Love and Hospitality

IN COMMUNITY
LOVE AND HOSPITALITY
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 11, 2013
REVELATION 2:1-7

More than 40 years ago, a developmental child psychologist who was a professor at the University of Southern California at USC, a man named James Dobson, founded a ministry called Focus on the Family. In the beginning, in the early 1970s, it was just a series of seminars. Then it included a radio show, and of course it grew to a massive ministry organization, but always the focus was primarily on the family. And the ministry continues today. The ministry has moved here to Colorado and is headquartered down in Colorado Springs. It has new leadership now, but still the focus is on the family.

We live in a world where people choose to focus on different things. I mean, the primary supreme focus varies from person to person. Some people choose to focus on pleasure. Almost everything they do in their life is ultimately for the purpose of pleasure. They’re hedonists. Other people focus primarily on power. They want to rise, they want to ascend. They want to be over other people. They want their authority to grow. Their focus is on personal power.

Other people focus on wealth. They focus on material accumulation. People focus on money. Virtually everything they do in their life is designed to grow their assets, to accumulate wealth, and to increase their bank account. Some people choose to focus on relationships. Their life centers on relationships and on friends. Other people choose to focus on health. Some people have such a focus on health, it’s almost like they live to stay alive. That’s their focus.

So people have a variety of focuses out there. Now, the church of Jesus Christ is called to focus supremely on Jesus and on His kingdom. That service of Christ and Kingdom is called ministry. This call is upon this church and all churches all over the world. We’re called to focus on ministry for Christ and for His kingdom.

Every year here at Cherry Hills Community Church, a God leads us to a specific focus relating to ministry for Christ and kingdom. And this year, after much prayer, we have felt led to focus on a special kind of love here at Cherry Hills Community Church. As we seek to minister for Christ and for His kingdom, we would focus on a very special kind of love that’s core, critical, if we want the anointing of the Holy Spirit here. And so that special kind of love is called hospitality. It’s the Greek word “philoxenia,” which literally means “love of strangers.” This is a very special kind of love. The church can’t be the church unless the church is willing to love strangers.

So I have two teachings this morning that will help us understand the importance of this love. And the first teaching is this: the world is lost. I mean, that’s what the Bible tells us. The world is lost, and you’ve heard that before. I’ve taught that before. The Bible says it again and again. The world is lost. And we really can’t understand why God has called us to this special kind of love until we acknowledge that the world’s lost.

Now, it was Gertrude Stein who coined the phrase “The Lost Generation.” Gertrude Stein also coined the phrase, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” That’s not quite as profound, but “the Lost Generation” is kind of the phrase that she is most famous for. And that phrase described her and many other people in the worlds of literature and arts who felt like they were the Lost Generation.

The phrase was picked up by Ernest Hemmingway, who just loved that phrase “the Lost Generation.” If you read The Sun Also Rises, in the preface to The Sun Also Rises he explains that the whole book is about the Lost Generation. And he talks about Americans living in Europe. They are lost to traditional faith. They are lost to traditional values. They are lost to traditional morality. And this is what Ernest Hemmingway felt about himself, that he was lost to traditional faith, traditional values, and traditional morality. And he loved to think of himself as part of the Lost Generation. This was true of Scott Fitzgerald. He identified himself as part of the Lost Generation, as well as Thornton Wilder and Ezra Pound. So many from the world of literature in the arts identified themselves as part of the Lost Generation, and they were proud of it.

Understand that from a biblical perspective (and this is so important), every generation is lost. That’s what God’s Word tells us. There’s no just special group of people who are lost. Every generation throughout the span of history has been lost from the very inception of the creation. From the generation just immediately after the creation of humankind, human beings have been lost.

To help understand this let, me give you a little illustration from history. It concerns the first English attempt at a permanent settlement in North America. Where was that? Where did the English first attempt to establish a permanent settlement here in America? And when was that? It was on Roanoke Island, in what is now Virginia. And it was in the year 1587. This was 20 years prior to Jamestown.

20 years before Jamestown, the English decided to establish a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island in Virginia. They brought 117 colonists—91 men, nine children, and 17 women, a strange distribution—to establish a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island. And it was led by Governor John White. It was funded and sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I.

So in 1587, they arrive on Roanoke Island and they build a fort that they would use for protection and provision. And as they sought to try to live, they found that there was not ample food. And so, after a while of great discussion and debate, John White decided to go back to England and fill his ship with supplies for the people. And so he left and they thought he’d be back in a matter of months. It wouldn’t be easy, but they would endure.

It didn’t happen that way because John White didn’t realize that England had gone to war with Spain and the English were facing the Spanish Armada. The seas were not safe. They would not allow him to return to the colony. So it took three years before he returned. The year was 1590. So in 1590, three years later, he’s back at Roanoke Island. And guess what? Nobody’s there. It’s just disappeared. It’s the lost colony. It just disappeared. Nobody was there. There are no sounds. There were no signs of violence. There were no graves, no evidence that anybody had died. The fort was disassembled neatly, but they were gone.

To this day, nobody knows where they went. So there are all kinds of theories amongst modern historians. And some people believe that it had to do with the word “croatoan.” That word was carved on a post when John White got back in 1590, that word “croatoan” was carved on a post. And then the beginning of the word, “C-r-o-,” was carved in a tree. And it’s believed now that perhaps the island to the south of Roanoke Island was called Croatoan and perhaps even the Indians that lived on that island were called Croatoan. And they were thought to be peaceful. They were more normally called the Hatteras Indians. So there’s this one theory that that lost colony was assimilated by this peaceful tribe of Indians. But when they tried to find evidence of this in the subsequent decades and centuries, they could not do it. And to this day, most historians doubt that they were assimilated on that nearby island.

Others think, well, maybe it has to do with the Lumbee Indians. You see, 200 years after the colony was lost, late in the 1700’s, explorers began to move west and they came just to the east of the Mississippi and they found the Lumbee Indians. And they were amazed because, as they looked at the Lumbee Indians, they looked like they were kind of pseudo-European. They looked a little bit English—their eye color, their hair color, their complexion. And even some of their customs and some of the clothes they wore looked a little more English. And they used a few English words. And some of them had English names. So this theory developed that, hey, maybe the Roanoke colony assimilated with the Lumbee Indians. To this day, the Lumbee Indian Nation is east of the Mississippi, but some historians believe that those English people from the lost colony were absorbed by the Lumbees.

Still, it’s a minority view. There are more historians who believe that the Lumbees did not even exist as a tribe back in 1590. So there’s this other theory that they went up to the Chesapeake area (because they had spoken of going up to the Chesapeake area) and that they were actually killed by a variety of more violent Indian tribes. It’s a possibility. Some believed that they tried to go home and they were drowned at sea. That’s a possibility. We don’t know. The truth is, we don’t know. They’re lost to this day. They’re lost to history. Nobody knows what happened to those 117 people.

Now, understand that, from a biblical perspective, that whole story of the lost colony is like a parable of humanity, because God, biblically, has planted a colony on this world and it is lost. When you go back to the Genesis account, you see Eden, and Eden is like Roanoke. Eden is like this planting of a colony. This is like the beginning of humanity. And there’s this gift given called freedom, and that’s a precious gift. Free moral autonomy. We all have volition, therefore, we’re culpable for our actions and our choices. Given that precious gift of freedom, we chose to rebel against God. That’s what we’re told in Genesis chapter three. We chose to rebel against God. We were separated from God and spiritually lost.

Mankind has enveloped the earth and is still spiritually lost. Every generation throughout time has been part of the lost colony. Mankind is spiritually lost. So when you look at the Bible, you see God’s effort, because God looks down on this lost colony and God loves us. So you see God’s effort to find the lost. That’s why Jesus told the parable of the lost sheep. That’s why Jesus told the parable of the lost coin. That’s why Jesus told the parable of the lost son. God loves this lost colony. So God sends His Son into the world.

God sends His Son into the world because this is a lost colony. His Son comes here with the gospel, and the gospel has power to rescue the lost. So sins, through the gospel and through the sacrificial atonement of Christ, can be forgiven. Fellowship with God is restored. The soul can find eternal salvation and be secured forever. And through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we’re brought into the church into the community of the kingdom. And when that happens, the Bible says, we are found. So we move from being lost to being found.

So this is the worldview of holy scripture. This is the lost colony. God sent His Son because God loves this lost colony. And God’s Son has given us the good news of the gospel and offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life for the soul and entrance into the church and the kingdom of Christ Himself.

I think we’re reminded all the time that this world is a lost colony. The thought often occurs to me as I just go through a normal day or I go through a normal week that the evidence is all around that this world is lost. Even little things are evidence of the lostness of the human race.

I just got a phone call earlier this week from the Emergency Alert System. The Emergency Alert System is actually the name of a company, and they explained that they’re well known by the phrase, “Help me, I’ve fallen down and I can’t get up.” You’ve seen those commercials. And so they wanted me to have an emergency alert system. I’m thinking, oh no, I’ve already reached that point where I need the emergency alert system. And the guy says, “Let me see here. As I’m looking at the records here… wow, your emergency alert system must already be paid for. There must have been something that happened to somebody in your family or somebody’s concerned about you and loves you and cares about you. But your emergency alert system is already paid for. Wow. Let me look further here. Oh, the shipping is already paid for. Just tell us when you want it to arrive.”

And it’s all a gimmick. The emergency alert system is probably a good thing. It helps people. But this is all about making money, and they don’t make money off you buying the system. That’s why they give it to you. They make money off your monthly payments for providing that system, through which you can alert people of your needs. So they make money off monthly payments. And that’s deceptive. There’s nobody out there who loves me and has bought me this system. There’s nobody out there who thinks I’m going to fall down. The reason you see that kind of deception every day is because the world is lost. It’s because the world’s lost, and people just are used to lies. They ought to be horribly offended, but people just swallow lies. They’re just so used to it. It happens all the time.

We called a repairman this week because our air conditioning is having problems at our house. Every time our air conditioning comes on, it sounds like a helicopter’s taking off. And you can just hear the rotors spinning and it just feels like the house is being airlifted. So we thought, boy, this isn’t the way an air conditioner’s supposed to sound. We had purchased the air conditioner last year because the air conditioner and the furnace had both shut down. And so we had to buy new ones for $10,000. It was a wonderful day. So now here the air conditioner is making this noise. So we call and this guy comes over and he checks it out and he listens to it. And he says, wow, yeah, that sounds like a helicopter.

He works on it, and then he comes up and he says, I think everything’s okay. Really there’s not any problem. Everything’s actually functioning well. You have that noise, but everything’s working well and the air’s working well. I really don’t see any kind of a problem in there. In order to even attempt to solve anything, we’d have to disassemble it all and rebuild it. He says, the curious thing is, strange you should mention a helicopter. The same company that makes your air conditioner also makes helicopters. So that company makes air conditioners and helicopters. So it all makes sense. He says, just keep listening to it, and if it gets worse, if it shuts down, then we’ll cover it by the warranty. Good luck and see you later.

Now, in just two more days, it now sounds like there’s two helicopters taking off. And I’m thinking it’s hard to trust people. It’s kind of hard to trust people when you want something, because the world’s lost. But we really see in far more serious ways that the world is lost. Far more tragic ways.

This last Thursday and Friday, we had the Global Leadership Summit right here at the church. It’s a wonderful event with some outstanding speakers. A man named Bob Goff was one of those speakers, who talked about what’s going on in Africa. He talked about how every year 850 little boys 850 are killed by witch doctors in Africa. They kill them because they want their sexual organs. They kill the boys and they cut off their penis because they believe they have curative qualities. And so they just murder hundreds of little boys every year in Africa. That is one of countless incomprehensible things going on in what was once called the dark continent.

The reality is, if you look at this world, there’s so much evidence that this is a lost colony. I mean, why is, right here in the United States of America, pornography a multi-billion-dollar business? Why is that? Because this is a lost colony. Why is there so much human trafficking here in America and all over the world? Because it’s a lost colony. Why are so many people addicted to drugs? It’s a lost colony.

So we have this worldview and this teaching of scripture that God loves this lost colony and therefore has sent His Son with the gospel. But here’s the deal. And this is the second and final teaching: we must love the lost. We must love the lost, or, the Bible tells us, the gospel won’t work. It won’t be empowered. It won’t be anointed by the Holy Spirit. We’ve got to love the lost.

And this is what the church of Jesus Christ is called to, is the love of the lost. We’re called to love all people, but most of all we’re to have this special love for the lost. And that’s why in the Bible you see this word, philoxenia again and again and again. It’s love of strangers, generally used of love of the lost. The Bible speaks of “philadelphos,” which is love of our brothers and sisters. It’s normally used within the context of the church, “love of our fellow Christians.” The Bible speaks of “philanthropos,” but that’s the love of mankind and it can be way more distant. I mean, today the word philanthropy refers to even charitable contributions. But this word philoxenia is love of the lost. It is so powerful. The love of strangers is so powerful. So where’s the love? People who don’t go to our church, who are not in our community, we’re to have this great love for them.

We see this scripturally with so many passages of scripture. In Hebrews 13, which we’ve looked at before, the Bible says, “Let brotherly love continue. And do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. For thereby, some have entertained angels unaware.” So do not neglect to love strangers. Thereby, some have entertained angels unaware—probably a reference back to Genesis 18 and the story of Abraham and the angel. But the reality is that in the early church there was this sense of anticipation and excitement that when you love strangers, something supernatural might happen, something amazing might happen.

In 1 Peter, chapter four, verse nine, we’re told to love one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Practice, therefore, hospitality towards one another. So the kind of love referenced here is the love of strangers and covers a multitude of sins—perhaps in our lives individually and even in the life of the church. There are some things we might not get right in the church, but we must get love right. We must learn to love. So much is dependent upon this.

So in Matthew 25, Jesus gives the Olivet Discourse. He speaks of His second coming and how He will judge the nations and He will separate them one from the other—the sheep on the right, the goats on the left. And to the sheep He’ll say, “Come, O blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world, because I was hungry and you gave Me to eat; thirsty, you gave Me to drink; naked, and you clothed Me; sick, and you came to Me; in prison and you visited Me; a stranger, and you welcomed Me.” A stranger and you loved to Me.

The church itself is called to love—to love the unbelieving, to love those we don’t know and to care for them. That’s what empowers the church, and it’s all going to be evaluated on judgment day. So when you look at our scripture passage for today, out of Revelation chapter two, and the words of Jesus to the church at Ephesus, Jesus has praise for them. He has praise for that church. He says, wow. You guys are doctrinally astute, kind of theologically observant. You’ve tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you’ve found them to be false. You’ve exposed them. You have patient endurance. You’re not growing weary. You also hate the works of Nicolaitans, and I hate their works as well because they’re morally reprobate. They’re like the Baalamites; they’re like the cult of Jezebel. They teach sexual immorality. They’ve come into your churches with a new form of Christianity, a more liberating form. I hate their message. You hate their message. That’s good.

So you’ve done well theologically and doctrinally. You’ve understood some stuff morally, but I have this against you: you’ve abandoned the love you had at first. Repent. And if you don’t, I’m going to come to you and I’m going to remove your lampstand. I’m going to shut down your church.

So we know God cares about our theology. We know He cares about our morality. But understand that love is rock bed. You must love, or you’re not even worthy of the name “church.” So you must love like you did, maybe when your church was born. I know our church started over 31 years ago over on Orchard Road, and people couldn’t come to our church without feeling some love. I mean, nobody could walk into our church—we were smaller over there on Orchard Road and Broadway—without just being surrounded by friendly people who wanted to get to know them, take them out to lunch, or go have a cup of coffee. People wanted to exchange phone numbers and wanted to invite them to this or to that.

Nobody came into the church hurting, with tears in their eyes or having had their spouse left them or having had a child died, and were able to leave that place without ministry. You couldn’t have just walked in, listened, and turned around and walked out. It wasn’t like that in the early days. There was just a lot of love for people we didn’t even know, for complete strangers. And that’s what empowers the church. That’s what empowers the gospel. That’s what ultimately leads people to the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the soul and makes them want to join the community of the church and the kingdom of Christ. It’s love.

So the early church understood this. And that’s why the early church swept over the Roman world. By the year 350, churches began to build buildings. They would’ve built them right off the bat, but they weren’t allowed to because in the Roman world Christianity was illegal. Christianity was illegal, and Christians, if they built a building and assembled publicly, could be apprehended, placed on trial, beaten, incarcerated, and maybe even put to death. So Christians met in the catacombs, and they met in dens and caves of the earth. They met stealth in their homes and in hiding. Christians were run into hippodromes and amphitheaters and fed to lions.

But with the rise of Constantine the Great, Christianity became legal, and Christians could actually publicly assemble and build places of worship. So they did. And with every place of worship, they built a hospice. I mean, we know this. We can see archeological evidence of this, and we have historical records of this. So in virtually every town, every village, every city, Christians build churches, and with every church was a hospice.

What was a hospice? Why did they build that? A hospice was a place where strangers could come, where travelers could come, where non-Christians could come, and they could get free meals and a bed and a place to sleep. They could get clothes, they could get care, and they could have be surrounded by some people who would listen to them and care for them. And that word, “hospice,” in the Latin, is the basis of the word hospitality.

So this was the church. As it went through the centuries, and by the time of the crusades, the hospices were still free, but they were governed by religious orders. They were still for strangers and for non-believers. The Hospitallers kind of ran some of the hospices in the period right after the Crusades, and eventually it all morphed into hospitals. The hospital movement was driven by Christians. Even today, so many hospitals—although we pay for service—are driven by Christians, by love, as it should be.

Our son Drew does surgeries. He’s a doctor at a hospital in Iowa that has Christian founders—Mercy Hospital. Our son-in-law, Chris, is the head of pharmacy at the new hospital in Castle Rock, the Adventist Hospital—again, established by a Christian organization.

Our son and daughter are Drew and Heather. They were both born at Aurora Presbyterian Hospital, a hospital with Christian roots. I was born at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Hollywood, California. My brother Greg and my brother Gary were born at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, which was established by Christians. And all over this world, we see evidence of Christians wanting to love. So many of the relief organizations of the world are sponsored by and governed by Christians.

I know there are a ton of unbelievers out there who demonize Christians and who kind of think Christians, evangelicals, are kind of like terrorists and they believe what they want to believe. I mean, we can cite all the evidence of a loving history. They’re going to believe what they want to believe. But the power is life-on-life. If you’re willing to love them as unbelievers and strangers one-on-one, that’s power. That’s lifechanging. The Holy Spirit descends in power in situations. that’s the kind of church we want to be, where we truly love people when they come in the door. And I mean, we’re friendly. We want to get to know them. We’d like to make a new friend. We’d like to spend some time with them.

What’s your mindset when you come in the door, and what’s your mindset when you leave? We just can’t wait to get out of here—to get in the car, see the game. Or do you ever look at people’s faces? Do you give people eye contact? Do you ever look around after a service and just look at somebody’s posture? Do you ever see if there’s a tear in somebody’s eye or whether somebody looks lonely? I mean, is there any effort to love?

We’re in transition, and God is blessing it, and we’re going to have an announcement in a couple of weeks. And it’s exciting, very exciting. Some of you think, well, the future of Cherry Hills Community Church is tied to who we choose as our next senior pastor. And yes, that’s very important. But much of the future, the Bible says, is in your hands. It’s in your hands what kind of church this is going to be. Whether there’s love in this place or whether we lose our lampstand is in your hands. It’s all about love.

So as we close, I just share with you a little story that some of you might have some familiarity with. A few months ago, Barb and I were out in the Coachella Valley in the Palm Springs area. It was a Sunday morning and we thought, well, let’s go to church. And I don’t know what you’re like, but when I’m on vacation, a lot of times, I don’t like doing the hair deal. I’m on vacation. I mean, I want to shower and stuff, but I just want to put a hat on. I want to brush my teeth, floss, shave, and put a hat on. I don’t want to comb my hair. I don’t want to blow dry my hair. I don’t want to hair spray my hair. So I just put a hat on.

So we’re going to church and I just have a hat on. And then we head over to Southwest Community Church, and they set up chairs all the way around in a semi-circle. And we’re walking around the back looking for a couple of chairs and service starts, and everybody stands to sing, and we’re singing. But I noticed people are kind of looking at me and some people actually even turn around and looking at me and think, oh yeah, I have my hat on. I’m in church. You’re not supposed to do that. And so I took my hat off. Some people were still looking at me, because now it’s, who’s that guy with bedhead? But in any of event, I looked around and there were a few other guys that I saw did have hats on. But of course, that’s kind of a no-no. But it reminded me of a story of that happened in St. Bart’s.

I don’t know how many of you have been to St. Bart’s in New York City in Manhattan. St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church is a famous church. They built three different cathedrals in and near the same site over a 150 year period. An St. Bart’s, inside and out, is just beautiful. This is a story that actually took place in St. Bart’s. It’s a story about this guy that goes into the church with a hat on and sits in the front.

He’s sitting there in the front and the service is about to start in this Anglican church, and the organ is playing from the beautiful pipe organ in St. Bart’s. And then an usher comes up to this man and says, sir we’re glad you’re here today. But I know you have a hat on, and we’d just like to ask you to take your hat off, just out of respect for God. And so he thanks them. They talk a little bit and the usher walks away, but he leaves his hat on. So then the head usher comes up and says, sir, one of the ushers tells me that he talked to you and asked if you would take your hat off. I just want to strengthen that request. I mean, we’re a Christian church and we’re an Anglican church, and around here we really like to show respect for God when we worship. So could you please or take your hat off? And the man thanks the head usher and leaves his hat on.

So then they think, wow, what are we going to do? They think, well, maybe if we send a woman he’ll want to be a gentleman. And so they send the head of the women’s ministries at St. Bart’s. She goes down and says, sir, I know you’re a gentleman and you would never want to offend people around you, and you certainly wouldn’t want to offend the Lord. And all the gentlemen here at St. Bart’s take their hats off when we worship out of a sign of respect for God. And he talked for a little bit and thanked her, smiled, and left his hat on.

So then they have the senior warden, which is an official ecclesiastical position, come up to him finally and say, sir, many people have asked you nicely. We’re going to have to ask you to take your hat off, or I’m going to have to you know escort you out. We don’t worship with hats on here at St. Bart’s. And so the man took his hat off, smiled, and said, I’m happy to. He said, I just want you to know I’m a member of this church. I’ve attended here for two years and never met anybody. This morning, I put a hat on. I met the usher, the head usher, the head of the women’s ministries, and the senior warden.

Have you ever been in a church like that? Have you ever gone to a church where there are lots of rules but not a lot of love? Have you ever gone into a church where nobody even gave you eye contact? Have you ever gone into a church where there’s not a smile coming your way? Have you ever gone into a church where nobody talked to you, where you just kind of come in alone and walk out alone? We don’t want that to be this church. I mean, this isn’t something we have an option on. This is the command of Christ and our ministry and our future is tied to this.

So next week when we have our volunteer fair, there are so many different areas where you can volunteer and show some love and you can find something. As you go through and look at all the opportunities, we’ll have hundreds and hundreds of additional opportunities for you to show hospitality. And I hope you’re going to want to do this. I hope you’re going to want to make this church a more loving place. And I hope that just personally you’ll look around and be a little more sensitive and maybe a little more friendly. Let’s close with a word of prayer.