Welcoming the Stranger

Message Transcription

The series that we have been in for the last two weeks is called Everyday Disciple What It Means to Be a Disciple in Everyday Life. Two weeks ago, we heard from Karl as he launched the series and he spoke of the great commission we find in Matthew 28, 16 through 20. The Scripture says. Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. Then Jesus came to him and said, All authority and heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore. And go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the end of the very age. Karl and in his sermon and his reflection pointed out that to us that discipleship is to be a student of something. He had us reflect on who or what is discipling us in our own everyday lives. Because the reality that he pointed out to us is that we are all students of something. Discipleship is hard. But it is for everyone. Especially imperfect people like us. The scripture says, though some doubted discipleship is obtainable because all authority in heaven on earth has been given to Jesus, not us. The one who came to this earth to live and to die at the expense of his own people so that we might have life with him.

And then last week, Brian touched on the greatest commands that we find in Mark 28 or Mark 1228. And when a teacher of the law approached Jesus and he said, of all the commandments, which is the most important. And Jesus would reply was simple as he quoted what the teachers of law already knew in their head, but not their hearts. And he said, Here, Oh, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord, your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul. And with all of your mind and all of your strength. The second commandment is this Love your neighbor as yourself, for there is no greater commandment than these. Brian helped us see how tangible following Jesus is with these two commandments. No, they're not always easy. But they are doable because of Christ and his life and his sacrifice. Jesus's second commandment that Brian mentioned here is echoing a long history of God telling his people to love your neighbor, the foreigner, the stranger, or even the fun word, the sojourner. And the book of Leviticus is an entire book of commands that the Lord is giving Moses on Mount Sinai. On Chapter 19. Our reading starts off by saying. We'll go to the next slide. We'll start in.

Yeah. The Lord said to her or not, we're not there yet. I'm so sorry. The Book of Leviticus is an entire book of commands that the Lord gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In Chapter 19, where our reading starts off, it says, The Lord said to Moses, Speak to the entire Assembly of Israel and say to them, Be Holy because I, your Lord, your God is holy. And Moses is receiving these commandments from the Lord. And his role is to pass what God is saying to the entire Assembly of Israel. Moses was not just tasked with spreading these commandments only to the Levites, a.k.a. the priests of the time, the ones who took the duty to do those kinds of things. No, he was speaking to the entire assembly of God. And we get when we get down to verse 33, this is the commandment that all people of Israel were to follow. Not just the ones who had the gifts or the proper education. It was a commandment from God to all of his people. And verse 33 says, When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as native born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The English standard version puts it a little different by saying, When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as they are native among you, and you shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The question I have for us this morning to ponder. Is what comes to our minds when we think of the words foreigner, stranger, sojourner. Does our minds jump to modern political leaders? Thoughts on how we as a nation should treat foreigners and strangers in this country? What are our emotions when we hear God telling his people to love the foreigner as ourselves? Aren't we filled with joy and ready to go out and meet those who are strangers and foreigners? Or are you afraid and overwhelmed? If so, I get that. So many of us get that here in this room and so many of us here in this room want to be filled with that joy. And we might be when we hear someone speaking at church, but when we have the opportunity in our own everyday lives. You might get overwhelmed. And we won't say the wrong thing. We might have feared that. We might say the wrong thing. We might come across bad that we're shoving God down the throats of people who don't want it. We might be afraid that we might offend them. In this Leviticus 19 passage. God is not concerned with the stranger, with how the stranger or foreigner reacts to the Israelites reaching out and showing hospitality.

God is uniquely concerned with how his people are extending hospitality to everyone. So let's step back for a second. When is the time that you have felt like a stranger, a foreigner? When you have felt lost or stranded without a support system. And you had you find your way around for the first time again. A time when you might have had to take a massive leap of faith without knowing how things would have turned out. Maybe you were thinking of when you had to move to a different city for a new job. Maybe thinking of the beginning of a new semester with new classes, new teachers who you've never met in a room full of classmates you did not know very well. Maybe this is you as a new college freshman and you just moved into your dorm to start your first day of college. And actually, maybe this is you this morning as you stepped into a new church where you had to walk around this maze of a building to find your class. When I asked this question, I was thinking of last Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving, Bethany and I went to visit her family in Texarkana. We left a little later than in the day than we originally intended, and we ended up stuck in a sandstorm in the middle of nowhere at 9:00 at night.

We could hardly see more than four road stripes in front of us. So I pulled out my phone to see the next exit and it turned out there was an exit off the highway only a thousand feet in front of us to a little town called Guthrie, Texas. We stopped at a closed gas station, and it took a few minutes for us to pray that the Lord would bring us maybe a person of peace who would either point us towards a hotel or maybe give us a couple of rooms for the night. And after an hour or so, wandering around town and even accidentally driving through the middle of their football stadium. We ended up at a house. And we told them our sob story and we asked if there was any chance they knew one of our Atlas students from Guthrie. Name Holly Richardson, and immediately their eyes brightened and said, Oh, yeah, we know Holly and her dad, Barry. So they quickly called Barry, and within 2 minutes, this big old red Ford truck pulled through the sandstorm. And out came a man with starched jeans, worn boots and jumped out with the friendliest smile and said, So you all know Holly. Come on. Come stay with me. I got two extra rooms. And when we got to his home, he put his he put us in his kids rooms and he asked us if he wanted breakfast the next morning.

We said we did it. But even when we got up really early the next morning, he was already in the kitchen cooking. And the thing is, this is exactly what Leviticus 1933 through 34 is talking about. Barry immediately treated us like family, even though he probably couldn't tell you our names today if you asked him. But he went out of his way, even when he gained nothing in return. To show to strangers hospitality by letting us stay in their own kids beds and cooking us breakfast on a Sunday morning, just like you probably would have already done for his own family. This is an incredible example that I've experienced firsthand of one of God's people treating me a stranger like I was his own. Because somewhere down the line, Berry was once a stranger, and he had received the same hospitality, too, at some point in his life. So as this is campus ministry Sunday, I have the opportunity to remind all of us and including myself, that thousands upon thousands of students are moving into our community, either for the first time or returning. College students have so much in common with the strangers and foreigners God was referring to. For one, both the foreigner and the college students are traveling to a new place for a better opportunity. Well, in the Old Testament times, the foreigner might be traveling to escape famine or oppression.

Many of our university students today are traveling here for the opportunity of an education, an education that they all hope will set them free, set them up for the future. The emotions from both groups. I can only assume overlap as well. Both the strangers of old and of today face the challenge of the unknown. Will this opportunity pan out? Will this move be worth it? Who is going to eat with me? Who is going to show hospitality to me? Where do I fit in? And from what God says to Moses on Mount Sinai, we are not to mistreat them or take advantage of them. We are to treat them as our native born. And what if every college student that is here, that comes through this ministry was treated like they grew up at this church? What would change? What won it. It is the role of the everyday disciple to be on the lookout for those who are strangers and foreigners around us. God has situated us in the perfect spot to receive strangers and foreigners. The whole world comes to Texas Tech, Lubbock, Christian and South Plains. People across the state, nation and globe come here to get an education. And here in this intersection of cultures and nations, we get a chance to treat them as us, as if they've been a part of our family all along.

We get to teach and live out the gospel to these strangers and foreigners. And then when they graduate in four or five or maybe eight or nine. For grad school. They'll go back into the world and treat others the same way they treated them and share and share the same gospel. What's funny is that in Matthew 28, Jesus is telling these people to go into all the world and share the gospel, and they were actually in the same situation we are in now. These same disciples who receive this call to go out and lived in an area where two major trade routes crossed, creating an intersection of cultures and nations. So when strangers and foreigners came into this arena, God's people would be obedient to Jesus's call to go out and make disciples. And these people who came into the intersection of cultures would be impacted in this concentrated area and walk away changed because of the gospel they experience their. And we have the same call and even the same opportunity to go to the concentrated intersection of cultures and nations at Texas Tech. Lubbock. Christian. South Plains. We know Jesus is very concerned with the status and stranger the status of the strangers and foreigners. Matthew ends his gospel with a command to go in the sense of leaving your comfort zone. Whether that means to uproot yourself and to go do mission work somewhere or to go out of your comfort zone here and now today.

And this series of everyday disciple. We are looking at what it means to be a follower of Christ in our everyday lives. I was trying to think of practical things we could do for our university students, and I was wrestling with that. But I became captivated by the final parable we find in Matthew. And Matthew 25, starting in verse 31, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. He says when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance. The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry. And you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger. And you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick. And you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. As in the righteous will answer him. Lord, when did we see you hungry? When did we feed you? Or give you drink.

When did we see a stranger and invite you in? And when did we see you sick in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply. Truly, I tell you, whatever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me. Then he will look to those on his left and he will say, Depart from me. You who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry. And you gave me nothing. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger. And you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and imprisoned. And you did not look after me. They will also answer, Lord, when did we see you? Hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you? His reply will be the same. Truly, I tell you. Whatever you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me. They will then go to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life. This parable is a foreshadow of when Jesus takes his place on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, those same nations that he commanded his disciples to go out and spread the gospel to.

I believe this. The intent of this parable is not to make people go back and think of every opportunity they missed out in their life. And live in fear for not acting appropriately. Because I believe Christ also gives us grace for all the times we have fallen short of taking care of those in need. I am behind the idea that this parable exists so that we can have a tangible way to measure our own discipleship every day. It means as a church, as a body of believers, we are to show hospitality to students, to those who are strangers and foreigners to us. We are to treat them like they have been here all along. The parable gives us insight into how we can do things for the college students who might be here for only the short term. What ways can we tangibly love and support them? For one, we can feed them. They love food. Just like we do. And we can invite them into our houses, into deeper relationship with us in our small groups and our circle of friends and even our families. And when they're sick, we can invite we can visit them and take care of them when their moms aren't here to take care of them anymore. We can pray with them and teach them about Christ and tell them how he's changed our lives. And we can sit there and we can imagine with him how Christ can change their own.

And because of this intersection that we find ourselves in being this in proximity to these universities year in and year out. Broadway is situated to make disciples continuously with the college students in our area. Because the whole world is coming here to Lubbock, Texas, with the goal of getting an education. But our goal is that they're leaving here with something far greater than than a degree, but that they are leaving here with the gospel of Jesus Christ in their hearts. So we're here at this point in this sermon where hopefully. Either you're fired up or you're passionate about loving strangers as you've been loved. And I don't want to end without concrete ways that you can do this here at Broadway. The first way you can do this is by coming to our mid-week worship with our college students. Every week we need teams of 5 to 6 people to cook and serve a meal each week and then come to worship with our students afterwards. And we've actually tried to make this very easy for you. Not only do we buy all the food and even give you recipes to choose from, but we've also changed the day that we're worshiping from Wednesday to Thursday so that you can go to church here on Wednesday night. And then maybe come possibly serve with us on Alison Thursday.

Without things conflicting. And so if you're interested in doing that, come find me or any of the people that I introduce at the beginning of this service and let us know. We will probably give you a bear hug because we are desperately looking for teams and cooks to be present with the strangers who are trying to find home with us while they seek their degrees. A second way you can love strangers and foreigners at Broadway is even simpler than that. You can invite a college student to lunch today and every Sunday. You were here. All you have to go do is go to that section over there where all those young, smiling faces are. Go up to them and say, Hi, what's your name? And they will say their name. And so you can go. Hi, so-and-so, I'm Spencer. And me and my family are going to roses today after lunch. And I would love for you to come eat with us. And college students. I know you. I know how socially awkward you might feel at that moment. But please say yes. Because that's how we make these relationships. That's how we get rooted in the church deeper than just sitting here. That's how we get connected with families and understanding the flow and the rhythm and the heartbeat of this church. The last part of the of this Leviticus passage that we read earlier says, love them as yourself for you.

We're foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Key story this morning reminding us of this. He was a stranger, didn't want to be here, but someone went out of his way. Out of their way to welcome him in. And Keith has been here since. And we love Keith. But that same thing can happen to anyone here. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The reason we go out and serve strangers and foreigners is because we ourselves were once foreigners and strangers and someone took the time and the responsibility to show us hospitality. It is then out of that hospitality that we have received and the gospel that we have received from them, that we can go out and serve the strangers and foreigners with us today. And Church. If there's any other way we can help you get to know these strangers and foreigners at Broadway or any other way we can help you better live out our calling to make everyday disciples. Our team at Atlas and the ministry team here are so dedicated to helping you. We're here for you, just as other people have been here for us and just as God has always, always been with us. So let's stand and continue worshiping and seeing to the God who has made room for the foreigners and strangers forever.