.
I also think of this very well known author.
Now, her name is Rosaria Butterfield.
This is part of her story.
At a time in her life, she was a far left feminist academic, and she was doing research at
the time as to why Bible believing Christians are a problem in society.
And so for part of her research, she attended a men's conference.
And then she wrote in the local paper a scathing review of this men's conference.
A local pastor read the review and wrote her back and said, hey, I liked your words.
He was thoughtful, he was kind, and then he invited her over for dinner.
And in her words, she experienced the love of God expressed through hospitality.
That's how she came to faith.
She goes on to share more of this story and many others alike in a book she wrote called
the Gospel Comes with a house key.
And as far as I can tell, I think one of her strongest prophetic words for the church
today is that the LGBTQ community has done a much better job at being hospitable than the
church has over the last several years.
And oftentimes, the church is oblivious to the issues in the world are first often rooted
in the fact that we didn't address it in the first place.
So you wonder why they got to talk about it in society.
You wonder why these things got to be addressed elsewhere is because the church has failed
to act first.
We got to recover this act mainly because I think hospitality recoils at reducing a person
down to a label.
That's what it means to be oblivious to one another.
But rather, hospitality gives us new eyes to see that the image of God is on every single
person.
And they are worthy of our welcome.
They absolutely are.
And so I believe wholeheartedly that hospitality for our church can be a remedy for our
oblivious posture towards others around us.
Today we need this word, sandals.
And I even remember hearing a woman critique Christians.
It was just on her phone.
I think it was on TikTok.
I saw this and she had just said, yo, Christians, why would you invite me to your church
if you haven't first invited me to your home?
And I think that's a question worthy of our reflection today, because you and I, I would
imagine, would be very surprised at what God would do if we welcomed people, if we opened
our doors.
There's a world renowned Australian chef who's a Christian.
His name is Simon Kerry Holt.
He wrote a book in 2013 called Eating Heaven.
It's a great title, Eating Heaven.
And in there he writes these words.
It's good to be reminded that the table is a very ordinary place, a place so routine and
every day that it's 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 welcomed 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.
Listen to his words.
Your own table is a sacred place.
Your table is a sacred place.
I hear those words and I begin to think to myself, if what he's saying is true, then that
means the gospel pairs very well with my mom's enchiladas and with sourdough bread and
with a nice red cab or a cup of coffee or pineapple curry or patsy, you, or pizza or top
ramen or barbecue or overnight oats or however you get down.
Right.
Imagine what can happen at the table with people who you and I first identify as
strangers.
Imagine there's a young man here at our church named Matt, who I'm discipling, spending
some time with, and over the last several months he's been processing how he can be a bit
more intentional at his workplace.
And what he did was so beautiful.
He started just saying on Fridays in his office, like, yo, I'm going to eat lunch in the
break room.
Fridays, I guess, is a day where a lot of their employees got to be in the office, which
sounds like a terrible day to be in the office.
But he just said, hey, open invite.
If you want to have lunch, we can have lunch in the break room together and just talk.
And sure enough, over time, small talk life combos eventually turned into spiritual
conversations.
So much so that one person joined him at church and another actually joined his community
group.
Now, I share this story because, man, as much as I love Matt, he's just like one of us at
this church.
In other words, I'm saying this to tell you any one of us can do this.
And I want to address some of you who feel like, nah, it's not for me.
Because I think maybe, just maybe, you're still envisioning hospitality as a kind of
entertainment where you got to host this grand party and it's got to be just massive and
you got to be Martha Stewart and you got to have a 5000 square foot house.
That's not it.
And Martha Stewart wasn't really it for me either.
Who I got down with back in the day was a lady named Barefoot Contessa.
Anyone know Barefoot Contessa?
Man, I love me some Barefoot Contessa.
She would cook this meal.
She's like, I'm going to meet my friends on the beach for a picnic.
I was like, man, she could have been a Tia of mine or somewhere.
Man, I love Barefoot Contessa.
But don't envision hospitality as entertainment.
Your home doesn't got to be that fresh off the modern minimalist vibe that everyone's
going for today where everything is white or black or tans and you got the perfect fig
plant in the corner, right?
No, your utensils don't even got to match.
That's not hospitality oftentimes.
Because if that was, listen, if that really was, that would write off the majority of our
college students who are at places like UC Riverside, CBU, RCC.
That would write off People who still live at home for various reasons.
We don't get into that right now.
That would write off most of the poor people that are church.
That'll write off most of you who eat top ramen or microwavable dinners.
Entertainment, when you think about it, is about how you can climb the social ladder by
who you invite at this party, entertainment is focused on you.
Like this holiday season, I can't wait to go to that friend's giving.
Oh, I hope I get invited.
I want to be in that group.
But hospitality is outward focused.
Hospitality is about service.
It's not about what you gain, but what you offer this person.
And there's a more mutual giving and receiving in hospitality.
That's what's happening here.
This is what I love about, like, he forced himself to Zacchaeus'house, like, today.
I gotta come over, bro.
I don't know if you're ready, but I'm coming over.
And oftentimes when you see him at people's houses, the lines are blurred between host and
guests.
He's almost doing both, which I think is very true about God.
We welcome him in, but then we only come to realize that he's the one who's actually
welcomed us in.
Right.
And when you think about it, hospitality is the birthright of the church.
Historians would argue that hospitality was the primary way Christianity grew in its first
few hundred years.
From 100 plus people in a room unsure what to say and do in the beginning of acts to just
300 years later, it is the dominant religion.
So much so that Constantine feels political pressure to become a Christian and make
Christianity the state religion.
Guess how that happened?
Hospitality, the worship of Jesus.
His name was known when Caesar's name ended.
There's pagan Gods listed in the New Testament.
No one knows their name today, but we still name Jesus'name.
And they did this with no big church buildings.
They did this with no mics.
They did this with no sound systems, no Internet, no religious freedom.
In this day.
There was no celebrity pastors to attract it, make it look real cool.
There was no InstagRam followers to green like man.
How do they do this?
The gospel spread from one table to the next over food.
Is this in view yet for you?
This is absolutely central to following Jesus.
Now, here's how I think we can do this.
As I welcome others in, I can do three things.
First, I can ask about their story.
When you host someone, whether it's at home, over coffee and the lunch break, ask about
their story.
Who are they?
Where are they from?
We are much more than just our gender identities.
We're much more than our voting background.
We're much more than our past, right?
We're much more than what our staff review might say.
Ask about their story and understand that the table closes the gap of proximity and it
helps shut off what you and I are oblivious to in one another.
And a meal surprisingly, is, as one author calls it, a language of care.
So that it creates a disarming moment in which someone's able to feel safe enough to begin
to tell you who they actually are.
Like, what's going on in your life, bro?
Tell me what's up.
Let's have a meal together, ask about their story, and do so at the table and be amazed at
what happens.
Because I promise you, it becomes harder to judge someone that you now understand.
It's easy to judge people who we don't fully understand, but when you invite them in,
something profound happens.
Secondly, this is credit to my boss.
This was his thought was, you listen my way to the gospel.
Listen my way to the gospel.
In other words, as I welcome others, I can listen my way to the gospel.
What do I mean by that?
Well, instead of stressing about all the little gospel points you got to make, like, all
right, we'll start with God.
Sounds good.
Get a Bible verse, we'll get to sin, right?
Sure.
There are great tools.
I'm not knocking tools, hear me?
Well.
But oftentimes you got to know and understand what tool is needed for what moment.
I'm not bringing a weed whacker to fix a toilet.
Number one, I don't own a weed whacker and I know how to fix toilets either.
So that's not even a personal iLlustration.
Right?
But certain tools are required for certain moments.
If you have listened well enough, you begin to listen your way to the gospel and you're
relieved of the pressure to feel like you got to say everything right about Jesus.
Let me just say it like this and we can wrestle with it later in an email.
But I think if you are saying anything about Jesus, what he said, what he did, you are in
fact sharing good news because everyone today is preaching good news.
So don't be worried that you're going to preach good news.
Everyone's preaching good news.
Whether it's the good news about justice, sexual liberation, democratic socialism, the
good news of Christian nationalism, the good news of the benefits of coal plunging, right?
We're all preaching good news somewhere.
So anytime you are sharing something about Jesus, what he said or what he did, you are
preaching good news again.
We'll wrestle with that later.
Just email me.
But man, listen your way to the gospel.
A number of months ago, we had some friends over to the house and we were just hanging out
at the fire pit, having some snacks, nice glass of wine.
The kids are running around and playing.
And at one point someone that was there said, hey, can you explain to me this phrase.
And the reason why they said that was because they had noticed the rest of us were using
this phrase a lot.
And it was a phrase that actually Jesus.
It's like a quote from Jesus.
And they just simply said, hey, can you explain what that means?
And of course, in this moment, I'm like, oh, my God.
Holy spirit moment.
Here we go.
This is a gospel opportunity.
No, I just said, oh, yeah, shoot.
Yeah, let me explain it.
And so I just started to walk through, you know, as a spouse, even though you know what
you should do as a spouse, at the end of the day, you always don't want to do that.
Or even as a parent, there's a party that knows what you should do as a parent.
But internally, you know, you really don't want to do that.
So what Jesus is saying is that we need an invitation.
We need someone to break through that and to actually change us from the inside out simply
over a question.
And I didn't have to worry about getting to all the points, right.
I just listened my way to the Gospel.
And then lastly, as I welcome others in, listen, now I can share honestly what Jesus has
done in my life.
Do you realize people easily share about the things that have captivated their affections?
Like, it'll take you 2 seconds to find out.
I like the Lakers, except not right now.
We're on a breakup.
Every season I go through a few breakups right now.
We're currently on a breakup.
We're creating space.
I'm waiting for their apology letter, and then we'll reconvene.
But we naturally share things that we like, things that we're into.
And so sharing your story, sharing honestly, honestly, what Jesus has done is not about
trying to convince your coworkers about exclusive truth claims at happy Hour.
That's not what's going on here.
But it's just being completely honest about your breakthrough spiritually and your
breakdown spiritually.
Just be honest about what's going on in your life and what Jesus is currently doing.
Like, I can be sharing with someone and just say, you know what, man?
Recently, I've been rushing.
I've been incredibly short with the people that I love.
I've been in a mood, and I have forgotten just to pray because I don't know about for you,
but for me, prayer is a way to slow down.
It helps me realize that I can't ultimately be in control, but God is.
Now, notice in that moment, I didn't say, well, the ontological argument says that God is
da da.
No, we haven't got into the uncreated being who created all things, right.
We're not into the argument of necessity.
We're not into any of that.
We can get there eventually.
But I'm just trying to explain the role that prayer has in my life, and we'll go from
there.
There is nothing manipulative about this.
So share honestly what Jesus has done for you in the way that you once were lost.
And just like Zacchaeus, you showed up and God had a meal and was ready to serve you and
was ready to declare salvation over your life and was ready to work in you.
This is the practice that is really just a continuation of what he started.
And I got to tell you, in a culture right now that is so noisy, distracted, bored, sad,
and hostile, I can't think of a better environment than to share the gospel with the lost.
And over a meal, it is a safe place to offer the love of God in a way where someone feels
safe enough to be who they authentically are.
So this last point about sharing honestly is you being you.
You just be you.
Jesus loves you.
You love him.
You are imperfectly following him.
Just be yourself.
Now, even right now, I know there's a temptation to allow the excuses to win.
Well, my house is messy.
I live in a dorm room.
It's too small.
I don't know how to cook.
My roommates are not fun people.
My kids go to sleep really, really early, and when they do, they sound like demons.
Right?
Our furniture is old.
I don't shop at IKEA, or I do shop at IKEA, and I don't like it anymore.
We can sit with excuses, or we can make a change.
Right now, with a welcoming power of God, we can begin to make a change and say, you know
what?
Things are messy.
I'll clean them up.
I don't know how to cook.
I'll learn a recipe.
I'll microwave something.
I'll buy.
I'll doordash something.
Right?
You don't need a seminary degree.
You don't need to have the picture perfect like house or family.
You don't need to have an answer for every hypothetical question they will ask you about
creation or evolution or sexuality or what Jesus really meant when he said this.
Breathe.
Go out if you need to, and find a tangible way to express the love of God over food.
No agenda.
It's just you.
Because at the end of the day, when you think about what the gospel it is, the gospel is a
story about a God who infinitely loved us so much that he moved into our neighborhood, and
he welcomed us in.
And through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we can be transformed by his
welcoming love and move to a position of freedom, of life, of life.
So good.
Everything here is just an appetite of what's to come.
And then you can, in that same moment as you have been welcomed in, you turn to your
neighbor and you welcome them in.
I can't think of what we can do better as the holidays are right around the corner, two
weeks away from Thanksgiving.
That's bizarre to say for some of you all, like, dang.
But then to have an attitude of hospitality with our neighbors, to shed the wall down of
being oblivious and just saying, let me welcome you in, as God has welcomed me in.
Let's pray that together, heavenly Father, in this moment we come to you.
And God, would you, through your spirit, stir in us the reality that you have brought us
in?
And like Zacchaeus, you have declared salvation over our lives.
You have called us children of Abraham, and though people might despise it, you love us.
You've brought us in.
And so would your welcoming, sacrificial love transform us to become people of
hospitality.
As we eat at your table, would we invite others to ours?
We pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
Amen.