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Strange Strangers
In the nineth week of the series, The Table Of Undeserving Friends, Pastor Alastair Sterne walks us through Genesis 18.1-15. In this passage we discover the importance of being present and willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of welcoming strangers.
We apologize, the introduction to this sermon was not recorded. The manuscript is below:
In our series, The Table Of Undeserving Friends, we’ve been looking at the vastness of God’s welcoming grace. The guests at his table are diverse and unique. We’ve been listening to some of their stories that we might learn more and more about the depths of God’s grace and how we might become people who welcome others as Christ has welcomed us.
Today I want to look at a more practical, but-not-so-normal instruction found in the Scriptures. Hebrews Chapter 13:2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
This seems a pretty straight forward instruction. Show hospitality to strangers, welcome them, because they might be angels! This is clear enough. Yet it’s pretty peculiar. Most of us don’t walk around in our day to day lives with a sense that the supernatural is intersecting with the natural. What are we supposed to glean from this instruction in Hebrews?
There is a lot more to this command than simply being nice to strangers solely because there might be more to them than meets the eye. It’s likely the author of Hebrews has a more notable example of this happening in mind.
Genesis Chapter 18. Abraham welcomes three strangers into his presence and home. They turn out to be messengers sent from God, who speak the very words of God himself. It’s a powerful story full of irony and humor and confusion.
Today we’re going to grab a seat beside Abraham at God’s table. What will he have to teach us about extending God’s welcoming grace?
Welcoming strangers requires being present. It requires an interruptible spirit. It requires a sense that there is nothing ordinary about the here-and-now. But this sort of posture isn’t a natural disposition in us. It is birthed out of God’s welcoming grace.
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By St. Peter's Fireside
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In the nineth week of the series, The Table Of Undeserving Friends, Pastor Alastair Sterne walks us through Genesis 18.1-15. In this passage we discover the importance of being present and willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of welcoming strangers.
We apologize, the introduction to this sermon was not recorded. The manuscript is below:
In our series, The Table Of Undeserving Friends, we’ve been looking at the vastness of God’s welcoming grace. The guests at his table are diverse and unique. We’ve been listening to some of their stories that we might learn more and more about the depths of God’s grace and how we might become people who welcome others as Christ has welcomed us.
Today I want to look at a more practical, but-not-so-normal instruction found in the Scriptures. Hebrews Chapter 13:2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
This seems a pretty straight forward instruction. Show hospitality to strangers, welcome them, because they might be angels! This is clear enough. Yet it’s pretty peculiar. Most of us don’t walk around in our day to day lives with a sense that the supernatural is intersecting with the natural. What are we supposed to glean from this instruction in Hebrews?
There is a lot more to this command than simply being nice to strangers solely because there might be more to them than meets the eye. It’s likely the author of Hebrews has a more notable example of this happening in mind.
Genesis Chapter 18. Abraham welcomes three strangers into his presence and home. They turn out to be messengers sent from God, who speak the very words of God himself. It’s a powerful story full of irony and humor and confusion.
Today we’re going to grab a seat beside Abraham at God’s table. What will he have to teach us about extending God’s welcoming grace?
Welcoming strangers requires being present. It requires an interruptible spirit. It requires a sense that there is nothing ordinary about the here-and-now. But this sort of posture isn’t a natural disposition in us. It is birthed out of God’s welcoming grace.