We are called to love each other with the very love of God that reached us.
This is much more about submitting to God’s love than it is about committing to God’s love. My commitment can only take me so far but God’s love at work through my surrendered life is outrageous.
Learning submission before commitment produces “submitment”
It’s the essence of 1 Samuel 15:22 obedience is better than sacrifice.
God is more loving, kind and generous than we are. If only God’s love could show up in our world. It did! His name is Jesus and he demonstrated how to walk in submission to the Father’s desires as a way of life.
In November of 2008, dozens of prominent white nationalists gathered in a hotel in Memphis to plan how to respond to a national crisis: Americans had just elected their first black president.
Although leading figures in the white supremacy movement filled the room, the star of the show was a college student from Florida. Derek Black, known as “the heir,” was the son of Don Black, the creator of Stormfront, the largest white nationalist website in the world. At one point Derek’s mother had been married to David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK.
Derek had given his life to the purity and protection of the white race. Keeping his identity secret from his friends he would sneak out of his dorm to call in to his radio program.
How does a 19-year-old student allow such hate to take over his heart? Is there any hope for someone like Derek? Is there any hope for you to be able to love someone like Derek?
In today’s world we are increasingly exposed to people and ideologies that previous generations never encountered. People used to gather and dwell by race, class, religion and shared moral frameworks. There is a psychological ease in being surrounded by similar people when outsiders can be kept at a safe distance. “Outsiders” are invading our lives through the internet and apps that connect us to all kinds of people all over the world.
What if this connectivity is all part of God’s plan to reach every nation, every tribe and every tongue?
A man in New York City recently shared this experience, “I was taking a taxi to my office which happens to be near a quality fast-food chicken restaurant. I was preoccupied but eventually broke into a conversation with the driver. The driver shared his story of immigration to America. He was an incredibly well-educated man with advanced degrees, a member of the upper-middle class of his old community, but he was forced to flee because of political persecution. His credentials were not recognized in the States, and he was required to go back to graduate school to redo degrees he already had. He was working as a taxi driver as the best employment he could find, driving busy, distracted people like me around while he carried another life and vast potential inside him.
It was a powerful conversation. He went from a statistic of immigration to a portrait of humanity right before my eyes. I felt the humanizing of a representative group take place in my heart. As we pulled up in front of my office, I asked what he was doing for the next 30 minutes, “Working,” he said. “If you keep the meter running, would you like to try some amazing chicken?” I asked. “Are you serious,” he replied. Right there in the middle of Manhattan, two men from opposite sides of the world ate chicken and talked about their families, histories, struggles and triumphs and their shared experience of moving to New York. For thirty minutes, in a taxi in New York, the other became a brother; a stranger became a friend.
Lance Ford wrote, “If every Christian family in the world simply offered good conversational hospitality around a table once a week to neighbors, we would eat our way into the kingdom of God.”
Encounter by encounter, hospitality would deconstruct fear and reconstruct shared humanity
In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at the home of Levi.
In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.
In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.
In Luke 10 Jesus eats in the home of Martha and Mary.
In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the law at a meal.
In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.
In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zacchaeus.
In Luke 22 we have the account of the Last Supper.
In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with two disciples.
Jesus always seemed to be going to a meal, at a meal or coming from a meal.
Unlike our culture’s hospitality, which is extended to those like us and withheld from those who differ, Jesus’s hospitality was scandalously unconditional.
Jesus humanized those others dismissed as outsiders and extended the welcome of God. The Pharisees excluded and dehumanized outsiders calling Gentiles “dogs.” But Jesus tore these boundary markers down. He replaced them with a radical welcome that still reverberates through the world today.
The reason God calls us to this kind of love is that this is the way He has loved us. Paul described our condition before Christ as outsiders.
Ephesians 2:11-12 Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth…were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. NIV
In the story of redemption, we are the outsiders. God has sought to welcome us back. His perfect love has cast out fear and turned strangers into sons and daughters. This is why hospitality was a central part of the teaching of the Torah.
Exodus 22:21 Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. NIV
Leviticus 19:33-34 When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. NIV
Consideration of the strangers was even to appear in economic practices that left margin, dignity and provision for them.
Leviticus 19:9-10 When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. NIV
The children of Israel were to conquer fear and prejudice in our world by showing hospitality to others because this was the way their gracious God had treated them.
Which leads me back to Derek Black, “the heir” of American white nationalism, was not doing well at college. One April morning, Derek saw a post on a student message board, “Derek Black: white supremacist, radio host…new college student among us??? The post read, “How do we as a community respond?”
Someone at the school had been doing research on terrorist groups online and stumbled on Derek’s secret life. He was rejected as a white supremacist. Over a thousand pages of replies were left on the message board.
Derek would later recall, “I could sit there and just read post after post of this 1,000-page message talking about how I was not welcomed there, how I didn’t represent them, how they couldn’t understand how I could be a part of this place they were trying to build.”
Matthew Stevenson was an Orthodox Jewish student at the college. He had started hosting a Friday night Shabbat dinner to foster understanding of Jewish culture and life. His regular visitors included curious Christians and atheists and people of different ethnic backgrounds. Matthew decided to invite this white nationalist who had written blatantly anti-Semitic statements.
Derek, after being shunned by the whole campus, decided to go. It was the only invitation he had received since news of his identity had come out. When he arrived, the group was nervous. But week after week, Derek continued to show up. Slowly, meal by meal, month by month, his views began to change. His encounter with the other began to shift them from the other to simply another. His new friends encouraged him to explore things he had previously dismissed. He took classes he previously avoided. Slowly his lens of white nationalism began to fade, and a vision of shared humanity emerged.
Derek actually renounced white nationalism as a result, even writing in the Southern Poverty Low Center’s Intelligence Report, “Things I have said and done have been harmful to people of color, people of Jewish descent, activists striving for opportunity and fairness for all…I am sorry for the damage I’ve done.”
On this college campus, a Jew and a white supremacist encountered the power of the table in the life of humanity. An environment of welcome transformed Derek’s identity and he found a new way forward.
You were an outsider, an enemy to God but he loved you anyway.
Romans 5:10 “…we were God’s enemies, (but) were reconciled to him through the death of his Son…” NIV
After he redeemed us he then called us to share that same kind of love with others.
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Go out of your way to purpose some expression of hospitality to someone this week that is purposefully out of your way enlarging the reach of God’s love.
40 DAYS: CONSISTENTLY SUBMITTING
Discussion Guide for Community Leaders
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.
2021 is a year of faith and action. This is a year where we learn that we are the move of God in the earth. We must stop waiting for a move of God and become the move of God everywhere we go.
We bring God’s presence to real life in every realm of society and on every level of community. We are the gates through which Jesus breaks into the earth!
Psalm 24:9 Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift {them} up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in! (NAS)
You were born to be a gateway for the King!
As a church family we want to be OUTRAGEOUSLY LOVING people who PASSIONATELY PURSUE the Lord with IRRATIONALLY GIVING lifestyles as we CONSISTENTLY SUBMIT to God’s desires
and EFFECTIVELY DISCIPLE others to do the same.
This requires that we put into practice a personal pursuit of God. This year in our Community Groups we want to start each group with the first and primary question of “Where are you reading in your Bible and what are you sensing from God?” This will help us as a church family to explore with expectation how conversations are becoming confirmations that God is speaking to us all.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Where are you reading in your Bible and what are you sensing from God?
2. What are a few things that stand out to you from reading the following verses:
1 John 4:7-11 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. NIV
Consistently submitting to God’s desire is all about community, connection and friendship that is born from a deeper place than a natural exchange of kindness. This kind of love is born from the spirit.
The story Pastor Lawrence shared about “the heir”, Derek Black and having love for someone so hateful is very challenging. But here is a man who was the son of the grand wizard of the KKK and his life was completely transformed by power of loving hospitality.
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
3. We are called to love each other with the love of God. What does it take to actually love others with the love of God?
Lance Ford wrote, “If every Christian family in the world simply offered good conversational hospitality around a table once a week to neighbors, we would eat our way into the kingdom of God.”
• In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at the home of Levi.
• In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.
• In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.
• In Luke 10 Jesus eats in the home of Martha and Mary.
• In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the law at a meal.
• In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.
• In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zacchaeus.
• In Luke 22 we have the account of the Last Supper.
• In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with two disciples.
Jesus always seemed to be going to a meal, at a meal or coming from a meal.
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
4. Why do you believe Jesus demonstrated so frequently having meals with others as a way of life?
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Go out of your way to purpose some expression of hospitality to someone this week that is purposefully out of your way enlarging the reach of God’s love. Consider having communion together as a group to conclude giving thanks for the sacrificial life and death of Christ as our ultimate example.