Open...to God
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I want to begin this morning with a strange - or maybe just obvious question: What is the purpose of a door? What is its function? Why do doors exist?...It’s to allow access, so that you can go in and out, or allow others in or out
Doors only exist because you have a wall or structure of some sort - and that structure is designed to block or protect, to keep things or people out - or, in some cases, in.
Build a house to live in - and a house is designed to block and protect. Keeps elements of weather out - so you can stay dry, warm - or cool, depending on the time of year. Keep those darn bugs out! That’s why your mother would yell at you when you were a kid…shut the door!
Structures are also designed to keep out (or in) people who may harm us, or steal from us - that’s why we add locks to our doors, so not just anyone can use them to gain access.
So, doors allow access to the particular structure, so you can get in and out, and allow those you want to be able to get in or out. A door standing entirely by itself makes no sense, its purposeless.
So when somebody comes to your door and knocks - what do you do? Check to see who it is - looking through the window, peephole - or open the door a bit - to decide if you’re going to let them in or not.
If its friends or family - absolutely, open it up, welcome them in. If it’s a solicitor - or, as we had a couple of months ago, someone running for office - probably not. Those folks I don’t let in. At best I’ll go out on the porch to talk to them.
But what if it’s Jesus knocking at your door? What if you heard a knock, you look - check the peephole, creak the door open a bit and Jesus is standing right outside your door - what do you do? What’s your immediate, gut-level response? Wasn’t expecting him!! Maybe a bit of a panic - this place is a mess! Or maybe, more of, heck yeah, come in, come in.
This knocking-at-the-door imagery is exactly what Jesus uses to declare his desire to come be with us - and not just come be with us, but to lead us, because Jesus is who he is - Lord, Savior.
It puts before us our heart’s response to Jesus - how eager am I to invite Jesus my life, to be with him? How open - or closed - am I to Jesus?
Would I rather have him stay outside and just come out to the front porch myself to chat with him for a few minutes? Or is my inclination to fling open the door and receive him gladly?
This is what we want to take a look at over the next three weeks in our sermon series, Open. Today, Open to God.
Jesus at the Door
So I want to start with Jesus’ declaration of coming to our door and knocking - it comes to us from Revelation 3, part of a series of seven letters from Jesus to seven different churches.
That’s an important point to remember in this - these letters from Jesus are written to churches - Jesus is speaking to his people, his followers.
In particular, in this instance, he’s speaking to a group of his followers in city called Laodicea whom he describes as lukewarm, tepid, in their following of Jesus. And it drives him nuts! Listen to what he says, Revelation 3:14-19...
To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.
John & Codie & I went backpacking for a few days last week and I brought this coffee packet Wendy had gotten in a gift bag, had a little sticker on it that said, Thanks a latte! (get it? very clever.) It was packaged like an instant drink, like a hot chocolate packet - and I thought, this will be perfect. Just add hot water, drink and enjoy. So first morning on the trail I add the water I’d boiled, stir it up, take my first drink and pfft - immediately spit it out of my mouth. Coffee grounds! Ugh! Turns out, it was not instant coffee.
And this is what Jesus is telling his followers - I’m about to spit you out of my mouth. Because you’re lukewarm…a meh-kind-of-Christian.
Jesus tells them: I’d rather you be hot or cold, for me or against me. Instead, you’re caught up in world and more interested in wealth and worldly things. You don’t realize how wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked you really are. Wow. I mean, really, wow. I’m about to spit you out of my mouth (put that under the category of “things I never thought I’d hear Jesus say”.)
This is how strongly Jesus doesn’t want his followers to be lukewarm in their faith, he doesn’t them to be just “ok”. He wants them to be hot - or cold - I’m honestly not really sure which Jesus means to be the favorable one. But whichever is a sold out for Jesus, he’d still rather someone be all in or all out. That it’s clear you are absolutely for Jesus - or against him, want nothing to do with him. Jesus doesn’t want fence-sitters.
But Jesus says, if you’ll let me, if you’re “open” to it, I’ll make you rich, I’ll cover you over, I’ll heal your blindedness.
Now, he makes clear that it’s a painful process - it involves rebuke, discipline. But it comes from Jesus as an act of love, for our good, so we can experience true wealth…so we can see what is real and true and good…so we can live in freedom of grace, no guilt, no shame.
Now, there’s one more verse in this passage, it’s Jesus making the explicit invitation to accept his leadership, his work in our lives so we won’t be lukewarm in our lives as his followers. Here’s where we find the imagery of door, Revelation 3:20...Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. (Repeat)
I want us to consider a few things from Jesus’ invitation here...
First of all, Jesus stands outside. He knocks. He announces himself (if anyone hears my voice). And then he waits.
Jesus doesn’t just barge in, unannounced. No just opening the door, making himself at home.
He certainly doesn’t come in SWAT team style, knocking the door down, forcing his way in, trying to catch you off guard.
And he doesn’t even do it Sheldon style. What do I mean by Sheldon style? If you’ve ever seen the TV show Big Bang Theory, you know exactly what I’m talking about…knock, knock, knock, Penny…knock, knock, knock, Penny…knock, knock, knock, Penny - that’s Sheldon style. He doesn’t pester his way in.
Jesus waits to be invited in. So he lets us know he’s here, waiting, eager to be with you and I. That he doesn’t want just a few minutes chatting on the front porch - he wants to come in and be with you.
He may be knocking at your door right now. In this moment. You know he’s there. Maybe you’ve known it for a long time.
But he won’t compel. He won’t make us be in relationship with him if we’re not open to it.
We can, if we choose, keep the door shut. Or maybe just open the door a bit and peak our head through…not today…another time, perhaps? We keep him waiting. The choice is ours.
Our choice to invite Jesus in by opening the door is really a response to Jesus’ invitation to us: If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them and they with me.
Jesus is using this home imagery, sitting at a table, sharing a meal together to suggest the idea of close relationship, a friendship, forged over time spent together in one most basic day-to-day ways we share our lives - over a meal.
The suggestion is clear. Jesus is openly declaring his desire to be with you and to let him lead your life. His hope in knocking at our door, is that it will be our desire and intention, to open the door and give him access to our lives, our hearts, our decisions, our relationships - every aspect of our day-to-day lives.
Our willingness to open that door to grant Jesus access is what Mindy Caliguire refers to as “openness,” or yieldedness - we yield our lives to Jesus. To be broken before the greater healer. To be a student sitting at the feet of the great teacher. Open, ready, willing.
It’s helpful here to consider the degree of openness to God…where are you on the scale of fully resistant - keeping that door shut tight - to absolutely open, flinging it wide open, come in, Jesus! Opening the door but letting him stay outside - I think we would describe that as “lukewarm” on our scale of open to closed.
What is it in you that makes you hesitant to open the door to Jesus, to grant him full and unfettered access and leadership over every aspect of your heart and life?
Are there wounds, past pain, don’t you want to revisit? You’d rather let those sleeping dogs lie?
Perhaps there’s something you don’t want to give up…you have your heart set on a particular dream or desire, and you fear Jesus might ask you to give that up?
What if Jesus asks more of me that I want to give him? What if I’m comfortable with where things are at, it works for me? And I prefer having the so-say on that?
Consider the church at Laodicea: We’re good, Jesus. We’re rich, we have everything we need. They didn’t really want Jesus, wanted more of a Jesus lite. Jesus, don’t come over - I’ll call you if I need you.
It’s certainly been true in my own life that it’s most often been pain and suffering that have made me realize what a wretch I am! How blind I can be. How impoverished my heart can be. Pitiful. That I absolutely don’t have everything I need without Jesus.
It’s been those times that have most often spurred in me a willingness to open the door and invite Jesus in…PLEASE come in…I need you. The goal, my goal, is that I would cultivate an openness to Jesus on an ongoing basis. I wouldn’t wait until things get hard or difficult, but that this would be a daily, intentional habit, cultivating an openness to Jesus.
My hope and prayer is that that’s your desire as well -that your heart and your life would be absolutely open to Jesus. And that we not be lukewarm about it - but that we be firm about our intention. Our intentions will be revealed in our actions.
This is where we come to our Spiritual Disciplines
This is whole purpose of engaging spiritual exercises. Why we encourage them on a week to week basis - because the whole purpose of these habits is to open us up to Jesus, his presence and work in our lives.
So, let me just ask you a question. What soul training exercises are you engaging in on a day-to-day (or week-to-week or even month-to-month) basis in order to open your life to Jesus? Could you name those - these are the things I do to cultivate a life centered in Jesus (I participate in Sunday worship, 5 minutes of silence, 15 minutes of quiet reflection, reading my Bible, praying…)
Every Sunday, I suggest two. We’ve been doing this for some time now. How often have you taken one of those two and actually put it into practice that week? Have you ever?
I don’t want to suggest that Jesus is going to spit anyone out of his mouth, but I do want to say that the very definition of a follower of Jesus- according to Jesus himself - is one who listens to what he teaches and puts it into practice. The person who puts themselves in a place to experience the love of Jesus through his rebuke, his discipline, his encouragement, his equipping. It seems to me that to simply listen to a message intended to invoke a response - and not respond in any way is lukewarm behavior. It’s tepid. Jesus, I hear what you’re saying, that was really good. I mean, so true…and then…nothing.
I think Jesus would have us out and out reject it or he would have us embrace it by putting it into practice, I think that’s what he means by being either hot or cold. Or cold or hot. There again, not sure which is which.
In other words, do you actually intend to follow Jesus? That will require opening the door, inviting him in. As I said, we do that by engaging in spiritual disciplines. So, let me offer you a couple this morning:
Create margin in your life, which is to say, create space for Jesus. What is margin? When you think about text printed on a piece of paper, the margin is the blank space on the edges. Do we have margin in our lives for Jesus - space to open the door and invite him in to be with us?
Dr. Richard Swenson, medical doctor, noticed how many health difficulties he was seeing in his patients due to stress, due to being overextended…they didn’t have margin…realization led him to write a book called Margin, let me share a bit...
The conditions of modern-day living devour margin…Marginless is being thirty minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were twenty minutes late out of the hairdresser’s because you were ten minutes late dropping the children off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station - and you forgot your purse. Margin, on the other hand, is having breath left at the top of the staircase, money left at the end of the month, and sanity left at the end of adolescence…Marginless is being asked to carry a load five pounds heavier than you can lift; margin is a friend to carry half the burden. Marginless is not having the time to finish the book you’re reading on stress; margin is having the time to read it twice.
In order to create margin in our lives, we must learn to say “no” to some things. We must learn to say “no” in order to say “yes” to Jesus - to create time and space to be with him. James Bryan Smith in his book, The Good and Beautiful God, offers some ideas on finding margin:
Get up ten minutes earlier and create a space for silence before you begin your day.
Cut out unnecessary entertainment activities.
Explore scaling back some of your commitments by asking, “Is it essential?”
If you do something often, consider reducing the frequency with which you do it.
Another exercise to consider: Daily prayer of openness, surrender…The Lord’s Prayer (Thy kingdom come...personalize it)...Father, not my will but thine be done…a prayer of offering. Express daily to Jesus your desire to be with him, to allow his love and will full access to your life. You might imagine yourself opening the door to Jesus as you sit down to spend a few minutes reading Scripture, reflecting, praying.
Inspiration
In our Spiritual Formation Group, as we’ve looked at “Discovering Soul Care”, Mindy Caliguire talks about two parts - part that we play, which is what most of our focus has been this morning, our openness, our willingness to be open to God.
But the second part is God’s part. There’s a reason Jesus is knocking at the door. He has so much to offer, so much he wants to give, to pour into our lives. God is GOOD. And he wants to pour that goodness into our lives.
We can’t receive that goodness unless we open ourselves to God.
Really, there’s no comparison - we just have to be open. But God brings his everlasting love…his mercies that are new every morning…the God of all comfort brings - his comfort in midst of our troubles…Jesus gives us peace beyond understanding…guidance…wisdom…power to overcome…rest for our souls
The list goes on. Jesus is so ready to bring this into our lives. That is, if we’re open to it.