TRANSCRIPT

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good morning good morning mike good to see you too good to see a lot of you I’d like to start by telling this story of a young boy who grew up in west africa one of eight children and let’s just call him em and at the age of 12 he had to make the most difficult decision of his life he heard from friends about Jesus and the gospel and the God who loves him came live dies and rose again and he realized that Jesus was calling him to be his disciple and he told his parents he wanted to become a disciple of Jesus and his parents said if you do we will kick you out of the house and he said to his parents he said mom dad I will honor you in every way but I must become a disciple of Jesus and so they kicked him out and at the age of 12 he was homeless no place to live stay source of food and that could have been a tragedy so my name is rob I grew

up in oregon and uh uh when I was in my let’s say I was 20 I was invited to france to lead a team to help plant a church in the paris area and that is where I met my wife martine who she also led a team but her team was from french speaking canada quebec and we were able to work together for six weeks to help plant a brand new church on the outskirts of paris and it was at that point that God opened my eyes to a number of things the french-speaking world uh the beauty of la long francaise and also the beauty of a woman by the name of martin and we were married four years later uh God brought us to quebec to be involved in church french speaking church planting uh over the last almost 20 years now and we’ve seen God do a lot of different things it’s been amazing um and just let’s see we won’t go there right right away but a couple of years ago while a few years ago we had the privilege of being here in littleton on furlough we’re

with worldventure and so we were here for a year and we were getting engaged with south fellowship and that is when I found out that I had cancer and so while we were here and I had the privilege of being on staff here and went through the process of biopsies and ct scans and pet scans and then chemotherapy and all of those things and this body here this family here you came around us you loved us you brought us food uh you um kept coming over when my wife wanted to be alone and all of these kinds of things and it was awesome uh to to be part of a community that loved us that much that they would just continuously check in on us and see how we were doing and um we went through that process came out the other side and uh found out that I went into remission and we thank God for that then we were able to move to france uh be involved there and then move to quebec and uh we’ve been back to littleton a

couple of times since then and and this this place has become home for us and for our children as well thank you uh for loving us through this uh this week we’ll be here for a few days and I’ll see my oncologist part of the ongoing at checkups to find out if it’s still in remission and um it’s a process of one day at a time one week at a time one month at a time and until Jesus says now you get to spend time with me so uh that’s the process we’re going through so thank you for loving us through that a coup a couple of things we’re living um outside of montreal quebec canada right now quebec is about the same size as alaska mostly french speaking and and quebecois french they speak french with a really cool accent I call it the australia of the the french-speaking world everywhere we go with our french accent people love us they just want us to say something else because they think our accent is really cool and so we’re welcomed

everywhere around the french-speaking world but here in this province most of the 8 million inhabitants have never heard the gospel there has never been a gospel movement that has engaged every inhabitant of quebec in its history ever but it’s not over the french-speaking world 275 million inhabitants some of the poorest some of the least reached by the gospel and because they love our accent and the quebecois have never colonized anybody outside of their own country when they hear us they know we’re not from france and they love us and so we just see that as God works and creates a movement of the gospel in quebec it ricochets and overflows to other parts of the french-speaking world and it’s a privilege to be there and it’s a privilege to work on that and so over the the last um couple of decades our ministry in terms of church planting we’ve had the privilege of being launching church plants uh coaching church

planters assessing mobilizing all of those things and we’ve had the privilege of seeing 52 different churches planted over that that time and what it is is it’s it’s basically Jesus transformed us and then we have the privilege of sharing him so other people can meet him they meet him they’re transformed and then somebody else’s and another in another and then there’s a group and they’re meeting in a house and that becomes a church and that grows and and that’s a church plant it’s a pretty awesome experience and so we’re basically doing the same thing that you’re doing we’re just doing it there in the french-speaking world and you guys are doing it here in littleton around colorado and we’re each we’re each living out the calling that God has for us in each one of our places and we’re grateful for that so our vision it really is that the gospel so uh inundates quebec in a comprehensible matter that every

inhabitant would be engaged by it to complete the initial missionary work that that every single person man woman and child would come into contact with the gospel be engaged by the gospel so that we could say the same thing that the apostle paul said in romans 15 when he said you know my work is is completed there’s no place left for me there that’s our passion that’s our dream for quebec and to see that overflow to other parts of the world that are also french-speaking and beyond so here we are at south and we’re in the middle of this series called build a bigger table which is God’s passion for us to invite people to his table through our tables and this morning we’re going to look in luke chapter 19 verses 1 to 10 and the story of zacchaeus which is a powerful story and we’re going to see four things this morning we’re going to see that Jesus first of all he sees the vulnerable secondly Jesus pursues the outsiders thirdly

Jesus honors the rejects and fourthly Jesus saves the lost let’s pray father thank you for coming to this earth living dying raising again to make for you a people a family a kingdom and that even if we live thousands of miles away from each other that we can be part of that same kingdom and have more in common together than anybody else on earth because we have you in common father I pray that this morning you would work powerfully through your word and through your spirit and that we would going from here today be overwhelmed by your extravagant generosity toward us and then that the power of the spirit would work through us overflowing to those others in our lives in our communities as well in the name of Jesus I pray amen a lot of what I’m going to share this morning comes from this book by making room recovering hospitality as a christian tradition by christine pohl it’s a great great book on the

history of hospitality throughout the church what it is and how to practice it and what scripture teaches about it and we need to learn more about this reality of hospitality henry nauen said this he said if there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential it is the concept of hospitality now hospitality in the united states in the west there’s an entire hospitality industry we’re talking about what these big buildings you pay to go sleep in or you pay to go eden yeah that that’s not hospitality from a biblical perspective or so so then we think about okay well we know that we understand that so what is hospitality and then we think wait hospitality is more when I invite my friends or my my small group over or my neighbors over is that and and partly kind of and and inviting these people over and living out the one and others of the new testament is essential to being a disciple of Jesus but hospitality goes a lot further

than that when we look at it in the biblical context and we realized that because when God extended hospitality toward us there is something pretty radical taking place that might be troubling to a lot of us this morning and Jesus has a tendency of being troubling doesn’t he hospitality it comes from two greek well one one greek two greek words put together to make one greek word philo xenia the term v philo is this this term brotherly love philadelphia phileo and inzenia is is the stranger it’s the outsider and in greek we put those two words together and that’s the word translated hospitality so hospitality literally means brotherly love for the stranger brotherly love for the outsider that’s what hospitality means in the new testament it’s the exact opposite of xenophobia and xenophobia is fear phobia of the stranger fear of the outsider and let’s be honest if we’re really really honest every one of us our natural tendency is

to be xenophobic that sounds really really bad doesn’t it but but in reality if we break it down a little bit we realize that if we were to back up 150 years here in colorado if we’re working on a homestead somewhere we haven’t seen anybody for six weeks and all of a sudden four people are riding up on horses it’s kind of cool to see people we’re not really sure who they are and so how do we welcome them well we probably we’re probably going to welcome him at the end of another shotgun who are you what are you doing here and there’s a fear there right you have the fear of the stranger the fear of the outsider and part of that is merited part of that is just trying to be safe in those kinds of things and so when Jesus talks about hospitality loving the stranger loving the enemy he necessarily grates against and goes against what our natural

tendencies are in all of us we have the same natural tendencies to be with people we understand and know and and they’re like us and Jesus pushes us in this other direction that is jarring to us but here we are in luke 19 and what we see in luke 14 15 16 that Jesus is is preaching on and explaining what it means to love the outsider to love the stranger who do we invite to our big feast days to our holidays how do we include people these kinds of things back then and I think um I think was dan the one that preached on that specifically in luke 14 and talked about Jesus was saying you know when you have these big events who do you invite to it and he’s explaining it but then here we are in luke 18 and 19 and Jesus is living it out he’s living it out with a rich young ruler and then he’s living it out with this blind beggar walking into jericho and then he’s living it out with zacchaeus and so we’re going to read luke 19 verses 1 to

5 to start us out and Jesus entered jericho and was passing through verse two a man was there by the name of zacchaeus he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy this man zacchaeus he wanted to see who Jesus was but because he was short he could not see over the crowd so he ran ahead climbed up a sycamore fig tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way a lot of us have the song going through our mind right and when Jesus reached the spot he looked up and said Zacchaeus you come down right for I’m going to your house today who is zacchaeus luke mentions tax collectors six times throughout his gospel and every one of them is in a positive sense which should be shocking to us because tax collectors they were not like irs agents I mean they kind of were because they gathered taxes but it was a lot more than that tax collectors were seen as traders to their country and here we are on the fourth of july right so

they were like benedict arnold they they were actively fighting or actively undermining the people around them so rome had come and they had brutally and violently put down israel they were occupying it with force and violence and they wanted to squeeze out as much money and resources as they could and so what they would do is they would hire these people who knew the local culture and language who would work there and they would extort the people for the romans to get money and resources and things to come out of it and that and so zacchaeus was one of these people he’s working for the occupying nation to extort the people to get resources out back to rome now there are varying degrees there are a lot of nuances we understand that but most people when they would look at zacchaeus in their mind they’re thinking that man is a disgusting traitor and I hate him we can make a parallel to when the nazis

invaded france and there were there was the vichy regime in france that was helping the nazis occupy and the the underground french opposition they were trying to overthrow the nazis they hated people who were collaborating with the nazis that’s who zacchaeus was and so we start to understand why people are responding so viscerally so emotionally in that moment we see this blind man that wanted to see Jesus we see this short man he’s trying to see Jesus this man who had been pushed to the outset outskirts of society one of them because he was a blind beggar the other one because he is actively involved in something that’s seen as despicable and Jesus sees them both because the reality is when I while I tend to overlook the most vulnerable around me Jesus sees them and it reminds me of another story back in matthew 14 14 when Jesus saw and and I first I was preaching in quebec in french one of my

earlier uh sermons in french preaching this story my kids still laugh at me about this because their french is perfect because they grew up there and I was preaching this story about Jesus seeing and and what happened is is that Jesus he’d been feeding the people he’d been teaching the people and then he receives the news that his cousin john the baptist had been executed had been murdered by the state and so I’m telling people this they said that Jesus receives the news that his cousin had been beheaded and so what was Jesus response I mean he didn’t just die he was beheaded Jesus is is overcome with grief and so he wants to to run away to a to a desolate place and be alone and just grieve the fact that his cousin had just died that his cousin had just been beheaded and then also never started laughing and and I keep going well his cousin had been beheaded and this is a really intense time and and the people in the

congregation where I was preaching they they just started laughing they’re snickering they’re whispering and I’m thinking man they can’t be quite they’re like really morbid people like ha ha you’re beheaded I would think in my mind I’m not I’m missing something here well later on um somebody explained to me well rob you didn’t pronounce the word right because the word for for for beheaded is is di capite but you said di capote exactly di capite is the word for beheaded and di capote is the word for a convertible so I had in this I said so his cousin he heard the news his cousin had been convertibled which is it’s kind of true everyone’s laughing at me but even when Jesus was overcome with grief and the people followed him into this desolate place so he couldn’t get away he couldn’t be alone to grieve and and they came and surrounded him he didn’t look at them the way I would and be irritated and say get away let me grieve for a while

it’s my cousin no no he looked at them he saw them and he had compassion and this is the God that we serve this is the Jesus that sees you he sees you so who are the most vulnerable the most vulnerable in christine paul she says this the most vulnerable strangers they’re detached from family or community or church work and polity and this condition is most clearly seen in the state of homeless people and refugees so when we talk about hospitality and the love for the other the stranger we’re talking about people who are on the outskirts they’re on the outside they’re these people who are detached they don’t have all of the resources all of the the connections and those kinds of things and and we’re talking about outsiders and immigrants and refugees and widows and orphans and single mothers and families of prisoners and ex-cons and the mentally ill and the elderly and and these are the vulnerable let’s reread

verse five when Jesus reached the spot he looked up and said to him zacchaeus come down immediately I must stay at your house today zacchaeus had climbed a tree like a kid that was not the dignified thing to do he was like I gotta see Jesus I don’t care about dignity I’m just gonna get up somewhere I gotta see this guy and what did Jesus say about having to become like a child that is exactly what zacchaeus did he threw away his dignity so that he could see Jesus Jesus sees zacchaeus he knows his name he knows his sheep by name and Jesus knows your name and in naming zacchaeus when he looked up and said zacchaeus Jesus was bestowing honor on zacchaeus this man who was regarded as the disgusting traitor Jesus was honoring him the first step in that honor he was transforming zacchaeus shame into honor and I don’t know what you’re struggling with in your life I don’t know what kind of shame is lurking

beneath that nobody knows about Jesus is able to transform that shame into honor and he’s the only one who can you see we tend to avoid outsiders I know I do my first reaction sometimes but Jesus pursues them john chrysostom he was a pastor uh in uh the fourth century in both antioch and both constantinople and he was he may have been the greatest preacher in the history of the church he preached in greek and every time he preached uh there were thousands of people that came to see him uh he he was a pastor in this city but basically the entire city would come out to listen to him preach they called him a golden mouth he was so good at preaching and he said this he was passionate about the subject of loving people who were on the margins he said chrysostom stressed the importance of a proactive approach to hospitality and commenting on romans 12 13 he noted that the phrase given to hospitality

suggests not waiting for those that shall ask for it well just ask it’ll get no but to run to them be given to finding them who are the people around that are in need the people who are on the outskirts on the margins who don’t have who are they where and running to them that’s how john chrysostom saw hospitality and then when I was reading john wesley john wesley had this to say and this kind of cut into my heart john wesley said one of the great reasons why the rich in general have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them and I read that I was thinking oh he’s talking to me Jesus is not like that Jesus is actively pursuing the people who are elsewhere who are different who are not able to come in and so he goes out to them this is the God that we serve this is the Jesus and he is pursuing you let’s go back to verse 5. reread it again and when Jesus reached the spot he looked up and said to him zacchaeus

come down immediately I must stay at your house today so he came down at once and welcomed him gladly and all the people saw this and began to mutter he has gone to be the guest of a sinner have you ever muttered I was muttered muttering yesterday when my flight was late incompetent mechanics no I’m kidding I have friends who are mechanics I love them but I don’t know I mutter sometimes impatient I look at somebody something this is what the crowd was doing I’d really like to see myself in zacchaeus and I often see myself in the crowd instead zacchaeus was going through a process of of repentance and gary brashears he’s the chair of the theology department at western seminary he says that repentance is fundamentally a change of allegiance where I my allegiance was to one thing and now I’m changing it and giving it to Jesus completely wholeheartedly unabashedly and unreservedly to

Jesus and Jesus alone that is repentance and it doesn’t matter what the other thing is if the other thing is good or bad or whatever the the problem with it is that it’s not Jesus so so if my allegiance is to something else whether it’s my own personal wealth or my career or or whatever that happens to be it could be my country it could be any of these things if that’s over and above allegiance my allegiance to Jesus then that is an idol and that becomes idolatry and that thing that may have been a good thing it may still be a good thing becomes something that has a nefarious impact on my life and so zacchaeus what he’s doing we see him making this allegiant switch he his allegiance had been to his own wealth to whatever led him to work for the romans to Jesus and to Jesus alone and then we ask ourselves why did Jesus invite himself to zacchaeus house like seriously isn’t that a little presumptuous because you know it’s just not

it isn’t just Jesus it’s like all of his disciples and all of his entourage and all of these people so I’m just imagining I’m just so sir in the very back with the blue shirt along the wall could I ask what your first name is yes larry so larry I’m coming to your house for lunch everybody we’re going to larry’s potato salad for everybody I hope you got enough thank you larry I didn’t want to embarrass you I appreciate playing along that’s what Jesus just did right he did that and it wasn’t just it was a big deal but why so Jesus when he called out zacchaeus in his name he was bestowing honor but but the issue of honor and hospitality in the middle east in the arab world is completely the opposite of what we experience here so what here when we invite people to our house now this is all subconscious and we’re talking about anthropology and I’m reading books on this you know and things like that so it’s not conscious but generally what happens is

when I invite somebody to my house here I am honoring the guest because I’m working hard to clean the house and make the meal and you know set all of these things and flour and so I’m just showing them I’m honoring them by my invitation that’s not true in the middle east in the arab world and so you ask the question why is it that the arab world is so extravagantly hospitable if you go to the middle east and you get away from some of the tourist areas I mean you’re going to be invited to house after house and these huge spreads of food and spend time with out people for hours and and them and their cousins and their aunts and their uncles and their neighbors and it’s this huge deal again and again and again you’re like man these people are crazy about hospitality like what is up with this and then he realized that oh it’s because in the arab world that they’re not honoring the guests it’s that when you show up at their house

you’re bestowing honor on them it’s a really hard thing to get around in my mind but they realize that it’s almost a competition like I want more honor for my house and for my family so if I could just somehow get dan to come over to eat oh man we’re gonna be honored this is going to be great and so all of the work that I do is is a little selfish I’m because I’m actually bringing honor to my house and my family is what I’m doing and so what Jesus did when Jesus said zacchaeus and I’m going to your house today he’s saying all of my honor I’m bringing it to your house and I am going to create an honorable place at your house and then we start to realize what everybody by everybody was so angry like wait a second I have been working really hard to follow all the rules and do everything the way it should be and then Jesus takes all of his

honor he thinks he can take it over to this disgusting traitor’s house so he gets all the honor and I don’t get any honor muttering and then we begin to realize like the story of the the two brothers the prodigal son the younger brother comes back in the older brother what’s his response why are you honoring him he ruined everything and he comes back and your response is to honor him why do you honor me I deserve honor he doesn’t it’s the exact same thing happening here with the crowd zacchaeus he doesn’t deserve anything I deserve the honor and then we realize you know what while I tend to mutter about rejects Jesus honors them so em he’s on the streets and then there is a christian family that they invite him in they invite him around their table he begins eating with them living with them they protect him they take him to school and and he becomes a part of their family and he begins to pray and pray

and pray and pray and pray and pray for his family his brothers his sisters his parents his aunts his uncles he’s praying for them and he’s living in this safe place with this christian family he had been invited to the table it was a family that had made the decision that we are going to follow Jesus and one of the the things that it means is that we’re going to open our table and build a bigger table for those in need and this young boy who’s 12 years old man well we’re going to protect him we’re going to be with him where he can be he can stay with us for the rest of his life and that’s what he did his entire childhood it’s interesting john chrysostom a couple of things about him he he urged his parishioners to make a guest chamber in their own houses a place set apart for christ it’s interesting because he didn’t say set apart for guests it’s set apart for christ and then as guests enter we don’t know which of those guests is christ coming so

we’re setting it up for christ a place within to which to welcome the maim the beggars and the homeless he made another comment also which is really interesting where where he saw a lot of people would have the objections saying well my church we’re doing a lot of things you know and and that’s great so as long as my church is helping the community I mean do I really have to help and and christian’s response is well the church prays a lot like do you say well they pray a lot do I really have to say no it’s part of the privilege of of being a disciple of Jesus is you pray and interact with God and every once in a while you get to welcome Jesus to your home just throw I’d like to throw a couple of a few principles uh that I was able to take out of the book by christine paul about this concept of um hospitality and just to say hospitality biblical hospitality and inviting strangers to your house and and outsiders and these kinds of things it can get

pretty scary and I know a lot of you are kind of sitting there kind of a little off balance right now maybe you’re just half clenched but on you know behind the chair so I can’t see it you’re like rob you’re kind of messing with me um well first of all hospitality what we see as we read and study throughout scripture in history it’s kind of like learning to drive a car you have to learn it one step at a time and how do you do it safely how do you do it well when do you hit your brakes and those kinds of things it’s something because we want to do it in a healthy safe secure manner but we do want to be involved in it and grow in it as we go it’s just for instance I mean driving a car with my kids the way I don’t teach them is driving down the freeway at 70 miles an hour and say here caleb hop over quick oh the gas is the right hand one like that’s that’s not what we do I know we start with steps we start with small we we we learn we talk we

invite them people over we and we grow in this concept so here are here are a few principles from her book first of all a life of hospitality begins with worship worshiping of God and entering into who he is and and why he his hospitality towards us number two the church is an ideal initial filter so as you meet people in need a lot of times instead of inviting them right away and saying come and stay at our house for the next 20 years like maybe a better way to do that would say oh here’s somebody in need here come to my church meet with my pastor meet with a couple of people let’s we want to help you with this need and realize that man I don’t have any idea how to help this person but but maybe we can work together and then learn and grow and and the church is kind of an initial filter in that sense since number three begin in public spaces churches parks schools to interact with people who are different uh

people who who are uncomfortable with people who we’re not sure how to interact with publicly number four long-term hospitality is only possible with an engaged network of people one family or one person we just can’t do it we burn ourselves out unless we have other people who are coming alongside and we’re working together in synergy with people who have the same passion number five partner with local professionals agencies and support groups as we’re facing all kinds of challenges we need help we need wisdom we as we’re interacting with people on the margins and that’s a that’s a good thing God has gifted us with people who have more experience and and expertise and and knowledge than we do number six commit to a stable job home and life so that we can invite people in so that so that as we we have stability in these areas then we have more margin to actually help and love people and that’s one of the

things that we in quebec where we’re we would love to to see more long-term stability to be more involved in this as time goes on number seven practice physical and spiritual renewal because as we’re investing in people it definitely does take something out of us and so we need to have routines that are constantly filling us you know as we’re spending time in scripture and with people and and hiking and learning how what God does to refresh us and renew us so that we don’t burn out and 20 years from now we can say this is joyful and this is a great thing number eight it’s not about having a beautiful home but making people feel included and valued and safe and that’s so you could say my home’s just not beautiful enough for this that’s not the issue the issue is to love people where they are value them and and have a place that’s safe number nine expect God to intervene in surprising ways he does and he will and number

10 you could say I don’t know if I could do a lot well take small steps because the same God who multiplied the loaves and fishes will multiply our small efforts too just like this family who took in this 12 year old boy and that’s kind of a big thing but at the same time it’s it’s not like change the world kind of thing you know and it’s in in a large sense it’s it’s it’s loving a boy where he is that’s what they could do at the moment and they were willing to open their doors to that and that was a great great thing let’s go go to back to our text in verse 8 as we end up finish up the text so but zacchaeus stood up and said to the lord look lord here and now I now give half of my possessions to the poor and if I have cheated anybody out of anything I will pay back four times the amount and Jesus said to him today salvation has come to this house because this man too is the son of abraham for the son of man came to seek and save the lost

first of all he stood up this is the same word used of the tax collector a couple of chapters earlier when there was a story of the pharisee and the tax collector in the temple and he stood up and he beat his chest he said God forgive me a sinner same word zacchaeus is standing up and basically publicly repenting in front of everybody then he talks about giving half of his possessions to the poor radical changes now not later saying no now Jesus is my king Jesus you have everything of mine it all belongs to you now the question also could be um do I have to give away half of my stuff in order to follow Jesus am I required to do that and there are people all over the place that they they don’t because money in itself is not a bad thing however if it’s a big struggle the answer might be yes and what do we see we see that the rich young ruler was stuck on his money and then zacchaeus was unstuck so that he could cling to Jesus and that’s

the point isn’t it whatever that thing is in my life that I’m stuck to Jesus wants us to unstick us so that we can cling and receive life from him that’s the fundamental issue here because while I tend to justify my choices Jesus died to save the lost and the fear is that we could be like the the lawyer earlier who he said you know to justify himself well Jesus who’s my neighbor and then Jesus told the story of the good samaritan man I don’t want to be like the lawyer to justify myself and zacchaeus is just saying Jesus it’s all yours I’m a sinner it’s all yours now and what we see is that zacchaeus was not only free from the burden of his wealth but he was freed from being a burden many many many many many for people and families and children and in single women in jericho their lives are transformed because of what zacchaeus did right here and now when he met Jesus the ramifications of that are hard to estimate and here’s the reality Jesus

transforms me through the cross and his spirit when I was vulnerable Jesus saw me when I was an outsider Jesus pursued me when I was a reject Jesus honored me when I was lost Jesus died to seek and save me and now after we meet Jesus and he transforms us he fills us with his spirit because the reality is we are not able to live out biblical hospitality to love those different from us in our own strength we can’t do it it goes against the grain and so the reality is this is now through the power of his spirit in me Jesus sees the vulnerable through my eyes Jesus pursued these pursues the outsiders through my feet Jesus honors the rejects through my words and Jesus welcomes the lost around my table so here’s the story with em who had been invited into this family he grew up and over the years over the decades over about 30 years every single one of his family members his his brothers sisters parents um aunts and uncles everybody but

one has given their allegiance to Jesus and when I I talked to him about this a couple of weeks ago he said he didn’t dwell on the bitterness of being rejected by his family he said no you know what happened is that through that process God taught me to pray like I never knew was possible and God has transformed people throughout but even more than that we see this transformation bleeding into other areas of his life he went to bible school he eventually got his phd and he eventually started various mysterological programs in schools in the french-speaking world that he started a university that was gospel centered to train people uh who how to be gospel-centered in every aspect of society he started a mythological network throughout the french-speaking world m’s impact in the world is just almost unfathomable how God has used this man over the last 30 years but the family that didn’t welcome them and they

they didn’t know that dad no idea that would happen all they knew is there was a 12 year old boy 12 year old boy who’s in need we don’t know who we are welcoming to our table but God does and this is not an obligation you know hospitality is not like something I gotta do it it’s a privilege it’s a privilege because when we invite the vulnerable the outsiders the rejects the lost to our table we are unleashing the power of the spirit in ways that we never dreamed was possible and that’s why brother jeremiah he says we always treat guests as angels just in case and as we practice this we will be transformed us our families our communities our church our cities in ways we never thought possible and now what we’re going to do is we’re going to celebrate the lord’s table and the lord’s table is for us and you know who we are we were the vulnerable the outsiders the rejects we were the lost and now we’ve been found by Jesus let’s celebrate that together