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).
¶ Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4.26).
In her hurry to tell her town’s folk about the Messiah, she left and didn’t even give him a cup of cold water, but she met the greatest of all prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, who would die for her sins on Calvary’s Tree, and she received “...a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4.14).
Think about it! She, who was dying of thirst, accepted the cup of cold water Jesus offered! Because he “...[explained] everything to [her]” (John 4.25). She ran home to tell her people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?......He told me everything I ever did” (John 4.29, 39).
3. What if we received a prophet (i.e. preacher) into our homes for several days or a weeks? What could he declare to you and me about God’s Word that would bless us? How would the experience change our lives?
Well, at the conclusion of this encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, John records, “So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days” (John 4.40). Wow, two days with our Lord Jesus, talking with him face to face!
Eventually, “They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4.42). They showed Jesus hospitality and as a result of his two day stay, salvation came to Samaritan village of Sychar.
Now, this leads us to our third person.
THIRD, IF A PERSON IS NOT FAMILIAR WITH JESUS, WHAT COULD THEY GAIN BY HOSTING ONE OF JESUS’ DISCIPLES IN THEIR HOME?
1. Verse 42 says, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward” (Matthew 10.42).
2. The act of giving a cup of cold water is showing hospitality, just as we probably would ask someone who sat down at our kitchen table if they would like a glass of pop, ice tea or a cup of coffee.
When someone who doesn’t follow Christ welcomes “...one of these little ones...” a disciple of Jesus, who are taking the message of Christ to those who were unfamiliar with our Lord Jesus and dying of spiritual thirst, eventually in their conversation they would offer their host a sip from “...a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4.14).
Disciples of Jesus, carry “...a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4.14) within them. This Well said, “...[He] who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6.35).
3. Physical water is a necessity of life and ancient Palestine was relatively poor in water.
4. But what is the reward of being hospitable and the giving a cup of cold to one of Jesus’ disciples? The disciple would give them a drink of the Water of Life by introducing him or her to Jesus of Nazareth. And may the have an eternal, thirst quenching drink.
5. For a cup of cold water, they receive eternal life!
6. When I was a boy we would bale hay. To be out in the hot sun or up in the hot barn, perspiring, itching from the hay, I could hardly wait to get to the water pump, where we would enjoy a cool, refreshing, thirst quenched cup of water and wash off the itchy hay.
7. How about the twelve disciples, walking the dry, sun baked roads of Palestine. Going from village to village announcing the message Jesus’ gave them, “...The kingdom of heaven is near” (v.7). (Remember, Jesus is the King of the kingdom and the subjects are those who obey the King).
Well, the disciples must have appreciated the cups of cold water very much, and while they sipped the cool drink, they probably visited about their business with the local folks. Of course, those who wanted to hear more about Jesus and their message probably invited the disciples to stay with them.
8. Jesus promises here that those offer hospitality to those he sends out, they would never lose their reward. How is that? Well, when you receive one of the disciples, “...you receives [Jesus], and he who receives [Jesus] receives the one who sent [Jesus]” (Matthew 10.40), our Heavenly Father!
By the giving of simple hospitality of “...even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple...” they eventually received the reward of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.
FOURTH AND FINALLY, IF A PERSON IS CONDEMNED TO ETERNITY WITHOUT GOD, WHAT COULD THEY GAIN BY HOSTING YOU IN THEIR HOME?
1. I believe that even though Jesus’ instructions are for the twelve disciples, his instruction is for all his disciples, including you and me.
2. So if someone were to welcome you into their home, what kind of blessing would they receive from your stay? Would they hear your testimony, regarding “...how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5.19). Would they hear you speak of the person and work of your Master, Jesus of Nazareth? Would they hear how Jesus died for their sins? Would they see you as a living example of Christ?
In closing, I want to give you an assignment:
1. Write down what you would give to someone who welcomed you into their home? In other words, what kind of blessing would they receive from your visit?
2. If they offered you a place at their kitchen table and a glass of cold, ice water. What would you chat about? The weather, the children or grand kids, Jesus, how Jesus has benefited your Life?
3. My friends, I hope and trust that at some point in your conversation you would share “...how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5.19). So they may have hope in Jesus of the forgiveness of their sins and reconciliation with our Heavenly Father, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6.23).
4. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but we have look at four kinds of neighbors to you: The alienated, those living in sin, people unfamiliar with Jesus, and the condemned who are heading into eternity without God.
If they show you hospitality, as the Apostle Paul says, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4.5-6).
Let us commit ourselves to share the good news with our hospitable neighbors in a neighborly manner. Lord Jesus, go with us as we visit with our hospitable neighbors, who are lost and don’t know you. Bless our conversations and open a door for our witness to your mercy and forgiveness; so that, we may proclaim the good news about you. Enable us to proclaim it clearly, as we should. Amen.
Benediction:
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, so that, his ways may be known on earth, his salvation among the nations. [Amen.]”
— Psalm 67.1-2
