Peace to This House
Dr. Larry Thorson
Today we’re in the third of a seven week series
called “Two By Two”. It deals with the
story of how Jesus prepared a team that he used to turn their world right side
up. It was a big team. He had 72 players. NFL football teams are not allowed to have
more than 53 players on their roster during the regular season. So this was a bigger team than the Pittsburgh
Steelers, at least in number.
As I’ve said each week, I’m not preaching these
sermons to entertain you. That would be
like Sheila Brown, our exercise instructor, teaching you a course on working
out without having you exercise with her.
It wouldn’t work. Exercise is
only good if you do it. This information
is only good if you want to be on Jesus’ travel team
We’re not traveling as far Jerusalem like Jesus
and his team did but we are traveling as far east as Valle Vista, as far west
as Homeland, as far north as Beaumont, and as far south as Sage inviting people
to come to the heart of our valley, 515 E. Kimball Ave. “Would you like to go to church with me this
Sunday?” That’s our message.
Within this geographic area are thousands of
people who aren’t in church today to hear the good news about Jesus Christ
because they don’t know or like anyone in any church. But you might be that one person they know
and respect. “Would you like to go to
church with me this Sunday?” It’s that
simple.
Let’s read Coach Jesus’ specific instructions for
our assignment in Luke 10:5-7.
5 "When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' 6 If
the head of the house loves peace, your peace will rest on that house; if not,
it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give
you, for workers deserve their wages. Do not move around from house to house.[1]
These
instructions may sound foreign to you because Jesus was a middle eastern
Israeli not an American. That was God’s
choice, not ours. As an Israeli, Jesus
was using an Old Testament greeting that his team would have understood. That’s no different than when a football
coach uses terms like punt
formation, I formation, T formation, or West Coast offense in talking to his
players. They know what he was talking
about.
This greeting Jesus instructed them to use upon entering a house, any house, is "Peace
to this house," and if the head of the house loved peace, peace would rest
upon that house.
That greeting goes back to
the early part of the Bible in Numbers 6:23-27 where God said "Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how
you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: "The Lord bless you and keep
you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord
turn his face toward you and give you peace." So they will put my name on the Israelites,
and I will bless them.' "
Have you ever heard those words before?
Of course, those are what I call “going to lunch” words. A lot of ministers use them as a benediction
at the end of a service and you know what happens when the minister stops
yakking.
Aaron and his boys were God’s priests who were assigned to give out
God’s blessings. A big part of those blessings
is peace. Peace is an important part of our well being. Now I don’t know how many of you suffer from
insomnia, that is, where you can’t sleep at night. Insomnia can happen for all kinds of reasons
especially when you get older. But when
you’re younger it can especially happen when you’re upset about something.
Laying awake at night is an awful feeling and for me it gets worse the
longer I’m awake. The best feeling is
when I’m completely at peace with everything in the world, no one’s mad at me
that I know of, not even God, I’ve run at least
Can you imagine what a blessing you’ll be to some family if you could
bring the peace of God to their home? This
isn’t about filling the seats in our sanctuary the way they were filled in
1979. This isn’t about getting more members
so we can pay for the upkeep of our facility.
This is about bringing peace into lives that often don’t have it.
My aunt was 42 years old when she came home from work to find her
teenage daughter in hysterics because she had found her father dead of a heart
attack on the floor. My aunt thought it
was a curse of an angry God who would take her father when she 12 and now her
husband when she was 42. There was no
peace in that home.
“Would you like to go to church with me this Sunday?” “Are you kidding?” my aunt might have asked. “Is that where your God lives, the one who
took my daddy and my husband?” You see a
lot of people have a lot of reasons why they’re mad at God and why they have no
peace but you’re not responsible for those reasons. You’re only responsible to love them the best
you can and invite them to meet God who will give them eternal peace.
I can’t begin to explain why bad things happen to good people. Tomorrow we will celebrate the life of Lois
Cheney whose life ended at the age of 64 due to a heart defect at birth. But Lois knew she had a birth defect all her
life and that didn’t keep her from receiving God’s peace. Not everyone is wired the same.
The next instruction was for a Jew in that day the most
radical. Jesus tells his team to stay put in the home that welcomes them including
eating and drinking what they are given.
That’s not a big thing for us. If
you ever invite me over for a meal I’m going to eat anything you offer. But these were kosher Jews with strict
dietary rules. Jesus appears to be
relaxing those laws as part of these messengers' marching orders. I don’t think
this is mere courtesy so much as it is part of the demand to spread the Good
News as quickly as possible. If these guys had to spend half their days
determining whether the foods they were being provided passed all tests for
ritual cleanness, they would be diverted from their true task of preaching
about the coming
This
is one more proof that Jesus knew his time here was short and he needed to get
on with reaching as many people in his earthly lifetime as possible. It’s no different for us right now. We think we have lots of time to invite
people to church but there’s nothing in our experience that tells us that. We don’t know how long we have with
anyone.
Last
winter I only reserved eleven spaces for our middle school students at the Forest
Home Winter Camp because that was all I expected to take this year when I made
the reservation a year in advance. Our
ministry has been blessed this year more than any other year and we had 15 kids
ready to go. Late into the evening the folks
at Forest Home were juggling rooms and trying to figure out if they could
accommodate our extra kids. I was
praying earnestly that no kids would be left behind because we don’t know how
long we have with anyone to make an impact on their life. Then Forest Home called and said they found a
space for all of us. We took 15
students, two adult sponsors and one driver on an 18 passenger bus. You do the math.
I
don’t want to miss the opportunity of bringing the peace of God to anyone. I want to see the hand of God at work like
I’m seeing with our middle school students this weekend. I don’t want to be like the pastor of the little
village church in
After looking at
the old record books of the Rushville church, the pastor reported about the
activities of the church in his annual report: "Nothing of any importance
ever happens here. We had one addition to the church this year, but he married
one of our finest young women, and now they are both gone". In his devotion to head-counting and just
keeping things going, he missed the movement of the kingdom within his own
congregation. Instead of celebrating the kingdom's arrival in Marcus and
Narcissa's lives, he could only grouse that Whitman stole one of his
parishioners.
Let’s not miss the
movement of God’s kingdom. Let’s not get
caught up with whether the people we meet would fit in our church or not. “It’s not their kind of music.” “It’s not their kind of preaching.” “We’re all grey hairs.” To us Jesus says don’t worry about what kinds
of foods or drinks they give you. None
of that matters anymore. Time is
short. Do you think a soldier in combat
worries what color the table cloth his food is being served on?
We’re in combat
right now for the lives of your neighbors who don’t have the peace of Christ in
their lives. They need to be here to
hear the good news that Jesus died for all of their sins, the gross ones and
the minor ones. Jesus died to make us a
part of God’s big family and God wants so badly to welcome them in if they will
only repent and open their heart to receive Jesus.
You don’t even have
to explain that to them. You just need
to welcome them. “Would you like to go
to church with me this Sunday?” That’s all. If you’re going to church alone now why don’t
you try to invite someone within our church to ride with you. It’ll save gas, save a parking space and get
you used to inviting people.
May the peace of
Christ be with you and with those you meet this week. Let us pray.
Lord, help me to have eyes to see those
people you would like me to invite to church next Sunday and the boldness to
invite them. Thank you for this
opportunity to come and worship you. In
Jesus’ name. Amen.