series: Letters of Love
title: #19 Hospitality
date: August 12, 2018
teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: 3 John, Mark 10:37, Matthew 5:5, Isaiah 32:8, 1 Corinthians 11:1.
Hospitality changed my life, and it changed the life of every person that came to Christ through the ministries God has used me to be a part of. We are who we are because someone good believed in us enough to take risk on us. Any time you do something to help someone else get a foot forward in their life or their ministry, you are doing it at a cost to yourself.
But it is worth it. Every single time.
Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
…And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
How is it that some people can read a passage, and it be guilt and condemnation and tragedy… and someone else can read the same passage, and it be life, and love, and hope and grace?
“I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Pastor Austin kicks off our series on the Epistles of John by explaining much of what was going on when John was writing.
communion is a common union of broken people, who are made whole by the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We are united by our differences, and there is a seat for everyone at the table.
The world is watching how the church will continue to respond to the issue of racism that is so evident in our world today.
“we ought to be supporting people like these”