Love That is Serving

Hebrews 13—please turn in God’s Word to Hebrews 13.

We do look forward to the ministry of the Lord’s servants next week. I encourage you to be praying for them each day as you meet with the Lord and as you pray together as a family.

History is important. It recognizes that God is always at work, and it endeavors to trace God’s activity, His work, and His gracious mercy upon His church, and to learn from it. And so, we do have these times and seasons in which we reflect on history, and it is helpful even simply to consider that the very testimony of having a Reformation weekend—just saying, “Here we are”—reminds ourselves that God worked mercifully, and the things learned, the things that came out of that period, we still benefit from greatly today. And we do, in many ways, both seen and unseen.

But this morning we come to Hebrews 13. We are progressing through this epistle and are now in the final chapter. And we are going to see this morning that because Jesus welcomed us, because Jesus welcomed us when we were strangers, we also are to welcome strangers. We are to have a heart for those who are unfamiliar to us and for us. So as we look at it this morning, I want us to think upon this. It is going to be a challenge. I will just say that right now. We will feel the challenge of it. It was a challenge to those Hebrews who first received the exhortation, and it was intended to be.

So we will read again the opening six verses of Hebrews 13. The Word of the Lord says:

“Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have. For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

Amen. We trust the Lord will bless the public reading of His infallible Word. And what you have heard is His inerrant Word, which you would receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let us pray.

Lord, help us with Your Word. You have given it, not for us to ignore, not for us to set on the shelf, not for us to frame and admire, but to read, to study, and to obey. And so this morning, we pray that You will give us help in Your Word.

It is so easy for us to sing of our desire to be changed from glory into glory, so easy to ask that our Savior would truly be Alpha and Omega in our lives, and that we would be delivered from the remaining corruption. But oh, when it comes to the real dying to sin and living to righteousness, when it comes to actually obeying what is in the Word of God, we struggle.

Certainly there are areas where we can say, “Well, I think I’ve got that covered.” And perhaps it is not even through obedience, but through the common grace of our personality and inclinations. But oh, whenever there is friction, whenever something is said that we must take on board and that seems to cut across the grain, we are like the cat stroked the wrong way.

So, God, we pray, ever help us to submit to Your Word and to find joy in doing so. Give the Holy Spirit now, and take the utterances of man, and give us the Word of God. Grant that You will order our steps through this season that we spend with Your Word. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Blood is thicker than water. This old saying suggests that family ties are stronger than ties to any other relationship. The Apostle Paul could see this in the Hebrews he was addressing in this epistle. He could see that very reality being played out before his very eyes—that blood is thicker than water.

Already we know the exhortation in chapter 10, verse 25, where he warned them not to forsake assembling together, as some are in the habit of doing. Some have already done this; they are no longer staying with the redeemed community, with those washed in the blood of Christ. They have departed, or they are wavering in their regular practice of meeting together.

And some, I believe, have forsaken the faith to return to their old Jewish families, to return to what was familiar, to the ties of family, to the loved ones who did not go with them in believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God. And so there had been a division in the family. There had been an experience of parting, as painful as it had been, where they had heard the Word, believed it, went to their family members—also Jewish—and made an appeal to them, but they had outrightly rejected it.

Well, they had a decision to make, and no doubt, in the initial days, such was their appreciation for what Christ had done. They embraced the pain. Maybe some of you have gone through that—the pain of no longer being able to walk in step with your family. You are no longer traversing the same path.

So Paul returns to this theme. Do not forsake the assembly.

Verse one of chapter 13: “Let brotherly love continue.” Let the love you have—the love that exists between brethren—continue. In that language, he is making an implication. The Jews who reject the truth that Jesus is the Messiah are not your spiritual brethren. Let brotherly love, the love of the brethren, continue. Remain. Let it stay. Continue consistently in that practice.

The church, you see, is its own family. The people of God are a family. And Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” There is much involved in this, again, much implied. Obviously, it means there is more than an abstract appreciation where we say, “I love the church and the people of God.” Obviously, it means there is a practical love, a visible love. All men will know that you are my disciples by the love you have one to another. That must go beyond simply things they hear us say—such as at work, saying, “I love the church, I love my church”—and that has its own weight, and we should speak like that. But it must be visible. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by the love you have one to another. They see it as visible.

That, of course, also implies that we are together. We are in the same space. We inhabit the same territory. We get together. We are able to, quote unquote, love one another because we are in the same spaces. We do not say, “I love the church,” and then isolate ourselves. Is it not amazing? You know, those who stay at home and say, “I will worship at home, I will do church at home,” as though there is so much of God’s word they cannot do by virtue of their decision to stay isolated. They cannot do it. You say, “What?” This was never the intention. Never.

Then, our love for one another as the people of God not only proves our profession to the world, but we mentioned this last week, it also confirms assurance within our own hearts. You know that you are my disciples. You know that you are mine when you have love for the brethren. 1 John 3 tells us that. So the credibility of the church, the credibility of the believer, the confidence of the believer may rise and fall with this one mark.

And I have met Christians who come in with all this zeal for particular aspects of truth. And it is truth; I am not denying it is truth. But they seem so focused on certain things we call secondary, or tertiary. They are things we must assess and say, “This is not as important as something else.” But they are fixated on them. They are fixated on them. And Mr. Wagner was recently addressing this when he was preaching in my absence, dealing with some of those minor things or lesser things. But some people want to elevate those things, lift them up.

But I have never had anyone come and really press the point—like really press the point—in terms of the need for us all to love one another.

Now, some remarks I could see undergirding that remark are effectively that sentiment. But this is so key. If you do not love your brother, you are not a Christian. That is what 1 John says. So the apostle, in wrapping things up, brings the church back to these practical expressions of their community that must continue and be expressed. And in the weeks to come, I am not preaching next Lord’s Day, but these opening six verses we have, we looked at last week. The love that is steadfast—let brotherly love continue. When we get to verse 3, we are going to see love that is sympathetic. When we get to verse 4, we are going to see love that is sanctified. Verses 5 and 6, love that is satisfied. And this morning, we are looking at love that is serving—love that is serving, or love that serves.

So let’s look at this. Verse 2: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” What a text. Love that is serving. Three very simple thoughts. The first of which is the mandate for this service—the mandate. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.

Two things here. Note the recipients—entertain strangers. Remember last week we had mention of brotherly love, that Greek word from which we get the word Philadelphia. Love of the brethren, adelphos, meaning the brothers. The same compound idea is here, only he pulls it together—love, phila, and he uses the word for stranger. Love of the stranger. Be not forgetful to love the stranger. Love the brotherhood, or love the brothers, and love the strangers. Same idea as here.

In fact, when you get to verse 5, he is going to use a similar compounding, again using that phila word for love, only he uses it in the negative in relation to money: being without covetousness, not having love for the material. So he uses three of these compound words that have love prefixed in the word. And so they are used to show that what the apostle is doing is he is guiding the love of the church: love your brothers, love the stranger, do not love the material. So the recipients here are not the church in general; they are not the church in general. They are specifically strangers—the unknown. God calls us then to love those, not only those we know, but those we do not know.

The stranger includes those who are outside our familiar circle—the traveler who is just coming in, perhaps visiting here on the Lord’s Day or passing through in some way. We are to have a love for them. The newcomer comes into church for the first time. Again, I use church as one context. Please do not see that as the only context. You may meet these people throughout your life in various contexts in your work or wherever. Any outsider, someone we do not know, someone not familiar to us—that is who is in mind.

The stranger in Scripture is the resident foreigner without kin or status in the land. They do not have the connections. Under the law, God insisted. He required His people to remember them. Deuteronomy 10, verse 19: “Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Ah, there is the ground. You and your forefathers know what it is like to be a stranger. And you know what it is like amidst that lack of connection—for that to be abused. For you to be run over, neglected, or even worse, brought into slavery. You know that feeling of not belonging. So you are not to do what the Egyptians did to you.

Love the stranger. Oh yes, initially Egypt brought in those sons of Jacob and their families. Joseph was able to navigate that, and such was his clout and weight of character, he was able to see them favorably taken care of, and that was right. But as time went on, they became these alien residents, and eventually were brought under slavery. And the Lord, in His Word, will group them—the alien, the widow, the orphan—bring them all together because they are more defenseless, they are more easy to take advantage of and abuse, and so on. And He has promised to defend them. Exodus 22 makes that clear. God will defend these vulnerable ones, but He wants you and me also to enact His heart, to express it, to take care of them.

So Hebrews 13 then brings us to our attention, not only to love those we know, but also to be mindful of those we do not know. Have a love for the stranger. Have a love for the stranger. This is not something that comes easily to us. There are very few people who find it easy to love those they do not know. I mean, it makes sense, does it not? It is not as though this is something you sit there and say, “Oh, that would be a strange thing.” Some things of God’s Word you say, “Well, that makes perfect sense, and I do not understand why you would ever do anything else.” But when you say “love the stranger,” all sorts of thoughts come to mind. You begin to wonder, am I not to be careful and cautious? How am I to love them? To what degree am I to love them? What does that love look like? And so on and so forth. But let us take it at face value for now. We are not to be forgetful of this requirement. God wants us to love the stranger. He does not want us to overlook, if I may put it this way, the experience of Israel’s redemption—being a stranger, being in Egypt, being unknown, being uncared for—because that becomes the impetus and the motivation to press upon them that when you are a people, when you come into your land and you are all together and you all descend from the same Father, your tribes are all established and you feel that connection with one another, you must not ignore or lack love for the outsider, because you once were there.

Well, the same is true for us. We were once outsiders. We will come back to that more later on.

But I imagine that this would have struck a nerve with the Hebrews. We know again from chapter 10, persecution is already going on. Persecution is having an effect upon the life of the church.

Now, when persecution starts, it is usually through those who betray. When people begin to be betrayed, what does that do to welcoming strangers? It causes you to pull away from that.

We have all, or many of us certainly, read and had rehearsed to us the account of William Tyndale. And I will say, I have said it for years. Maybe it is just how history records them versus others. But when I read about Tyndale, every time I am reminded of him, my heart says, “Yes, that is my favorite reformer. He is my favorite reformer.”

That he was brilliant is undeniable. But there were other reformers who were brilliant. Some of them, though, you put yourself in their place and you think, “I am not so sure he would have been easy to get along with.” Because brilliance brings demands. And sometimes those demands are not kept to oneself, but are expressed toward others. They have expectations of others. And it can be very difficult to live around brilliance when it does that.

But with Tyndale, there is such a tenderness. And of course, that ended up being used against him. His betrayal came at the hand of one who befriended him, whom he took in, and who turned out to be the very one who would throw him into the hands of his enemies, to be burned at the stake.

So the Hebrews, going through persecution, may have been striking a nerve in relation to this particular matter. Strangers are coming in, believers from afar, from different places, and the community is hunkering down. There is no way in, no infiltration, and suspicion prevails. They are coming into the place of worship, but they are not being welcomed. They are looking for a place to stay for the night, but they are being turned away. No one will welcome them, again because of this suspicion.

And the apostle is saying, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.” I want you to think about that. Because Tyndale presents a well-known example, and you assess it, and there is one side, I think, of people who will look and say, “Tyndale, you were naive. You were naive.” But that is the way men tend to think when they think your primary job is to always act in a way that is most protective of yourself. But life involves risk. Sometimes that risk will cost you everything. Tyndale was willing to take that risk. Be loving, even though it cost him his life.

The pragmatists will say, “Well, since there is persecution, since all of this is going on and we do not know who these people are or where they are coming from or what their intent is, then we are not going to show any love to them.” And the apostle says, “Do not do that.” That is being governed by fear, not by faith. So it may result in your persecution. It may result in your exposure. What of it? You are going to die at some point anyway. At least die with dignity. At least die having followed through on God’s stipulation and not trying to pragmatically navigate around what He expects. Say to yourself, well, given the season and the climate, I am not going to be loving to the stranger. You see how this works? You see the struggle of this?

I imagine I am not the only one who tends to be that suspicious, pragmatic character. I see things, and I immediately, you know, raise red flags, sound alarm bells—I am not sure what their intent is or what is going on. People come here; they come sometimes, and sometimes they come after you are all gone—just happened a couple of weeks ago. A man came into the church here looking for a few dollars, whatever, and I talked to him. I tried to assess, I tried to press, you know, have you got another church to go to? Because usually they come and say they are Christian. I love the Lord; I believe. You know, all this expression of profession. And I think, well, did you go to your church? I haven’t been there in a while, or whatever. You know, all this kind of stuff. And I will press them, and I will quiz them, and so on and so forth.

Ultimately, on almost every occasion, if the dollars are in my pocket, they get them. I figure that unless it is so blatant, so wild, or so beyond what I can do, then I simply ask myself: if I give this twenty, forty, fifty dollars, whatever it is, what am I out? If I withhold it, however, and I ought to have given it in God’s eyes, I am out far more. So you make the best assessment you can without perfect knowledge, and you try to show love even at times when you think you may be taken advantage of.

But it wasn’t just money these people were out for—it was their life, it was everything. It is far higher than what I have expressed there. And so a knock at the door, a favor sought, may have cost them everything; yet they are being told, “Love the stranger.” And there are not only recipients, but there is also a reminder: “Be not forgetful.” Do you think they would forget in the sense of being absent-minded? Or is this terminology more about the loss of mercy—withholding mercy? It is not that we cannot remember these things, but that we stop caring. And so we hurry through our lives, busy with this and that. We guard our hearts in times of suspicion, but we cannot then love the stranger if we function in this way. And so we are called to correction here, to remember.

He could have put it there. He gave the reason that was exhibited by, and we will get to it, those who entertained angels unawares. That was his grounding. But if you go back to Moses and what God said through Moses, it was: You were once a stranger. Now he takes a different argument. But we should not forget one of the original arguments: Remember the stranger, love the stranger, because you were once a stranger. And that is true for us all. In Ephesians chapter two, you remember the words: At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off are made near by the blood of Christ. Verse 19, he says: Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. And there he takes the same language. And he says to these believers, “You were once out there, you were a stranger, you had no right to these privileges, and by grace alone you were brought in. You cannot put any credit to yourself. You cannot say, ‘I did that, I achieved that, I was a good boy, I believed, I turned from my sin.’ It is by grace. By grace alone. God intervened. You were without God, without hope. You had no inner ability to change the circumstances. You could not come to God of yourself, because, as we saw last Sunday evening, none seeks after God.”

So the reminder comes: be not forgetful to entertain strangers. This is what we are called to. This is the mandate. And undergirding it, of course, is love. I mean, it is truly an expression of the first verse in a certain way. Love continuing—continuing even toward the stranger, the one you do not know. And you go back and read 1 Corinthians 13 and ask yourself, what am I struggling with? What am I struggling with? Well, love. It says there, “seeketh not her own.” And that is truly what we struggle with when it comes to loving the stranger. We seek our own, and that includes ourselves, but also those we consider to be my people. You look left and right, and those around you—these are your people. And you will love them, I hope, I trust. But what about the stranger? They are not my people. And so we seek our own. Love does not seek its own.

A loveless orthodoxy is a contradiction in terms. Doctrine without charity is like a body without breath. That is how some Christians live. They have the doctrine, but there is no love. That is what Paul argues there. You could give your body to be burned, and if you have not love, it is nothing. You have just let that govern. If you let that govern, it all comes down to that. If you do not have love, quit, because none of it matters. God does not care. He is not impressed. He redeems His people so that they may reveal love, so that they may live love, so that they may put a practical expression to love. He redeems His people so that they are transformed and renewed, and so that they are governed by the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. And if you do not have love, it is a sham. The whole thing is a sham from top to bottom. It is hard to find any redeeming quality in it. I mean, if you think of it: if you give your body to be burned, and Paul says that if you do that but you do not have love, it is nothing. Like, I cannot find anything redeemable in that. I mean, that is the extreme. He is arguing from the greater. If you go to that extent and you do not have love, it does not matter. None of it matters.

So the mandate is, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.” What is the manner of this service? It must be willing. It must be willing. The language implies that one should not forget to entertain strangers; by implication, there ought to be a willingness to do so.

This is more explicitly stated in Romans 12, verse 13: “Given to hospitality.” That word “given” does not merely mean that one has an inclination toward hospitality, but that one actively pursues it. You actually follow after it. That is the sense: pursue hospitality. You are looking for fresh ways to express it. Your eye is scanning the surroundings, asking, “Can I do this for this person? Can I do that for them?”

A heart changed by grace will be given to hospitality. Pursue hospitality—not just tolerate it, not just think about it occasionally, but chase it down.

If you are hearing me, you must be convicted, because I am. I think we are all in the same place here. I believe we are relatively hospitable. My wife and I try to invite people, and sometimes they stay in our home for a long time. We have them regularly, and one of my great regrets is this: I am going to say it now, and a year from now, the problem will still be the same.

We have never had a visitor’s book. I have said, “We do not have a visitor’s book.” I mean, all these people—it would be nice to have a record, just to scan down and remember that they were there. I would use that to help aid our memories. We do not have one. Perhaps we should get one.

Being willing, being willing. Pursuing hospitality. And Peter tells us, 1 Peter 4:9, to do it without grudging. I don’t know about you. Sometimes we do it—we try to be hospitable. People call and say, “Can we stay?” And we do everything we can to make it available. We do all we can. That was the reason for it. But sometimes, there is a little spirit of, “Oh.” You sigh a little bit in exhaustion, overwhelmed by other things in life, and that is the way it is. And that was the same for them. This is not a modern phenomenon. Peter addresses that same thing—without grudging. No sighs over the work, no resentment over the budget. It is a ministry. Hospitality is a ministry.

So our love moves from words to work. Just saying that convicts me. Our love moves from words to work. My little children, 1 John 3:18, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

John saw the same thing. He looked across the people of God and saw their expressions in song and the things that they said. And he lamented that they were loving in word and tongue only. So he puts his arm around them. He does as he did, or as he received from the Lord, when the Lord took John and allowed his head to rest upon him, like a little child. And John now takes the little children of the church, as it were. He is not talking about actual children; he is talking about God’s people—those who are immature, those who have yet to learn. He takes God’s people, whatever their age, and places them upon His own breast.

Let us not love in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Hospitality is the grace of the gospel expressed in a visible way, and the text calls us to show it to strangers. For if you do it for strangers, you will do it for the rest. If you can do it for those you do not know, you will do it for those you do know. This models our Lord Jesus. Even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. Who were those many? They were enemies. And He gave His life for them. He did not demand care, but provided it. He stooped to wash the feet of His disciples. He looked upon the crowds of strangers and had compassion upon them.

No, he did not bring them into his house. He had nowhere to call his own. The Son of Man has not where to lay his head. But he was still hospitable. Constantly. Constantly. That is what he is doing. He is giving his time. He is lending his ear. He is hearing their cry. He is meeting the need. He is seeing all the effects of the fall, facilitating his grace to men.

It must be willing. It must be warm. It must be warm. This entertaining, this love of strangers, should be warm.

Now go to Acts 28. I was reading this passage the other day and thought, “Here is a passage for this sermon.” In Acts 28, Paul was on the shore of Malta, which is called Melita but is known today as Malta. Luke records in Acts 28 that the barbarous people showed us no little kindness. They kindled a fire and received each one of us because of the present rain and the cold.

The barbarous people showed us no little kindness. I mean, these people were not, I mean, what a way to describe them. I wonder if those of Malta later learned of what would happen, that the barbarians, what? Come on, at least not be so explicit. I mean, it is not wrong, nor is it false, but you have to give us away so explicitly. The barbarous people showed us no little kindness. They kindled a fire and received us all because of the present rain and the cold. They did not know them—pagans.

Christians at times are shown up by pagans. That is the conviction. I am thinking about this passage in Hebrews 13, and then I am reading Acts 28, and I am going, there it is! The pagans sometimes do a better job than the professed believer. So we are to receive these strangers, people we do not know. So how do we receive people who come into the church? That is just one way. How do we receive them? We do not know them; we have never seen them before. We do not ignore them.

I am hungry, heading home. Is that it? Is that all it takes to ignore them? You are a little bit hungry. Is that it? Jesus shed His blood. And we are a little bit hungry. We take the time to go and say hello. Disconnect, is there not? Not just to total strangers, but even those who through marriage end up in this congregation. They marry someone in this congregation. They come in, and you say, well, they have their spouse and their family. No. Well, yes, it’s true, but no—do not give yourself an excuse. They are feeling the weight of being in an alien environment. Yes, they are there beside their spouse. They have their love, but they have just come, perhaps, from a very loving congregation—one that they grew up in, one they have known all their lives. They have made the sacrifice in the marriage union to come. They had to go somewhere. Someone has to leave where they were before. And now they become strangers in our midst. And we have to welcome them, love them, and show them that they are not going to miss out. In God’s providence, He has not brought them into a community where they are now afflicted by a lack of the love they enjoyed in the previous community.

Again, John commands those to whom he wrote in his third epistle; in verse 5 he says, “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers.” You are doing faithfully what you do to the brethren and to strangers.

It must also be wise. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. I think that we must recognize there is a wisdom in how we do this. Now, we have hosted people for weeks. We have hosted people for months. I do not think we could call any of them strangers. Some of them we did not know very well, but we had met them. They came and stayed with us for extended periods. However, that is generally not advised. I will simply say that now. It is not advised unless they are paying their own way.

Many of you have heard of the Didache. It is one of the earliest documents we have from the New Testament era. It was written sometime between 70 AD and 100 AD, thereabouts. It was therefore perhaps only a few years after the epistle to the Hebrews. It is not infallible in the sense that it is not like Scripture, but it does give us insight into some aspects of church life at that time, at least among some of them. And it gives advice with regard to this matter.

It says in the Didache, “Let every apostle that comes to you be received as the Lord.” So when someone comes, claiming to be an apostle, receive him as such; but he shall not remain more than one day, unless there is need, then also the next day. But if he remains three days, he is a false prophet. And when the apostle departs, let him take nothing except bread until he lodges; but if he asks for money, he is a false prophet.

So he is going to make his journey when he leaves, and you are to give him bread enough to get him to his destination; but if he asks for money, it is a sign that he is a false prophet. This is a principle, so the church was not taken advantage of. It was a wisdom that was passed on and given to believers, so that as they endeavored to love the stranger, they were not taken advantage of.

Regarding general Christians, the Didache notes, if someone comes as a wayfarer, assist him as far as you are able; however, he shall not remain with you for more than two or three days, if necessary. But if he wishes to abide with you and is an artisan, let him work and eat. Second Thessalonians 3:10 is mentioned. And if he has no trade, according to your understanding, see to it that, as a Christian, he shall not live with you idle. Do not let him stay there without work. Put him to work. But if he is unwilling to work, he is a pretender to Christ—someone who uses Christ to take advantage. Watch that you keep aloof from such people.

People come into communities and take advantage. The same can happen today. So there is practical wisdom, and therefore we must be wise so that we are not taken advantage of, especially when we must care for those in our homes, establishing guardrails to protect our wives, our children, and even ourselves. I know of a man who is no longer in ministry because they took a young lady into their home for an extended period. She made an accusation that he was unable to prove was false, and as a result, he is no longer in ministry. I do not know what happened, by the way. I do not know what occurred. He is no longer in ministry. Therefore, we must be wise.

The motives for this service—what are the motives? Let us quickly examine this. Well, there is what we might call a heavenly test. “Some have entertained angels unawares.” The passage brings to mind Genesis 18 and 19. The men who come to Abraham are hosted by him, and he prepares a feast for them. Then they go on to Lot, who also brings them into his home. At that time, neither Abraham nor Lot knows who these men are. Abraham brings them in and feeds them. Later, they are identified as angels. Thus, they had the privilege not only of hosting strangers they did not know, but of showing hospitality to angels. What a remarkable thing that is.

Of course, the question arises: Can it happen today? I think that if you say to yourself, “It is absolutely impossible that this could ever happen today,” you kind of remove some of the power of the text. But even if I warrant that, even if I warrant the fact that this will never happen again, there is a higher argument anyway.

In Matthew 25, you know it well. When rewards are being given out, the believer, the blessed of the Father, is told, “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these my brethren.” Just note that language, by the way, because sometimes that language—the least of these—gets applied to areas that are completely unrelated. The phrase “the least of these” is not meant to refer only to hungry children in some foreign land. That is not what that passage is saying.

I mean, we are to love those who are in need and care for them as much as we can. But the least of these is not hungry children in Kenya or whatever. That is not what I said. The least of these, my brethren, is right there. It is the overlooked in the church—those who are not seen as great, who do not have titles or names, who do not come with reverend or pastor or elder or anything like that, and who are not known for having great status. They are merely ordinary, and sometimes less than ordinary, in the sense that they are of very low status.

If you did it unto one of these, you did it unto me. And so what if angels come into the Thomasian household in ways that we are unaware? What of it? If they are the Lord’s, it is as though Jesus Himself came to be served in the home. Jesus Himself walks in through His people and sits down at my table, rests His head on my bed, and enjoys with me my breakfast before they go on their way. Could we ask for a more lofty service? On such blessings are received as a result of it.

When you go through Scripture and see those examples—yes, Abraham in Genesis 18, who entertains strangers and receives a strengthening of the promise that the Son will be born, a further encouragement to keep on believing—when Lot does the same, he is delivered from the judgment that is about to come. You see the sense of reward, hospitality, and blessing that follows. In Genesis 24, the woman offers water to a stranger and gains a husband and a place in God’s covenant line. Rahab and Joshua also receive the Israelite spies, and she saves her entire household. Again, a sense of hospitality is evident. The widow of Zarephath, in 1 Kings 17, feeds Elijah and sees her son restored to life. The Shunammite in 2 Kings 4 builds a room for Elisha and receives a son. Again, the people on Malta, whom we have already read about, show kindness to Paul and those with him, and many are healed there. God’s mercy descends.

So, it is a test for us, and blessings come, but there is also a hidden reward. The Lord Jesus tells us that every cup of cold water given will have its reward. You never lose by loving. And especially when you must overcome your fear, or extend that love to a stranger, there is an added blessing. I do not know how God’s providence works in this way, but I fear that at times we all fail the tests He gives us. To show love, He places something before us, and we withdraw. Thus, we miss out on the blessing on the other side. If He rewards even a cup of cold water, then He takes note of everything.

So Romans 15:7, “Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” That is a humbling example, is it not? We began with the idiom, “Blood is thicker than water.” But here, hear this: Blood may be thicker than water. Family ties may be stronger than any other earthly relationship. But grace is thicker than blood. Our Lord Jesus, early in His ministry, in Mark 3, when He responds, “Your mother and Your brethren stand without,” He said, “Who is My mother or My brethren?” And He looked round about on them which sat about Him and said, “Behold, My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother and My sister and My mother.” Grace is thicker than blood.

This whole plan of redemption, we are to receive all this grace and then to display it even to strangers. And that is where we close. The reality is that there are strangers in this world. Some are strangers to you and to me, but some are strangers to God. There may be someone here this morning, and you know everyone here by name. You know everyone or almost everyone, but do you know God? Are you still a stranger? You have not repented of your sin. You have not turned and believed. You have not sought Christ. You have not received the gift of His grace. You have not turned and said, “Yes, I will believe. I do believe Jesus died and He died for me, and He rose from the dead and gives to me eternal life.” You have not turned and said, “Yes, I will believe.”

Do not be a stranger to God and His grace. Today He bids you come. All things are ready. Come. The gospel feast is before you. Come. Come and dine on Jesus Christ. Let us bow together in prayer. Here, now, this can be the day that you are no longer a stranger to God. He invites you to come, and this preacher urges you: seek the Lord. Seek Him now.

God, we pray, give deciding grace to those who know that up to this point they have been fighting and running from God. And to those of us who are saved, give empowering grace to love the stranger when Your providence affords us that opportunity. Help us to pursue those opportunities. Help us to never be charged with being inhospitable. May it manifest and be very evident in the life of this congregation, in the life of every home, and throughout the entire Church of Jesus Christ. Hear our prayers this morning. Receive thanks for speaking to us. We praise You for Your Word. Cut away, O God. Chisel away. Polish, so that the facets of our lives that are needed to shine more brightly may be more evident.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God, now and evermore. Amen.