For A Cup Of Cold Water, Eternal Life!

For a Cup of Cold Water, Eternal Life!

Matthew 10.40-42 <> Todd A. Schäve, pastor/teacher

Introduction:

1. In our passage this morning, Jesus is addressing the hospitality that the Jews or lost sheep of Israel show when receiving his disciples into their homes, as the disciples take the gospel “...to the lost sheep of Israel” (v.6), and as they go, proclaiming that “...The kingdom of heaven is near” (v.7).

The question is, “What benefit might they receive in hosting a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth?”

2. Let us just say, you’re traveling, and the area you’re traveling does not have any hotels, motels or inns. You’re dependent on someone’s hospitality in opening up their home to you for an evening or week. If someone were to welcome you into their home, what kind of blessing would they receive from your stay or visit?

3. Will the lost welcome or receive me, my message and my master? Will I leave as their enemy or their brother in Christ?

4. What benefits do you gain by hosting Christians in your home?

We have hosted missionaries in our home and we have been blessed. They answered all the questions we asked regarding their family, the mission work, country, customs, and people. We have grown to love them, grew to be concerned for the land they minister in, and the salvation of the lost they are reaching out to. Now we give to missions and pray for the lost in the country they serve for Christ.

5. Think about ramifications of being the home, under their hospitality. This morning, I’d like us to briefly look at four people who are visitors in the home of someone who is alienated, living in sin, unfamiliar with Jesus, and the condemned who are heading into eternity without God.

FIRST, IF A PERSON IS ALIENATED FROM GOD, WHAT COULD THEY GAIN BY HOSTING A RIGHTEOUS MAN IN THEIR HOME?

1. What could he teach you regarding how to handle the complexities and uncertainties of life in the correct or proper manner?

Would the righteous person help you to apply in your home the coping and conflict resolutions skills embedded in Psalm 34.14, “Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”

Families in America need to see people who know how to maintain good, loving relationships, by practicing what’s right in showing compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience with each other.

Families who know how to forgive grievances they may have against one another. Forgiving as the Lord has forgiven you. They know how to mend broken relationships.

The country doesn’t need to see the dysfunctional family like the Osbornes on MTV.

2. As the Word of God says, “The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just” (Psalms 37.30).

3. Let’s say you hosted a drug dealer, who is unbeknownst you. How would that person change your life? Would you accept him and what he had for you or would you send him and his drugs on his way as quickly as possible?

God’s Word says, “The wicked man craves evil; his neighbor gets no mercy from him” (Proverbs 21.10).

SECOND, IF A PERSON IS LIVING IN SIN, WHAT COULD THEY GAIN BY HOSTING A PROPHET IN THEIR HOME?

1. A prophet was one who utters the actual words that God had given to them. As the Lord says to Moses in Deuteronomy:

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him” (Deuteronomy 18.18).

The Lord is referring to the Lord Jesus, the greatest prophet ever.

2. Now, let me give you an example of how a prophet would interact with a sinner.

This incident occurred at a well though and not in a home. Jesus initialed conversation with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well.

He asked her, “Will you give me a drink?” (John 4.7). He’s looking for hospitality. Instead, he became engaged in a discussion over water and “...living water” (John 4.10).

Their discussion went on to include the proper place of worship, the mountain they were on in Samaria or Jerusalem, when “Jesus declared, (prophets are always declaring important truths)‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

¶ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us” (John 4.25).