To do hospitality you don’t need a big house, or a big bank account, or a big personality; you need a big heart. You need a heart set free by grace. You need a heart set free to love others the way Jesus has loved you. This passage blows the dust off of our familiarity with grace, and should increase our affections for the Savior and our compassion for people. So lets think about the wonder of grace and the “heart of hospitality” from this text.
What is the main idea in this text? Jesus seeks out the despised as objects of God’s Grace, and we as His people, the church, are to go and do likewise! So this is the simple message today: follow Jesus giving Him all you have and invite others to get in on it, maybe even around a meal. That’s it, that’s the passage right there, so we can probably just pray and get home in time for the playoff kickoff. However, let me see if I can’t unpack it some.
Here in chapter 3 God demonstrates his amazing Loving-Kindness by providentially providing for and protecting His people who cling to Him by faith through a Redeemer! What is striking in this book is that this providential care of Yahweh over Israel isn’t done through signs or magnificent miracles by a prophet, but instead there are subtle signs in the every day lives of common Israelites. He displays over and again His Kindness in fulfilling his promises from the Torah to set up a Messianic Dynasty through one family!
