Dennis Tuuri

focus, but I’ll read verses 1, 2, and 3. Please stand up for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 13:1-3. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers. For by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Help us to understand it. Help us to be transformed by it. Help us to think about your character today, your grace, mercy, and hospitality. And make us a hospitable people. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. I’m mindful of my time constraints today. I was asked by one of our youth from Kings Academy this week, “Pastor Tuuri, could you please keep it short?” And you know, normally I wouldn’t like that, but I did like it because it was spoken so respectfully and because in a very real way, what many of you will end up doing with the rest of the afternoon is kind of what this text is about.

So, you know, hopefully as we go to our times of recreation, being welcomed into people’s homes who are our hosts and some of us being hosts and others guests, hopefully this text today will transform us a bit and help us to enter into that knowing that this is a good thing God is having us to do. We’ve got kind of a fairly simple text today, but maybe not quite so simple. It really is not in its first instance the basis for modern day prison ministries as an example.

You come to this verse, you think, okay, let’s talk about a reformation prison ministry. But that’s not quite what’s going on here. So we’ll talk about that in a little bit. I’ve chosen for the young people a little thing, the story of the Good Samaritan. Another text that kind of throws us for a loop. We think we know the story. We go back and read it. It’s not quite as we remembered it. The guy laying on the ground in that story—on that cartoon image here or the coloring page image—he’s not the Samaritan. The Samaritan is the guy befriending him. The question is, “Who’s your neighbor?” Jesus says, “Love your neighbor.” And the guy says, “Well, who’s my neighbor?” And Jesus says, “Well, a guy gets robbed, you know, and gets beaten up. And a priest and a Levite come by. The guy’s on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. He’s in Israel. And there’s some interesting stuff we could talk about Jerusalem and Jericho.

Well, it’s kind of interesting. We could talk about that. We’re not going to. He’s going down, going down to the country. He’s laying there. And the priest, the Levite, goes by and doesn’t help him. And the Samaritan does, the outcast does. You know, there’s a big picture here going on, of course, of Israel. I think the person on the ground represents Israel going from Jerusalem to Jericho, from blessing to curse, down on the ground. And it won’t be the Levites and the priests who will help Israel out. It’ll be the Samaritan.

Not really. Jesus isn’t a Samaritan, but he is an outcast. But it’s a good example to us of the need to be kind to people. And it’s a reminder, too. The particular story—the person that we’re being kind and befriending in that coloring page—is actually a member of Israel, right? It’s not somebody from outside. The Samaritan is the one doing the befriending. But now the Samaritan is acting as a good neighbor.

So it talks about their obligation to Samaritans as well. So there’s lots of stuff going back and forth. And then in a way that’s what this text is about—kind of this guest-host thing and a back and forth and a sympathy and an empathy. You know, it’s interesting. After this we’ll get to marriage and then after that in the context of marriage, sexual sin. And you know, the Christian church gets it—seems like all a lot of times—all we’re talking about, you know, politically or culturally is sexual sins.

And I don’t know what you confess this morning as you came into the worship service of God, but I would bet that more often than not, it has to do, if you’re not married—even if you are—with sexual sin or maybe with marital sin, not treating your wife or your children correctly, your husband, your kids, not treating your parents correctly. All that’s good and proper and that’s what we’re coming to.

But in terms of importance, you know, we’re frontloaded in this application stuff. In Hebrews 13 there’s some different kind of stuff. Stuff that we normally—at least I don’t—I don’t know about you—I don’t normally, you know, confess to God my lack of hospitality this week and the fact that I didn’t have people in as a guest and didn’t. And I don’t normally confess that I wasn’t, you know, receiving hospitality either.

But it’s a two-way street. You know, if we’re going to love our brothers, it means we got to be able to be loved by others, right? If we’re going to minister to other people, it means we got to be open to being ministered by them. And we have trouble both ways. And yet we don’t typically think of it that way. Now in the newspaper this week, you know, there’s a great illustration that pertains to this text because we have now the Islamic people rioting because of cartoons.

And just on the radio this morning, I couldn’t believe it. I turned on the Jeff Croup show. Just—I’m kind of an information junkie. When I’m in the bathroom, I turn the radio on and it’s on 750 and Croup is talking about the poll: Is Christianity the religion of peace or is Islam? And 75% of Christianity—and he said he definitely thought Christianity was—and you know, if you think about the last couple of days related to what these religions come from.

Jesus Christ came not primarily to kill people. He came to transform their lives, to reach out and touch somebody. And you know we just sang all these songs about how God is kindly affectioned toward the strangers, which are us, the Gentiles, right? Cut off from the promise or referred to as strangers to the promise in the Bible. Like textually talking about loving strangers. Well, so God befriends us. And Jesus, you know, ultimately we sing that song: you know, the kingdom of God comes not with a lord’s swords loud clashing or stir of rolling drums. With deeds of love and kindness the heavenly kingdom comes. And that’s true, and that’s what this text reasserts to us today.

We talked last week about deeds of love and kindness to our brothers being essential to the apologetic, or the demonstration of the truth of Christianity as part of our evangelism, right? We save the world by living in community correctly and by befriending—what this text tells us today—strangers and taking care of prisoners, etc. That’s how it works. That’s what Jesus taught. And on the other hand, you know, we’ve got Islam, and how it began was, you know, Muhammad was kicked out of one city, gathered an army, came back and killed all those people. That’s how it started and that’s how it continues to play itself out. It’s a religion of force or power. And now, you know, power and force is good. There’s times we have to engage in warfare. That’s proper. But ultimately, you know, it’s our resolve to hospitality, to kindness, to deeds of love and kindness that ultimately going to win the war.

I mean, I guess we could say in terms of the illustration before us this morning that it’s the resolve of Uncle Bob. You know, instead of these great military men, the other Bobs are—I mean, they’re great guys. I’m not putting them down. But ultimately, the word of God tells us the most important thing are deeds of love and kindness. And it’s important to be able to squeeze off around when, you know, people are sinful and war is on and all that stuff, and defending our country or the Christian faith, whatever it is. But that’s not how it progresses. It progresses through these verses here in front of us.

So I’d ask you to, if nothing else, resolve to apply these things and you know, be hospitable, bring people into your home like that, Robert. And there’s other resolution that’s called for as well. But that’s what this text tells us, and that’s what this big picture in the papers is telling us. And people see it, you know, to have a politician like Jeff Croup say on the air on KXL, a secular radio station, that Christianity is a religion of peace. Oh, that was interesting this morning. It’s just interesting.

What was history this week? This week about how much of my week this week in preparation for my sermon. I tell you this often, but it isn’t the exegetical work on the text, that’s important. I don’t ever get to do as much of that as I’d like to, but God pushes me out of that study into doing things. And I used up some pretty significant amounts of time this week serving the extended church and the CRC and the church in Russia and putting some effort into helping people apart from our church elect good judges—deeds of love and kindness for the extended church.

Now, I usually use myself as a positive example, but and I went into this to my shame: many of these activities kicking and screaming and not enjoying them. We’re supposed to delight in our service to the broader community that God has placed us in. And all that’s laid up here for us. At the top of your outline, I’ve got a little thing about loving God, our brother, and our neighbor. I’m beginning to read a book. I begin to read lots of books. I hope I finish this book. It’s called Radical Reformation by a man Mark Driscoll who has a large church up in the Seattle area, nearly 5,000 people. He preaches frequently content that would sound like Doug Wilson. They sell Doug Wilson’s books, much of the whole—others, but they’re part of the emerging church movement. They’re, you know, rock, loud rock music, or hymn music, completely different than our worship.

You know, it’s interesting if you look through how we think worship should be, worship memorial we adopted in the CRC. It doesn’t say anything about style of music. Just says it’s supposed to be beautiful and mature. There’s a lot of things we could do in worship. Now, I bring it up because his book is structured the way Reformed missiology or Reformation theology—they’re trying to reform the way we do missions. And this movement is an attempt to say, well, we’re supposed to do three things. We’re supposed to love God. Okay. So, we have to have proper theology and love him. And so, we have theology and doctrine. And we’re supposed to love our brother. And as we talked about last week, the primary focus of that in the Bible is the local church. And so, the local church is the extended household of God. And so, we are supposed to have a proper ecclesiology. Church is supposed to be important to us. So, doctrine is important. Church is important, but then we’re supposed to love our neighbor outside of the church. And so, this is where the book focuses—that you know, we’re supposed to have an impact on the world around us. And the point is that they make is that in critiquing most churches, most churches have two or three—two out of the three—that they focus on and the third one they’re not so good at.

And to make a dynamic trinitarian church, we want all three of those things tracking. So, you know, there’s an impact to the culture. There’s a loving your neighbor in terms of cultural impact that is significant for us that we’re called to engage in. You know, I think that what we’re trying to do this year is to focus more—and we’ll do this as we move into the year—on outreach into our community. And that’s going to produce some stresses and strains here if it’s successful.

But it seems like it’s very important for us to do it. And you know, we’re going to have to embrace strangers if that’s what happens here. And we’ll talk about what that means in a couple of minutes. But it’s going to push us a little bit. And I hope it does. I hope the Lord God brings lots of people into this church who when they come into the church look and act a lot of different ways. Now the role of the church is to transform people and to disciple them.

But you know sometimes our view of discipleship and the way we look is so focused that we end up cutting ourselves off from the very community we wish to serve. It’s kind of like when we started as a church—we got so—we you know we defined ourselves out of catholicity. We could not join most other reformed bodies. Didn’t mean it that way, but that’s what happened. Well, we have to be careful with that here, too.

We have to be able to understand the significance. God frontloads having a love for strangers. And that doesn’t mean strange people necessarily. It means strangers. And we’ll talk about that. But see, it’s very important is my point. Not enough to work on your family and your marriage, to work on the church. We have to work beyond the bounds of the church. And this text is related to that movement.

Now, the second page, there’s some notes on the text, and I want to go over these pretty quickly just to kind of give you a sense of this text and kind of the way it works. And uh there’s a translation at the top, which is not the translation I read, but this is from the Word commentary. Again, I mentioned this last week. Actually, I began my sermon: “Brotherly love must continue. And then, do not neglect hospitality to strangers.”

Now, hospitality to strangers, that’s a single word. It’s this—it connects verse two to verse one. Verse one, brotherly love is Philadelphia, right? So, love of brothers and love of hospitality, or hospitality toward strangers rather, is the same word Philos or love connected with the word xenos or xenia, which in from its kind of root perspective means stranger.

Now, the word is used in Greek at the time, or was used to talk about host hospitality. So it’s a love of hospitality but in a very real sense connected in the term itself is this love for strangers. Xenophobia is you know a modern day one of our many modern psychoses, and xenophobia is a fear of strange places or of strange people. So strangeness, xenophobia, fear. And so the text is linking verse one and verse two up because you got a love of brothers and a love of hospitality to strangers.

So and then it’s do not neglect this hospitality to strangers, this love of strangers. For by this means some people have entertained angels without knowing it. And there’s—I’ve bolded and highlighted and italicized rather—neglect and knowing. So it’s kind of a play on words here. Don’t forget this. And if you do it right, you’re going to entertain great things, happen without knowing it, and it’s connected.

So it’s kind of a—you know, it’s a device used to sort of say this is one sort of thought that you’re not supposed to forget this. If you don’t forget this, boy, things will surprise you—what might happen. And the term hospitality to strangers and entertained are both underlined because they also have a common word or sound to them. So this text is sort of, you know, chiastic in that sense. I guess we could say this entertaining of angels and entertaining of strangers are connected.

Up in the text they’re kind of parallel. So, that’s the verse two and verse three says continue to remember. So, the verse is about not forgetting something and on the other hand it’s about continuing to remember something else. So, the continue to remember has two clauses that follow it that are kind of parallel. The prisoners as if you were fellow prisoners. Those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were are suffering bodily.

So, we’re supposed to remember two different kinds of people. And maybe they’re the same, but there’s different nuances at least and maybe two different groups of people. We’re to continue to remember prisoners as if we were prisoners. So, there’s an empathy, a sympathy, you know, a heart attitude for suffering for prisoners as if we were in jail with them. And then we’re also supposed to continue remember those that are mistreated in any way as if—because you yourselves—as if you were suffering bodily.

What doesn’t really have suffer in the original word here—phrase as if you were in the body. Remembering that you’re part of the you have a body. Remember their bodily sufferings. That’s part of it. But part of it also is remember you’re in the body of Christ and suffer for those that are in the body of Christ who are suffering. Again, there’s an empathy. There’s a heart toward these people. The way you know that Deacon Evans had a heart toward—and Patty had a heart toward—these girls and their suffering and wanted to meet that suffering. There’s a commiserating, right? Misericordia, the heart attitude. There’s a commiserating with one another that’s supposed to be part of our lives.

Now, as I said, this is front-loaded. This is we get to this before we get to the importance of marriage and family and avoiding sexual sin. We sort of flip it around, don’t we? The other things are a lot more important. But God says if you focus so much on your family that you don’t end up—you know, commiserating and helping people that are suffering and helping the prisoners and engaging in hospitable acts towards strangers—well, you know, it’s going to come in around your head. It’s not a good thing. You’ve—you’ve—you’ve truncated the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, other thing of the textual notes of the text here: note that the unity of this with the teaching of Jesus. So, this again is from this commentary, but you see he says, “Don’t neglect hospitality to strangers.” Remember, we looked at this verse last week from the gospel. Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” So he, you know, there’s a parallelism to what our savior taught and what the man with his sermon to Hebrews is saying. It’s rooted in the direct relationship that we have with Christ.

Then remember those in prison. And the text in Matthew 25 goes on to say, “I was in prison and you came to me.” Remember those who are mistreated. I was naked. You clothed me. I was sick and you visited me—those that suffer bodily, clothing, sickness. So, you see this is really tracking the same text we looked at last week.

Now, the significance of that: number one, this is grounded and rooted in our Savior’s direct admonitions to particular actions. That means they’re really important. But remember what our savior said. This isn’t important in terms of the why and the road, the sheep and the goats. The why and the road that he talks about—in the at least in Matthew’s gospel—is not family. It’s not, you know, trying to, you know, combat sexual sin. It’s not keeping sexually pure. It’s, you know, the social gospel, we could call it right now. We’re not losing our basic doctrinal distinctives—loving God and doctrine, ecclesiology, that’s all important—but this third leg of the stool has got to be there. It’s got to be there.

And Jesus says that third leg of the stool is kind of how he determines whether you’re a sheep or a goat. Are you more interested in yourself or you more interested in serving other people. Your family’s kind of an extension of yourself. I know we serve families. I know it’s self-sacrificial. I don’t have to repeat that, right? Same with the church. But we have to love other people. We’re not here, you know, to make ourselves happy or to come to personal fulfillment. We get that as a result of doing these other things—of putting other people first. Deeds of love and kindness. The heavenly kingdom grows and that’s how you grow and that’s how Jesus will determine whether you’re going to heaven or not.

Now, we know that the basis for that is his imputed righteousness. But if there’s faith, there’s got to be works. Just like we said last week, and the example that Peter uses is the same example Jesus uses for a demonstration of real faith. Are you helping people? Do you have a heart attitude to visit—you know—to extend hospitality to strangers and to feed and clothe people and to and to assist them in prison. So this comes right out of our savior’s teaching on what’s important.

That next number two: the word play, the play on words in verse two. That’s I’ve already mentioned. That there’s this play on words between hospitality and then entertain. You see that xenia thing there? I know it’s hard to see, but that Greek word—it’s got a common kind of middle to it. They sound alike, and that’s important in the Bible. Things that sound alike—they may or may not be linked to the same root word—but if they sound alike, that’s important in the Bible, and these words sound alike.

And then the word for neglect and the—has within it the word for without knowing. And you can see in the middle of that there’s a—well in the—you see the epi in the first word for neglect and the Greek letters that follow that—you can see how they kind of connect up with the Greek letters for without knowing. So there’s a word play here that associates these things: entertaining and hospitality, love of strangers and neglect, and yet not knowing what the blessings are that’s going to come to us.

And then there’s this linguistic rhythm in verse three that I’ve already talked about a little bit as well. You know, the idea is continue to remember. That’s the specific commandment. And there are two groups of people that we’re to specifically remember: the prisoners as if you were fellow prisoners, the mistreated as if you were suffering bodily because you’re in the body.

And so these notes kind to help us to see the unity of these three verses and very specifically the ties from verses 2 and three back to what our savior taught us. Now in First Peter 4, you know, last week we looked at the other several occurrences of the word for brotherly love, and one of those occurrences was in 1 Peter 4, and there’s only four or five places where hospitable or showing hospitality are used in the Bible, and one of those places is the same reference.

So in 1 Peter 4:8 says above all things have fervent love for one another for love will cover a multitude of sins. So we’re told to have love for each other, and then the very next phrase says be hospitable to one another without grumbling. So this hospitableness is the same idea here of love of strangers. We know that this is really important for the reasons we’ve said so far. But another reason to know that this is really important is you’re supposed to think about when you choose elders and officers for the church, this is one of the requirements—that they be hospitable people that open their houses, not just to people from the church, you know, but to strangers again.

So 1 Timothy 3:1 says, “Yeah, it’s good. He wants to be a bishop, but one of the requirements is that he be someone who is of good behavior and hospitable, able to teach.” So there it’s put right next to able to teach. And in our day and age, we want smart guys that know the Bible that can teach. And the hospitable thing we don’t think about a whole lot. And yet here they’re kind of placed right next to each other. Qualifications for elders. Same thing is true in Titus 1, the other list of qualifications for elders. Again, there you’re not supposed to be greedy, but hospitable, a lover of what is good. So there it’s linked to not being greedy. It costs money to entertain people. It costs in different ways. It moves you outside your comfort level to open your home up to other people.

So, hospitableness. Another, and then one last place I’m going to mention where this hospitality is in Romans 12. And, Romans 12, you know, it’s kind of like this Hebrews stuff because it begins by telling us what our reasonable service is—worship, right? Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the washing of the water of the word. And so, you know, Romans 12 sort of starts, I think, with worship, our service, our liturgy, and then moves toward the implications of that for life. The same way Hebrews has said that all this doctrinal content, the worship of the church flows into these points of application.

And what does he tell us? Well, in verse 10, be kindly affectioned to one another, brotherly love. Talked about that last week. Philadelphia—in honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer. So that’s all got to do with brotherly love. Then it says, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

So just like in Hebrews, worship works itself out in the light through brotherly love and then through love of strangers and hospitality. So in Romans, same thing: worship, brotherly love, hospitality. And you know the hospitality is based on an identification with people. And verse 14 of Romans 12 goes on to say, or 15, rejoice at those who rejoice, weep at those who weep—commiserate, commiserate with people that are struggling.

And that chapter, you remember, ends with telling us not to be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good. So the eschatology, the way postmillennialism works itself out, the way the world is won is through brotherly love, hospitality, commiseration, empathy with people and these very same verses. So, so there’s a commonality and a general movement of the scriptures from worship to life through loving our brothers and then engaging in loving strangers.

Now, some comments on this. Forgetting and remembering is number one, back in the first page of the outline. There are things we shouldn’t forget and others that we should forget. So there’s a proper forgiving and an improper forgetting. So it’s right—the Bible tells us that we’re supposed to forget what lies behind and press toward the mark. There are things we’re supposed to forget. You know, past sins, temptations, whatever it might be. We don’t linger on the past. We forget what lies behind and we press on. That’s proper forgetting.

You know, we always in the context of the anti-abortion service try to encourage women—suppose I’m not helping her by bringing it back up. But there’s a forgetting of whatever sin we might have dwelt in. Leave it behind. There’s proper forgetting. But then there’s things we shouldn’t forget. So God tells us in this verse, don’t forget this. Okay? You know, if you’re going to go to the store, you don’t want to forget—you write it on a grocery list, right? At least if you get older like I am, you do because you can’t remember things as well. Well, he tells us here there’s something really important you’re not supposed to forget. Don’t forget to do this.

There are things we should remember or things we shouldn’t remember rather, and then there are other things that we should remember. Love toward our brother doesn’t keep a list of wrongs suffered. We’re not supposed to remember what people did to us and how they mistreated us. There’s a proper forgetting. We don’t want to remember. But then this text tells us to remember, you know, to be empathetic and help prisoners and those that are afflicted.

So this forgetting and remembering is very much a part. They’re really kind of this—specific commands are: don’t forget this and remember this. And so we want to do that. And when we get to this table, you know, it’s a memorial—remembering things—and it will do the same thing, right? As we come to the table of the body of Christ, this is where the gracious God brings us to his house—strangers, you know, from the covenant of promise, cut off, destitute, in bondage to our sins. He brings us here and he feeds us at his table. And it’s a table that calls us to remember Jesus. And Jesus says remember me by remembering—not to be forgetful to entertain strangers and remember the prisoners and remember those with difficulties.

So there’s a proper forgetting and a proper remembering. So and they had done this. He—continue to remember because the Hebrews had done this early on. You know, remember it’s sort of like us. They’re in an urban environment, a secularist environment. They’re under pressure just to forget their own faith and its application. They’ve done well when they started, but are they still engaging in brotherly love? Are they still getting together? Are they still being hospitable, remembering prisoners of the afflicted?

In Hebrews 10:32, remember, we read that he says, “Recall the former days.” Something else to remember. Remember the way you used to be. Recall the former days in which, after you enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Partly why you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations and partly why you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me in my chains. So he’s saying you’ve already done this stuff but keep doing it. He said when you first got into this there were persecutions. Some of you were mistreated and suffered and you were—you commiserated with them. You helped take care of them. You didn’t forget that. And I was in prison and you remembered me in prison.

So he’s saying, you know, he’s kind of helping us to identify who these strangers and prisoners are. In the immediate context, it’s those who have been mistreated because of the gospel, their commitment to Christ. And strangers—or rather prisoners—are those who have been imprisoned for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the first application. It’s not all prisoners indiscriminately. It’s not all strangers indiscriminately. It’s not all sufferers indiscriminately. It has particular reference to those who, while they’re not part of the immediate local family necessarily, still you know, you invite them into your homes when they’re traveling and if they are part of your church family, you commiserate with them in their sufferings and possible imprisonment.

So this text reminds us of what we’re supposed to remember and what we’re not supposed to forget. Both sides of it in emphasis.

Secondly, there are guests who are hosts and hosts who are guests. We are to delight in the host-guest dynamic. Okay. So this word stranger is actually translated once—this xenia, the root of this love of strangers, love of hospitality, love of hosting. It actually can refer to strangers but in one place it’s translated of somebody who hosted Paul. So the idea is that this term has reference to a hosting and being hosted. Okay? You’re supposed to entertain strangers and there is—you’re supposed to—in other words—delight if you’re the host to bring people into your home and on the other hand you’re supposed to delight if you’re a guest in going to their home.

Now this is a long—remember Hebrews, you know, has these great stories going back to the Old Testament and there are all these Old Testament images that we could bring into this guest-host dynamic. We see hospitality all over the place in the Old Testament, right? Three guys come. They’re on their way to Sodom. They see Abraham. He invites them in. He’s hospitable toward him. Lot—two guys show up there. He brings them into his home to help them and defend them. He’s hospitable toward him. Manoah and his wife, you know, see the angel. The angel talks to Manoah’s wife. The angel comes back. Manoah is hospitable toward him.

But it says explicitly in the text that Samson’s mom didn’t know that this was the angel of the Lord. So we have these, you know, the people of God are supposed to really like going over to each other’s house for the Super Bowl or having people into your home during the week. And beyond that, we’re supposed to really like—if somebody’s coming in out of town, a stranger. Okay. I mean, you know, part of your immediate family aren’t strangers, but if somebody comes in from out of town, we’re supposed to delight in that guest-host relationship.

Now, maybe you don’t, but I—if you don’t, then you should pray that the Lord God would teach you how to do that, right? And part of that’s being exhorted from the word of God to do it. Part of it is hanging out with people who know how to do it, learning from them. There are books written on this subject. But if you think of yourself as somebody who doesn’t really delight when people are coming over, or don’t delight to go over to somebody else’s house, somebody you don’t even know, well, then this text says you got to do a little thinking, a lot of re-evaluating, and I think you want to leave this place today committed to delighting in this guest-host dynamic.

You know, there’s supposed to be this delight in having people into our homes, showing hospitality even to strangers. Again, I don’t usually use myself as a positive example. I don’t get into this stuff usually because I want to. The Lord God, you know, compels me, brings me kicking and screaming. And we got an email from—I mentioned this last week—a woman from out of town and her daughter going to McMinnville, needed a place to stay, part of our same denomination. So, not total strangers, but strangers to us. We never met them before. We didn’t know them. And so, you know, God wants us when those kind of opportunities come up—not somebody, you know, like the Phillipses maybe, but maybe somebody you don’t know like the Phillipses—come from, you know, Grant’s past last week. People you don’t know get the commendation of other Christians. They come to you and you should delight in hosting them in your home.

And then the other side—just as difficult—is being, is delighting in being hosted here. Again, I—this is a negative example of who I am. When I go out of town and visit and preach someplace, it’s not my first choice to stay in somebody’s home because it’s inconvenient and I have various health problems and I don’t know what they’re going to think of that and it’s just, you know, it’s just my natural sinfulness that I then buttress with all kinds of reasons as to why I don’t want to be in that home.

Well, this text, I think, tells us that we’re supposed to delight in this kind of relationship, this dynamic of host and guest because something good’s going to happen. That’s the other side of this. There’s a delight in this stuff because good things happen when we, you know, submit ourselves to the word of God. There’s something good that’s going to happen.

Now, who do we delight in entering into relationship with?

Well, point number three is there are strangers and then there are strangers. People are strange, as the song goes. Some people are strangers and some people are just strange. We read this word and we’re not sure what it means. We know for sure, as I said, that members of our own family aren’t strangers. That much we know. And if we look at how this word is used in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, a stranger is not a strange person.

Some person wanders into your house off the street with a glazed look in their eyes and a needle sticking out of their arm and you know the police coming after them. This is not a stranger according to the scriptures. The way this word stranger is used is other Christians usually who are brought into your house because they’re traveling. These verses don’t really have direct application to us anymore because the in which they were given had a couple of things going on.

One, when you traveled, the hotels were not particularly good. You know, the question was always, how many fleas are there? You know, that was the determination of how many prostitutes these were not particularly in terms of cleanliness. How?—We didn’t have Motel 6. Okay? And so, you had to, you know, one of the reasons for this strong admonition to bring people into your home—’cause Christians traveling needed—did and if the gospel was going to expand, it was going to expand from people traveling in the empire and those travels had to be accommodated by receiving these people into your home. That’s the immediate application of this text.

You know, Jesus said to the least of these, my brothers—other fellow believers, Israelites—in Matthew 25, not to every person that’s starving on the face of the world. Our focus—the focus of this text and its immediate application—are not strange people but people who are strangers to you—okay—outside of your culture, outside of your environment. Now we can make application beyond that to non-Christians and that’s a fine thing to do, but in the immediate application strangers here are someone who is traveling. Its first application is a Christian and and not somebody who is just altogether crazy.

Now I know this because in Third John, we read about this. He says, “Beloved, thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to the strangers.” There it is. See, the same thing as Hebrews 13—brothers, strangers. And then he goes on to say, “Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church.” So the strangers have told other people in the church that you are kind to them. You’re inviting them in. You’re a lover of strangers. You love to do hospitality.

Who—whom if thou bring forth on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well. So you’re supposed to send them on their way with blessing. See, he’s talking about itinerant evangelists, preachers, other Christians who are traveling, the gospel being spread, people are traveling on business. You’re receiving strangers to you in, but not strangers in the ultimate sense of strange, but just to you. These are definitely Christians. You’re sending them on their way with the blessings of God. And this is a good thing. He says, you do well because that for his name’s sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles, we therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.

So here the immediate application is specifically to people actually going out for the sake of the kingdom. So you know by parallelism we can see that this text in Hebrews has its first, its immediate application to strangers being traveling people who are traveling for the purpose of the kingdom, like this woman and her daughter. We’re trying to, you know, go to a place in McMinnville. They’re going forth so that they can continue to, you know, obey God in the kingdom. Their daughter can be raised as a good Christian mom, yada yada. And we bring them into our house, send them by the way of blessing. Okay?

And throughout the New Testament, you know, there’s all these little verses at the ends of epistles, and you always wonder, well, you know, what are those in there for? I mean, it seems like there’s a benediction, then there’s little verses: greet this person, receive this person, send this person on their way with blessing. Well, that’s because—that’s what’s going on here. Those little, you know, greetings at the end are not irrelevant to the purpose of the epistles. The epistles are given that people might receive these very named people and send them on their way with blessings. You see? So, so it’s not as if those little things at the end are something tacked on. They’re the application—in what—from one sense of the entire epistle.

The epistle is meant to transform us into people who will be those who help the strangers out and entertain them and bring them into our homes and love that guest dynamic with people that are traveling for the sake of the gospel. That’s it.

Now notice—well, you had—you can’t notice it, but listen and note this. This is what he says just before this. You’re faithfully doing this to the brothers and to the strangers. Just before this, the very verse before this is verse four. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Now, that’s an important verse to those of us who have kids, grandkids. Our children walk in the truth. But what’s the immediate evidence of that in the text? It’s not because they say they love Jesus. It’s not that they faithfully go to church. Those things are important. But the immediate application is our children walk in the truth because they’re engaging in brotherly acts of love and kindness and they’re entertaining people in their home who need to be helped out of their way—doing work for Jesus. It’s hospitality. It’s love of the guest-host dynamic. That’s the evidence and then walking in the faith.

Why? Because it is of the essence of our relationship. We’re brought into the faith through the gracious, beneficial, hospitable actions of God Almighty. That’s what it is. So that’s the faith.

Four, there are angels and then there are angels. Well, I said that one of the reasons we’re supposed to engage in this delightfulness of the guest-host relationship is because neat things happen when you do it. You’re supposed to expect to receive gifts. They’re going to bring you a house gift. Now, it may not be wrapped. It may not be tangible, but they’re going to bring you some kind of gift. See, just to the exchange of your lives. And we sat down with Mrs. Zunger’s mom or daughter. There was an exchange. There was a gifting of our lives one to the other.

Now, we see this in the story. Oh, I don’t know. Well, what does this mean, Dennis? Does this mean angels walk around we can entertain them? I don’t know. The word angel here is actually a word that’s also used for messengers. You know, physical messengers, pastors. The pastors in Revelation 3 are angels of the church. Angels are—So what he could be saying is, you know, if you exert—you engage in Christian hospitality to people, other Christians that you don’t know, strangers, could be one of them could be a pastor, you don’t even know. It could be that. But you know, if we think of the Old Testament again with Hebrews as the basis for understanding these stuff, that’s what happened to Abraham. That’s what happened to Lot. That’s what happened to Manoah. They were good Jews. They were good covenant guys. They walked with the Lord because they were hospitable toward people that came to them. And as a result of that, Abraham entertained angels. Lot entertained angels. Manoah entertained—and he—text explicitly tells—he didn’t know.

We don’t know if Abraham knew or not, but very well could be he had no idea who these guys were at first. Compare the story of Manoah and Samson’s mom with the story of Abraham and it looks in Manoah’s case too like he knew it was the angel of the Lord but it explicitly tells us later he didn’t. The idea is they’re delighting in this relationship and the end result is not only are they hosted by angels but neat things happen as well in their lives, right? Abraham—it’s the stork at the door, right? Those three—the three angels, Jesus and the angels—it’s the stork that’s the notice that says you’re going to have a baby. That’s the gift they get for entertaining the angels. Manoah and his wife—same thing. You’re going to have Samson, a mighty deliverer. Gifts see flow back and forth in the context of this.

We come to the supper well. Guys on the road to Emmaus—they’re hospitable to Jesus. They don’t know it’s Jesus. Wait. They didn’t just entertain an angel. They entertained Jesus without knowing it, and that’s a gift. And the gift they got—as they gave him hospitality on the road, then at their house—was to understand their Bibles better. God gives gifts to us. This is paracesis, right? This is that intertrinitarian relationship where each party of the trinity delights the guest-host relationship, the exchange of lives. They delight in that. And our lives are to be the same thing.

We wall ourselves off. We want our privacy because we think it makes us safe, but it doesn’t. It walls us into isolation. We got people running around with iPods now, not Meopods. And we got, you know, podiatrists—they call them—or pedestrians rather. They’re not walkers. They have their pods on as they’re walking around because they’re in total isolation from their community. That’s a new word. Another new word is e-oing. People aren’t avoiding one another. They’re e-oing one another using electronic means, earbuds in the heads. Maybe some kids have them on here as I speak and they’re in isolation.

Now, I like music and I think the spirit of God uses music to help us in our walk. I’m not against an God. But I am telling you that the flow of our world is toward isolation increasingly. And you think it’s good for you, but it isn’t. You need gifts. You need what the other people have to give you. There’s a delightfulness when you force yourself to be hospitable and entertain people or let them entertain you. Usually, you come away from that thing with blessing. It’s a blessing. There’s a gifting that goes on.

So, I don’t know, you know, you know here what the word—ual—I think it refers back to these other events in the Old Testament, but it could just mean a pastor here as well. And at the end of the day, what it really means is if you do this, there’s blessing. Don’t forget to do it—not just because it’s the right thing to do, but the right thing to do always blesses you in the doing of it. Okay? So that’s what’s happening here.

Five, there are prisoners and then there are prisoners. Are prisoners? Then there are prisoners. Well, again, here we think of jail and this means we should have prison ministries. No, no, no, no. There were no prisons like we think of them back in those days. There were holding cells until they executed you. There were private prisons to work off debts for restitution. There were no modern day penitentiary system, and we don’t like the modern day penitentiary system. It’s based on an improper theology and a view of man.

There were holy prisons. But this doesn’t mean prisoners indiscriminately. This has as its first application, as I mentioned earlier, that we’re supposed to be working with people who are prisoners for their faith. We were down at TRC on Wednesday night at the session meeting and they got a great prison ministry. And I’m not saying I don’t support it. I do. It’s very important. It’s a application of the text, but it’s not the immediate meaning of the text to engage in a prison ministry. It can be an application because people come to Christ in jail. There are Christians in jail. We should want to help them worship, etc. But that’s not what this text is. This text means when Christians are taken to jail for their faith, you should help them.

And the early church did—over and over and over again—stories when people sold themselves into bondage in some case to give money to get people out of prison. People who would join with the people in prison. They’d break into prison just to hang out with people in prison. They’d go in there and they’d feed them because usually prisons, these sort of prisons back then didn’t have, you know, three squares a day. They had no food. You had to rely upon your family. So, the early church was very important for them, and it may become important for us.

Was joking around Wednesday night and said, “Well, I think we ought to do this prison ministry thing because if we go into the Oregon State Penitentiary regularly, enough, we’ll sort of get to know the ropes in case we’re thrown in there for our faith in another 10 years. Sort of have the inside story on how it works and how to get around and what the guards are like.” We don’t know. We can thank God that we don’t have that—we have Motel Sixes now and good hospitality places. We can thank God that we’re not being thrown in prison for our faith. But we can also say that when that time comes, we’re to remember people who are thrown in prison for their faith and we’re to have empathy for them and want to help them.

And in the meantime, you know, we can think of those who are Christians who have become Christians in prison or come to repentance for their sins in prison and we should reach out to them. There’s a remembering, and then there’s a remembering is the next point. You know, we can either have mental actions going on here—this neglect, not neglecting, and remembering—or we can commit ourselves to commiserating with people, to extending hospitality, to loving the guest-host relationship with people that are strangers, for having an empathy for people that suffer, that we enter into their sufferings.

You know, that’s so important. This is what Jesus did, right? He is sympathetic with us. He commiserates with us in our sinfulness. Hebrews told us earlier, sin produces bondage and we should want to help each other cut the cords of bondage away from us. Not saying, “Well, you got sin going on in your life. I don’t want anything to do with you.” No, we—Jesus was sympathetic toward his people who are engaged in sin, and that’s why he delivers them. And we’re to have this sympathetic thing as well. Moses suffered the reproach of the people of God. He was sympathetic for their sufferings and we should be sympathetic toward each other’s sufferings as well. And that sympathy has to work itself out in actions, in turn of the life.

There’s love and then there’s love. There’s a remembering as a mental exercise, but in the Bible to remember a thing is to have your life conformed by the thing. Remember prisoners. Remember the afflicted. Don’t don’t forget the entertaining strangers. That doesn’t mean as a mental exercise—it means to the end of obedience. There’s love and then there’s love. Yeah, I love God. Yeah, I can get along with my brothers and sisters in my home. Yeah, I can get along with them at church. Can you have strangers into your house? Have you made that a priority in your house? Is your house, you know, big enough, clean enough, taken care of enough to have people into your home if you need to, you know, to entertain Christians from out of town or whatever it is?

Well, it should be. Now, the other side of that is, are you so hung up on people seeing some dirt in your home that you don’t have people into your house? Well, you’re, you know, that’s bad, too, because that means you’re too focused on your own—what people will think of you—rather than enter delightedly into this guest-host relationship. If everybody’s concerned your house isn’t clean enough and everybody keeps cleaning and cleaning more and more and more and more and more, pretty soon we’re never having anybody over, right?

We got to be willing to put this—the priority that God says is having people into our homes fellowshipping together, not just with, you know, the immediate family here at RCC, but those outside and maybe some Christians outside who look quite different than you look. There’s love and then there’s love. Today’s text calls us to the kind of love that is active, that engages in the kind of hospitality to others that the Lord God has shown to us and says that at the end of the day, it’s the demonstration of whether we really recognize that we are saved by grace and brought into relationship with him because of his love for us.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for extending grace and hospitality to us today. Help us, Lord God, those who are getting together for fellowship and relationship together today, guesting and hosting. Help us to exchange our lives with one another, the best gift we could give each other. Help us, Father, to pray for one another, to have hearts that are moved for each other, but then help us also to look at the culture round about us, to want to witness to them, to bring people into the church.

Lord God, we sang earlier about wanting to see the nations come into this into your table. And we pray that we would be a church that would not worry when people come in who look different, but rather would rejoice that the strangers come in to eat at the table of our savior. Help us to be a people who see this as one of the most important goals we can have for this coming year. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.