Joseph and Jesus

Good Morning - this morning, we’re going to return to our series of sermons on seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. As you recall, we started with Adam, then considered Abraham and then before taking a break for a few weeks, we looked at the scapegoat ritual, and how it prefigured Jesus. And this morning, we’ll be turning to Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.

Joseph is, without question, one of the most important figures in the history of the Jewish people. Without him, the people of Israel would never have survived. Of course, without that survival, they would never have been put into slavery in Egypt. But on the other hand, without that slavery, there would never have been experienced God’s miraculous deliverance, and with it, freedom and recovery of the promised land. Life can be complicated, can’t it? Well, Joseph’s life certainly was complicated. Let me remind you of his (most remarkable) story (which can be found in Genesis 37-50):

Preamble

Joseph was the beloved favorite son of his father. And Joseph had a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong, which unfortunately resulted in his tattling on his brothers when they weren’t behaving well -- and that didn’t go over so well. Joseph was also given special treatment by his father -- famously receiving a “coat of many colors” -- and his brothers didn’t like that, either. Joseph was also a dreamer. And not just one of those dreamers that you can roll your eyes at and safely ignore. No: Joseph was one of those dreamers who thinks that you, too, must participate in his dreams. And one day, when Joseph was seventeen years old, his father sends him off to find his older brothers. He needs to go on quite a hike, because they had moved the family sheep around to greener pastures. But he eventually catches up to them, and this is what we read (Genesis 37:18-20):

But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

Pain

He came unto his own, but his own did not receive him. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Jesus was killed by his own, and it certainly seems that Joseph might also have been killed -- his brothers only changing their mind at the last minute because some slave-traders came along and his brother Judas, I mean Judah, convinces them to sell Joseph for a few pieces of silver. So Joseph received a second life, but ended up being hauled off to Egypt at the end of a slaving caravan.

Now some people, having just been mugged and sold as a slave by your family might be a tiny bit bitter about the whole experience. Some people might even have blamed God for it all. And since he was only human, it likely took Joseph a while to be able to handle the whole slavery thing. But we know that he eventually came around, and concluded that if God was with him, and he was in Egypt, then God was also in Egypt, too.

Now being a slave has never been fun, and being a slave in Egypt no different. Joseph was sold to a guy named Potiphar. That was a good thing: Potiphar was wealthy and powerful, so he could afford to treat his slaves well – especially the good slaves. And Joseph turned out to be one of the very best slaves that Potiphar had. That’s already a good indication that Joseph was trusting in God. When we trust in God, God often helps us do our work better, even when it could so easily be getting us down. So after a while, Joseph’s life wasn’t so bad.

But just when Joseph was about to get comfortable, Potiphar’s wife comes along. Now I told you that Joseph was a tattle-tale. But there are two types of tattle-tales: the first type tells those things that you’d prefer to be kept secret. That’s the kind of tattle-tale that Joseph was with his brothers. But Potiphar’s wife was the other kind of tattle-tale: she made up lies to tell Joseph’s master in order to get him into trouble. And who is Potiphar going to believe, this slave he bought from the camel traders, or his wife? Well, he believes his wife, and Joseph gets thrown in a dungeon.

Now some people, having been thrown into a dungeon because someone made up lies about them might be a tiny bit bitter about the whole experience. Some people might even have blamed God for it all. And since he was only human, it likely took Joseph a while to be able to handle the dungeon smells. But we know that he eventually came around, and concluded that if God was with him, and he was in a dungeon, then God was also in that dungeon, too.

Can you imagine? Joseph gets thrown into a well, sold as a slave, wrongfully accused, thrown into a dungeon… Joseph might have been tempted to imagine that God had abandoned him altogether. But the Bible says that God was with Joseph this entire time. And since the Bible story almost certainly comes directly from Joseph’s telling of it, it is remarkable that Joseph recognizes God in the depths of his suffering.

But that’s an important lesson, isn’t it? Just because we don’t think that God is around to look after us, doesn’t at all mean that he has left us alone. When God says “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you,” he doesn’t sneak in some fine print “as long as you do such and so.” As long as we live, God is there watching out for us, and showing his grace to us. The Bible says, “In him we live and move and have our being,” and “in Him all things hold together.”

It is common for people today to claim that there is too much suffering in the world to believe in God. Strangely, this claim often seems to be inversely related to the amount of suffering that the person making the claim has actually experienced. Joseph, having experienced incredible injustice and suffering, knew that God was there beside him.

Promotion

And so as a picture for us, as an illustration of His love that we can learn from almost four thousand years later, God came and rescued Joseph. It only took thirteen years from the time that he was thrown in that old well. Thirteen years! How did it happen? It was all about dreams.

Joseph found himself between two criminals in that dungeon. Both of them had dreams. Neither understood what their dream meant. Joseph interpreted their dreams for them. One of the dreams meant that Joseph’s companion would be executed. The other dream meant the deliverance of the other criminal beside him. Almost like Jesus on the cross, who famously told the criminal beside him, “you will be with me in paradise.”

So the butler was reinstated to the coveted position of waiting on Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Years later, when Pharaoh had some troubling dreams, the butler remembered Joseph and told Pharaoh that this guy in the dungeon could interpret dreams. So Pharaoh hauled Joseph out of the dungeon and asked for the meaning of his dreams. The dreams indicated that the whole land was going to have seven years of good crops followed by seven years of famine. And Pharaoh was so pleased with Joseph for the warning he provided, that he made him the ruler of the entire land. And it was a good thing, too, because Joseph had the people store away food before the famine, they had enough to survive when the famine came.

One day, long before, Joseph left his father's house wearing his fancy coat, but he ended that day with his coat stripped off him and having been thrown into a pit, to begin thirteen years of slavery and abuse. But on this day, he woke up in a pit (the Hebrew for dungeon and pit are the same), , but he ended that day wearing royal robes in charge of the greatest civilization in the world at the time. If that isn’t a picture of resurrection, nothing short of coming back from the dead could be!

Purpose

After those seven years of bountiful harvests, the famine came to Egypt and all the surrounding area. It was so bad that people from all over came to buy food from Joseph. And one day, ten men arrived from a long distance away to buy food. Joseph recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him (it had been twenty years, after all). That’s right: it was his brothers who had come to ask for food. You can picture it: here is a ruler in the greatest kingdom on earth, flanked by squads of guards. And his enemies come groveling before him. These are the same enemies who had come “this close” to killing him the last time they had met. Instead, they just sold their own brother as a slave. Now Joseph is the boss, and they are nobodies. But Joseph ends up being really kind to them, and talks the entire family into staying in Egypt (where there was food). And Joseph makes sure that they live in the best part of the entire country.

In Romans chapter five, we read that Christ died for us, and elsewhere, we understand that this death meant life for us. But we are told that Christ died not when we were already God’s friends, but while we were still his enemies -- while we were still sinners. Similarly, Joseph took a punishment he didn’t deserve; he suffered remarkable hardship; but by the powerful intervention of God, he is raised up to sit on a throne in order to provide life and peace for his enemies, and turn them into his family.

Punchline

So everyone lives “happily ever after,” more or less. But the best part of the lesson of the story comes a little later on. When Joseph’s father Jacob became old and died, Joseph’s brothers all got together and came to Joseph, and the Bible says that they threw themselves down before him, expecting that he would deal with them harshly now. But listen carefully to what Joseph says in reply. He says two things, and both are so important. First, he says, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” Now Joseph is, of course, implying that “no, of course not, he is not in the place of God.”

It is so easy, so convenient, and so seductively empowering to take the place of God, isn’t it? And it all goes back to the Garden of Eden. What did the serpent say to Adam and Eve? He said, “if you eat of the fruit, you will become like God, knowing good from evil.” This is the most primal of human temptations – it always has been and it always will be. We want to be in the place of God. We want to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. We want to judge, we want to be in control. But we all need to come to the place that Joseph came to, where he knew that it was not his place to judge, it was not his place to decide what is right and what is wrong. He was not in the place of God, and neither are we.

But here’s an interesting twist: the Pharaohs of Egypt were actually given god-like status. Their absolute rule was the grounds for the practice. And Judah explicitly says that as far as they are concerned Joseph was “like Pharaoh himself (44:18).” So by the custom of the land, it would have been natural to have treated Joseph as God. But here he is humbly acknowledging that he is by no means God. As we read in Philippians chapter 2:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not cling to equality with God, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

How very much like Joseph, who also did not aspire to equality with God. And Joseph also was highly exalted and given a name second only to Pharaoh, just like Jesus has been and will be exalted:

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The second thing that Joseph says is found in Genesis 50:20, as his brothers are groveling before him after the death of their father, Joseph says to his brothers, “Even though you might have meant it for evil, God meant it for good.”

“God meant it for good.” Being thrown in a well? “Yes, God meant it for good.” Being sold as a slave? “Yes, God meant it for good.” Being wrongfully accused? “Yes, God meant it for good.” Being thrown in the dungeon? “Yes, God meant it for good.” Now it is one thing to recognize God’s work in your life when He has picked you up and dropped you on the throne of the greatest civilization in the known world, but it is quite a different thing to recognize God’s work in your life when you are still in the dungeon. But this trick here is just this: if Joseph wasn’t able to recognize God’s work in his life while he was in the dungeon, God never would have elevated Joseph to the throne in the first place.

Now when Joseph says that God meant it for good, it shows that he understood God. One of the greatest of all human experiences is simply to be understood. And I expect that God appreciates being understood, too. Joseph understands that God’s purpose is to turn evil into good. And if we let him, God wants to be with us, too, and similarly redeem our lives from destruction. The most vivid illustration of this in history, is, of course, the cross. We meant it for evil. God meant it for good. The greatest act of injustice ever committed -- the greatest punishment ever imposed on the one who deserved it the least. Yet God used this event for the good -- in order to bring many children to glory, in order to provide life and peace for his enemies and turn them into his family.

Postscript

So Joseph’s life is central to the story of the people of Israel. In fact, his story spans almost one quarter of the entire book book of Genesis. Almost as much ink is devoted to Joseph’s story as is given to the story of Abraham. But strangely enough, mention of Joseph is almost absent from the New Testament. Abraham is featured again and again in the writings of Paul - almost seventy times! but Paul never mentions Joseph at all!

Mentions of Joseph in the New Testament are usually references to other people: Joseph the husband of Mary, Joseph Barnabas, or Joseph of Arimathea. Apart from the final address of Stephen the Martyr in Acts chapter 7, the only mention we have of Joseph the son of Jacob in the New Testament is found in the famous eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the Hall of Faith, or the Faith Hall of Fame. And this is what it says (11:22):

By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

Say what? Joseph, the man who trusted God in the pit, who trusted God as a slave, who trusted God in the dungeon, and who was raised by God to the highest earthly position. And what does he get commended for in the New Testament? Instructions about his bones. It is a reference to one of the final acts of Joseph (at the end of the book of Genesis -- 50:24):

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will deal with you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” 25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely deal with you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”

And, sure enough, the people of Israel took this vow very seriously. From Exodus 13:19 :

And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had made the children of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you; and you shall carry up my bones from here.

A story that came to its conclusion in Joshua 24:32:

And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, were buried in Shechem....

This clearly was a big deal. But what is this telling us? Two things. First, God is primarily interested in what we’ve done for him lately. Sometimes it might be tempting to imagine that past service is of some importance, or a prayer prayed in the past is enough. But that isn't the model of the Christian life the Bible presented to us. In Colossians 2:6 we are told that "in the same way that you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him." The Christian life is a continual present business. Considering that it is only the very last thing that Joseph did in his life is called out as an example for us, let’s plan our lives to end well, starting even today. Let’s get in the habit of faithful commitment to his word today, so that we’ll not be taking chances with the future.

But second, let’s also take God’s promises really seriously. This is what made Joseph insist that his bones be returned to the land of Israel, wasn’t it? He had heard from his father, and perhaps even from his grandfather, that the land of Israel has been promised to his family. He was certain that God was going to keep his promise, and he wanted his bones to end up in the right place.

And if we want to end up in the right place after we die, we, too, would do well to follow Joseph’s lead and pay close attention to God’s promises. After all, in Joshua 21:45, we read:

Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

And if God’s promises were good to the rebellious house of Israel, how much more will he keep his promises to his beloved children. That’s why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:1:

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

But the promises of God don’t just drive us to purify our lives, they enable our purification:

2 Peter 1:4 [Jesus] has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

What promises are these? Well, this book is full of them. Let me encourage you to find them for yourself. And not just find them, but apply them to yourself. Take them seriously. Take them personally. It could change your life.

But I’ll close with one example, from the book of Isaiah, God promises (41:10):

Fear not; for I am with you: don’t be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. - Isaiah 41:10

You could take a lifetime taking a promise like that seriously. And that might, in fact, be exactly what God intended. Let God mean this for good in your life this morning.

Hospitality

For the six months or so before Christmas, Bethel sermons were mostly focusing on Jesus. And that, of course, is all well and good in a Christian church. Beginning in June of last year, the sermon series was called “Glimpses of Jesus”, and in those months, we saw Jesus change water into wine, heal the sick, calm the storm, raise the dead, drive out the merchants in the temple, and walk on water (among many other things). Immediately following that, we had a series of sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. First we witnessed Jesus in action, then we gave him the opportunity to speak to us. And having been immersed in Jesus’ life and teaching for six months, we hope that his example and instruction will take root in our lives and transform us into the people that God intended us to be.

But what, exactly, does that look like? Well, the present series of sermons is intended to respond to that very question -- to talk about the practical reflection of God’s work in our lives; to apply what we’ve learned in concrete terms. Last week, Andy challenged us to draw near to God. And as you see from your bulletin, the topic of this morning’s sermon is “hospitality”.

But how in the world did I get this assignment? After all, our church has a number of real experts in hospitality, and I do not pretend to be one of them. To tell you the truth, God put it on my heart as something that I need to learn, that I need to practice and that I need to develop. Knowing my own shortcomings in this regard, I suggested to Andy that this subject should be addressed… and, well, so here I am. Wow. That’s just how it goes sometimes. So I don’t come to you this morning as anything of an expert. Instead, I come as a student, perhaps as a student whose assignment was to study a topic and make a presentation to the rest of the class.

Now the first thing I discovered as I looked at the teaching on hospitality in the Bible is that it shows up much more than I had anticipated. In fact, the topic is addressed by almost every one of the New Testament writers (not every book, mind you, but all but one of the writers). Only Jude (the writer of only a single-chapter book) doesn’t address it. (Now we don’t know for sure who the author of the book of Hebrews was, so I’ve added an extra line for him, just to be safe). And some of these mentions of hospitality are quite explicit. For example, 1 Peter 4:9 says:

Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

How do you like that? At one point, a command like this would be enough to make me start grumbling -- which isn’t Peter’s intention at all, of course. But very likely the reason for our discomfort over this directive is that the meaning of the word “hospitality” has drifted a bit since Peter wrote his letter. That is, when we hear the word “hospitality”, we often think of something different from what the Biblical writers intended when they used the word “hospitality”. So let’s take a few moments to understand that difference.

In our society, we often use the word “hospitality” to describe the business of hosting a dinner party: choosing the right guests, making sure that they are sitting in the right place, serving the right food, keeping the conversation going, and making sure everyone has a good time. To use another word (thanks, Ruth), this is the business of “entertaining”. And while entertaining can be an enormous blessing to both the host and the guests, entertaining is a blessing because of the hospitality shown in the process. That is, entertaining can be a vehicle for hospitality, it is not hospitality in itself. As this diagram shows, there is lots of overlap between hospitality and entertaining, but there can also be one without the other.

Entertaining without hospitality happens when it is all about social status and the exchange of social favors, with the priority going to the host. So if the instruction to “practice hospitality” makes us uncomfortable, it might simply be that “entertaining” can be socially awkward. But please be reassured: Biblical hospitality does not depend on social positioning. Instead, true Biblical hospitality is focused on those to whom the hospitality is offered and its purpose is to address their needs. This is made clear for us in Romans (12:13):

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Entertaining without hospitality also happens when its basis is luxury. Let’s face it: dinner parties are expensive, and having the facilities to host such a thing to the standards of the day also represents significant expense. Just this last Friday, I was talking to one of the men in Esther’s extended family, who, with his father, run a high-end renovations company in X. He laughed at the fact that his clientele were all part of a wealthy group that regularly invite each other over for dinner parties. When one gets a renovation done, then all the others need to have renovations, all trying to one-up one another. So if the instruction to “practice hospitality” makes us uncomfortable, it might simply be that “entertaining” might be beyond our means. But please be reassured: Biblical hospitality does not depend on your financial situation. Instead, true Biblical hospitality is an opportunity for us to share the love that we have received from our Lord and Savior.

While entertaining can be a great vehicle for hospitality, we shouldn’t limit our understanding by it. I was made exceedingly grateful this last week but an expression of hospitality from the ladies of the church: a number of you sent over some baking that we were able to take for the visitors at Esther's father's funeral. Thank you for that! We can make others feel at home in public, or at work, or in church, or even at someone else’s house. In fact, when Jesus gives us an example of hospitality, it doesn’t involve entertaining at all. Rather, he tells the famous story of the Good Samaritan. There, the hero of the story has a chance encounter with a man near death: someone who has been robbed and beaten and left by the side of the road. He does everything that he can to look after this man, arranging for his rest and recovery, without playing host to him at all. And when Jesus is through telling this story, he says:

Go and do likewise (Luke 10:37b)

I fully suspect that the success of the early church depended in no small part on the fact that those early believers took these words of Jesus seriously. Hospitality does not require entertaining. In fact, we can also find Jesus’ instructions about entertaining in Luke (in chapter 14). There, we read:

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Now between this and the Good Samaritan, our common thinking about hospitality should be quite shaken to the core. Jesus knows that only a fundamentally new understanding of value and social status will make us able to understand true Biblical hospitality. That’s why we also see this (following) teaching of Jesus in all four of the gospels:

Luke 9:48 “Whoever receives this little child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.” (Matthew 18:5; Mark 9:37; John 13:20)

In the first century, children, particularly other people’s children, were on the lowest possible rung of the social ladder. They were the last people that anyone would spare a thought for. So when Jesus clearly connects our treatment of those children with our treatment of our Lord Himself, he is overturning the common understanding of status and value. And then, just in case we missed it, he makes it explicit:

For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.

When we are finally able to take these words of Jesus to heart, we will discover that hospitality does not depend on a large house, or even a clean one. Nor does it depend on an expensive meal. The poor and the hurting and the lonely have no interest in critiquing your interior decorating. They just long for a chance to connect with someone who cares for them.

In fact, last year, we had a survey go around to the congregation, and that’s one of the needs that many of you expressed. Connecting with the church as the family of God isn’t nearly as easy as it should be, and it isn’t nearly as natural as it should be -- even at Bethel. The church was never intended to be a collection of independent family units that just happen to share a roof once a week.

We are called to be a family. We are called to be the body of Christ.

About ten weeks ago, Esther had an accident while skating, the radiologists summary of the fractures was two lines long, including all those wonderful medical abbreviations. I can’t tell you what things were like for the first few hours, but by the time I got home to take her to the hospital, she was holding one arm with the other. All of her movements were a little more deliberate, and all of her movements were extra aware of risk to that one arm. If there was doubt, her body would turn to protect the suffering member. And much of her energy was devoted to immobilizing that wrist so that no further damage was done.  How well this illustrates how a high-functioning body operates! When one of our members is suffering, how critical it is that we all make special allowance for them!

We are called to be a family: to share with the Lord’s people who are in need -- and that’s not just physical needs, but social and spiritual needs as well. This, of course, is one of the reasons that we are looking at the topic of hospitality this morning. But just last week, we were given another great reason to consider hospitality: we were challenged to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds”, and hospitality is certainly a practical opportunity for good deeds among us.

But to fully understand Biblical hospitality, let’s consider a really interesting example from scripture. In his letter to the churches, the apostle James uses two stories from the Old Testament as examples of “faith in action.” The first of these examples is “the big one” -- Abraham himself! But the second example that James uses is the one I’d like to draw your attention to this morning. It is quite fascinating -- both for its choice and for its details. It is found in verse 25:

And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (ESV)

You remember the story: Joshua, upon entering the promised land, immediately encountered the walled city of Jericho. It really didn’t look like anything the people of Israel had experienced before. So Joshua sent two spies in to check it out. The king of Jericho got word of their “visit”, and sent soldiers to capture them. But they had been welcomed by this woman named Rahab, and she hid them so that the soldiers couldn’t find them. And then, when the coast was clear, she made sure that they escaped unharmed.  

Imagine jumping from Abraham to Rahab! James is covering a lot of territory here, isn’t he? On the one hand, the father of the faithful, the patriarch of the patriarchs, the friend of God, the example to all the children of promise. On the other hand, a pagan, Gentile, prostitute -- ew! It would have been hard to have made a greater contrast between individuals in the minds of his listeners. But instead of a contrast, James is making a comparison! He is saying that both Abraham and Rahab were justified by their faith expressed by their works.

And in particular, Rahab’s faith is expressed in her hospitality to the Israelite spies. But let’s look carefully at the wording that James uses here: in describing her hospitality, he says that she “received the messengers”. And these words, “received” and “messengers” are critical to a Biblical understanding of hospitality. We’ve seen the first one (“received”) before, haven’t we?

Whoever receives this little child in my name receives me (Luke 9:48)

In Matthew, one expression is slightly different (Matthew 10:41):

Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me

And another expression of this is also found later in John (13:20), where Jesus says:

whoever receives the one I send receives me

So Jesus is making it clear: the way that we receive other people is the way that we receive Jesus. Whether it is the little child, or you, or the one he sends, that reception also involves how we receive not only Jesus, but also how we receive God himself! And, of course, Jesus doesn’t want us to limit our thinking here: we know from elsewhere in the gospel that whenever we show kindness to the least of Jesus’ brothers or sisters, he will take that kindness as being shown to him. But that word (“receive”) also shows up in another famous verse in John, doesn’t it (1:10-12)?

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

But what this implies is staggering: nothing less than that our inclination to be hospitable may be directly connected to our very salvation! No wonder so many of the New Testament authors make a point of calling it out!  So if we receive the marginalized; if we receive the hurting; if we receive the needy -- then we receive Jesus himself and, as a result, obtain the right to become children of God.

But let’s back up a bit. “The one I send”. Who are those that are sent? In those days, and even today, someone who was sent out is often a messenger. And that brings us to the second of those two important words.

...was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (ESV)

But at this point, I’m afraid that I need to disagree with the translation that you have in the pews. In the (NIV) pew Bibles, the translation used for this word (that the ESV translates “messengers”) is “spies”. Now while “spies” certainly reflects the historical reality of Rahab’s experience, it isn’t accurately transmitting how James expresses it.

But don’t take my word for it. On Bible Gateway, there are 54 different (though not necessarily independent) translations of the New Testament. Of those, 65% translate this word “messengers” rather than “spies”. But don’t take their word for it. The Greek word that James uses is “angelos” which is, of course, the word that we also translate “angel”. In the ancient Greek language, there was no word for "angel", so the New Testament writers chose this word -- "angelos" meaning "messenger" -- for that purpose. An angel, of course, is simply a messenger from God. But this reminds us of another verse concerning hospitality, doesn’t it? -- Hebrews 13:2:

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

And that word in Hebrews translated “angels”? It is also “angelos”, of course: the same word translated “messengers” in James. Now I don’t think that this is a coincidence. In fact, I’d be willing to go so far as to use it to define Biblical hospitality: that is, Biblical hospitality is simply treating those we encounter as messengers of God.

Please note that, in the world’s way of thinking, the hospitality referred to in Hebrews is being offered to strangers and the hospitality referred to in James is being offered to spies -- that is, Rahab’s natural enemies. But simultaneously, in God’s way of thinking -- the way of thinking that ultimately counts -- the hospitality is being offered to His messengers.

Now, if God were to send a messenger to you, and you knew it, I’m sure that you’d go out of your way to make them feel completely at home. I expect that they would make the transition in your mind from stranger to guest to family to VIP in no time.

But when John tells us that we need to show hospitality; when Paul tells us that we should practice hospitality; when Peter tells us to offer hospitality without grumbling; when James uses hospitality as an example of saving faith in action; when the author of the book of Hebrews tells us not to forget to show hospitality to strangers, they aren’t just encouraging us to be satisfied with society’s common forms of hospitality. I don’t think that it is inappropriate to extend Jesus’ words in the sermon on the mount to the present subject (see Matt 5:46-47) -- now my modifications are in brackets, but you can look up the passage and decide if Jesus could also mean this or not:

If you [invite over] those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you [look after] only your own family, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Instead, we need to be challenged to go beyond all that - challenged in our thinking and in our habits of life. God really does looks at things very differently than we do. And He (as usual) is asking us to think more like He does.

Last week, we were challenged to first draw near to God -- and then to spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Practicing Biblical hospitality might be exactly the kind of good deeds God had in mind. And God knows how far it could go toward forming this church into Christ’s body for His glory. (Romans 15:7)

Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.