Blessings Of Following Christ #2 - We Get To Meet With God Series

Blessings of Following Christ

#2 – We Get to Meet with God

Revelation 3:20

October 28, 2007

NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT USED IN MY MESSAGES IS BORROWED FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."

Me: I’ve been a follower of Jesus for 25 years now. Lord knows I haven’t always been the best follower, and I’ve blown it more times than I can count. I’ve still got a ways to go in terms of maturity in Christ and in wisdom.

One of the greatest truths that I have come across in my life with Christ was the truth that Christ loves me so much that He was not only willing to die for me, but that He wants to spend time with me.

I look at the mirror of my soul and sometimes all I see is garbage. He’s cleaned me up and forgiven me, but sometimes all I can see is the bad stuff, and I have to wonder – “Why would He, the Holy One, want to spend time with me?”

We: Have you ever felt that way? Many of you have; maybe most or all of you.

Or maybe you can look at it this way: we see someone we really admire and we think, “There’s no way that person would ever want to hang out with me.” And when they look at us or call us by name, we’re wondering why they would bother to know our name.

So we come to God and we wonder, “Why would God want to spend time with me? Why would He want to hang out with a broken-down imperfect person like me? Obviously He’s got others He’s rather hang out with – you know, those guys who have it all together spiritually and can quote whole books of the Bible in the original languages and dress just right and never have a bad thought or questions about stuff in the Bible. Or never complain when people don’t use their turn signals.”

Ever thought that?

Well, my hope for today is let you know that Jesus loves spending time with us – not just here on Sunday mornings, but daily, in the quietness of our daily living.

It’s the truth, and if you’re not really able to grasp that, then I just ask that you hang in there for a bit, okay?

God: 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 him, and he with me.”

This verse is often used when talking about a person’s need to open their lives to Christ so they can have their sins forgiven and be given a home in heaven.

But the context of that passage doesn’t say that at all.

In the book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 contain letters Jesus dictated to seven churches. The church in Laodicea was one of these churches.

The church in Laodicea was characterized by their total apathy toward God. They just didn’t care one way or the other.

They were proud of their material wealth, but they were spiritually bankrupt, and because of that, they were lukewarm toward God and the things of God.

Have you ever gone to a water fountain and started to drink, but the water was lukewarm? What’s your first reaction? To spit it out, right?

Well, that’s God’s reaction to the lukewarm Christians in Laodicea – He says in verse 16 of this chapter that He is ready to spit them out of His mouth. Yikes.

But in verse 19 He says that those He loves He rebukes and disciplines, so He’s saying that He still loves these people and wants them to live for Him.

And that’s where verse 20 comes in. He wants these people to renew their love and commitment to Him by renewing their intimate relationship with Him by spending time with Him.

“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.”

This is not an evangelism verse – it’s a “Jesus wants to spend time with you” verse.

For years I used this verse when sharing the gospel, and many of you are familiar with the famous painting that shows Jesus knocking at the door and there’s no latch, meaning that the person inside needs to open the door.

And while it’s true that Jesus wants to come live inside you by His Spirit, this verse isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that Jesus wants to actually be part of the Church and its people.

I don’t know about you, but the fact that Jesus wants to spend time with me just totally blows me away.