Hospitality as a Way of Life - Peti Szabad

Sunday sermon recorded on July 5, 2026   

Part of the "Better Together" series.   

https://linktr.ee/northpointema

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, good morning, church. How's everybody? You guys are spread.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I'm gonna I'm gonna have to have to roam. Well, grab you know, grab a seat, enjoy. What a beautiful setting for worshiping God. Uh happy 4th of July and the 25th birthday to the United States.

unknown 0:26

2050th.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yeah, 250. I probably have made a mistake on my typo. 250th birthday to the United States. Thanks for the correction. It's been a tumultuous 250 years, but uh uh I'm I'm grateful that I get to live here and uh and worship God here in peace. So so that's uh that's uh that's that's definitely one amazing blessing. Uh today I want to talk about hospitality as a way of life. Uh it's you know the Ganju family is amazingly hospitable. Thank you so much for having us. Yes. Uh they they sent me a picture of the setup yesterday. They've been working hard to to make this as welcoming as they could make it. Uh so thank you guys very, very much. And uh this is the third year in a row uh that we get to enjoy uh worshiping God here under this magnificent tree. Uh that's you know that's that's that's not the Ganju's work, that's God's work right there. They just they just get to enjoy it with us and share it with us, which is exciting. So, Jesus had a plan to change the world. Wouldn't you agree?

unknown 1:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

What was his plan? What was his plan?

unknown 1:51

Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Jesus, yes, he had a plan. But what was his plan?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I think to reconcile us to God.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

To reconcile us to God? Yeah. Anybody else? What was his plan? Bob.

unknown 2:05

To preach to all the nations.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

To preach to all the nations? Although I don't think he traveled to the United States. I know some there's some religions that believe differently, but yes, Ivan. To seek and to say what was lost. To seek and to say what was lost, okay. What was his plan?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

To love.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

To love. That's that's more of a general plan, right? But uh it's true. His church. His church, yeah. So yeah. I'm just gonna say make disciples. To make disciples, yeah. Find some find some followers. He's uh Jesus had a couple ways to accomplish change in the world. Number one thing that he did to do that is he went on the cross voluntarily to die for humanity's sin. There's no nothing comes close to that when it comes to understanding how much God wants to be with us. Jesus going on the cross. And we're gonna talk about that a little more when we take communion. But here's the number thing, number two things. Jesus' plan wasn't to start a religion. Now not 2,000 years later, you know, a lot of people think that he just wanted people to be Christians. And he started this religion called Christianity, but that wasn't really his plan. He actually had a plan to empower people to live a different life, a countercultural life, a life that God created them to live, and to see that life spread from one person to the next. In a human connection. Not in a universal setting, not in a religious setting, but in a human interaction setting. That was his plan. He simply invited some men to be with him. When you think about that, that doesn't take a whole lot. We do that all the time. You go out to have coffee with your friends, you have people to come over. Maybe you had some people coming over yesterday to celebrate July 4th, uh with the barbecue and that kind of stuff. We had the Bulldog family over and had a wonderful time. Uh you know, we played uh the game of life with where Rona helped help me finish the game and and helped me win the game. I'm just just saying that. Don't want to brag. Don't want to brag, but uh, but it did happen. But what a what a different if Jesus designed a board game called Game of Life, it would be very different.

unknown 4:55

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

The game, if you play the game, you know the way it works, you add up your net worth at the end of your life. And uh my net worth came to three point one million dollars in the game. In the game. VRG's net worth came to 3.09 million, so ten thousand dollars less than what I had, and that's how I won the game. Uh so good good effort, honey, good effort.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

But because of the bank, only because she had a loan.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

She had to take a loan and pay interest on it. Yes. See, there's a lesson learned there. But here's one thing that happens at the end of our life. We don't take any of that with us. All that, whatever that was, it doesn't matter anymore. Your net worth really doesn't value in the scales very much. So, what was read Jesus' plan is to change people while they're in this earth and then have that change spread to other people. And hospitality, spending time together, maybe eating together, played a big role. So, we're gonna talk about that today. Let's open our Bibles to John chapter 1, where we find Jesus just hanging out. You don't, you know, oftentimes our view of Jesus is this religious teacher. But at this point, we just meet him as he is about to start his ministry. Uh, he is not very famous, most people don't even know who he is. You know, I know you and I can't even imagine a world where people don't know who Jesus is because of the last 2,000 years of Christianity, but these guys didn't know who he was. Um, and uh John the Baptist, who was actually a well-known prophet and preacher of the time, had some followers, and John recognized who Jesus was by godly inspiration. And in verse 35 of John chapter 1, we read the next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, Look, the Lamb of God. You know, John was a prophet and foresaw what was going to happen to Jesus. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, What do you want? You know, very innocent question. What do you want? They said rabbi, meaning teacher. Where are you staying? I don't I don't think they really knew what they wanted. They just picked up on John the Baptist thing. This guy is somebody important. Let's figure it out. They they they were curious. I hope you are curious. I hope you don't have a view of Christianity that I know everything about Christianity, but stay curious. That helped me. At the age of 20, back in Hungary, when I grew up as an atheist, I was curious because this girl that I liked became a Christian. I'm like, what in the world? He she used to be an atheist. Why the change? That made me curious. So be curious. So Jesus replied, Come, he replied, and you will see. So they went and saw where he was staying and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. You know what happened? These guys just hung out with Jesus for a whole day. Can you imagine hanging out with Jesus for a whole day? You know, if you have a very religious, very holier than that view of Jesus, that's like, you know, then you're like, I don't want to hang out with Jesus. I'm gonna feel really ashamed as a sinner. But these guys didn't have that. They saw Jesus just as another person. So what did they do? They hung out with Jesus. They spent the whole day with Jesus, and then you know what happens next? Uh, if you can read it on your own, one of them, name is Andrew, goes home and tells his brother Simon, says, I think we find the Messiah just by spending a day with Jesus. You know, hospitality is pretty powerful. We don't know if this was a class that Jesus taught. Most likely he wasn't. Just by spending time with Jesus, they realize this person is so unique, we think he might be the Messiah. Might be God's anointed one, might be the one who brings change to the human humanity that God created. How did things go forward? Probably maybe a few weeks, a couple months later, Jesus actually invites some people to be with him. If you turn to Mark chapter 3, in verse 13 through 19, Jesus decided that he's not just gonna go around and and and and teach crowds and talk to people. He actually gonna invite a handful, or large handful, or both hands full, 12 people, to spend and stay and considerable time with him. Mark chapter 3, verse 13 to 19. Jesus went up on the mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve, designating them apostles, which actually just means people that are being sent with a message, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed. Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, to them he gave the name Boonergus, which means sons of thunder. I wonder why they got that nickname. Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Tedhius, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. That comment came comes from later. They didn't know that at the time. You know, what does Jesus do? Invites 12 people to spend the next two and a half years with him. To stay with him, to walk with him, to to to to go out from time to time to different places and then come back to tell people about him. That's what he does. That doesn't look like a real genius CEO plan of franchising the entire world and and changing. Twelve guys? And these guys, some of them are fishermen. There was this guy that was a zealot. You know what that is? It's somebody that that is actively working on overthrowing the current system. If he gets caught, he'll put it get put in jail or killed. That's the guy that he picked. And there's a test collector who's a Roman, you know, kind of somebody just just looks up to the Romans and serves the Romans. No, no respectable Jew would listen to that guy. They're all kinds of people. But it didn't matter who they were. You know what mattered? Is that when he called them, they were willing to come. And they were together. The power of hospitality. You know, I have a couple quotes from this book called uh uh written by Robert E. Coleman in the 1960s, called The Master Plan of Evangelism, that he wrote about this whole idea of this was Jesus' plan. This is his master plan, and this was the master's plan. That's a wordplay he uses in the book. But here's a quote from him. He says, in short, these men selected by the Lord to be his assistants represented an average cross section of society in the day. Not the kind of group one would expect to win the world for Christ. Another quote, these men were looking for someone to lead them in the way of salvation. Such men, pliable in the hands of the master, could be molded into a new image. Jesus can use anyone who wants to be used. You know, I love that. They weren't special. You don't have to be special, you don't have to have these amazing gifts, you don't have to do any of those things. You just need to be willing to be molded by Jesus and spend time with Jesus. One more quote from the book says, Having called his man, Jesus made a practice of being with them. This was the essence of his training program. Just letting his disciples follow him. When one stops to think of it, this was an incredibly simple way of doing it. It's it's there's no curriculum that Jesus left behind. There's no uh 101 of Christianity and 102 and and the Holy Spirit, you know, that's a 200 course, of course, and then and then you know, Christianity in relationships, that's a 300 course, conflict resolution, that that's that's for yeah. You can you don't get to that until you get to graduate studies, you know. Sometimes we think about Christianity like that, and we mold Christian, and and this was not how Jesus did it, he just spent time with these guys, and in the process, they changed by spending time with Jesus. I want to I'm gonna focus on uh just one incident from their time together that I think teaches us a lot about how this whole thing went. Uh, a little later in Mark in chapter 6, this is not not not much later after he called them and they started following, so they're still very inexperienced. That's probably true all the way till Jesus dies, because all their experience allows them to, when Jesus gets arrested, they just flee. You know, they they they weren't really bold at that point yet. But when they met Jesus, who came back from the dead, that changed everything. In Mark chapter 6, we find Jesus teaching a large crowd in a remote place. In verse 35, the Bible says, By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. You know, I love when the disciples come to Jesus and sometimes they ask questions, but most of the time they're trying to suggest something to Jesus to do. You know, can you imagine that? Hey Jesus, I think we should do this. You know, I I like that they care and they feel free to kind of voice the ideas to Jesus. He said, they say, they came to him and he they said, This is a remote place, they said, and it's already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. I you know the disciples, they got hungry. Hospitality is pretty powerful. You know, when you when you're hungry, you start to pay less attention to spiritual things and a little more attention to the rumblings. Right? It it helps to have some food in your stomach. But he answered, You give them something to eat. I mean, Jesus. Are you serious? They said to him, that would take eight months of a man's vages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? You know, Jesus wasn't just having a nice time with these guys hanging out and following him, he challenged their thinking. When he told them you give them something to eat, the disciples were like, We were telling you to let them go get some food. Now you're putting it back on us? This is not fair. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's a lot of money. This is a lot, this is a large crowd. We would need to spend, you know, you know, the average salary in Massachusetts is about $84,000. Eight months of debt? That's about sixty thousand dollars or so. You know, are you gonna pull that out of your pocket and suspend it to feed this many people? That's what they felt like Jesus was asking them. But that wasn't what Jesus was asking them. He was asking them, Do you have a heart of hospitality? Because they were doing the wrong thing, they were sending the people away. Jesus wasn't sending people away, he was having people inviting them in. So Jesus continues the discussion and says, How many loaves do you have? He asked. When they found out, they said, Five and two fish. That doesn't look like a whole lot. But to Jesus, if you have a heart of hospitality, that's enough. You can work with that. In verse 39, we read that then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. They might have might not have had chairs like you guys do, but I can imagine a similar scenario where people are just sitting down under the trees on the grass and and wait and and you know, in groups, just like we are doing today. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of men who had eaten was five thousand. Whoa! You know, Jesus actually went around. Uh he actually just stated, he'd had the disciples go and give food to the people. Even though they only had five loaves of bread and two fish, it wasn't about the amount of food they had, it was about their willingness to give food to the people. And once they were willing, God provided. So it doesn't matter how much you have or how little you have, if you have a heart of hospitality, Jesus will use you. Do you have a heart of hospitality? Do you have the heart to connect with people, to give to people, to care for people? Because if you do, Jesus can use you to change the world. That's how he did it with these guys. You know, there's another story that I uh as we go through the ministry of Jesus, and the disciples learn and they get trained. At one point, Jesus decides to send them out to villages that he's gonna go and visit ahead of himself. In Luke chapter 10, he gives them the following instructions. He says, After this, the Lord appointed 72 others along with the 12 disciples, uh, meaning that, and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. You get his point? I need people that will go and meet other people. That's how the world's gonna change. There are people that will change if we're just willing to meet them where they are and extend hospitality. But he tricks them. He says, uh, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Not everybody is gonna like you. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals, and do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, peace to this house. If a man of peace is there, Your peace will rest on him. If not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking, whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. You know, Jesus practiced, has them practice reverse hospitality. You know, put yourself in the mercy of other people. Don't take money, don't take a second pair of sandals, don't even make a purse to carry any little pieces of food, not even five loaves of bread or two fish. This is about you going and finding people of hospitality. People that will look at you and go, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have you stay in my house and I'm gonna feed you, I'm gonna take care of you. That is the type of people you're looking for. That's what Jesus tells us. That's the instruction. You know, Jesus sends them to look for a worthy person, one who is willing to practice hospitality, because that's the type of people Jesus is recruiting to change the world. He's not recruiting people that is just, you know, that have high opinions, which we all do. We all think very highly of our opinions. Uh, we think we're right, and we're probably are, or maybe not, but even if we're not, that's that doesn't matter to Jesus. He didn't tell him to look for people with high degrees or great income or large houses or fields or many servants. He doesn't do any of that. He goes, just go and see if this person is willing to have you, willing to take care of you, willing to show hospitality to you. Those are the kind of people I'm looking for. They belong to be workers in the harvest. Are you a person of hospitality? If somebody came, and I know this is so totally out of culture today, you know, somebody comes to your door and knocks, it's it's either the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Tann's water department checking the solar guy. The solar and then the solar guide.

unknown 24:06

Or one of us.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

We live in a tan house complex, we decide no soliciting, but still people come to our door. But what's your what's your first impression? You know, is it is it, hey, how you doing? Or is it we're not buying it? Right? You know, Jesus is looking for people that are ready to make a human connection. Will you engage in learning how to share what you have and inviting Jesus into transforming your life? That was the question that Jesus asked through his followers as he sent them to these towns. After the three years of spending three years with these people, they probably still didn't understand everything, but Jesus didn't have any more time with them. He was ready to go on the cross, and he called them together for one final meal. We call it the Last Supper. It was a Passover meal, and uh uh they they they ate it together, and Jesus again helped them to focus on the power of hospitality because in as we read it in John chapter 13, they come together and Jesus decides to go down on his hands and knees, put a washcloth around his waist, and start to wash all of their feet. Now think about that. That's what he's he's celebrating this Last Supper. You know, that's a very un have you ever had anybody wash their feet? You know, it's it's even touch your feet, it's it's a very uncomfortable thing to do to go through. It's it's very vulnerable, it's very intimate. Washing feet was the lowest job on the hospitality totem pole in the Middle East. It was it was the the job that was given to the the the the work the the lowest of the slaves or the servants in the house. It's kind of like if you work in the hospitality today, work today, it's it's like if you work in a restaurant, it's like the cleaning the pots and the pans. I I had that as a job for two weeks. It's it's it's a serious job, serious expectations, and a lot of grime. It's the lowest. And then if you do that, then you can actually load the the dishwasher with the the the plates and stuff and the silverware. That's the next next step up the rung in the in the restaurant. And if you do that, then you can bust the table so you actually can show your face out in the in the dining room, and you're not just working at the back of the back of the kitchen. So the so washing feet was the lowest of lows. And that's what Jesus says. And here's what he said in verse 12 of John 13. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on clothes and returned to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? He asked them. You call me teacher and lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet. You also should wash one another's feet. You don't have to do that today. We're actually going to eat today, but not wash each other's feet, literally. But you're welcome to do that. But having the heart of hospitality is what Jesus is calling every follower of his. Not that I, the Lord and teacher, wash your feet, you all shall wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. You know, the and Jesus then establishes the Lord's Supper. A time for his followers to gather together and take a piece of bread and drink a little bit of wine to remember Jesus and that last supper that he had, his disciple. That is a that even that remembrance is not a religious ceremony, even though we're gonna use these little instant communion cups, but we're actually gonna eat together today, which I'm really excited about because I think that's more what Jesus had in mind. Sharing a meal, sharing a drink, and remembering Jesus and practicing that hospitality towards one another. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much if you brought some food or drinks, or even if you didn't, thank you so much for coming and being willing to engage in hospitality. Here's my challenge learn from Jesus to become a man or a woman who makes hospitality his way of life. Uh we have great uh Bible studies that that that help you know that help me to come become a follower of Jesus from being an atheist. I opened my eyes, I understood what the Bible was and and and what Christianity wasn't and what actually it was. But also keep practicing hospitality with one another. Open your home this week. Doesn't have to cost you much, not even five loaves of bread or two fish. Uh the other person can pay. Hey, let's go have coffee. I don't have money. You pay, is that good? You know, you can do that. That's what these disciples did. Can you can you can you I'm coming to your house? Can you feed me dinner? That's that's practicing the way of hospitality and connecting with people. The Lord's Supper is as we gather around and then we're gonna pass this around and take the take communion, is about us gathering around the table where Jesus is sitting there with us. And we remember him. We remember who our Lord and Master is and what he's calling us to imitate. He doesn't call us to to pronounce judgment on sinful people out there, because there's that that's actually we are those sinful people out there. He calls us to engage in hospitality and live that as a way of life. Let's pray for the communion. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Jesus. Thank you for the very simple way that he went about changing this world. And 2,000 years later, we're still here reading about uh these stories and and and and being impacted by not just him, but the life and the and and the message of those that followed in his footsteps. God, we know that uh the the message that the the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are are few is is still true. So we're asking you to send workers into your harvest field. I pray that we find some worthy people that are willing to practice this lifestyle of hospitality, of connecting with people, of caring with people, of sharing what they have, even if it's very little, and trusting that Jesus will make it multiply. Thank you for the food that we're going to be able to share today. Uh, thank you for the community, the Ganju's hospitality, and thank you for Jesus, our Lord and our Savior, and the bread that represents his body that he sacrificed on the cross, and the uh the fruit juice that represents his blood that he shed for our sins. We love you, and we pray all this in Jesus' name.