A Hospitable Life

Trillia Newbell

All right, I’m so glad to be here. My name is Trillia Newbell, and it is an honor and a joy to get to speak with you. I am from the Franklin, Tennessee area. Well, that’s where I live. That’s not where I’m from, but I live in Franklin, Tennessee, right outside of Nashville, and I’m a writer, speaker, and it’s a joy, a joy to be here. I was asked to speak about hospitality, and when they first asked me, I was like, “I don’t, I don’t. That’s not really my topic, is it? And I was like, “I don’t, I don’t think I’m going to do great there. But then, as I continued to pray about it, I was like, “Oh, wait a minute! When you really think about hospitality, it is a topic. It’s not just my topic. It’s all of our topics. Hey, you all come on in. There’s seats. There’s like four up here if you don’t mind to get close, and then there’s some sprinkled out. So, y’all come on in. I’m not. I’m just saying hello. So, so biblical hospitality is not about entertaining people perfectly. I’m going to talk a lot about the heart and theology of hospitality, which you’re at the Gospel Coalition. So of course that’s what you want. But I also want you to know, as I’m talking, because I’m going to talk about imperfect hospitality and all of those things. If you are someone who is gifted at hospitality, in so far as you do beautiful arrangements and you you can do like the napkin thing where you fold them. Clearly, I’m not. If that’s you, you’re a gift from God. So I am not going to be saying no one should do that. We should, if you have that gift, exercise that gift. I believe God has created you to create. So enjoy it, do it. But we’re going to talk about the heart behind all of our doing, and that to me is what is so essential in anything that we do is that we think about well why why am I doing this what is the real purpose behind it so that is what we’re doing biblical hospitality is not about entertaining people perfectly it is about welcoming people into our lives as Christ has welcomed us and that is what we’re going to talk about. If you have a Bible, you can turn to Romans 15. We are going to read the first seven verses in just a sec. I’m not bothered. Come on in. So I’m just going to ask you guys a question. When you hear the word hospitality, what comes to mind? You can answer to yourself. What makes hospitality, when you think of hospitality, feel intimidating or overwhelming? I think a lot of us get overwhelmed very quickly when we think of hospitality, and I think part of it is because we think of hospitality and we think there are seats up here. Come on in. We think of a spotless house. Yeah, you’re like yes. Beautifully planned meal. Plenty of free time, hosting. You know, you got to be like gregarious and everything. We think of all of these things when we think of hospitality, but I believe when we think of what the scriptures say, it’s simpler. Though you can, like I said at the beginning, because I don’t want the person who is gifted to walk out of here and think, oh no, yes, do it, do all the things, but I also think it’s deeper and more meaningful. I believe it begins with the welcome we received from Christ. So let’s read Romans 15, the first 17 verses. I mean, not 17, first seven verses. Here we go. Romans 15. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Trillia Newbell

May the God of endurance and encouragement, grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another. As Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God, Amen. I’m going to pray, and then we’ll dive into that. God, I pray that you will help us. We want to be hospitable. We want to have hospitable lives, and we need your help, your wisdom, your discernment, your grace. So, God, help us to know how to love people well, to serve people well, and may we leave here energized to love and serve your people. And it’s in your name we pray. Amen. So, in context, we could narrow these texts to a discussion about those who are weak in faith, because that is what Paul is addressing, and I think in turn we can think about terms like not eating meat, which Paul discussed earlier, and not being putting a stumbling block in the way of others. But I do believe these texts can be applied more broadly because Paul himself he goes broader. He takes us there, and so that’s where we are going to go. Essentially, to have a hospitable life means that we apply the gospel to our interactions with others. Hospitality is much more than just opening our home. Interestingly, you can open your home and still not be welcoming. At least not truly. We know it. We can be busy doing all sorts of things and not loving our neighbor, frustrated, annoyed, all of the things, and we’ve been there. I sure have been there. Where I know people are coming, and you’re like, throw that in the closet, put that away. No, that’s burnt. You know, it’s just crazy town. I’ve been there. But verse six and seven, we see that our goal, our ultimate goal in anything we do is to display the gospel and glorify God as we welcome others. I think we think about hospitality and we immediately also think about strangers. Right? Invite your strangers in, but as we see in Galatians six, it’s also about the church. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith. Paul, as he’s writing, is addressing the church in Rome about unity and hospitality, about Jews and Gentiles. I share this because we often think of the idea of welcoming others in terms of the stranger or the unbeliever. But these texts he is addressing, bearing with one another. Now, to be clear, there are plenty of scriptures and verses about welcoming the stranger and sojourner, being welcoming to all people. That’s absolutely in the scriptures. Take for example Hebrews 13 five. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. It is important that we notice a few things. First, the person we note we need to notice the person. He’s saying, “Well, welcome the stranger. So you got to notice them. That is a central element to evangelism and just human decency to notice people, but still, even in this text, the real emphasis in Hebrews isn’t on the angels; it is on the heart prepared to be hospitable. It’s about the heart. So, we ask God for help. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify God and our Father, God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. So Christ has welcomed us, so we ought to welcome others, and it is the gospel that motivates our hospitality. We will, in just a few minutes, get to real practical things-practical things that I’ve experienced in my own life, practical things that I’ve done. But if our heart isn’t right, we can do all the practical things, and it’s not for the glory of the Lord. And we will be probably frustrated, or annoyed, or discouraged. So we want to be hospitable, but we want it to come from a. Heart that’s filled with knowledge and understanding of how Christ welcomed you. We were welcomed by Jesus. I find the gospel to be amazing.

Trillia Newbell

We were outsiders, and He brought us near. Hospitality starts with remembering God’s grace towards us. Hospitality is a response, not a performance. It’s a response to a heart that’s been transformed by the gospel. We don’t have to perform. We don’t have to impress. We don’t have to earn God’s love through serving others, which also might be our temptation. We can extend welcome because we’ve received it. The goal in our relationships is not impression. Gospel hospitality is about making people feel seen, and known, and loved, and cared for. Janie Ortland, she said something like this: When you walk into a room, make sure they, whoever they are, it is the most important person in the room, so it’s not about you. It’s you are the most important person in this room, and you are the most important person in this room. That changes our perspective, doesn’t it? So how does this is a workshop? So I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you all can think about it, write it down, whatever you want to do. How does viewing hospitality as a response to Christ change the way you think about inviting others into your life, whether it’s your home or whatever it is? How does how does the gospel change the way you might think about hospitality and how you might invite others? So that’s my first question. So point one is that it’s you’re motivated by the gospel. Point two is that you’re motivated by a love of neighbor. So I don’t want to talk about practical things if we don’t love our neighbor. Neighbor, we want to ask God to help us love. I am what my husband would call gushy. I, I, I’m like I love you. I love everyone. Hug me. You know I’m I’m oh I’m gushy, and I am just like expressive, and I saw someone earlier today, and I was like, “Hi, do you mind if I hug you? So I hug, and I also, I if you took my phone and looked at my text messages, you would see a lot of hearts. It’s very strange. I don’t know why we emoji heart heart this heart that, but let me tell you about hearts and love. You can go on X Twitter, whatever. You can go on the worst, meanest social media app, whatever it is. And what do you get to do? You heart the comments. It’s very strange. We love everything, right? It doesn’t matter if it’s moral or good or not. We get to hurt it. How weird! We love movies and hamburgers and Nacha Libre. That’s an old movie. If you haven’t seen it, it’s really funny. We love all sorts of stuff, and in many ways, I believe we’ve trivialized love. We’ve made love to be just kind of a marketing tool, great for Valentine’s Day for some of us. You know, we we have trivialized love. If we boil love down to only romantic love, we also will get it wrong. But when I look at the Word of God. God commands us to a radical love for others. So radical it includes loving our enemies and persecutors. I’m just reading Scripture, loving without expectation of receiving love in return. But I do believe the most challenging commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is hard to do. We need Holy Spirit power to love well. We do. We cannot do it on our our own. To truly love, to truly love the way God has called us to love, we must first know God, beloved. Let us love, beloved, beloved. Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know. God, because God is love, so there’s eternal significance in our love. It’s proof of our faith. God’s love for us is a part of His welcome. Welcome others as Christ welcomed you, it could also be love others as Christ loved you. And so we have to ask God, help me, help me to love. Praise God that He is perfectly sovereign, perfectly wise, and infinitely loving. God’s love is incomprehensible. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Trillia Newbell

This is a love that we could not fully fathom, may it motivate us, may it compel us to want to serve and care for those around us, to be hospitable, to have a life of welcome. The gospel is where the Lord chooses to display His love and fool. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to save the world. Love isn’t something that is derived from within us. It is radical. It is supernatural, and we need to ask God, Lord, help me make that my motivation for caring for others. Make it not about me, not about my glory, not about how they’re going to see me, not about you name it to check check something off a list. Help me to love. Help me to care. I need help. I cannot do it on our own. You cannot do it on your own. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this command: love your neighbor as yourself. All other laws hinge on loving God and loving our neighbor. Here’s the good news: we love God because He first loved us, and we can love others because He first loved us. It’s all about Him, His power, His grace. Our love for each other also has great implications. Jesus says that by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. It’s an apologetic to a broken, broken world. I mean, I’m just thinking about this, but in a world where everything is divided and people hate each other. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our witness was one of love and welcome and hospitality and care, and that’s what they saw? That would be such a testimony because what we would say is, it’s because of Jesus, it’s because of God. It’s that’s what that’s all we can say, and what a remarkable testimony that would be. One pastor, recognizing that this commandment to love our neighbor is overwhelming, wrote this. I say it is overwhelming because it means it seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person, so that I feel that I am that other person, and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness, I now feel for that other person as though he were me. Now think about that. If we had that mind about us as we care and serve others through hospitality, he continues. So these are his words, not mine. It is an absolutely staggering commandment. If this is what it means, then something unbelievably powerful, and earth-shaking, and reconstructing, and overturning, and upending will have to happen in our souls something supernatural something well beyond what self-preserving, self-financing, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-advancing human beings like all of us can do on our own. And here’s the good news: we have God’s grace. We have the power. We have the power to serve people in a loving way, we have the spirit. We can say no to our frustration, to our work, work, work, work, work for our glory. We can we can serve, we can love, we can care-not in and of ourselves, but because of the gospel, because. We know Jesus, so we don’t have to. We don’t have to succumb to our own sin patterns, right? We can ask God for help, and He can help us. So we are motivated to show hospitality because of the gospel. We want to be welcoming because Jesus has welcomed us. We are motivated out of a love for our neighbor, so we’re going to show hospitality because God has loved us, and so we’re going to love others. And my final point before I get to practical things is we are motivated because of our need for relationship. To help us love others, we need to remember that relationships are a gift, and we need one another. When I first became a Christian, one of the sweetest things that the Lord-I became a Christian at the age of 22, so I was a young adult, and one of the sweetest things that the Lord did. There was a couple. One is I started the meeting with these two girls, and we met for years, like maybe seven years. And we would all we’d have pizza night on Fridays and our grape juice.

Trillia Newbell

We were anyways, and and it was it was so much fun. But we would share our lives and accountability, and we were open and honest. And it was the sweetest sweetest start. There was discipleship happening, fellowship, accountability, care, lots of stuff. And to this day, we are friends, but another thing happened is I’ve always had the view of trying to find an older woman. Right, that Titus two kind of mentality. Look for an older woman to be in my life. So at a young Christian age, I wanted to meet with this lady who was my small group leader’s wife a homeschooling mom of six kids, and I’m like, “Can you meet with me too? I’d like to learn from you, and she was like, “Yes, but here’s the reality. I mean, she never said these words, but as we’ve continued to be friends, I see what she was doing. She would say, “Come on over, and we would wash dishes together and talk. We would full clothes and talk. She was not stopping life to try to be pretty for me, she didn’t have time for that, and so, so. But it was the it made such an impression on my young Christian heart. I was like, she’s so welcoming and so loving, and I never, I never thought, oh, her floor is dirty. I just thought, oh, she’s serving her family, and she loves them, and she loves me, and we’re we’re getting to talk about hard things, and she’s counseling me while we put something in the oven. I mean, it was so ordinary. It wasn’t like a five plan something or another. It was so ordinary. May that encourage you. I knew that I desperately needed someone, and I needed people because I was-I didn’t-I couldn’t even probably fully articulate the gospel, but I believed it. But I knew I wanted to learn from people. I was like, I just really want to soak this up! I want to tell everyone about Jesus. Who is he? You know, I couldn’t tell you anything. And the Lord was so kind to put people in my life who did. I could think of several other woman women who were very fine with being Themselves, I am so grateful for that because had she waited until life looked pretty, I would never have met with her. She has six kids. I would never have met with her because life was not going to look pretty. It just wasn’t. It was going to be. It it looked beautiful, you know what I’m saying. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t pretty. It was messy. Everything was everywhere, and it’s fine. And so, now I shared this in Miami to some wonderful Latin women, and one said, “Nobody’s touching my Laundry culturally, she was like, “That ain’t happening, but I can welcome people. I shared something. It wasn’t about hospitality; it was about something else. But and I was like, “You know what? Fair. So I’m not also mandating that we all fold each other’s laundry. You you know.” What I’m saying, you know the heart behind it, but that was really funny though. So to enjoy relationships fully, we need to grow in our love for others, and we need to learn why relationships matter. Relationships are God’s idea; they’re a gift. When God created the world, He was intentional and thoughtful about every aspect and detail. In Genesis 218, He said, “It is not good for man to be alone. Eve comes on the scene. He designed marriage for intimacy and procreation, but He didn’t stop there. He didn’t leave relationships at marriage. He created humans with a need to be in community to fully thrive. It was his idea to create the family of God, right? God sees this community, church community specifically, local church community as a gift so important that he sent his son to die for her. God intended that we use our gifts, our abilities, our our words to encourage one another and for the benefit of others, God never intended for us to. This is kind of cliche. Do life on our own. He didn’t. Even Jesus was born into a family. Think about that. That’s so interesting. Jesus had friends and not just followers. People will never give you what you thirst and hunger for, so that’s not what I’m talking about.

Trillia Newbell

But we do need relationships, and it was God’s idea for us to be in relationship with one another. And and what a gift it is! I’m not saying it’s not hard, but it is a part of our desire and motivation towards hospitality. I am telling you right now, someone needs you. Someone needs your encouragement, and it it may it may in your season be your kids, your husband, totally fine. But just know that you, God has given us this need for encouragement, and we see that all throughout the scriptures in the one anothers that that you may have heard of the one anothers. So I’m just going to name some of them: love one another, be devoted to one another, honor one another, live in harmony with one another. Don’t put a stumbling block in the way of others. Accept one another. Be patient with one another. Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. What’s missing here? Feelings. It doesn’t say accept one another. Well, when she stops being like, you know, it doesn’t say that. Be patient with one another. Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. It also also doesn’t say when fill in the blank is all fill in the blank. I mean, it there isn’t these these qualifications or these rules around it-it’s what God has commanded us to be. So I want us to get practical. This is the fastest 45 minutes ever. Let’s get practical. So we know that we need the gospel. The gospel is what motivates us to be hospitable. We want a hospitable life. That’s why it’s called about a hospitable life. We want people to come near us and to to experience God’s grace. That is my prayer. We want to be motivated because we love others, God give us a heart that loves others and motivate, help motivate us to move towards others. So we ask God for a heart that loves others. I haven’t talked about personality. We don’t need a bubbly personality. We need a heart that loves others. We need to recognize our need for relationship and others’ needs for relationships. That will help motivate us to remember people. I think we can forget we’re so busy. We really are. We’re busy people, and so we need help to remember that people need community, and so do we. So, what does this look like practically? Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as God stewards God’s varied gifts and grace. I have not. Seen and y’all come up and tell me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any rule book or set of suggestions in the scriptures on how specifically to do hospitality, like clean your house, you know. I haven’t seen those kinds of things, but I have seen a lot about the heart. So not to grumble, to be loving, to be caring. I do think that we can think practically about how to do this. But these are my ideas. I said that to say these are my ideas. You may have other ideas. You may also have limitations, and that is okay. My dear friend, who opened up her home, who is one of the most gracious, loving women I know, she had a lot of limitations, but she invited me into them. So, the first practical thing I would say is to open our lives, not just our homes. So, open your life. What does that look like for you? How did? How can you do that? Number two is to use ordinary moments for kingdom purposes, like my friend. What is an ordinary moment that maybe? Because you may be thinking I don’t have time for fill in the blank, but you would love to serve people. Well, how can you do it in an ordinary way, what is an ordinary way that would be hospitable? It can happen around the dinner table, at a coffee shop, during a walk, at a child’s sporting event, through a phone call or text. If we’re living a hospitable life, which is about welcoming people and loving people, we can do that in many different places if we don’t have to prepare a four five horse meal, right? So if we’re being hospitable, then think of ordinary ways that you can invite people into your life.

Trillia Newbell

If there, if if you are a busy mom and you have a kid who’s in sports, invite one of the singles to come to that sporting event. They’ll love it. Some of you, I don’t want to assume everyone will love it. They may not, but they might love being invited. And so, just think of ordinary means of things that you do in your life that you can invite people into. I believe a myth is that my house must be perfect, but the truth is people need welcome more than perfection. I also believe a myth is I need special gifts. Like I’m not like her, so I can’t. I don’t think I can do it. Learn from her, be grateful for her, but you don’t have to be her. So you can ask God, where my where what is my gift? Every believer can practice a hospitality, being welcoming and loving. Another myth is that hospitality requires a lot of money. Hospitality requires availability. Are you available? I would never forget. So my first church was just a sweet little church, and I will never forget this couple inviting us over. And my husband and I were newlyweds, and we were we were like, “Yay, this will be fun! So we went to their home, and I’ll be honest, I had an idea in my mind about what the meal would look like, so he invited us over for dinner, and we had tomato soup and bread, but that’s what they had, and I was like, “This is great! It was delicious, it was fine, but I had this idea in my head of what hospitality would look like, and and we sat down, and she served her, and and I I don’t know if they were, I know that they were frugal, but they were so welcome. I mean, they we sat there, and we they cared for us. They wanted to know how we were doing. I felt welcomed and loved with my tomato soup and my bread, and it was awesome. Now I’m going to tell you a little bit about me. I had a family over, and I made paella. And like something fancy schmancy because I love to cook, and that’s okay. And so I, so I am. I want to tell the person who loves to do those things go and do it to the glory of God. I made the paella because they they had did they did mission work in Spain, so I thought, ooh, this would bless them. Now I probably blessed me more because I was so excited about my paella, and that it turned out very good. But but I did have a heart to love and serve them, and so I want us to not think that ministry, caring for others, loving our neighbors, has to look a certain way. I just told you two different things, where they were blessed, I was blessed, and they were blessed, and they looked very different. Also, remember, ministry happens at church. Ministry happens wherever people are, and I think sometimes again, we we think we have to go, we have to do something else. But you can invite the people right next to you; they need a welcome too. So, here’s some questions for you to think of: Where are natural spaces in your current life where hospitality could happen? Where are some natural spaces where you could open up your home, or invite someone to coffee, share a simple meal, make that tomato soup, or not? What is this something that you can do, even maybe this week, to serve others? Is there someone that you know? Maybe they’ve shared that they are lonely. Maybe it’s you. I’d encourage you to reach out to someone. Maybe there’s someone who’s new, someone who’s new to your church. One of the heartbreaking things that I have experienced talking-I talk all over, you know, different places, and someone will say, “I’m really struggling to find a church. I went to a church, no one talked to me, and I’m like, “How can no one talk to you? Now, of course, maybe they were-they should have also said something. I don’t know. They maybe people were. I don’t want to be unkind and assume negative. However, that you will be surprised by how many people don’t come back to churches because they weren’t talked to. They turn around.

Trillia Newbell

They do not come back ever. So, a hospitality in your local church could be having eyes to see who’s around and welcoming them? I had welcomed someone who had been like, “Girl, I started this church. I’m like, “Great! You just want to do that. You want to have eyes to see and welcome someone. Think about people who need encouragement. Who do you think needs encouragement? Everyone. Everyone needs encouragement. So maybe this week you can encourage someone. Simple habits like Once a month, maybe try to invite someone. Talk to your neighbors. These are simple things that you can do. So as we conclude, because we only have a few minutes left. Wow, you all are so attentive. By the way, thank you so much. This has been so fun. Just remember that biblical hospitality flows from the gospel. Biblical hospitality depends on Jesus, not our abilities. It happens in ordinary Life and creates opportunities for meaningful relationships and spiritual conversations. Ultimately, we want to have gospel conversations with people. We want to encourage them in their faith, spur them on to walk with God.