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| Rev. Brian Wilkie |
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, October 15th, 2017:
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Broadcast Notes:
Welcome to Good News in the Morning, a program of words and music
bringing a message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for an
intelligent, meaningful and spirited approach to Faith and life. Good
News in the Morning is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries and has been
broadcast weekly since 1999. Do visit our Website, GNCM.ca. Here, you
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who deliver the good news to growing numbers of listeners worldwide. They
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support us financially and now here is today's presentation:
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Good Morning! My name is Brian Wilkie,
of Saint Andrew’s Christian Church in Rockland Ontario. As we begin today my
prayer is that the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ would encourage and
strengthen you today.
Standing at the Door
“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. 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 him, and he with me.
To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (NIV)
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. 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 him, and he with me.
To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (NIV)
This is a very powerful passage of
scripture which has been used in evangelism and church teaching for 2,000 years
and we are going to take a closer look at what it means in a few moments. but
first let's listen to a song sung by Michael Card where he offers the plea to
Jesus, “Jesus let us come to know you.” This is from Michael Card’s album The
Life.
The Scripture which I’ve just read,
“Behold I stand at the Door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me,” this verse is given as a
presentation of the call to conversion, to invite everyone, everywhere to
welcome Jesus into their lives and accept his call to follow him. It's an open
invitation in which Jesus is positioning himself as though he's come to your
house; he's describing himself as someone standing there, he's knocked on the
door and he's waiting for your response.
There’s a famous painting of this scene
as it's imagined by an artist of long ago where he paints a garden with a
doorway into a house. It's kind of overgrown and neglected and Jesus stands
there with a lantern and he's knocking on the door. After the painting was
finished people would remark upon it that, oddly, the painter had left out one
detail: he hadn't put a handle on the door. The painter responded by saying
that it was fully intentional: the door can only be opened from the inside.
Jesus knocks on the door and awaits our response he won’t force himself in on
us. This is a very good understanding of the way that Jesus allows us to make
our choices, even choices that that are not the right ones. He hopes that we
will turn to him when we discover that we need him so much.
The passage, in fact, speaks to
people who think they don't need anything more. This passage in Revelation has
Jesus addressing its recipients as people who say that they're rich, that they
have got wealth and they don't need anything. They've got fine clothing, nice
homes. They've got everything they could want and Jesus says, ‘if only you
knew.’
He seems to be saying - and he
certainly is saying the truth - that these things which count as our comfort
and security for this moment and in this life are pitiful things, are small
things and absolutely inadequate to meet our our needs as human beings, as
people created in the image of God and as heirs or potential heirs of eternal
life. These riches that we exalt, this fascination we have with our own stuff
and with our own accomplishments. These are the things from which God calls us.
He knocks on the door and says, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden
and I will give you rest.”
He says it to the weary and heavy-laden
and he also says it to these people who think they're rich and doing well.
Jesus is a gracious savior calling
people who know that I need Salvation, and even calling out to people who
haven't yet realized that what they have is certainly not enough to bring them
through life and death with God's grace.
This is a true offer Fellowship from
God. He is offering to come in. In the image of the scene he's offering to come
in and sit down and eat with you and to go out with you and to be your constant
companion through life. He is not only the one who will eat with you but also
the Bread of life, the one who will feed you. He is the River of Life, the one
who will restore you and strengthen you. He is all things, everything that we
need.
He is also, In this passage, someone
who is willing to say the hard truths. He says, “Those whom I love, I rebuke
and discipline!” Have you been feeling some rebuke in your life? Feeling the
realization that some things that you're doing have been hurting others? That
your life is not measuring up to the glory of God, that you have indeed fallen
short? This is not some condemnation from God in which he is rejecting you, but
in fact it's part of his love for you that he would help you to realize the
need to turn around and come to him.
God is offering a true invitation to
give you his blessing, his counsel, his guidance, his forgiveness and eternal
life! He calls upon you to accept His gracious invitation.
In the image of Scriptures it looks
like getting up and answering the door. It's a simple as that! It's a beautiful
invitation, if you've never accepted before, to begin a walk with Jesus Christ.
But perhaps perhaps you've noticed, as
we read the Bible reading this morning or if you read this passage before, you
might have noticed that Jesus isn't primarily addressing someone who doesn't
believe in him. In fact this whole passages is addressed to the church, the
people of God, in Laodicea, people who have accepted Christ, people who have
already welcomed Jesus into their hearts. So what is Jesus saying to believers
when he says that he's outside our door as well? Well, we're going to take a
further look at this, we’re going to examine this closely: but first let's
listen to a song by The King's Heralds in which they express their own belief
that, although they are believers, “If we ever needed the Lord before,” they
say, “we sure do need him” now let's listen to this together.
So, although the scripture is often used
to address people who have not started following Christ, Jesus is actually
addressing a group of Christians in this particular passage. A group of
Christians who have lost their focus. He describes them as people who've lost
their humility, their sense of worship and, above all, are lacking in their
love of God. He describes them in rather harsh terms he says, “you're not or
hot or cold. you’re lukewarm and since you're not either hot or cold, I'm ready
to spit you out of my mouth!”
It is not a pleasant image. It sounds
like the Three Bears, you know where one bit of porridge is too hot, one bowl
of porridge is too cold: but here the third bowl of porridge is just
nothing! It's so bland and so tasteless that there's nothing to endear it to the
one who has it. Jesus is describing a group of Christians who have become bland
and tasteless in their Christian walk. In fact as we hear the description, we
hear something that makes us think that this group of Christians might actually
be offensive. He describes in those people who are so full of themselves,
confident that they're rich and they have everything they need. There's a tinge
of a sense of superiority that they're better than everybody else. These
Christians have lost a great deal and one of the things they've certainly lost
is a good testimony in the community around them. This isn't a unique
situation, in fact scripture, of course, is given not just to document what
happened in the past but tells us a lot about the dangers that we face as we
pursue Christ in our lives. Here is the danger of being lukewarm, of being so
confident and presumptuous of what we've received that we no longer seek after
Jesus with all our hearts. The world around us notices when this happens and
perhaps, if you been listening to this message and you been thinking about the
call of Jesus to become a Christian, you've got in mind some Christians that
have become like these who were in Laodicea, people who don't show the love of
Christ in the way they live.
Jesus is calling to the church to be
more like him, to be filled with his love, to be humble both in their dealings
with with God and with humanity; To live as far as possible in peace with all
people. Jesus is calling to his church as though the church while it goes through
all the motions of worship and study and fellowship together they might have
locked Jesus out of the house. They might have have left him right out of the
picture.
It's the call of Jesus not to a church
which he hates but a church which he loves. It is a church which falls far
short of what they could be through his Holy Spirit and through his love. The
church is not made of bricks and wood and steel frame, it is made up of people.
If the people of God are ready to listen to the word of the Lord he tells them
that he has been left out of their worship and he's been left out of their
lives and he calls them to repentance, just as they were called at the very
beginning to turn away from sin, they're called to turn away from this new sin:
the sin of of appearance and pride which has led them away from Christ.
To me this word comes as a rebuke and a
correction to turn my heart more to Jesus to not leave him out of any part of
my life. If you, as a Christian, have been letting Jesus stand aside while you
go your own way, remember, remember, remember, that he who calls you is
faithful and that he intends to be your companion and your friend in every
season and every portion of life. In fact we learned long before, when we first
turned to Jesus, that we could do nothing apart from him. How have we
forgotten, having once been filled with the power of the Holy Spirit do we
think we're to run on that like a tank which eventually runs dry? Or could we
be constantly filled with God's presence? Are to continue to seek Him that we
found him? Continue to pursue him now that we're following him? Yes indeed we
are! God calls us to open the door and let him back into our lives both individually
and in our worship Sunday, our study during the week and whenever else we are
doing the things of God. We can't leave God out of our worship or our mission
when we go when we feed the hungry when we go and we take the good news to
others we can't do it purely by technique or ritual but we must continue to
seek to have God present in everything we do.
He stands at the door and waits. Will
you open it?
Perhaps you don't relate to what I've
been saying so far but you have been feeling kind of tired and alienated from
your Christian practices. You have been finding your scripture reading dry,
even finding it hard to get out and go to church in the morning, even finding
it difficult to work yourself up to the ministry and service that you've done
in the past. Is it possible that just taking a little bit of time to let Jesus
come and work anew in your heart, to feed you again from his own life, to
strengthen you with his own presence - perhaps that might be the key to being
restored in your walk with Christ and with his body. There's an opportunity
here for us as Christians to hear anew the invitation that he stands at the
door and knocks and we can invite him in.
I hope that those of you who have seen,
from the outside, the problems the church are listening to this message and
recognizing that God is calling his Christian people to be more faithful, to be
more full of the Holy Spirit, to have more love in their hearts. The fact that
we fall short is a ‘given’ in scripture and we have to keep on recognizing that
as Christians. But to those who have not yet accepted Christ we urge you to
look at how faithful he's been to us. He continues to call us even when we have
fallen short. He continues to reach out and draw us and offer us his presence.
We want you to know that the invitation he’s given to you still stands. If we
have been imperfect witnesses to his grace and Glory we repent. We ask God's
forgiveness and we also ask the forgiveness of those who have been hurt by our
insensitivity and our failure to be faithful to Jesus.
Humbly we would still remind the world
around us that Jesus is still standing at your door knocking as well. Will you
prayerfully turn to Jesus and ask him to come in to set right what is wrong in
us. Not merely so that we will have eternal life but so that we will not be a
barrier to others as they seek to see Jesus in his church.
I pray that you will see Jesus in his
invitation as you will come to him and experience his presence and Grace.
In fact let's take some time at the end
of this message here to pray and to ask God to let us respond and open the door
to him.
Almighty God,
you have been faithful: patiently waiting for us to respond to you. You have
been gracious whether we've fallen in sin outside of our relationship with you
or whether we fell back in sin while we have been walking with you. You are
gracious and still love us and we give you thanks and praise. We pray, Almighty
God, for renewal in our hearts for your presence with us; that you would come
back and be in our midst. Lord, we pray this for your church that throughout
this country and throughout the world that the church would be renewed in truth
and love and that the world would see that we have indeed become passionate for
you again; that we are seeking you with all our heart and we are serving you
with humility and with Grace. We pray that the world as they see this, they
will see that this is you inviting them to come and receive you as their
Savior. Thank you that this grace is available to all people; that you gave the
sign of the fullness of your love when you offered your life on the cross so
that we could be forgiving our sins. We pray that all people everywhere might
come to know you as their Lord and Savior in Jesus’ name, Amen
Thank you for listening today please
continue to listen as we play a song which invites you again to ‘Come As You
Are’ sung by Jaci Velasquez from her album Crystal Clear.
Rev. Brian Wilkie
St.
Andrew's Christian Community,
Rockland, Ontario
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To listen to the
above broadcast, click on the following link:
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