This year, we will focus on deepening our connections with Jesus, one another, our neighbors, our friends, and our community. How will we do this? We will start by looking at how the New Testament church used hospitality to spread the gospel and grow in faith.
Hospitality is not a foreign concept in the Bible. In Genesis 18, Abraham showed hospitality to strangers when God came to see the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah. By entertaining the Lord and showing simple hospitality, Abraham was able to grow in his understanding of who God is and negotiate for the safety of Lot’s family. In the book of Acts, we will see, in a couple of weeks, how Lydia, a wealthy woman from Thyatira, shows hospitality to Paul, Silas, and Timothy after her conversion in Phillipi. Hospitality offered Lydia a powerful way to share the gospel with her circle of friends and helped her to grow in faith.
As we seek to deepen our relationships this year, hospitality can play a major role in shaping our connections. That’s because Christian hospitality is grounded in fellowship, creates a place of refuge for others, teaches us to be selfless, and expresses God’s love. Does that surprise you? If you’ve been thinking that hospitality is about entertaining, then maybe the idea of fellowship, selflessness, refuge, and love doesn’t resonate with you. But when you understand that Christian hospitality is not about entertaining, it’s about sharing Jesus, it begins to make sense.
Christian hospitality is grounded in fellowship. The point of having others over is to deepen your relationship. It should be an opportunity to get to know one another and hear each other’s story of faith. Some questions you may ask each other are: How did God bring you to faith? How has knowing God changed you? What has God been doing in your life lately? Of course, this deeper fellowship can only take place if your home is a place of refuge.
Christian hospitality must provide refuge. When you open your home to others, they must be safe. Safe to share how they’re really doing or what they’re really feeling. That means that some of your deeper discussions will need to be kept private. You will also need to consider what’s going on in their lives. Are they grieving? Is there turmoil in their lives, personally, in their families, or at work? This information may help you to know if they need a boisterous night of games or a quieter night of conversation.
Christian hospitality is not about you. It is about those you bring into your Christian fellowship. It will take selflessness to serve them well. Yet, this selflessness will lead to your own sanctification. As much as Christian hospitality can benefit others, it also helps sanctify you by teaching you to put aside your need for rest and serve others. It will then be an expression of love. An expression of your own knowledge of God’s love for you expressed to others in a selfless way.
As a church, may we deepen our connections with Jesus, one another, our neighbors, our friends, and our community through selfless Christian hospitality. And may God use it to sanctify us while growing and strengthening our faith in Him
