Practice Christian Hospitality

When we give sermons and sermonettes and we come to church, we come to hear about the big things, right? We come to hear about what God expects, God's future, the laws of God, the big things that God wants us to do and wants us to be as His children. And then sometimes we hear about what we consider the little things, and they just don't seem that important. The little things about Christianity. The big things are like keeping the Sabbath. But as we've been going through the series in 1 Corinthians 13, we get to these things that are very, very important, according to the Apostle Paul, and one of them was kindness. That seems like a little thing compared to don't commit adultery. And yet it is part of what the Christian character is supposed to be, and kindness is something that we are supposed to try to practice every day. There's a trait I want to talk about today. Now we haven't finished 1 Corinthians 13. It's going to take us another six months as we continue to sprinkle those those sermons into the things that we're covering. But I wanted to bring out one of those little things today, and then explain how I want to implement that a little bit into the church. And it's what the Bible calls hospitality. Now, first thing, hospitality. Oh, okay, I know that's just what. Having people in my house or being nice to people or being hospitable, you know, surely that's not a whole sermon. I mean, a whole sermon would be don't lie. A whole sermon would be how to have a better marriage. Why would we talk about hospitality?

All of us could share stories about times in our lives, and we've experienced a remarkable experience of hospitality, where someone actually took us into their home and showed us a kindness that was quite remarkable. I mean, one of the... I started thinking about as I was putting this together, situations I've gone through in life where people have been so hospitable. But one that I thought about was something that happened when we lived in Yuvali. I've been thinking about Yuvali simply because we lived there for four years, and of course the horrible situation that happened there with the attack on the public school there.

But we lived there for four years. I worked at the radio station. We had a man who worked at the radio station, Jose Andrade. Jose was a little bit shorter than I am, and he was in his 70s, and he was an announcer on the radio station. And he had been many, many years before. I mean, he was 70s, and this was in the early 1980s. So, you know, back probably in the 1940s, 1930s, he was Mr. New Mexico. And even in his 70s, I mean, this man walked around muscle bound, and he had a teenage son.

And one day he invited me over. He said, I want you to come over to my house. I'm going to teach you how to lift weights. So two or three nights a week for months, I would go over his house, and he would be just, you know, getting his teenage son and me to lift weights. We would just lift weights and lift weights, and afterwards we'd all get a little bit of tequila. Not much, but just a little. Now, Jose and his wife and his, I can't remember, I think he had eight kids. It was a second wife, because he had eight or ten kids with his first wife.

And they lived, I believe, in Mexico, but he had immigrated to the United States, and it was a citizen of the United States, and he had his new wife and his new kids. But Jose, I'd go over his house. It wasn't much of a house. It wasn't a really nice part of town, but I loved going over there, and we would talk, and he would share his life story.

So one day he said, I want you to come over for dinner. And I went over, I think it was Kim was out of town for some reason, and she didn't leave much, because we lived out in the middle of nowhere, and I think she had gone home to visit family for a week.

And he invited me over his house, and I went and sat down. Here this is this little house. You know, nothing's new in it. Not a house that too many of us have lived in, although Kim and I did live in the projects when we first got married, but that's a whole other story. And we're sitting there. I'm sitting at the table, and he brings out some meat and tortillas and some rice and some beans. He sets it down, and all the kids are just standing off to the side smiling and watching me.

And I said, well, aren't they going to eat? And he said, oh no, they can't eat until you eat. And I'm looking, thinking there's barely enough food here for everybody to get one spoonful, and they can't eat until I eat. So I took a turt to eat, and I put some meat and beans and rice in it, and I ate it, and I said, oh, that's fine with me. And all the kids ran over to the table. You're talking about hospitality.

You know, it's like you're our guest. Nobody here eats until you have enough. And there really wasn't enough to go around. And that impressed me so much. The hospitality. I also remember that night because later we were sitting there, and I brought out some little dessert. I forget what it was. And he looked at me, and he got this horrified look at his face, and he said, you don't eat pork.

And I said, no. He said, that was pork. He said, poor, you're going to get sick. He said, if your body isn't used to eating pork, you're good because, I mean, he ate a certain way, lifted weights.

You're going to really get sick. And I remember that because the next day when I went into work, he said, did you get sick last night? And he said, oh, yeah. But maybe I remember it for the hospitality. It was a remarkable expression of what we have. This little that we have is yours. And we're sharing this with you.

Hospitality. You know, the Bible talks a lot about hospitality. In fact, there are laws in the Old Testament with how you were supposed to treat strangers. And there are a lot of instances in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but especially in the Old Testament where people were very kind and open to strangers. Lot invited the two angels into his house and he didn't know they were angels. He invited them into his house. But they were strangers in the village. And that was unusual. And for some reason in the introductions, he felt they were safe and he brought them into his house. Leviticus 19 says something about hospitality and this acceptance of strangers. Leviticus 19. Now, I say this. Strangers in ancient Israel had to obey the laws or they weren't allowed to be in ancient Israel. In fact, one of the things you see throughout the laws in the Old Testament is if someone comes into the country, they are to adhere to the exact same walls as the native Israelites. And if they don't, they receive the exact same penalties, including the death penalty. The death penalty was part of what God had given to them. But we have here Leviticus 19.33. Now, strangers just didn't mean non-Israelites. I mean, anybody you don't know. Leviticus 19.33 says, you shall do...

Let's see, what am I looking at here? 33. And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. So this is here as someone who's not an Israelite at this point. You shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you. You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Now, there's all kinds of other laws that says how they had to act. If you were going to live in Israel, you had to live as an Israelite to be able to stay there. But it's interesting. There are very specific laws that they were to be hospitable to strangers. They were to be kind to them. They were to help feed them. We come to the New Testament, and there's a very interesting verse about hospitality. Let's turn to Hebrews 13. Now, I'm going to go someplace with this that applies directly to us in the church and our relationships with each other. Hebrews 13, verse 1. Let brotherly love continue. Now, he doesn't say agape here. This is a phileo. This is be kind and loving towards other people. So this has to do with brotherly love. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels.

That's interesting. In other words, they were dealing with people they didn't know. They were being kind with them. They were treating them properly. And not even knowing that in doing so, they were actually interacting with angels from God. Interesting concept, isn't it? You're being kind to someone, and you're actually entertaining an angel from God. But you wouldn't know that. You wouldn't know that.

The Greek word here that's translated entertaining is meaning the love of strangers. The love of strangers. Now, when we talk about hospitable in our culture, we're stepping outside of the culture of the Bible here. Hospitality is how we treat others as guests. It's interesting. Paul is staying in someone's house in one of his letters, and he actually writes, My host, and he talks about his host has been very nice to him, very friendly to him. He had a host, someone who was being hospitable and had him into his house. And that's usually what we mean by hospitality when we talk about that in our society. It means actually having someone into your home, and you're being generous to that person. When I think of hospitality, I think of Jose Andrade.

And going to his house. And his children all standing there smiling, not like, I'm hungry, hurry up, let this man eat so that we can have food. But it was like, they're watching me, wanting me to enjoy what was being served. Which was just a few pieces of meat, some rice, and beans, and a tortilla.

Wasn't in the church, but they were hospitable people.

Let's go to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 4. I'm just picking out sentences, because these statements are made in a larger context of Christian conduct. Okay, Christian conduct means we don't lie, we don't cheat, we don't steal. That's true. But we also got to remember the virtues. The virtues are the positive things that we do. We do them because we're Christians. We do them because of who we are. 1 Peter. I find 1 Peter here real quick, chapter 4. And let's read verse 9. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Now this is an interesting use of that word, because he's saying to the church here, and he's not talking about people outside. This isn't like Leviticus, where it's talking about, okay, there's someone traveling through Israel, and they're coming through your town, and you're to be nice to them.

And I've talked to people who say it's very strange when you go to Jordan and other Arab countries, because people will invite you to their house for dinner and don't even know you. Or they'll invite you to sit down with them and have tea, and they're really hurt when you don't do it. Because you're supposed to down have tea with them because they're being hospitable in Islam. That's also considered a virtue, to be hospitable to strangers. But here he's talking about inside the church, even though he says the word here hospitable has to do with how you treat strangers. He's saying, with one another we should not be strangers.

With one another we should not be strangers. What I really find interesting here is when he says be hospitable to one another, have each other in each other's homes, knowing each other, caring for each other, without grumbling. It's almost like Peter knew the moment he said this, there were people in the church that were going to say, oh no, I don't want to have anybody over my house, and there could be a lot of reasons. I don't want to go over people's houses. You know, I don't know anybody that well, or I don't like these people, or whatever reason we have, that we just don't want to go over each other's houses. And so Peter, understanding the group he's writing to, says be hospitable, speaking to the church to one another, but don't do this with grumbling. Do it because you want to.

Oh, let's talk about not committing adultery, because that's not something that we're all running out doing. Let's talk about the big things. But why is this in the Bible, over and over and over again? Because the Christian life is supposed to be more than the thou shalt not. It's the things that we do. It's the things that we do. And one of them is that we're to be generous with each other, we're to be hospitable with each other, and to do so not without grumbling, but because we want to.

The Bible talks over and over again about how we are the children of God, which means more than just our relationship with God. If we are the children of God, then we are to act like brothers and sisters in Christ. And as we've been going through 1 Corinthians 13, that comes out over and over and over again. As we've gone through the instructions in Romans and different places that all ties into 1 Corinthians 13, it talks about how we treat each other as part of our development as the children of God. If we don't, the children of God treat each other as children of God. Unfortunately, sometimes we don't. We ignore each other. We don't know each other. We're too busy with our own lives. We're too busy thinking about how we look to others instead of how we're just out caring. Caring is caring. It's just who you are. There's no other motive for caring, except I care. That's your motive. You know, it's very interesting in Acts 2, we have a description, the earliest description of the earliest church. This is right after Jesus ascends. This is right after that first Pentecost when God's Spirit is poured out on the church. And we have here a description in the last verses starting in verse 40 of chapter 2 of what this church was like. It is an amazing, vibrant church. Now, as you read through the New Testament, and churches get to be 20 and 30 and 40 years old, they lose some of this vibrance they just do. And there's a great danger in that. There's a great danger in that. But as he describes what this the very first church was like, now it had its own problems right away. We know that from Acts chapter 6. The first reason that they ordained people in the church, we call them deacons now, they call them table waiters then, was because nobody was taking care of the widows. And it was taking care of the widows was the issue. Simple acts of service. They found people who did that, they ordained them, and they made sure to organize everybody else to take care of the widows. So they had their early problems too. But here's what it says about them starting in verse 44. So continuing daily, okay, they just didn't get together on Sabbath. Now this was easier because they were all living in Jerusalem or right around Jerusalem. So they all live close to each other. We don't. But, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. That's just a fascinating little sentence there.

They knew each other. They interacted with each other. This wasn't just about coming to church once a week. In fact, they ate. They were hospitable. They had each other in each other's homes all the time. It says they just from, they were from house to house with gladness and simplicity. That's very interesting. They were happy to be with each other, and it was simple. The relationships were simple. They simply cared for each other. That was it. The relationships were very simple. We make them complicated. We make all this so complicated. It really wasn't. It was just simple. We go to your house because why? Because you're a brother and sister in Christ. And you come to our house. Why? Because you're a brother and sister in Christ. And this was central to their lives.

And they were praising God all the time.

In this relationship with each other, they were always praising God. There is a joy here that we don't have sometimes in the Church of God. And sometimes it's been missing. I don't mean it's always missing, but we've struggled with it for years and years and years. You know, some of my early memories about the Church is, you know what it is when I was a kid? Traveling two hours on a Friday night to go to someone's house to spend Friday evening because all day Saturday we would have services and we would have Bible studies and we would have a social that night and everybody did it all together. And everybody traveled. Everybody came. You came no matter what. Now, not if you were sick, you didn't come. Sometimes you didn't come because in Pennsylvania we got three feet of snow and you couldn't get there. But you came unless you could not come. You came and you were there. And I really remember staying at that people's house because they served us every Saturday morning oatmeal with raisins in it and I'd never had oatmeal with raisins in it and I thought it was an exotic food. At seven years old I thought, wow, these people must be rich. They put raisins in their oatmeal and I can still remember that. And we went to each other's houses with a simplicity. There was a simplicity to it. It was just a simple, we care for each other.

We've struggled with that over the years because of the church. You have second and third and fourth generation people and then other people get older and that is lost. I've talked to some of you who say, oh, you should have known the Nashville church 30 years ago. We did everything together and they'll mention, you know, 45 people they did everything together with. Because why? Well, you stepped out of the world, where were you going to go? Part of the problem is we're still too much part of the world today. So we can't do this. We can't be hospitable. We can't have people in our homes. And there's a lot of reasons why. So let's go through some of those reasons. I mean, some of them are legitimate. I mean, some of you live so far away, to have somebody in your house, they're going to have to be willing to drive an hour and a half to get there, right? That's a reality. But, you know, we faced that in the 60s, too. Only worse. Only worse. I remember going to one of the holy days, the spring holy days, and it was the only holy day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The people came all the way from Florida and all the way from way up in Canada just to come to a holy day for one day. And you know what? There's another huge difference between the Church of God today and then. We were poor. People were really poor back then. And they used their last dollars to do that. And you think, well, why would they do that? Because it was that important to them. It was really that important to them.

So some of the reasons why we can't. Okay, we understand. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes you just age. You can't do it anymore, right? You just can't do what you used to do. You can't travel like you used to. Okay. So there's reasons why we can't go house to house constantly like they did when everybody was in Jerusalem. But why can't we be in each other's homes from time to time? Why can't we? I hear some reasons. I'm too shy. Now, I'm too shy. I understand that. I've had people say, well, I'm really uncomfortable people coming into my house. I'm too shy.

Or my house is too dirty. Or whatever. We can have all these reasons. Okay. Shyness. We can be very shy and not want people in our house for a number of reasons. One is a fear of rejection. People can come into my house and see that I don't have a lot or I'm whatever, or the neighborhood I live in, and they're not going to like me. Fear of rejection. We confuse hospitality with entertainment. You know, you don't have to sing or dance to have somebody over your house. Although I do remember going on a visit one time in East Texas. I arrived. They lived in a one-room shack with one light bulb hanging down connected to a car battery. And we ate, and everything was fried. I mean, everything. At least it was beef. I didn't get to know. But everything was fried, and we ate all this fried food. And then afterwards, they got out of guitar and harmonica and sang and played for me. They never came into the church, but I still think that was a pretty neat experience. I remember a man, a young man, early 20s, didn't have a lot of social skills. And he said, I want you to come over my house. He said, I never had anybody over my house. I think it was an apartment. And this was in Wisconsin. And I said, okay. So I went over to visit him, and he says, I made dinner for you. Okay. And I sat down, and he said, you said in your sermon, one of your sermons, that you like beets. I said, yeah, I do. He brings out this giant pot of beets. And he sets it down, and he says, I made you a pot of beets. Okay. So he brought up big bowls, and he gave me this big bowl of beets, and I ate it. When I was done, he said, do you like it? I said, yeah, it was good. Well, have some more. And he gave me two big bowls of beets. That was another night that I did not have a good night.

But I remember him for his hospitality.

I remember him for his hospitality. How many of you did have I told you this story before? Stop me if I have so you can raise your hand. Ellis Ravia. Do you remember? How many remember Ellis Ravia? Okay. Ellis Ravia was a right-hand man to Herbert Armstrong. And when he retired, he ended up in Wisconsin, and he was the church elder. And here's a man who was a evangelist, and now is a church elder in the church where I was the pastor. And he and I became good friends. And he would tell me, I have no idea what it's like to actually pastor. I said, good, well, you come with me sometimes. So we had this woman. First time I met her, she was in a halfway house. Drug addiction, alcohol, had lost her job. They had taken her children away. And I met her there. We worked with her. She got off the alcohol, off the drugs, got her children back, had a good job, had her own apartment. And she told me, you and Mrs. LaRavea have to come over to my house for dinner. Did I tell you this before? No, okay. Had to come over to my house for dinner. And I said, Alice, you've got to go with me. This is a chance to see a different side of things, because he knew her background. We walked in. She's all dressed up nice. That place is nice. I mean, she is her children are there. She's so happy. And she was a black woman. And she said, I know you white people like brats. How many know what a brat is? It's a giant sausage, okay? And they really had to be cooked right. She said, I went and looked and looked, I found beef brats. And she had boiled them. And she put it on the plate, and you opened it up, and it was only half cooked. And I looked at him. He looked at me, and I started eating. And we both ate it. And she said, I knew you would like those. I worked all day cooking those. And we hugged her. We had a wonderful couple hour visit with her. We got in the car, and he said, we're going to be really sick, aren't we? And I said, probably.

But were you going to tell her? And he said, nope. And I said, neither was I. That's hospitality.

Why don't we see that the way we should?

Are there strangers among us in the congregation? There's only 120 of us. That's counting all the shut-ins, of which 20 of them can't come to church at all.

Do we not even know each other? I've been a pastor here for years, and I don't feel like I know all of you. I keep running as fast as I can, but I just can't get to 200 and some people in this huge area that takes me sometimes three hours to get to one person's house. I can't do it, but I'm trying. If I could get off of television, I could probably do it. But that just doesn't let me do it. But hospitality isn't just some pastoral job. In fact, it's not a job at all. It's a relationship. It's a relationship. Sometimes we confuse hospitality with entertaining. Or we have this acute awareness of ourselves that we have to get away from. In other words, we feel inadequate. But when these people see my place, but your place doesn't matter. You matter. We as people matter. We are the children of God. That's what matters. That's the kind of car you drive or the place you have. All the other things that we think, well, someone will look down on me because. No. No, those aren't the issues that matter. Why should I be hospitable? Here's another thing people say. Why should I be hospitable when no one ever shows hospitality to me? No one's ever invited me over their house. I've been in this church for eight years and no one's ever invited me over their house. Why should I invite somebody over my house? Okay. See what Jesus said about that. Luke 14. Luke 14.

Verse 12.

He's giving a series of parables here. And he says, now he was invited to a rich man's party. Okay. That's where this comes from. He's at a very wealthy man's party and all the people are in the, you know, the in-crowds there. He said to him who had invited him, when you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, no rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you'll be blessed because they cannot pay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Of course, many of us, we can say, well, I'm the poor and the lame and the blind. Okay. Well, you can have somebody over too, or you can go to somebody else. Let me have to pick you up.

It takes time to do this. We're so rushed. We have so many priorities. We're missing the Christian priorities. We're missing the Christian priorities. So what happens is, you know what we do? There are some people in this congregation are very hospitable. So we count on them being hospitable. They have us over at their place. What about somebody you don't know and having them to your place? Are you going to their place? I'm too old. You know, that could be true. It's hard to be hospitable when you say, well, you know, I can barely come to church every other week. I can't have anybody over my house. Oh, yes, you can. Just tell them to bring some food.

It's that easy. Oh, no, isn't that rude? No, it's not rude. I'd love to have you over my house, but I can't cook. And you'd be surprised. Somebody will say, don't worry about it. I'll bring some food. Or how about this? Bring a pie and I'll get the ice cream. How's that? It doesn't have to be a meal. Come over my house. I'll make... I mean, I've had people try to be so... When I first moved to Texas, I made the mistake of telling people I liked pecan pie. Three times in one day, I went to visit a widow. And each day she said, I made a pecan pie just for you. And they had a whole pot of coffee. And I had to eat like a fourth of a pecan pie and a cup of coffee. Three straight visits. By the time I got home, I had to shake so bad I could already drive the car.

Okay. But I wasn't going to say no because of why. Because of their attitude. That's why. That's why. I wasn't going to say no, because they were showing hospitality. And they had gone through great trouble to do so.

Now, I'm not as young as I used to be. I probably couldn't do that. I'd probably just have some kind of sugar high and go to sleep. So I, you know...

I've seen a lot of hospitality. I see a lot of people give what they did not have, or give to the extent of what they could. I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough money. As if money is the determination of the relationship we have with each other as the people of God. It has nothing to do with our relationship with each other.

I don't have enough room.

Well, then invite one person over. Or two people. You have room to put one person. Sit on a floor. It doesn't matter. Who cares?

Talk. Talk about God. Praise God. Talk about your life. Share stories.

Share your lives with each other.

I live too far away.

Well, that can be very, very difficult. But there are ways to work through that. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I don't have enough time. That one is illegitimate entirely. Because that means you don't have your right priorities. And the reason I say that? You say, wow, that's a strong thing to say. First John, chapter 1. First John, chapter 1.

John, chapter 2.

Verse 5.

John says, This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. There's one of those big things, right? There's one of those big things. If we're walking in the darkness of the world and say we're a follower of God, we're all lying because you cannot live in the darkness of the world and be a follower of God. You can't. Now, we all live in the world. We all have our sins. We're all struggling. But the point is, is our direction. Our direction is in the light. Our direction is toward the light. Our direction isn't out there into the world. So we're all in. We're all imperfect. None of us are perfect. None of us do right all the time. But we're headed into the light. We're moving in a certain direction. Big stuff. Next verse. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. The blood of Christ Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

In the big statement that we're not walking in darkness, but we're walking towards God.

For that to be true, if that is true, he says, then you have fellowship with one another.

That's a big statement. And I know we all try to have fellowship here. This is a church where people tend to know each other. You're friendly. But this is going to be harder and harder as time goes on.

As time goes on, it's going harder and harder to have relationships with each other. You know, another thing that happens when you've been in the church long enough? You know everybody else's faults. That's when being a family becomes real, right? That's when it's real. That's when you know each other's faults and you still love each other. Now you've made a step. But only when we've done that, when we spend all our time judging each other, you're not being a family.

We must have fellowship with each other. That's what it says. If we are in the light, we will do that. So if we're not doing that, we have a problem.

Hospitality. What a little thing. That's not one of the big things, but it is. If we want to have that closeness that will help us stick together in the times that are to come. If we want our children to belong. If we want our young people to stay. If we want our older people not to feel marginalized and just sort of give up and stay home. If we want all that to happen, we must have fellowship one with another. Because it's what he said. It's what John wrote.

Let's go to John 13. Because here is a statement. In fact, I read this in a sermon here a couple months ago talking about agape.

Because it's a really, really dramatic statement made by Jesus Christ. John 13.

And verse 34.

He said, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. That's not a new commandment. Now he's not talking to the world here. He's talking to his disciples. That is not a new commandment. The commandment is, Love God with all your heart and all your soul and love your neighbors yourself. So to love one another is not a new commandment. But it's the next thing he says that makes us new. A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. And by this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The relationship we have with each other is to be an example to the world.

That's a little mind-boggling, right? Our example to the world is we keep the Sabbath. Well, yeah.

But what happens if they show up? What happens if they show up?

Do they see people who are the family of God? You know, Josh Creech, when he was here, preached that constantly. Mainly because he thought it was something we needed to learn here.

He preached it a lot. He and I talked about it a lot.

Of course, guess what happened when he got his first pastor? Guess what he preached a lot?

Because he understood, as I think every good pastor does, that once we have our relationship with God right, our relationship with each other is the people of God. No, our relationship with God, our relationship with our families, our wives and our children, our fathers and our mothers, once we have that right, our relationship with each other is how we express our Christianity. It's what we are.

And anything that breaks that down, we have to wonder where is that coming from? Where is that coming from?

There should be no strangers in the congregation. So, next month's social activity, we're going to practice a little Christianity. A little practical Christianity. So, on the second month of August, we won't have a potluck and a Bible study. We're going to have morning services.

After services, and you all can start doing this now, because it's going to take a few months, because there's always about 20 people not here, they're out of town, they're not feeling well. Over the course of three weeks, we'll get this all organized. Eventually, I'll actually have somebody assigned to help you match up if you have no place to go. But you get to try it first. And, you know, if you don't want to do this, this isn't a command from God. Okay? It's just our next social activity. We're going to have some hospitality. That means you all have to go over each other's houses, not to restaurants.

Not the restaurants. Some of you may have to travel away, some of you may not. Those who have to travel will hope somebody invites them over. If you're one of those people that never invites anybody over, why don't you plan to invite somebody over? And if you're one of those people that always invites people over, why don't you just wait and see if somebody invites you over? If you're young, why don't you invite somebody that's not part of the group you hang out with? If you're older, why don't you invite a younger person? If you're married, invite some singles. If you're singles, invite some married people. And don't have a big crowd, by the way. Invite maybe one other family and a single person or a couple elderly people in a family. If you don't have a big place, that's okay. Cram them in.

If you can't afford it, that's okay. Tell the people you're inviting over. I want a very small... I'm on Social Security. I'm going to need some help. Don't worry about it. But you have to go to your house. They went from house to house. That's what the Scripture says they did. And the distance has kept us from doing that. Society has kept us from doing that. And there's just... there's a superficiality when we only see each other at church service. That's the reason I love coming to socials, because you get to know people better. Right? I mean, I got to know Tim Franke and Matt Puckett a lot as they sat there from every year and waited for that pie to come into their face. And I knew as pastor, I'm not going to get one.

Although I worried from time to time. But, you know...

That's one reason why it's fun to go to camp, isn't it? Many of you here go to camp. You get to know each other.

You talk at night. You never sleep because you stay up talking. You get the kids to bed, and you stay up talking with each other. What do you do in the mornings? You're up a little early, and you sit and talk to each other. I mean, that's why I go to camp, is because the sharing of that time with the kids, yeah, but with the adults and with the teen staff. Just to talk.

We need to reach out to each other. You look around this room. There's somebody here you don't know. Now, what's going to happen when we're done here, eight people are going to run over to one person. You know, sorry, you get, you know, seven of you have to go find somebody else.

But that's what we're going to do.

We're going to set one month from today, the second month in August, is hospitality Sabbath. Morning services, but no Bible study like we usually have, and no social.

If there's somebody not here today, remember we sent out everybody's addresses and phone numbers and email addresses here. When was that? Six months ago? Five months ago? You know people that aren't here that you might look at that list and say, I don't even know who that person is. Well, then give them a call or look for them here and say, do you know so-and-so? You know, who knows everybody? John Paul. Ask him. Who is this person? He'll show you. But we have to break down a superficiality we have at times, and part of it's this building, because you know what happens? You stand around and talk to the people around you, right?

And there's other people you've never, you haven't talked to in months. I try to get around, and there are people here I haven't talked to in months, because I can't get through this building. And you start talking to somebody and they get anointed, and this happens and it happens pretty soon. It's an hour after services, and I've walked three feet, and that's okay. That's part of this building. But to do this, you have to break that down. You have to break that down. So let's see how we do for the next couple weeks, and then we'll have a sign-up list for those who didn't get invited, and we'll just match you up. You won't know who's coming until that day. And after a while, you're going to be matched up with somebody you know, right? Because we all know each other to some degree. But we'll do that. After a couple of weeks, everybody that didn't get invited will have you sign up for a couple of weeks. And we'll match people together, and you'll just be gambling. Well, that's not a good word. Well, you'll be... No, you'll be gambling to see who you end up with.

If you can't afford to go to somebody's house, but you can help them pay their gas money, or go to their place, or whatever. But this is really important. This is really important. And I really stress, do not hold back because you're shy. Do not hold back because you don't have money. Do not hold back because you feel like, well, people won't like my place, or because they'll look down on me, or because of whatever reason. Because those are not good reasons. That's not what keeps family apart. Ever. Because, as I've said before, there's only two things you're going to have sometime in the future. You're going to have God and each other. One of the things Satan wants to do right now, he's very good at it, he's going to divide the church into just nothing. That's what he's going to do. He's going to divide it and divide it and divide it. So everybody's isolated. That's his goal.

And God won't let that happen. And if we're close to God, it won't happen. If we're not close to God, it'll happen. I've been watching it happen for 25 years. Constant isolating of people to where they're no longer part of a congregation, which is not New Testament Christianity. New Testament Christianity is congregations. The independent Christian is a modern Protestant viewpoint and it is not the Scripture. So we have a social coming up. A social that everybody can be involved in, where we can learn how to become a little more the family of God.