SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: You would open your Bibles to Romans twelve.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna read there.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, and then verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_01: Let love be genuine, abore what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
SPEAKER_01: Then verse 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, and seek to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: There's this story about a World War II pilot who crashed in the Pacific and somewhere marooned on a deserted island where he lived a solitary existence for over a decade.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, to his rescue came a bunch of uh sailors exploring the island, and here they found a lonely man with a very long beard.
SPEAKER_01: Perplexed at some of this man's habits, they looked at two structures.
SPEAKER_01: The one represented something of a church with a steeple and a cross on top, and the other represented something of a homestead.
SPEAKER_01: The islander was asked by one of the sailors, he said, So what are those two buildings there?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Well, look, that used to be my church, but it was such an unloving church that I rather decided to do church at home.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you got that.
SPEAKER_01: You see, in the scriptures, in early Christianity, we find Christian believers devoting themselves to the gathering together.
SPEAKER_01: The gathering together was to devote themselves to the teaching of the apostles, and of course, for fellowship, the breaking of bread, and of course, prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We can also get a glimpse in the rest of the book of Acts of early church life that it was less than prosperous in perfect times.
SPEAKER_01: But the early church took to heart the words of Jesus Christ, who said, For by this they will know you are my disciples if you love one another, John 13, 35.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore they gathered as a community of people for the purpose of loving one another.
SPEAKER_01: And they gathered to love one another in less than perfect circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Increasingly in our time, church gatherings have become more fragmented and more scattered than ever before.
SPEAKER_01: More and more people are falling through the cracks.
SPEAKER_01: While there's often a virtual connection with the church proper, the increased fragmentation has caused deeper isolation, and people are lonelier and oppressed than ever before.
SPEAKER_01: No doubt being part of a local church like our own presents itself with a fair share of difficulties, adversities, complexities, and even trials.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we are sinners, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yet there is no substitute for the agape love that is to be found amongst Christians who physically gather together.
SPEAKER_01: This is what author Alexander Strauk says.
SPEAKER_01: He says the essence of the gathering of the community of believers is to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: The purpose of gathering one another is to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Agape love cannot be developed by being alone and outside the household of God, but it is to be practiced and learned within the household of God, says Strauk.
SPEAKER_01: Strauk goes further.
SPEAKER_01: He says, the church, with all its weaknesses and faults, is a place where love is taught, modeled, learned, tested, practiced, and matured.
SPEAKER_01: But Strauk is sober when he says this love is probably going to be an environment where you're going to deal with difficult people facing painful conflicts.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be an environment where there's going to have to be forgiveness for longstanding hurts and injustices, reconciling and strange relationships and helping those needy members in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Where our love will not only be stretched, it will be tested and be matured.
SPEAKER_01: You see, dear brothers and sisters, when we enter a church, we think of it often as a place where we're going to be showered with love.
SPEAKER_01: Little do we know that our love will be tested and our love would be matured.
SPEAKER_01: Or the lack of it.
SPEAKER_01: We gather as a community of believers in order to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Or how else will people know who are the people who love Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: We are Christ's disciples, and the world needs to see our love for one another as our trademark.
SPEAKER_01: How love is learned, how love is modeled, how love is practiced, and how love is even stretched and matured.
SPEAKER_01: And that will happen, dear brothers and sisters, despite weaknesses and faults in the gathering of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Or how else can we follow the commandment of Colossians 2, 2 that says, so that your hearts are to be encouraged and the people are knitted together in love?
SPEAKER_01: How are we to be knitted together in love if we are scattered and fragmented?
SPEAKER_01: You see, agape love is especially at best learned and refined in difficult times, especially times of adversity and times of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: The church in Thessalonica experienced great scarcity and great adversity.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Paul says to them, Now, as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for me to write you anything.
SPEAKER_01: For you, you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: They were learning to love one another in less than perfect circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Do we think God will teach us agape love in the presence of perfection?
SPEAKER_01: Is it not in weaknesses and faults, in our own weaknesses and faults, that we learn agape love?
SPEAKER_01: If we think we are a loving church, and I do believe we are a loving church, Paul would say the same thing to us as he said to the church in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more.
SPEAKER_01: You are doing well, but we can do better.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Billheimer, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Paul Bilheimer once said about church as a place where weaknesses and faults help us to move towards greater love.
SPEAKER_01: He says the local church truly is a spiritual workshop for the development of agape love.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the very best laboratories in which individual believers may discover this spiritual emptiness and begin to grow in agape love.
SPEAKER_01: And we may become critical of that, but that should say something about our own spiritual emptiness and our own call to grow in agape love.
SPEAKER_01: You see, for many people who just simply attend church, they think of church as a performance, which they come to receive something and to critique something.
SPEAKER_01: In reality, it's more like a workshop or a laboratory.
SPEAKER_01: Those are you in high school and in college, the workshop or the lab class is not just something you can attend.
SPEAKER_01: That is something that you need to be involved in.
SPEAKER_01: You have to immerse yourself to get the full experience.
SPEAKER_01: And not only as you experience it, you learn through practical participation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, dear brothers and sisters, let me warn you that church gathered together is not a sterile or clinical laboratory, but at best have the smells and odors of a sheep pan.
SPEAKER_01: If we simply attend church, or we have this virtual connection with church, we will never understand the real reason why we gather.
SPEAKER_01: First, we will fail to discover our own spiritual emptiness and our need to practice and learn and grow and refine our agape love for people with faults and weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01: And dear brothers and sisters, adversity and scarcity somewhat highlights our need to love.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore the title for today's message is Love in Adversity and Scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: Love in adversity and scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: You see, agape love shines best against the backdrop of weaknesses and faults, or even better, in at times of adversity and scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: It is like the stars.
SPEAKER_01: The darker the sky, the brighter the light.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look here once again at Romans 12, verses 9, 12, and 13.
SPEAKER_01: The main sentence of that passage is in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Let love be genuine.
SPEAKER_01: And everything else following is subordinate to that thought of agape love.
SPEAKER_01: Love one, let love be genuine.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: Loving one another.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be slothful.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, and seek to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: As we look at that, we will see that agape love is best displayed in times.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, that was a fly.
SPEAKER_01: Love without a hypocrisy is typically shown and best demonstrated and best refined in times of tribulation and times where there are needs.
SPEAKER_01: And just the simple outline here: if we think of tribulations, we think of adversity.
SPEAKER_01: And if we think of needs, we think of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: And so the outline is really simple: adversity and scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 rejoice in hope, endure in tribulation, persist in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Now, God pay love, number one, is learned, refined, and exemplified in times of adversity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we think of the word tribulation, it comes from a Greek word of a pressure, thinking of a gr a millstone that is put on somebody's chest.
SPEAKER_01: It is it's a heaviness.
SPEAKER_01: We often, as Christians, sink into a discouragement and a despair when we experience adversity, trials, not so much outside the church, but within the four walls of a church.
SPEAKER_01: Christians often fall in hopeless despair because of internal turmoils and tribulations within the church itself.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it funny that we live in a world that is so full of troubles and trials and tribulations, and then the moment we walk in here, we expect everything to be perfect and everybody to be perfect.
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be the case, dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: And this phrase of rejoicing in hope and being patient in tribulation or enduring tribulation does not mean that we will not experience these hardships of relational and situational issues within the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We are not immune to that.
SPEAKER_01: But we are called to love one another so that the world can see that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: People will often say to me, Anton, it's easier to bear rejection and criticism outside the church, but when it comes inside the church, it's so much more painful.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, endure, endure patiently, it says.
SPEAKER_01: Endure in a joyful and purposeful way.
SPEAKER_01: Endure hopefully.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in hope.
SPEAKER_01: We can endure because we have hope.
SPEAKER_01: More specifically, that word endure or persevere or be patient, as the ESV translates it, comes from the Greek word hupo money, which basically has a sense of abiding and remaining put under pressure.
SPEAKER_01: We know the saying, when the going gets tough, yes, but in churches it works this way.
SPEAKER_01: When the tough gets going, the tough people go running.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we are called to stay the course regardless, regardless of circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Stay the course because that is how you love.
SPEAKER_01: How tragic is it when people jump ship at the slightest bit of adversity?
SPEAKER_01: Not even the first wave comes over the bell, and people abandon ship.
SPEAKER_01: The ship is sinking.
SPEAKER_01: No, you just got wet.
SPEAKER_01: We as Christians can remain trustingly, patiently, enduring trials and tribulations, and we can do that in an even killed way because we have hope, and hope never disappoints.
SPEAKER_01: We have hope that even despite the adversities we may experience at some point within this congregation, we are called to lovingly and hopefully endure patiently, because the gates of Hades shall not prevail as long as we lovingly endure.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is building his church, he is teaching us agape love.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think, dear brothers and sisters, agape love is best displayed against the backdrop of moonshine and roses?
SPEAKER_01: Christ did not love on a bed of roses, he just demonstrated his love on a rugged cross.
SPEAKER_01: Despite people saying, crucify him, crucify him, he responded by saying, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
SPEAKER_01: Agape love is best displayed in times of adversity.
SPEAKER_01: Whether inside the church or outside the church, we are patiently enduring, hopefully enduring, and staying the course joyfully.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 4, 7.
SPEAKER_01: These are light and momentary afflictions, but they are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs our difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: When we enter into heaven, all these difficulties will be gone, and they will seem so minute.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I've got no doubt, dear brothers and sisters, at some point you may experience some coldness here from somebody, some animosity, some hostility, some rejection, even persecution.
SPEAKER_01: But what a wonderful time to learn agape love, to demonstrate agape love and to refine your agape love.
SPEAKER_01: The problem, if we jump ship and say, Oh, such unloving people, just reflects our own lack of love.
SPEAKER_01: Because did Jesus not say in Luke 6, 32, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
SPEAKER_01: For even sinners love those who love them.
SPEAKER_01: If you can only love the lovable, then that's no credit to you.
SPEAKER_01: But if you love the unlovable, if you love those you experience animosity, rejection, hostility, and even persecution, that produces it an eternal weight of glory.
SPEAKER_01: The more painful the insult, the more challenging the situation, the more difficult the person, even more so to display the beauty of Agape love.
SPEAKER_01: But dear brothers, let me warn you, dear sisters, let me caution you, do not try to do this in your own strength.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot.
SPEAKER_01: You have to first experience the love of Christ, which is shed in your hearts if you receive Him as your Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: But it says there in verse 12, be constant in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Be constant in prayer, be consistent in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Another translation: be devoted in prayer, be devoted to one another in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: To love and to love properly will take personal prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, help me to love so and so.
SPEAKER_01: It requires communal prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, will you help us to be more loving?
SPEAKER_01: It takes intercessory prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, will you allow brother A and Brother B to love one another?
SPEAKER_01: They've been experiencing conflicts of late.
SPEAKER_01: Would you shed your life abundantly into their lives?
SPEAKER_01: But it will also require a devotion in supportive prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you an example of what is supportive prayer.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I went through just over a two-year period of uh fighting her cancer, and we went through very challenging times and some tremendous difficulties with treatments and surgeries.
SPEAKER_01: And we also experienced scores of people who said to us, We will pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: For you.
SPEAKER_01: But when somebody says to you, can I pray with you?
SPEAKER_01: Love reaches grand heights.
SPEAKER_01: When somebody is willing to stop what they are doing and put themselves in your shoes and say, Let me wrestle with you before the throne of God with your difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: That takes on a whole nother form of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, dear brothers and sisters, how many of you have said, like I have, I will pray for you, and we never do.
SPEAKER_01: You get an email of somebody getting well or somebody dying, you go, you know, I never prayed.
SPEAKER_01: I totally forgot.
SPEAKER_01: Love takes on a whole new dimension if we are devoted to praying with one another, just not only for one another.
SPEAKER_01: And let me show you how you can stretch love to a different dimension.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we're quick to pray for someone else.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, will you help to change Mr.
SPEAKER_01: So-and-so so that I can love them better?
SPEAKER_01: Just help them to be stop being such a knucklehead.
SPEAKER_01: It's a different thing when you say, I'm gonna pray with Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Knucklehead.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna pray that God will just soften my heart and deepen my love for my brother, who I'm particularly having a hard time with.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to hate somebody and truly pray with them.
SPEAKER_01: Try that.
SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful thing when we pray with one another.
SPEAKER_01: Before you and I want to rush over to speak our mind to so and so because there of their irksome behaviors, how about trying to pray with them?
SPEAKER_01: But sure remember yourself, remind yourself that love is without hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do this with an ulterior motive.
SPEAKER_01: Let the situation rather expose your own spiritual emptiness and the lack of your own love.
SPEAKER_01: While we can pray for people and certainly love them, our love is not limited to words, but to words and deed.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: It says they contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, agape love is learned, refined, modeled in times of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: First, we learned that agape love is learned, refined, modeled in times of adversity.
SPEAKER_01: Now we will learn how it is demonstrated and learned and matured in times of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: And here's just a two-fold observation in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Contribute to the needs of the saints, that speaks of scarcity of food for the stomach.
SPEAKER_01: Seek to show hospitality, that shows a scarcity of fellowship for the soul.
SPEAKER_01: The one is food for the stomach, the other is food for the soul.
SPEAKER_01: Let me unpack this for you quickly.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the English word there is uh is contribute, contribute to the needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Or as the King James says, distribute.
SPEAKER_01: But the word is far deeper, dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: It's the word koinoneo.
SPEAKER_01: Koinoneo.
SPEAKER_01: And that word is the same word that we get in English for fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: And what is he saying here?
SPEAKER_01: Means to have things in common, to share a common bond.
SPEAKER_01: How do we share a common bond with the saints who are needy?
SPEAKER_01: More practically speaking, it is this way.
SPEAKER_01: To be intimately and viscerally familiar with the true needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: What would be the opposite of having fellowship with the needs of the saints?
SPEAKER_01: The opposite would be being out of touch, being oblivious, being indifferent, being blissfully ignorant.
SPEAKER_01: The saints of Macedonia were not blissfully ignorant and unaware of the dire needs of the persecuted saints in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Second Corinthians 8, Paul commends the Macedonian churches, despite their own scarcity, they insisted to give and support the needs in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Despite their own poverty and scarcity, they were intimately in tune with the needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: How in tune are you, dear brothers and sisters, how your fellow brothers and sisters are doing financially?
SPEAKER_01: Physically, materially.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you an example here.
SPEAKER_01: What it means to be intimately in tune with the needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: We came here many years ago as an international student to attend seminary.
SPEAKER_01: My wife couldn't work.
SPEAKER_01: I was limited to 20 hours a week of work, which made us dirt poor.
SPEAKER_01: You try and live in Los Angeles at minimum wage at 20 hours a week.
SPEAKER_01: The math just don't add up.
SPEAKER_01: But here we are new in a strange country in a big city trying to make ends meet.
SPEAKER_01: And here comes the saints of the local church and they knock on the door.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, hello, we want to introduce ourselves, we'll be so-and-so and so.
SPEAKER_01: And they say, can we just uh visit with you a little bit?
SPEAKER_01: And they they did.
SPEAKER_01: And then they open up our freezer and our fridge and our pantry.
SPEAKER_01: Wow, these Americans are very intrusive people.
SPEAKER_01: Are they are they all like this?
SPEAKER_01: The sitcoms don't make it out that they like that.
SPEAKER_01: But you see, dear brothers and sisters, what I was seeing displayed there was Acts 2, verses 44 and verse 45.
SPEAKER_01: And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common, Koino, and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing with them all as everyone might have need.
SPEAKER_01: You see, an hour or two or three later, you would get a knock on the door again.
SPEAKER_01: Families standing, bags of groceries.
SPEAKER_01: How did you know we needed this?
SPEAKER_01: How did you need it know that we are running out of baby formula?
SPEAKER_01: That is what it means to have coinone with someone's need.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the late Jay Apecker once said.
SPEAKER_01: He said, it is a well-known fact that agape love is a sacrificial love, but it is also an involved type of love that always considers giving, spending, and impoverishing oneself for the sake of the well-being of the needy saints.
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about that for a moment, dear brothers and sisters, in terms of our fragmented Christian culture, our virtual church culture, how can we be in touch with the needs of the saints if we are cocooned in our little cocoons or our little palaces?
SPEAKER_01: Can we have a virtual connection with the church and be intimately aware of the needs of the saints?
SPEAKER_01: If agape love is known for its intimate awareness and deep understanding of specific needs amongst the saints, then what is definitely required is not virtual church but actual gathering of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Next thing about agape love, in times of scarcity, it also looks for the scarcity that affects the soul.
SPEAKER_01: And that is verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: The last part of verse 13, it says, and seek to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: Some of your translations may read, practice hospitality, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a bad word, but it's not the best.
SPEAKER_01: Practice is not the best translation.
SPEAKER_01: The word pursue hospitality is accurate.
SPEAKER_01: It is the same word that is used in Acts where it is said that Paul pursued the saints to persecute them.
SPEAKER_01: It's this hot pursuit, this kind of bounty hunter pursuit of somebody who jumped Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Hospitality, dear brothers and sisters, is not to be practiced, it is to be pursued because it ministers food to the soul.
SPEAKER_01: You see, dear brothers and sisters, every believer hungers for community.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, every human being hungers for community and true fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: But the church is the only place where you can have true community and true fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: And if we if we don't offer and provide true fellowship and true community, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: People are going to go try and find it in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when things go bad.
SPEAKER_01: We are the only organization that can provide true and meaningful fellowship and true and meaningful fellowship and community.
SPEAKER_01: Social media doesn't, Zoom conferences doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: Virtual church promises fellowship, but it only delivers the simulacrum of fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: No wonder people are lonelier and more depressed than any time before in church history because virtual church is failing to deliver what it promises.
SPEAKER_01: It cannot deliver fellowship and community.
SPEAKER_01: We are to provide for the physical needs of the saints, but we got to provide for the soul of the saints through true spiritual fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: And that, dear brothers and sisters, comes through the pursuit of hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: The Reverend R.
SPEAKER_01: C.
SPEAKER_01: Chapman, a very little-known preacher from Bond Stable in England, once said, Too many Christians preach Christ, but too few love Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to hear somebody preach Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's another thing to see someone love Christ in times of adversity and in times of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus noticed someone who had a hunger for true fellowship, and he shouted, Zacchaeus, hurry, come down, for today I must stay in your home.
SPEAKER_01: You know the song?
SPEAKER_01: One of the first Christian songs I learned.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus pursued Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_01: Zacchaeus didn't pursue Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus pursued hospitality because in your home I must stay today.
SPEAKER_01: Come down, Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to your home.
SPEAKER_01: I have no home, but I hunger for your fellowship, and I know you hunger for my fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't even have a home, and he was the most hospitable of people.
SPEAKER_01: Zacchaeus, deep down in his soul, hungered for fellowship and community.
SPEAKER_01: Dear brothers and sisters, hospitality is often confused with entertainment.
SPEAKER_01: We think we are hospitable when we invite our friends and family members over for elaborate dinner parties.
SPEAKER_01: That is not hospitality, that's entertainment.
SPEAKER_01: The word hospitality is a compound word in Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It means love and strangers.
SPEAKER_01: Love for strangers.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not saying we got to show hospitality to the first stranger you walk into leaving the church.
SPEAKER_01: But how many in this body are virtual strangers to one another?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know too many of you very well.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't hospitality be something where strangers become family.
SPEAKER_01: That day when Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus's house, I bet you that Zacchaeus was no stranger to Jesus, and Jesus was no stranger to Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_01: And so here, scarcity, when there's a dearth of community and fellowship, is a time for agape love to rise to the top.
SPEAKER_01: Churches have something to offer that this world cannot offer, and that is true fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: And the best way to demonstrate true fellowship and to practice this agape love command is through hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna fall in your lap, dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta hunt it down.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta hunt somebody down and say, let's eat together.
SPEAKER_01: Let me share you a quick experience here of a student that visited some churches in Southern California.
SPEAKER_01: Coming from another country, only used to a little congregation of about 25 or 30 people, found themselves visiting one church after another in the Southern California area.
SPEAKER_01: And for the first time, this person experiences a mega church.
SPEAKER_01: And here they get to this huge parking lot.
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing is the parking lot attendant greeted them and made eye contact.
SPEAKER_01: And this person said, Wow, that made me feel welcomed.
SPEAKER_01: Then they walked up to the big doors of the sanctuary and the door flung open, and an usher firmly shook their hands.
SPEAKER_01: That was pre-COVID times.
SPEAKER_01: He said, that made me feel appreciated.
SPEAKER_01: He said, then after the service, somebody walked them over to the information center where they were given a small gift.
SPEAKER_01: He said that was nice.
SPEAKER_01: That made me feel welcomed and appreciated.
SPEAKER_01: He commented that the preaching and the singing and the worship experience was very biblical, and that was comforting.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, what expressed to him that he was loved as a brother in Christ was the fact by noon that day he already received three invitations to go to lunch.
SPEAKER_01: So that made him decide to go to this particular church.
SPEAKER_01: Dear brothers and sisters, hospitality is something that we ought to pursue if we want to be true and faithful to the command to love one another without hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_01: What does 1 Peter 4 9 say about hospitality?
SPEAKER_01: Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
SPEAKER_01: Now we might not be grumbling.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we might.
SPEAKER_01: You mean you're having people over, honey?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my word, I've got some stuff to watch on TV.
SPEAKER_01: People don't really speak that way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just doing that for dramatic effect.
SPEAKER_01: But people do come up with uh excuses.
SPEAKER_01: Excuses.
SPEAKER_01: More excuses why life is busy.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine Jesus say, hey Zacchaeus, I would love to have fellowship with you, but you know, life is kind of busy.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've got this very, very big ministry, and people are bothering me all the day with silly little things, but you and I need to catch up at some point.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta have you over for dinner.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't have a house.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, hospitality should not be burdensome, dear brothers and sisters, because it is a joyful expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: Hospitality does not require a perfect home but a willing heart.
SPEAKER_01: It does not need to break the bank, but it rather needs to break down walls of separation.
SPEAKER_01: A virtual church cannot offer virtual hospitality just as much as Jesus' visit with Zacchaeus was a real visit, not a virtual visit.
SPEAKER_01: Hospitality does not need to get complicated, though we make it complicated.
SPEAKER_01: It is really as simple as saying, honey, maybe we should get a few sandwiches packed for church next Sunday and let's see who we can visit with.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can get to know this guy or this person better.
SPEAKER_01: We're either going to make people part of a community or we're gonna drive them elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the late Francis Schaefer, almost in prophetical fashion, had to say back in 1970.
SPEAKER_01: He says, there is no use saying you have community or love for each other if it does not get down to the tough stuff in life.
SPEAKER_01: It must, or we are producing ugliness in the name of truth.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing uglier than a church that preaches truth but does not practice the truth.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing more ugly than a church that is convinced it is a loving church because it loves truth and does not practice hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: He says further, I'm convinced that in the 20th century, in our century too, people all over the world will not listen if we have the right doctrine, the right polity, and even the right views on things, but we are not exhibiting community.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if we all scatter in our different directions, people might not bother with the truth that we preach.
SPEAKER_01: Think of the story of our guy who was marooned on the island.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhat of a comical story, then attributing to the fact that this guy thought he had an understanding of what church should be and should not be by living a solitary existence.
SPEAKER_01: If we can come to church and we don't, we are missing out on agape love.
SPEAKER_01: We are missing out at the opportunity to learn, refine, and mature our agape love.
SPEAKER_01: And that, my dear brothers and sisters, is not something we can do in our own strength, but by his spirit we can truly be a radiant community that is known for its love for one another.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray, dear Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, a tall order.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to learn and refine and mature in agape love?
SPEAKER_01: But we know we can, we know we should, but we know we can, not by our own strength, but by your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that your spirit will mightily work amongst us so that we can be indeed a community of people who love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Let us be a community of believers who are intimately familiar with each other's struggles and each other's shortcomings.
SPEAKER_01: But let us patiently endure in hope because you patiently endure us.
SPEAKER_01: Transform our hearts and transform our mind and transform this congregation.
SPEAKER_01: We are doing good, but we should be doing better.
SPEAKER_01: And we acknowledge that God and we confess that, but you we know and we understand we can be a radiating community of people who love one another.
SPEAKER_01: No greater testimony can we have to the community that we live in than to love one another despite weaknesses and faults in each other.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.