Christian Hospitality/Encouragement

Introduction

I’d like to welcome everyone here this morning. It’s good to see everyone again. I was very curious on about what my son was going to do. So far, he’s guessed me twice this morning. He said, make sure your microphone’s off because I don’t want to hear you sing. Something about my singing. The second thing was when he got up here and prays. I know he always prays for the speaker. So while he was praying, I was wondering if he was going to say, please be with dad. Or if he was going to do like Thad does, please be with Ernie. You know, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, so he covered all bounds by saying, please be with the speaker. But I appreciate that, John, for being with your dad at this time, and that I do present a lesson that could be encouraging to you that anything that I may say or do is according to God’s will and God’s word.

And if it’s not, please be my friend and my brother in Christ and let me know. Because the last thing I do want to do is preach something false, and you go out and you teach somebody, hey, I heard that guy up there at the Church of Christ over there in Decan Prairie. He said something that I just don’t agree with, and it may be wrong. just like we said in class that we do say some we have interpretations sometimes, and sometimes some things come out of my mouth that may be wrong. Just ask Terry. but please let me know. Again, it does we welcome you here. We invite you to come back tonight. Again, Jesse’s gonna be preaching tonight. I can’t not tell if Jesse’s kind of attached to his daughter.

I’m not real sure or not. Terry kind of said, Oh, that’s gonna be Daddy’s little girl. I understand that fully. But anyways, we invite you to come back tonight at 5 o’clock and then join us once again to worship God. I kind of want to draw a picture around a little bit, a little story, just kind of going back into the 1980s and a little bit of story about myself. Again, this is my pre-Christian days, as I call them. way back when, about 1981, Terry and I were dating. I just want to give you a little story about what happened at that particular time. Harry, I want you to imagine me, I was 20, about 21 or 22 years old. I think 22, if I my math does right, which is usually wrong.

But I was about 22 years old, and Terry and I had just started dating, and I had heard about Christians back then. My sister said something that she’s a very faithful person, she’s a godly person and so forth, and kept on going. And so here I am. I’m a roughness. I’ve been in the oil field for about three, two or three years. I’m a I grew up playing baseball. My parents, we never went to church. A day, I don’t, I cannot remember a time that we ever stepped foot in any congregation whether it was Baptist, Catholic, Church of Christ, and so forth. We never went. Sunday mornings were spent eating the big breakfast after we got up at around 11 and then watch football all day long.

And there was a lot of gambling that went on in our household, there was a lot of drinking that went on in household. In other words, the picture I’m trying to tell you is this person is a very worldly person. Very worldly. Now, my wonderful wife, who at that time, she knows that I’m a worldly person, she says, she’s been a good example to me. She comes up to me one night, she says, Steve, let’s do something else. We’re gonna go on a date. And our normal dates were to go to this place called Emerson, Arkansas, a little bitty town about the size of Decker Prairie, and but they did have Western Sizzler, so we go to Western Scieszer, go to the movie and so forth.

This time she said something different, and it was completely off my lifestyle. She wanted me to go to a Christian home. Of all things, the preacher’s home. And reluctantly I said, okay, what are we going to do there? Because I always used to going to someplace on the weekends and having some beverages that are, I believe, are very simple. Now, you know, I would partake of those on the weekend, but this time I couldn’t do that. She wanted me to go to the preacher’s home to be among other Christians and play cards. And I was like, ooh, that sounds like fun. I love poker. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. So, anyways, reluctantly I went, and I said, Now, let me let me give you an understanding, Terry, that this is really boring, really bad.

We’re going to pack up and we’re going to go and we’re going to go have fun with my friends. Of course, she didn’t want to do that, because again, she’s a very faithful Christian. And so I went in there, and there was Terry and I were partners, we were playing parts, and they had a tournament going. And so we played for about three or four hours, and Terry and I, we put whooping on pretty much anybody in there. So we won the tournament. So I was like, yes, this is fun. And so not only was it good competition, but there was food there. And not only was there food, but there was lots of laughing going on and joking and playing, and it was a good competition, and there was more food.

You know how Christians’ homes are. We like to eat. So there was a lot of food. So, anyways, this get together at Haynesville, Louisiana, was very important to me at that particular time. And I’ll tell you the reason why. Because if they when they got together, they had a lot of young people. I wouldn’t turn over here and say all the young people, but now they’re split. We got these guys over here now. But anyways, it was very important to them that they got the young people together, and they got together as older folks, also, 20, 21 years old, and even older a lot of times, because they wanted to keep them out of the world. They did the best that they possibly could. They had encouragement and hospitality and encouragement, and they got together a lot.

1. The Bible Teaches Us to Be Hospitable

And so as time went along, I became a Christian, and I saw a lot of hospitality with my mother-in-law at that particular time. I saw more hospitality, and I kept going as I grew into the faith, I saw more hospitality and more encouragement. And it meant a lot, because believe it or not, it is in the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches that we are supposed to be hospitable, that we are supposed to be encouragers. In 1 Peter, in Romans 12 chapter, verse 13, the writer says, there we are to be given to hospitality. It’s a quite clear statement that we are to be hospitable. In 1 Peter 4 9, it says, be hospital to one another without grumbling. And brother, that’s what it’s all about. That we open our homes up, we open our hearts up to each other without the grumbling type.

Well, I guess I better go ahead and have some people over our house. I guess I just better do it. That’s not the way we do it. We should be motivated and having somebody in our home and to be hospitable because God wants us to.

2. Hospitality Is a Qualification of Elders

That’s provoking somebody to love and the good works. That’s encouraging to exhort. And that’s what I’m going to talk about briefly this morning about Christian hospitality slash encouragement. And there’s a reason why. You’ll hear that at the very end of this lesson. But not only is the Bible telling us that we’re supposed to be encouragers, that we are supposed to be hospitable, it’s a commandment for one who tells Elder for it’s one of the qualifications of elders. We see it clearly in Titus, the first chapter of verse 8, and also in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2, that they are supposed to be hospitable. And there’s a reason why that they need to be hospitable. Because they need this is plain simple leadership, as I call leadership 101.

As we said in the Air Force back then, leadership 101, get to know your troops first. If you’re going to be in charge of this duty section over here, you’ve got to get to know your troops. You’ve got to get to know your Christians. And that’s why elders are supposed to be hospitable. Because of the fact, how is an elder going to know somebody if they know something may be wrong with them? I mean, we all have we all have times in our lives where they’re a little bit down. We definitely know that. Especially when we have a family member that may have fallen away, or we may have a friend that’ll fall in the way, a very close one, and we come in here and we sit down and we’re not talking.

What’s wrong with that picture? I cannot tell you how many times people, I guess I people can read me like a book. And my wife shakes her head like a palm hammer. Yes, we can read you like a book. And I agree, I’m I’m a little bit moody, just a little bit sometimes. But people recognize that know me because they took the time out to get to know me. And they come up there and they say, hey Steve, everything okay? I just had what I call my Natalie days. Where my daughter, Natalie, of course, most of you know she’s not a faithful member anymore. But I call it my Natley days, or something to the effect of that. And it just kind of brings me down a little bit because I see other people in here with their daughters and their sons and so forth, and of course, I’m glad I have my son and my daughter-in-law here and my grandkids.

Sometimes, you know, I just want my daughter here. And people should read that. How are the elders not gonna know if there’s a problem with me? If they don’t if they don’t have me in their home, or if they don’t have my wife and I out to dinner or something like that, or we’re not being hospitable here in this congregation. That’s why God made it into qualification as an elder, because they’ve got to know somebody. They’ve got to know everything that goes on with them. If they don’t, they’re not going to be able to recognize them. In the medical field, whenever I was a medic, they said, okay, Steve, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to teach you everything you need to know in eight weeks, how to be a physician assistant.

I was like, yes. And then I walked in the classroom and had a stack of books this big. I was like, no. It was a royal nightmare. I mean, you guys who are in the military, you know how they like to cram a lot of stuff in this real fast. So what they told us was recognize everything normal. What’s normal? What does a normal eardrum look like? What do normal lungs sound like? What does a normal heartbeat sound like? When you listen to it or see it or hear it. And it’s abnormal, you’re going to know there’s something wrong. And that’s just like the elders. And that’s unlike the other members. You see somebody in here and something’s not right, you know them. It’s not normal for them, so you go up to them and you say, Hey, what’s going on, brother?

That’s encouragement. Or they say, Hey, Steve, why don’t you go up to lunch? We need to talk a little bit. That’s encouragement. That’s being hospitable, also. So it is a qualification. It’s the flo and it’s just like they said, a shepherd cannot tend the flocks that he should without being acquainted with the needs of the sheep. The sheep know the floor the shepherd knows his flock. The flock needs to know the elders. Just like I laugh every time I go home. When my father in law used to have cows, the cows, everybody says cows are not very smart. That they’re pretty much one of the dumbest animals out there. Thankfully, I love cows. I’d love to eat them too. But the thing is, but when my father-in-law gets out there, he takes his truck, he pulls out into the into the pasture, and those cows may be on the other side of the pasture.

3. The Duty of Every Christian

They know my father-in-law. They’ll come over there and they know what’s going on. So they go, they follow them. They follow, they follow the example. 1 Thessalonians 5th chapter, in verse 23 through 24, the Apostle Paul writes, says, and we urge you, brother, to recognize who labor in the monitor, speaking of the elders and esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake, be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faith-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. So the question is, how are we going to help the weak if we do not know them? It’s a plain and simple question. We’ve got to know them. Not only is it the duty of elders, those who serve, but it’s the duty of every Christian, according to Romans 12, 13, what I stated earlier, that we are supposed to be given to the hospitable.

But I want to say one thing at the end of that verse, it says, distribute to the needs of the saints. If we don’t recognize that, how are we going to distribute a need to that saint? Again. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to get to know them. How can we bear one another’s sins if we don’t know them? Galatians, the second chapter clearly states that we’re supposed to bear one another’s sins. It’s quite simple. To fulfill the law of Christ when he says, bear one of this another sins, fulfill the law of Christ. Because if I see somebody that may be falling away, we’ve got to do something about that. We’s getting smaller, brother. It’s getting sad. It’s really getting sad. I tell you, I was driving back to the exhaust the other day, and I started thinking about all the people that we’ve known over the years and how many fallen the way.

I mean, between elders, deacons, preachers, our best friends. I mean, people that we got really acquainted with. And we went over to their house and said, What are you doing? Why are you having this affair with this girl? You know better than that. Well, she likes to hear me. She listens to me. Yeah, whatever. It’s really sad. But that’s some things that we buried their sins. So we need to go talk to them because we’re fulfilling the law of Christ. God’s telling us that we need to do this. Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 5th chapter. 1 Corinthians 5th chapter, verse 11. The apostle Paul writes, but now I have written to you to keep commit, not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral, covetous, or idolater, or bother, or a drunkard or extortioner, not even to eat with such a person.

Brother, you know what? We should have them in our home a little bit quicker before they get to that point.

I hope I’m trying to kind of draw a big picture of this. Because with my background, it would easily to go back to the world. Real simple. Especially since my brother’s not a Christian, my sisters aren’t a Christian, my parents aren’t Christians, it’s real easy to get back into the world. Right here. We should not let them get to that point. If I give my friends, I of course you’re saying, how did they fall away if they were your friends at that time? We moved away. I’m not saying the cause of them staying together was because of us. It was because of the congregation that kept them there. And they made that choice. Well, if we see this happening beforehand, we’ve got to try to stop it.

We’ve got to try to stop it. I’m not saying it’s going to be 100% foolproof. I mean, my daughter’s a good example. We did everything we possibly could. Unfortunately, we moved. She was married at the time in Colorado. She was doing okay, a little bit okay. Sporadic and going to services when we moved to California, that’s when it all went downhill. And part of that reason was because the people over there didn’t keep up with her. We had one elder that kept calling her. Kept trying to provoke her. He would call us up. Man, Terry, I tried to talk to Natalie again today. We should not let that happen. The whole congregation should have been over there saying, you know what, Natalie, you need to come back.

You need to come back. I’m not saying it would have happened. But that’s what we’ve got to try to do. We’ve got to catch them before they go. And how are we going to do that if we’re not being hospitable? If we’re not being an encourager to them. It was sad. It’s still sad to this day. We hear from her every now and then, but we have to keep moving on. And not only that, but when you’re being hospitable, how good is it when you have somebody in your home? You know, my wife, she does this holiday breakfast every year. Yeah, it’s a lot of work. Yeah, it’s a big mess in the house. But you know what? When everybody leaves, most people leave at the very end of the time.

You know, I think we say 11, 30, something like that. When everybody leaves, we just look at each other and number one, we take a big deep breath. Wow, another year, another year did it. But she says, she starts planning for next year. I’m like, you sure you want to do it again next year? She says, yes. It’s fun. I love it. And then I walk in the kitchen, I go, yeah, look at that. Yeah, it could be tired. It can be costly sometimes. But you know what? It’s fun. Whenever I see everybody around our table, around the other table, and so, by the way, brother, I’m not trying to pat myself on the back on that one because that’s her. Okay? Yeah, it’s a joint effort.

4. It Helps Convert the Lost

But the thing is, it’s a lot of fun. If you haven’t had any Christians in your home lately, why not? Why not? If you haven’t had a little small get together, why not? It is fun. You get to know people. And here’s some results of being hospitable and an encourager. Number one, it helps convert the lost. I was lost when I went to the preacher’s house to play cards. It’s a simple fact. I was completely lost when I went to now my now in law’s house to have dinner with them. Well, you’re talking about feeling uncomfortable. You know, Terry laughs real loud because that’s real funny to her. It’s hilarious. When a worldly man walks into a Christian home, and everybody else staring at you. Ooh, boy.

And they’re all looking at you. No, one person didn’t. Her grandmother. I wore a big bell buckle, like I said, I was a rough dick, had a big old Derrick on top. And it says S B on there. Steve Brumfield, just in case. She said it was called sugar baby. I’m like, yeah, somebody likes me in this family. But the thing was, I was lost at the time, and they still invited me in their home. They still invited me. I think it was a little reluctantly, but they did anyways. I was lost when I went to other Christians’ home prior to becoming a Christian. I learned the other side of being a person that has good moral standards from people that have good moral standards. I’d never thought my worldly life that I was going to have a good time at that car tape at that car table.

I had a blast. I was like, wow. Not only did I have a blast, I can remember it the next day. And that’s sad. Because most people, we even heard it not too long ago from we were, unfortunately, we couldn’t go to the wedding. We told you that, you know, because I was best family at another wedding. Exact day, same day, exact same time. And this lady looked at Terry because there was no alcohol there. One of my good friends, no alcohol or anything there. And they were having a blast. And this lady looked and turned around and said, it’s amazing how much fun you can have without alcohol. And it is. It’s fun. But that’s what I that’s what I saw. I was like, wow, this is pretty neat.

5. It Helps Prevent Apostasy

They were being an example to me. They’re being an encourager. They were being a hospitable. Not only does it do hospitality and being a courage or help with converted loss, it helps prevent apostasy. We’ve got to remember evil companionship, corrupt good morals, according to 1 Corinthians 15, chapter verse 33. That we know that if we’re around too many worldly people, we can get caught up in their life. I mean, look at the apostle Peter. Of all people, a man who walked with Christ. Christ said, You’ve got to deny me three times. He ran away. He went to the other person. He went to the other side. And this is just before he said, I will never force, I will never leave you. And he goes back over there.

Weren’t you with that man over there? Oh no, I wasn’t with him. Well, wait a minute. Weren’t you with that man over there? No, I wasn’t with him. These are evil companions that he’s around. I know I saw you with him over there. And then he began cursing and saying, No, I wasn’t with him. And then the roast rooster crowed. And Christ looked at him in the face. Wow, how that must have felt. Dad and I talked about that last time I preached. He said, You can’t even imagine how he felt on that. Evil companions correct good morals. It’s plain and simple as that. Plain and simple. If you’re hanging around with worldly people, what’s it doing to you? Is it affecting you? I’m not saying we don’t hang around with worldly people.

When we are, we need to keep our need to keep our grounds as being a Christian. Because we’ve got to be an example to that person just like she was to me. And just like I was to that man that’s sitting over there, called my son. And it just trickles on down to each other. It goes on and on and on. It doesn’t stop. Now, his two sons are going to have to be examples to their sons or daughters. And it just keeps going. It just keeps going. It prevents apostasy. Now, I want you to imagine just for a minute. Just for a minute now. I want you to imagine that you’re in the first century church. That you walk just right by the side of this man.

You call his name Jesus. And he said that he’s the son of God. That three days or a few days I’m going to die. But in three, I’m going to be raised. And you walk by him. You’re sitting over there going, wow, how could this happen? Because he’s the son of God, number one. And then it happens. You watch him being persecuted. You watch him being crucified. You watch him die. You watch him go down. You watch him be buried. Who are you with at that time? Other people of other Jews who crucified him? Who are you with? And in three days he’s raised. And he tells that the comforter is going to be there. And then you hear this man up there. He’s called the Apostle Peter.

He’s up there speaking in your dialect. And he’s preaching Christ. And you become a Christian. You’re buried in the watery grave of baptism. You become a Christian. Christ is gone. Who are you with at the time? And then later on, you must, however long it was, you hear this man called Saul. He’s sitting over there and he’s persecuting Christians. He’s killing them. He just stoned a man named Stephen, a devout Christian. Who are you with at that time? Those guys over there that persecuted them? Are you with your worldly friends? Are you with your other ones who stand the morals of God Himself and Christ? Who are you with? And then all of a sudden, everybody’s scattered abroad. But yet they’re still preaching Christ. Who are you with?

6. It Helps Prevent Dissension

The worldly people or other Christians? Just something to think about. I know I would at that time I would rather be around other Christians because we’re trying to do the same mission. We’re trying to accomplish the same thing, and that’s saving souls. I’m trying to keep my life straight, so I’m hanging around Christians as much as I possibly can. Instead of the evil companions who could draw me away. And it’s easy to do. It helps prevent apostasy. It helps prevent dissension. Getting acquainted is closely connected with getting along. When we do not know one another, it’s easy to jump to erroneous conclusions. A Christian cannot decide that he’s not like someone and just ignore him. It could be easily done. In Galatians the fifth chapter and verse 5, the works of the flesh, the apostle Paul writes, he goes, eight of those 15 things mentioned of the works of the flesh have to do with attitudes toward one another.

I never realized this until I did this lesson. I never realized it. That eight of those 15 concepts have to do with attitude toward others. Hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, decisions, heresies, and envying endies. Sean and I love the class. We talked about the tongue. Backbiting and whispering. You get to know somebody. Is that going to happen? Hopefully not. And I totally agree with Sean what he said in class. And it is in the Bible that if you have something that somebody may have said, just go up to them and talk to them. It’s quite simple. Yeah, you may clash a little bit. But you know what? You’re brethren. You can easily shake hands and move on. Because we’re in it for the same thing, and that’s serving God.

Conclusion

So we’ve got to be real careful. I wish everybody would have heard that lesson this morning. Everybody would have gotten something out of it. Now I’m going to conclude here. I’m going to conclude. Not real quick, but I’m going to conclude here. In a few weeks, the elders are rearranging the encouragement groups, slash the involvement groups. We’ve had them here for as long as I’ve been here, eight years. They’re going to redo the groups up. They’re going to take the list of names and we’re going to post them, of course. And it’s up to you to get involved in it. To get involved in the encouragement groups. Now I want to say one thing about those encouragement involvement groups. They’re not made to discourage. Or not to get involved.

They’re made to encourage and to get involved. And it’s just not that difficult to get involved and to encourage.

That’s you. And remember what Tony said a long time ago. And it always hit me. Everything wraps around your heart. It’s called your attitude. Because when you’re not in that encouragement group, you’re actually discouraging me. And you’re discouraging probably somebody else in there. It’s 10 or 15 minutes after services on Sunday night. And that’s all it is. A lot of times we get in there and we send cards out to sick, to those who do need encouraging. And sometimes we make plans to get together outside of services. We’ve been in some of the groups where we actually went into other people’s homes. In San Antonio, we did it every month. We went to somebody had the group in their home every month. We got together. We actually did about a 15 or 20 minute Bible study, very short Bible study.

We talked about the other Christians, not in a bad way. Something that we could do to help the church grow. And that’s what we did. Then we sat down, we got to know each other. We helped each other out. And I say this because of the fact that we did have those in Colorado Springs also. We had an encouragement group in Colorado Springs. This is really what’s sad. But at the same time, good. We were there and got there in 1998. Right after the year 2000. We finally got, they switched the groups around. And we were invited to this couple’s home as a group. It was at their house. So we went inside there, we had our 10 or 15 minute Bible study. We ate, we ate with them, and we had a good time, got to know each other a little bit better.

We got to talking to them a little bit more. And they said, they love movies. Oh, Terry and I love movies. They’re talked about our kids. Their kids are a little bit older than ours. But they went out about the same time. Well, I like doing this. Well, I like doing that. Well, my wife’s type A. My husband’s a type A. You see where this is going? We got to know each other, and it took one group two years later, before we became best friends. They’re up in the Dallas area, and they’re the people that we go see, and they come up here and sit, they still visit us, even after that many years. They did say one thing. She said, the reason why we didn’t get to know y’all girls sooner is because one of y’all said something that kind of hurt our feelings.

They never confronted us with it. We don’t, we to this day, Terry and I still don’t know what we said. We don’t know what we did. I’m fairly sure it was me. Because I’m type A and she’s type A. But the thing is, we don’t have a clue what happened. And to this day, they won’t tell us. But the whole thing is, if it wasn’t for that encouragement group, we would have never gotten to know them. And that’s just one couple. We have other good friends everywhere else that are good friends, and it’s because we were to that encouragement group. And we got to know one another. It’s very important, brethren, that we get together and we stick together with this. Because just like we talked about this last, it’s tough out there.

It’s very tough. Because in James the third chapter, verse 3, just like we talked about, this is the world of iniquity. It can be very simple. And we gotta we have to fight this fight together. We can’t let it go. And especially those of the lost that are Christians. We’ve got to get them back any way we possibly can. And we’ve got to have that heart to forgive them. We’ve got to have that heart. I guarantee you one thing. Y’all remember my daughter about six or seven years ago. She came up here and she came up front and she repented. Of course, she went right back to the sin that she went into. But that one moment that we had, we forgave her. And if she were to walk through that door right now and come through that front pew right there, and she sits down and she says, I want to get my life straight, I will forgive her right then.

And with the hopes and prayers that she never goes back to that world again. Because I love her. And I miss her. Brethren, it’s a tough world. And if you’re not a Christian, we’ve got a new whole new world after this. It’s called heaven. We’ve got to fight to get there. We’ve got to obey. We’ve got to read this book. We’ve got to hold each other and get us there. We’re going to stand, sing a song here in just a moment. And I love this song. I can’t believe you picked it out, Mike. God is calling the prodigal after what I just said. We may have somebody that’s out there that’s a prodigal right now. If you need the prayers of the congregation, we’re going to invite you to come forward.

And if you’re not a member of the Lord’s church and you’re you’re ready, and you’re ready to start becoming an encourager, just like Terry encouraged me, and everybody encouraged somebody else to become a Christian. We’re going to invite you to come forward as we now stand to sing a song that’s chosen.