"Patriotic Ambassadors: Hospitality Worthy of a Jesus Embassy" by Bryant Martin

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

All right, good morning everyone, and welcome to Strength to Strength. Um, it's always a blessing to gather together like this, um, early Saturday morning. And today we're blessed to have with us, uh, Bryant Martin. As many of you know, um, Bryant goes without need of introduction. And, uh, so he's going to be talking to us this morning about hospitality.

The title is Patriotic Ambassadors: Hospitality Worthy of a Jesus Embassy. So looking forward to that. Uh, Tony Zook, um, if you would lead us some opening prayer, and then we'll turn the time to you, Bryant.

Lord, thank you for this day you've given to us today. Thank you again for this opportunity to gather together and, and to encourage one another and to grow in your knowledge and hopefully in your practice. And pray for Brother Bryant today as he shares with us in your spirit that would minister to our needs. And, uh, thank you for the gift of hospitality and the joy of serving others. Thank you for this new prayer. Amen.

Amen, man. Well, Bryant, the time is yours. All right. Well, good morning, brothers and sisters. It's a real blessing to be with, to be with you this morning. Um, getting together at six o'clock on a Saturday morning is typically, uh, great, um, except, uh, when you have to have a, a talk prepared.

Uh, I don't know about, uh, you, John D, but, um, or anybody else who's spoken, uh, we all have. Um, but yeah, that, that time to speak comes way too quickly. But, um, some people are wiser and prepare their messages way ahead, and, uh, some prepare right before. So, um, I'm probably one of those. I'm the latter for sure. So yeah, a real blessing to be here this morning. And, um, I care deeply about this topic on hospitality, hospitality worthy of a Jesus Embassy. And I feel very inadequate for this talk as well.

Um, just sense a huge need to, to grow in this area and, um, to learn. So yeah, looking forward to, uh, getting into this. Um, we're on the end here of a theme. Um, I think this is going to be the last talk on this theme. Um, but we've had, this is the ninth talk on around the theme of patriotic ambassadors.

And, uh, I remember, um, I think it was Glenn that proposed that, that, that, uh, that theme name. And it was just, it was kind of a, uh, light bulb, a light patronic ambassador. Of course, an ambassador should be patriotic. But, um, wow, sometimes we've got to add adjectives to help us get it into our head. So thank you, Glenn, for, for that adjective there on ambassador. So may, may we, um, yeah, by God's grace, um, grow, grow in this, in this idea of being ambassadors of heaven, uh, representing the home country on foreign soil.

Um, and so yeah, um, so I, I, I have five things I want to cover here, uh, this morning. Um, five points. First one, I'm going to talk about a story. And then we're going to talk about, um, what the Bible, um, the Old Testament, the Bible with Jesus, the early church has to say the apostles. And then we're going to talk about, um, removing bottlenecks.

Um, see, I think I missed a point there. Uh, forget which, which one. So yeah, so talk about a story, talk about hospitality, talk about Jesus and the apostles in the Bible. And then, um, and then talk about how we can remove bottlenecks. So actually, I think it's four, four points there. So, um, let's, um, let's, let's talk about a story.

About two and a half years ago, I had the privilege of going to the country of Iraq, um, with All Nations Bible Translation. There was a need there of a potential Bible translation. So I went with another, um, ABT brother and we went over there, uh, for a couple of days and got our boots on the ground and met with the people and got to see the, the, the unreached people group there, the Bible group. Um, and it was a very interesting experience. I never thought I would get to go to Iraq. Well, while I was there, um, there was this older gentleman, part of the team, actually in his 70s. And he told me one day, he goes, "Hey, on Saturday, I'm going to hike out through those mountains there.

Um, and you're welcome to go with me." I thought, "Great. Uh, that sounds great. Uh, I'll go with you." Uh, and then between that, that time of invitation and the time I was leaving that early Saturday morning, one of the other team members told me, he goes, um, "Yeah," he said, "You know, we, we, um, we love it to see, see this old brother gather and go hiking." And he goes way back in there. And it makes us a little bit nervous, actually, because he said, "Back in those mountains are Iranian militias." And, um, you know, we, we, you know, we think to ourselves, "He's an old man, big white beard. If he bumps into some radical Islamists or radical militias back there, they'll respect his age and, and, and let him go."

But it always makes me a little bit nervous. So I had that in my, in the back of my mind as we headed out early Saturday morning. And this, this brother was, is amazing. He, he, I could hardly keep up. Uh, he's 70 some years old. He was more, way more fit than I. And, uh, so we, we get way back in there. We get back in, in the mountains. We actually turned around, looked out across the plains and we could see what was, um, is, is the, what was the, the city of Nineveh out there. You know, you're coming to birth, birthplace civilization, just, uh, neat experience.

We get back into one of the, uh, on top of a mountain and he points across, he goes, "We're headed, uh, for over there on that mountainside, there's a, an ancient village that actually got blown up by, by Saddam. Uh, there was a village that this centers. And, but we're heading to that vill, that old village and there's, um, uh, a, a spring that bubbles out of the mountain. And that's our destination." And I thought, "All right, that's, that's great." And I'm there looking and I, and I'm looking across into down across the valley to that next mountain range. And I said, "Hey, um, brother, do you, is there people that live there?" He goes, "Oh, no, no, it's, there's no one that lives there."

I said, "Well, I'm, I'm seeing people moving around right there." And he looks, he says, "I can't see them." And I sure could see them. I was like, "There, there's people there." He goes, "Uh, it might be a shepherd with his flock of sheep." I said, "It's more than a shepherd. It's a group of people."

And that didn't seem to bother him. Didn't seem to faze him one bit. Of course, I'm thinking back to this morning. So we hike down into the ravine, up across the mountain to the other side and then hit this old beaten trail that wrapped around to this ancient village and this, um, this spring.

And we come and we start walking on the, on, on this trail and, and I'm, I'm, I'm tuned in. I, I'm keyed in. What, what is going to happen to us around this corner? And we, we hop around this corner and they're on this ledge.

Uh, this, this, you know, there's those ancient walls and old olive trees and, you know, just an incredible view. But I'm not looking at the view. I, I'm looking at this group of guys that I had seen. And I'm, I'm, I'm tuned in. I noticed right to the one side of them against, probably against an old wall was a gun or two. And they were kind of clustered around this little fire. Some of them were sitting there. And we pop around and we kind of start walking towards him. And one of the men jumps up. And I'm watching him and he looks at us and he starts walking towards us and he, and he smiles and he goes, "Welcome, welcome."

And boy, the, the relief that just went through me was, was like palpable. Like I was, I was just, is this, will they be friendly to us or will they hate us?

And of course, you know, we're Americans in Iraq and we know the history there. Um, but yeah, he has a smile on his face and he comes towards us, "Welcome, welcome." And he was one of the only men in that little circle that knew how to speak English. And instantly the rest of the men stepped up, stepped off to the side. Um, and they were motioning to us like it was like they were prepared for us. "Come, come." And they sit down here. Um, we, we, we sat down there around the, around this little fire and they had goat cheese and they were roasting nuts and they were making their chai. I mean, they, they carried, they were carrying a, a kettle to, to make chai.

Like people think I'm crazy about my coffee, but these guys are packing kettles and chai and stuff back into the mountains on this hike, I guess they were taking that day. And we sit down there and they put on, you know, pushing a little little piece of wood in the fire. They put on more, more water for chai and they're getting this, you know, this, this, this cheese and stuff ready for us. Oh, they had naan too, which is, uh, Middle Eastern naan is just the best.

And, um, and we sat there and we had the most epic picnic ever. Like you could look out across the mountains, you could see these, these goat herders out across there. You could look out across the plains. I, I would never forget that, that, that moment. But one of the things that we'll never forget is the kindness that I was shown. I was a stranger. I mean, I couldn't have been more of a stranger, um, in a place where I know there's people who are not friendly to me as an American.

And I never forget that lesson that was taught to me, um, love of stranger or hospitality. And so I want us to think a little bit with the context of that story in mind. I want us to think a little bit of what is hospitality.

And, uh, and there's, um, the, the Greek word for hospitality is this. And I'm probably not going to say it right for you Greek speakers, but bear with me. Um, and the word is philia zina. And for, for those of you who have studied Greek or even any kind of Bible scholar know that Greek has, I don't know, is it five or six or seven or whatever it is, probably seven, that perfect number, um, of, of, of lang, of words to describe love.

And, and philia is one of those. And it means brotherly love or to love like a brother. So philia, philia zina. And zina means, it means a stranger or an immigrant. And you combine those two and basically the word, the description there is the one who loves strangers, immigrants, like you would love your own brother.

And even, um, I think, if I understand it correctly, you can even pull in the idea of, of zina is like actually like an enemy, like to love your enemy.

So this is, you know, hospital, we often think of hospitality kind of like, kind of a formal Sunday kitchen table with, with mashed potatoes and meat. And that's not the, that could be part of it. But believe me, that's just a narrow little slice of it. It's the idea of loving a stranger. And some of us probably think of those, those, those instances in our lives where somebody loved us or showed us kindness that was irrational or that was just shocking. Um, kind of like me on the mountain there in Iraq, kindness to strangers.

Um, to help us understand the, the idea of, of philia zina, I have another word for you. That's the opposite. And, and that's a word that we hear thrown around today. I just seen it in an article yesterday, um, talking about, so this is the word zina phobia.

I'm sure some of you've heard that word as you read about some of the issues of nationalism and things that, that have, that are going on in our world here in the US, around the world. Um, and sadly you have Christians who are, because of fear, kind of buying into this idea, this terrible, terrible idea of xenophobia. What do you think that means?

Zina, think, remember stranger, right? Phobia is, is this incredible fear. Um, in our house here, I, um, I have a, well, in our home, I'm the one with the phobia of mice. Like if there's a mouse, I'm climbing the closest thing. I'm, I have a phobia of mice. Now, when it comes to spiders and that kind of, I, I can take care of those and my wife has a phobia of those, but it's, it's a fear. It's an innate, deep, deep fear.

Xenophobia. Um, it's, it's the, it's at the heart of prejudice, racism, and, and, and what you, what you see around us. So, um, yeah, hospitality, xenophobia, which, which will we be part of? Which will, which word are we going to, to, to, um, hold close, uh, in our hearts?

So let's, let's move on. Let's talk a little bit about, um, you know, this is my fifth point that I was missing here. Um, so, um, my, my, our, our third one here, we talked, we talked about a story. We talked about hospitality, the word, what that means. And let's think about, let's talk about an embassy. So our, our, the title here is Hospitality Worthy of a Jesus Embassy.

And again, almost like ambassadors, um, the, the bastard word embassy is a, is a word that, that we all get pretty, pretty good. Um, for those of you who traveled, just yesterday, one of the brothers from our church is going to Bangladesh and he was down in Washington, DC at the embassy to get his visa. They were kind of holding onto it and he went down there and stood for two and a half hours staring at them until they gave, they gave him the visa. Um, so that was the Bangladeshi embassy. And so we're used to seeing embassies like these big old buildings, you know, here's the German embassy, whatever. Um, all these different embassies looked really informal and kind of cold.

But as, as I was studying that word embassy, I, um, I, I, I came across the side, this, this, this new idea. I didn't know this before. And that is when you, this actually not the correct word for that building. Um, it's actually called a, a chancellery.

Um, the building is the chancellery and the embassy actually is like the private quarters of the ambassador. Like it's where his private office is kind of like where, where who he is lives, um, where his team works out of. So it might be a room or two in the chancellery.

I, I never knew that, but it's, it's kind of a, a light bulb like moment of when you think about, um, this idea of being an embassy, it's not a formal building. It's actually kind of more of an identity of who, of who the ambassador is.

And it's like the holy chambers, if you will. It's like the most intimate part of my, if, if, if you were a, uh, uh, an ambassador for the US in Iraq, you know, it's, it's, it's, it would be the part of that chancellery where, where you, your family lives and you live. So kind of an intimate idea.

So we think of love of stranger, loving the immigrant, even loving your enemy, worthy of a Jesus embassy. So let's jump in a little bit here. Um, and, and let's look at just, let's just skim through some of the biblical texts as we think about, is this, um, uh, is this really a hallmark of, of, of, of followers of Jesus, of God's children, love of stranger? And, and I know that I'm, I'm speaking to a group here that, that, um, that under, that understands this, that cares about this. We, we're familiar with the biblical text for the most part. Uh, and so I just have several verses here out, out of the Old Testament. Um, uh, Exodus 22, 21 to 22.

Uh, you shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you are sojourners in the land of Egypt. Uh, you shall not mistreat any widow, um, or fatherless child. So remembering, um, calling them back to remember when you were there in Egypt, uh, and how that was. Now take that, take that and, and, and do to others as you want to be treated.

Of course, we have the account of Abraham there with, with those men that visited him and how he, he just went all out with extravagant hospitality. And of course, that ties into, uh, Hebrews 13:3, where, um, the writer there is talking about sometimes we entertain or we actually do hospitality, um, to, uh, to straight, to strangers, obviously, but to angels unawares. Um, so, and then, and you have, you know, a verse like Jeremiah, uh, 22:3, thus says the Lord, do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor, him who has been robbed.

And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, to the foreigner, to the immigrant. Do, do no wrong and do no violence, uh, to the, to, to that immigrant, to the fatherless and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. And so, and we have just tons, tons and tons of Old Testament verses, texts that is, that is just helping us see how God cares about the poor, the stranger. Uh, even down to like the idea of don't glean the corners of your field, but that for somebody else, um, for the poor person, for the stranger, for the, the, the, the person traveling through, for him to glean that himself.

Um, so tons, tons of, of, of biblical, of Old Testament texts there. Um, so, and then we go to Jesus. Um, and, and I think of, you know, we, we, we, we care deeply about the Sermon on the Mount as kingdom Christians. That's, um, we would love to be called the Sermon on the Mount Christians. And so I just, I just skimmed the Sermon on the Mount thinking about this idea of, of loving strangers. And it, it, it felt to me like as I, of course, I'm in this mode, right? Of, of hospitality and think about this topic. But as I looked at, at Matthew five, six and seven, it was like the whole Sermon on the Mount is about loving the stranger.

It's just packed in there. Um, Matthew five, verse seven, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Um, the end of Matthew, at the end of chapter five, 43, 48, about love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

And I think about that verse a lot as we serve people in our home and as we serve people at, at our cafe there at Sewer's Harvest about I'm feeding people who are not God's children. I mean, I, I'm feeding people who, um, who are promoting everything about that, that, that flies in the face of, of, of Christianity, of orthodox Christianity. But here God is saying, Jesus is saying, remember, God sends, he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

And he goes on to talk about, um, about the idea of, of how you, um, how you love, you know, it's easy to love those who love you. And then he ends with, therefore be perfect just as your Father is perfect. And so, um, so just, yeah, I, I just felt like we could pull out more verses out of the Sermon on the Mount.

Um, so we're thinking about Jesus and kind of some of his teachings here, um, Luke five, um, I think also Matthew eight, this is recorded, but where, and I, I just, I love this little story of how Jesus calls Levi or, or Matthew, uh, to be his disciples. And he's a tax collector. Like he's, he is the, the, um, he is a, uh, a traitor, the epitome of it. And Jesus takes him, uh, and says, follow me. And, and, and then Jesus and, and Matthew, they go to his home and he puts on this great feast. Um, and it says that there was a great number of tax collectors and others who sat with him.

I think also maybe Matthew might say as sinners. Well, and then going on and said, and there are scribes and Pharisees complained against his, his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered and said to them, now think of this verse or this quote of Jesus kind of as a bit, as a vision statement for hospitality.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

So what an incredible, um, just a, a why of Christianity. It's the heart. It's the why God is wanting us as his ambassadors, um, using, using this, this ordinance, using the sacrament, using this incredible, um, practice of Christianity, hospitality, using this, um, as a way to, to call sinners to repentance.

The, the, the healthy don't need a physician, sick do. Luke 10, um, the, the story of the, of the good Samaritan. And, um, I think we'll, we'll keep moving along here. Uh, I was gonna read some of that, but, um, again, I, I think I, I look at this, uh, I look at this, um, this, these verses there in Luke 10 as, as, um, as like the center of Christianity.

You have a, a Samaritan going over to probably a Jewish man and taking care of him. It's just Jesus niggling in saying, you know, Jewish people, I didn't pick you for just for this focus of salvation. I picked you as a people to, to move forward my great plan. And that is reconciliation of humanity to myself. This is not about you.

Um, this is about people being brought into reconciliation with God. And so Jesus uses this incredible power, this incredible teaching to, um, to, to say a lot of things. But one, one of the phrases in that has always felt to me was how, of course, you know, you have the Levite, the priest going to the other side, but it says the Samaritan went, went, it says he went onto him or he went to him or he went over to him.

Just an incredible idea there, um, of, of, of, of really, uh, philia zena of love of stranger. And of course, takes care of him, uh, pays his bills. Just, just a beautiful, beautiful picture of the new humanity, uh, in the Samaritan.

Um, of course, going on, uh, with, uh, the, the, some of the teachings at the end of Matthew 25, Jesus said, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

Powerful, um, powerful, um, words there. And of course, um, yeah, for the, for those who had good works and for those who had, who had, who didn't, who did not do good works, who did bad works, um, all kind of wrapped up in this idea of serving the least of these among us.

A stranger, remember, zena, philia zena, love of stranger. Um, Jesus' kindness on the cross stands out as well. Um, there with those two thieves on either side, they were strangers, but we, we know the one cursed in the other, uh, defended Jesus. And of course, Jesus says, you know, you'll be with me in paradise. Kindness, even on the cross, even in the worst strait ever, Jesus is there absorbing the evil of humanity and thrown on that crucifixion device, that cross, and he's there blessing humanity around him.

Um, and I've been reading through Acts and in Acts 10, Peter says how Jesus, um, ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. Of course, this idea of eating like someone who says Jesus ate his way through the gospels like a meal. Of course, that Middle Eastern context is very much about the meal, but there's others who have been there, uh, to Asia, Middle East. Um, they will kill, just as Abraham did for those three, um, strangers, they will kill the fat of cat, if you will, for you. Like eating together is, is just really intimate and it's a way to show honor to those around you. Uh, in Acts 11, the brethren at Jerusalem are offended at Peter who ate with men who were on certain sides.

So we see this eating idea, you know, keeps popping up through scripture. Um, yeah. So I'm gonna say Jesus didn't start ministries. He just ate meals of people. So of course, um, you know, you can hardly, you can hardly talk about hospitality without, without talking about dining together, eating together. But of course, that's only a part of hospitality is one of my points here in this talk, um, here this morning. So here we can get, we can move on to the teaching of the apostles, um, Romans 12:13, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality and exhortation to the Roman church who were having an influx of people, uh, fleeing from, from, uh, persecution.

There's the idea is, you know, doing good to those, going to, doing good to all men, especially those of the household of faith. Um, uh, we see that, you know, Paul teaches that there's neither Jew nor Greek. Uh, there's neither slave nor free. There is no male or, and, or female for you are, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So again, the heart of the gospel is this idea of, of, of seeing humanity, seeing God's image in those around us, even, even the, even the stranger. Um, I, I already quoted Revelation, uh, Hebrews 13:1 and 2. Um, and, but I, I love in, in the context of just reading through Hebrews, the, the verses right before Hebrews 13:1 and 2 says this, uh, and this is out of the Net Bible. So, so, or, or therefore some transition say, therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks and through this, let us offer worship, pleasing to God and devotion in all, for our God is indeed a devouring fire or a consuming fire.

And then it goes into this idea of let brotherly love continue. Don't neglect to show hospitality or, as some times we say, to entertain strangers unawares. We're doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. So it's the idea of a stranger. Could it be an angel? We don't know. We don't, we don't know this person. So of course, um, you know, we see in Titus and Timothy, they're looking at the qualifications of an elder and, and, um, that this idea of being hospitable is right there, loving strangers. And it's, it's really an interesting idea to think of the high calling of a shepherd of the flock who's shepherding a congregation to love strangers.

And, and it's, it's, it's amazing. And it's in both of those, those texts. So again, just right at the heart, at the heart of Christianity is love of stranger.

Um, and of course, as we think about hospitality, we always, we come back, we think of our homes or, or we live as kind of seeing that as a beachhead for hospitality. And that is right. I, I, I just wanna pound that idea of, uh, of using our homes of, of us taking the initiative as, as followers of Jesus to, to use our homes as, as, um, outposts of the kingdom of God on earth. Um, right at the front, that that's, that's what we use. And, and it says that, um, in the, in, if, if you do like, look at the Greek word for house or home, um, in the New Testament, it shows, it shows like 180 times.

Um, and it's, it's just your home. I mean, these elders were to be hospitable in their homes. Um, and that's just understood. Um, like one person says, not only were the early Christians to practice hospitality, they were to depend on it. So if you were traveling, you didn't just grab a motel.

You, you, you found, I mean, of course, that wasn't, that infrastructure wasn't really available. All right. But there were probably some kind of inns or, or places, you know, to kind of roll under, underneath a, a wall or something.

Um, but it was this idea of like, you found your people. And I don't know if it has ever bothered you when a friend showed up, calls you up, you know, some morning and he goes, hey, I just called a motel down the, you know, across town here and can we have a coffee or something? Like, why didn't you call? Like, you should have called me and, uh, we could have put you out on the couch or something. Um, I don't know. That, that bugs me when, when, when that happens. And I probably have bugged others. I probably have had reasons. I thought I could, should do that or whatever. Um, but this, this idea, you know, we have so much infrastructure around us.

It just goes against opposite direction, um, of, of this, this idea of hospitality within the household of faith. And of course, we have these crazy walls we have built and stuff like that, that need to be torn, torn down.

Um, so the Roman Emperor Julian said this, uh, of the early church, and this is familiar wording here, but probably just had to put it in here. Um, writing in the fourth century said this. He said, um, um, he regretted the process of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods.

Um, he said atheism, okay. And when he says atheism, he's referring to the Christians because they served one God and he wasn't an, an idol. Um, so it's interesting. The Roman emperors called the Christians atheists because of that. It's just a twist, isn't it? Um, had been specifically, so he's saying that atheism or Christianity has been specially advanced to the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead.

It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the ga, the godless Galileans, these Christians care not only for their, their own poor, but for ours as well. While those who belong to us look in vain for help that we should render, render to them. And that makes me think of a quote here that I don't have, um, uh, that I don't have in here. I'm just gonna quickly, uh, catch that. Uh, Matt Landis says this. Yeah. He said the church has grown the fastest when it has no sympathetic state which to delegate its work to.

And, um, I just came across that quote and it just like, that is so true. Like we tend to think, I mean, the, the, so the state, of course, is, is designed by God to, to do these certain things for the, to help humanity, to preserve humanity.

Um, but, and of course, some states, some governments do it better than others. And we happen to live in a, in a country where currently, you know, there's just a lot of infrastructure. Um, we have a, we have a sense of sympathetic state and we, and we just, we, and that catches a lot of the things that Christianity in the past has caught. But believe me, um, there's a lot of holes in it. And, and recently just interacting with several things that here in our community, um, people not part of our church, but people who, who are struggling with mental health, uh, one of our workers at, at sewers, um, uh, also a homeless person that one of our church families is, is, is, is keeping at their house.

Um, there, there is these, these structures in place, but there's just a ton of holes and it seems like it's growing. And so, um, there's, there's just lots of opportunity if, if we look for it for sure. So moving on here. Um, so coming to the 21st century, um, is there still a need for hospitality, for love of strangers? And, um, yes, emphatic, emphatic yes. Um, whether it's for the household of faith and whether it's for promoting, uh, or for advancing, uh, Christianity or even maybe not, you know, I, I sometimes kind of struggle with, we do everything to advance the kingdom or kind of very much of a strong evangelistic like appeal.

But, um, this book right here, The Patient from the Early Church by, by Air Alan Kreider, um, which he talks about how the, how the early church was advanced. He, he, he has lots of other texts beyond just what I just read about that, that Roman emperor where he, he makes the point that, you know, the early church writers actually never wrote about evangelism, but they wrote about, um, um, following Jesus, um, being faithful in community and, and discipleship. Um, but, but the word like evangelism never was there. Uh, and so just because they were just really wanting to follow Jesus and his ways, love of stranger was a natural outcome to that.

And that's, that was a powerful proclamation as we see from what I just read there to the world and, and the church really, really grew, grew because of it. And so, um, today, brothers and sisters, uh, love of stranger, hospitality, philia zena is needed as much as in those times. And, and even more so, like we see, we see, um, uh, nations where there's this incredible like radical, radicalization of nationalism happening not only in the US, um, but in countries around the world. And, and part of that just right with that, right with that, uh, nationalism comes xenophobia, xenophobia, because it's all about fear and preservation. And so quickly, so quickly that can just become who we are or just, it just affects us.

And we, we, we, we recede, we pull back, we make our lane a little bit longer. Um, whatever that, however that is, uh, it, it, it comes out in xenophobic ways. And that is just should not be known, known among us. And so, um, yeah. So, and I just read an article last night, this morning early, um, about, um, the globalization that is in, uh, New York Times article. It's where it was saying that globalization has kind of been like the, the, uh, the gospel, if you will, the secular world and how just material goods working together was gonna make us this, this, um, this, uh, this perfect world. Um, but, but we see that totally disappearing and, and just, you know, uh, right in our face right now, we have the whole Ukrainian crisis and you have Russia and China and the US and some of the Western powers right there cutting each other off, like very quickly it's descending into chaos.

And, and those, those kind of things filter right into our local communities and affect us. And of course, it flows into politics as well. And so, um, as followers of Jesus, the best thing we do, of course, is excuse politics, uh, with all our, with all our fervor, excuse it, don't allow it to affect us and in turn then put forward this radical, um, love of, of strangers and those around us and our neighbors. Um, of course, I, I, I missed one of the most important parts there of Luke, Luke 10, the Good Samaritan was, you know, this lawyer saying, Hey, what's, you know, what's the greatest commandment? And, and Jesus said, well, what is it?

And, um, in quoting, we love, love the Lord God, our hearts, our minds, strength, and then your neighbors yourself. And, and Jesus said, that's right. So who's your neighbor? You know, and then, and the guy says, who's your neighbor? And, and that's, that's where Jesus has this Luke, this Good Samaritan story. So yeah, love your neighbors yourself. So I wanna talk now, um, my last point here is I wanna talk about how we can remove bottlenecks, um, in our lives, um, remove bottlenecks to open up for a radical welcome or radical hospitality.

And we just moved to a new house and our driveway route out here was designed by, um, somebody who had a terrible design, um, idea. And the, the driveway starts out narrow and comes in and then it, it, it widens, um, up, up to our kind of our shop here, little shop that we have. And it's not very, it's, it's about, it's about nothing get like three vehicles in it or two vehicles and then, um, but it's, it's the worst thing when it comes to like people coming to, to visit you. Like it was, it's like a trap for vehicles. And we, we came from a, a house where we had a pretty slow street.

You could park on the street. We had a big wide driveway. We had a front yard to easy pull into ours as a bank here. And people just parked anywhere. Parking was never a problem for us or maybe our neighbors thought it was sometimes, but basically from my perspective, it was, it worked out really well. And, um, and now we're, we're on a busy street, uh, a bank in this driveway that is an incredible bottleneck. It's a frustration central for having people around. Like where do I park? Where do I, you know, where do I park? Where do I park? Um, can we move your vehicles? You know, and it's, it's just a real pain.

And so, um, Lord willing, in, in a week or two, we're gonna tear out that bottleneck. We're gonna open that driveway up. And I can't wait for the day to open that driveway up, cut that bottleneck out. And so I have five words as I thought about, about taking out the, about removing bottleneck, about removing our driveway.

Um, five words that I'm gonna, that I'm gonna use as I think about moving the driveway is, um, remove, remove the bottleneck, um, scrape off the grass and topsoil, destroy the existing natural stone curbing, and, and finally pack in some new gravel with the goal of opening our driveway up for our guests for having a welcoming driveway. So those five words I like to look at as we think about how can we take that and make an analogy for how we can remove bottlenecks in our lives. And I see times flying away here on me. So number one on the idea of remove, I have a couple phrases that I like for us to remove ourselves from.

Um, and it goes like this, remove the back along lane, holier than now, spiritual and physical dichotomy. And this is my personal space idols. Remove those, those ideas, take them away and open it up for a kingdom embassy of Jesus.

So remove those things so we can open it up, open up the flow to be a faithful embassy of Jesus here on earth. And there's just a couple, um, ideas we, as we think about that. So, you know, like someone has said, um, the idea of remove the back and long lane. Um, uh, a brother has said, he said he thought that's what the Anabaptists were, but as he studies Anabaptists and the early Anabaptists and, and, um, the early church, he sees them not living back a holler. He's a Southern brother saying this, they're not living back a holler. Rather they're, they're out engaging the world and storming the gates of hell for the kingdom of God.

I'm holier than now so quickly. That's something that, that, that, um, we can, uh, project on other or ourselves. We're better than other people. It's just natural struggle as humans. We need to repent and realize that there's just a, there's just no one that is good.

And to remember this idea that, well, many of us have generations, generations of blessing and privilege, if you will, behind us, while there's many around us that do not. So realizing that we're just a sum of a lot of input into our lives and be humbled by that. Of course, spiritual and physical dichotomies, this idea that, you know, we're, we're gonna really focus on the spiritual things and the physical things that that's not that important. Um, and of course, the individualistic, um, idea that we've been given by us here in America. Like I, I have lived in, in urban settings with neighbors close around me for the last 14 years. And, um, you know, I have seen my neighbors hosting very few people except one of them.

And that was my neighbor where we just moved from. Um, and he was, uh, he's, he was a party guy and, uh, he was actually, you know, a lot of fun to be around. He's just, he's fun, um, funny. Um, and people love being around him. And, um, and he, he hosted a lot of people, but outside of that, very few, almost, it's like people's house is their own absolute space. And they walk in the door and sit down and watch their TV all evening. That's just who they are. So this, this is my personal. We move these idols from us. Um, so a couple, couple quotes here, um, as we, as we think about this, um, this idea of, of, of allowing, um, and removing some of these false, false dichotomies.

Uh, Rebecca Mooney, um, sister Kingdom Christian sister from, I think, South Korea. I can get in trouble for that, but I, I think that's where she's from. She says this, and Jesus didn't show up with a sermon, but with grilled fish feeding people is divine ministry. Of course, as a cafe owner, I, I love that. Um, amen on that one. Um, but yeah, it's this idea, like after the resurrection, Jesus like grills some fish and says, come eat, meat.

Um, Stanley Mooney says this, there are two mandates in the New Testament. One is witness, the other is service. To ignore either of these is to seriously cripple the church. To engage in evangelism of soul without recognition that those souls also have bodies is foolish and unreal.

Love, which is demonstrated in tangible acts of Christian caring, is irresistible. And just, um, and I know that's true. I, I, I've seen it. I've seen it in other people around me. And I've seen that in a, in our, in, in, in the work that I have done by God's grace. So people who were, who were caustic atheists, um, gentlemen that I interact with quite a bit just in the last week told me that if it hadn't been for, um, the, the, the, the ones he's interacted with at our cafe, the Anabaptist Christians there, it hadn't been for, for us showing him that there is a Christianity that is not in your face and angry, that is not using politics to coerce, to, to coerce the ones who aren't Christians.

If it hadn't been for us showing him that, he said, I would be a, a lot more nasty atheist today. He said, I'm, you have warmed my heart towards Christianity. And this is somebody that we have interacted with over a six-year period. And he's become a really good friend. Like, um, he's, and I respect him as a, as a person. He's, he's a, a very respectful person and has some values that challenge me. Um, but, but, uh, to, to show people that, that we care, um, to show people another way, uh, by God's grace, a more flourishing understanding of, of, of Christianity and, and doing it through tangible acts of Christian caring and just very simple tangible acts.

Um, and lastly, uh, here on this one about removing this, all these phrases and opening up for a kingdom embassy, uh, this is another whole topic in itself. But as we do these things, it prepares us for discipleship in the church. Like the church, our churches are void of, of, of people who can disciple others.