Opening The Door To Jesus Series

Revelation 3:20 October 12, 2003

Opening the Door to Jesus

In Mid September Roger and Sue Mitchell returned to Mississagua as a follow up on the Church_SHIFT Conference. I was out of town with family so I was not able to go, but I heard a recording of Sue Mitchell’s talk from the Sunday Evening Session. While she said many important things, and you can listen to her on tape, the one thing that caught my ear was that the year between this September and next September is a year of Alignment for the church - that the church and individuals in the church are to spend this year preparing for a work that God is doing next September, and we prepare by aligning our will with his, our person with his.

The whole move of church shift is to get our minds off the church as an institution that meets on Sunday morning and realize that we are the church – therefore you are the church in what ever spheres of life you walk in – if you work at a bank, you are the church in that bank – if you are a stay home parent, you are the church h in your home, at you kid’s school, at hockey practice – you are the church, the body of Christ

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

You are an ambassador for Christ in every area of you life. And this does not mean that we only act morally and ethically and try to take advantage of opportunities to evangelize the people around you – it means far more than this to take the image of the kingdom being yeast, the presence of Christ in you is to permeate the whole structure of the sphere of life that you are in, and it is to transform the structure of that structure just as yeast transforms the structure of the bread!

The question is “how can we even think of being the church in the world if our faith is lukewarm as the Laodiceans are described.

I had coffee this week with Lynn Marsh – She’s the pastor over at Danforth Baptist, and we were talking about how if we are going too see our people be the church in their sphere’s of influence, that we can no longer live just on the surface of Faith, relationship and understanding, there must be a depth to us as Christians.

Another thing that church shift teaches is that the one of the purposes on the gathering of the church on Sunday mornings is to equip us to be the church in the world. At this time I don’t think that means we do workshops on Christian business practice, or how to be a better banker, social worker, teacher, painter, plumber, but we should be equipping you to go deeper into God!

If we are deep with God, we can hear his voice and his ways in our place of work and life. He will give us the wisdom, the insight, the compassion, the mercy, the justice that we need so that people will see our good works and praise the father in heaven

This is why I want to return to the Church in Laodicea today. I particularly want to return to verse 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.”

The image reminds me of a spouse who’s partner has shut down emotionally so that one day he shouts “I’m here knocking, won’t you just let me in!”

Are you letting God into you life? Are you letting him into every area of your life?

Are there areas that you are holding back? Maybe because it is just not proper to talk about such things with God, maybe because there is shame involved, maybe because there you’re not so sure that the feelings that you have over that area of life are holy.

Psalm 62:8 says

Trust in him at all times, O people;

pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our refuge.

Pour out you heart to him – pour it all out

I remember coming here to a prayer and worship time. It was one of those days when I was grumpy with something, I just didn’t know what yet, but I was going to find out! I was just fit to be tied when I came into the church, and the song that was playing said I’ve given you my heart, and all that is within. And I said “Oh God, you don’t want what is in my heart right now.”