(Play Mr. Rogers CD)
(enter through door to “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” by Mr. Rogers. Had a temporary door set up on stage)
That song takes many people back to Mr. Rogers. He was a welcoming presence on television for 38 years. There was something warm and inviting about him coming through the door taking off his jacket, putting on his sweater and taking off his shoes, all while inviting you to be his neighbor.
There is something special about a door as a place of welcome or unwelcome. There are things that we can do that make our home inviting or uninviting.
At WFA we try our best to have a welcoming door experience.
We have people like ____________ and ___________ opening the doors, a team of people led by ________________________ that greet you, ushers that hand you a bulletin with a smile, ___________ plays host and tries to show our guests around and make them feel at home. Then there’s YOU. The real measure of the warmth of WFA is YOU. Our goal is that even if a guest decides that WFA isn’t for them, they would leave saying that we are a very warm and friendly church and they felt WELCOME.
What are the most welcoming words that you have ever heard when you were a stranger in a place where others weren’t strangers?
“Hello”, “Come in, make yourself at home”, “Welcome”, “Come, sit by me”, “It is so nice to meet you”, others? Invited to join the conversation. Invited to pull up a chair, invited to share food or drink, welcoming. The title of this two-part message.is “You are Evited”. Why Evited? An Evite is an online invitation that you receive, that requires or requests a response. Attending, Not-Attending, Maybe or Not-yet Replied. The Evitations of Christ need a response. Not-responding is responding.
This door represents the door to WFA. The way we live our lives, the words we speak to guests in the church and outside the church, the expressions on our faces all speak messages.
What are some messages that get spoken in many churches?
- A man with long hair walks into a church and through the eyes of a dear saint, hears “NOT WELCOME”
- “NO long hair”
- A woman with short hair walks into a church and through the eyes and whispers around her hears “NOT WELCOME”
- “NO short hair”
- “NO tattoo’s”
- “NO piercings”
- “NO homosexuals”
- “NO democrats”
- “NO republicans”
- “NO smokers”
- “NO drunks”
- “NO druggies”
When those are the messages that get sent, “WELCOME” gets blocked out. Where else would we want homosexuals to go? Or drug addicts or alcoholics?
Luke 14:12-23
Can you hear the heart of Jesus in those words? “I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL”! He doesn’t say;
“I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL OF PERFECT PEOPLE”.
“I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”.
“I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL OF CLEAN PEOPLE”.
“I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL OF NORMAL PEOPLE”.
You would never hear Jesus say,
“You can’t come in because you have long hair or short hair or no hair or different hair every week like __________.
“You are not welcome because you have the wrong style of clothes”
“You cannot enter because you worship on the wrong day of the week”.
“You cannot enter because you listen to country music” or “Rap”, “Rock” or “Reggae”. Seriously, who listens to Reggae?
His words are Evitational. “Come”
Sometimes invitations come with an ulterior motive. Do you know what I’m talking about?
When I was in Bible College, we were invited to someone’s house we had just met. We had really hit it off, and they invited us to their house for dinner. We were excited to make some new friends so we decided to go. After getting there, we found out we were their targets for a network marketing business.
Have you ever been invited somewhere only to find that there was a catch?
- $100 gift card to Wal-Mart if you listen to a spiel about campground membership.
- Free tix to Disney if you sit through a sales pitch about time shares.
- Free dinner if you attend an insurance or financial planning seminar or fill in the blank.
The invitations of Christ however are pure. He really wants us to “COME to Him”. He wants to spend time with us, with you. He wants us to want to spend time with Him. He knows it’s for our good if we will come to Him.
Listen to Christ’s Evitations. We will cover 3 this week and 2 next week.
1) John 1:39 – “Come and you will see”
That is the first evitation to those who are not yet followers. Come and check me out.
Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in Him!”
If a person will truly check out Jesus Christ, they will see that HE IS GOOD! This is an open invitation. The problem that most people have is they don’t TRULY check out CHRIST, they don’t come to HIM. They come and check out churches, they check out people, they check out the new pastor. They find a hypocrite or two and declare that it’s ALL fake. I passed a church in MO once that had on their sign, “I’d rather go to church with a few hypocrites than to hell with all of them.” How true! His Evitation is to “come and you will see”. Come to HIM!
This invitation was given to two of John’s disciples who had asked Jesus where He was staying. His response was “come and see”. In my vernacular it means, “come and hang out with me and you will see.” If someone can get past all the facades and experience Christ, you WILL want Him. It is interesting to me that the first thing that Andrew did after answering this invitation is found in verses 41-42 – “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.”
“COME AND YOU WILL SEE”. How will you respond to His Evite to ‘taste and see’? After YOU see, you will want others to come and see as well. Which, leads me to the 2nd evitation.
2) Matthew 4:19 – “Come, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men”.
Christ’s evitation here is to give our life purpose. No matter what we do for a job, Christ desires to use us for His glory. If we will follow HIM, He will take us and make us fishers of men. He will use us to make an impact at our workplace. We may drive trucks, cut hair, sell houses or build them but if we follow Christ, He wants to make us effective witnesses. He wants to give our lives meaning and purpose beyond punching a time clock or cashing a paycheck. As a Christian, whatever your occupation, part of the job description is “be a witness for Christ”. Not obnoxiously! Not piously! Not in ways that cause your work to suffer because that will affect your witness to your employer. Be the best worker you can be, even when no one notices. That will be a great witness. Jesus invites you to come to Him so He can make you a fisher of men.
Christmas is a great opportunity to do just that. Let God use you during this season. How will you respond to His Evite to be a fisher of men?
3) John 7:37b-38 – “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
I took several thoughts from this point from Max Lucado’s great book “Come Thirsty”.
God wired you with thirst – a ‘low-fluid indicator’. Let your fluid level grow low, and watch the signals flare. Dry mouth. Thick tongue. Achy head. Weak knees. Deprive your body of necessary fluid, and your body will tell you.
Deprive your soul of spiritual water, and your soul will tell you. Dehydrated hearts send desperate messages. Snarling tempers. Waves of worry. Guilt and fear. You think God wants you to live with these? Hopelessness. Sleeplessness. Loneliness. Resentment. Irritability. Insecurity. These are warnings. Symptoms of a dryness within.
Where do you find water for the soul? Jesus gave an answer one October day in Jerusalem. People had packed the streets for the annual reenactment of the rock-giving-water miracle of Moses. Otherwise known as the Feast of Tabernacles. In honor of their ancestors, they slept in tents. In tribute to the desert stream, they poured out water. Each morning a priest filled a golden pitcher with water from the Gihon spring and carried it down the busy streets to the temple. Announced by trumpets, the priest encircled the altar with water. He did this every day, once a day, for seven days. Then on the last day, the great day, the priest gave the altar a Jericho dousing – seven circles – dousing it with seven vessels of water. It could have been at that moment when Jesus stood.
John 7:37-38 – “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
What H20 can do for your body, Jesus can do for your heart. Lubricate it. Aquify it. Soften what is crusty, flush what is rusty. How? Like water, Jesus goes where we can’t because He is Spirit. The Spirit of Christ flows down the throat of your soul, flushing fears, dislodging regrets. He does for your soul what water does for your body. And thankfully, we don’t have to give Him directions. Just like water. We don’t have to tell the water where to go in our bodies before we drink. Water somehow knows where it’s needed. Jesus knows the same. Your directions are not needed but your permission is. Like water, Jesus won’t come in unless swallowed. That is, we must willingly surrender to His lordship. You can stand waist deep in the Colorado River and still die of thirst. Until you scoop and swallow, the water does your system no good. Until you gulp Christ, the same is true. You can come to church and be surrounded by “water” and still not drink.
Note the audience of His invitation. ‘If anyone thirsts, let Him come to Me and drink”. Are you anyone? If so, then step up to the well. You qualify for His water. All ages are welcome. Both genders invited. No race excluded. Scoundrels. Scamps. Rough. Rigid. All welcome. You don’t have to be rich to drink, religious to drink, successful to drink; you simply need to follow the instructions on what – or better, who – to drink. HIM. In order for Jesus to do what water does, you must let Him penetrate your heart. Deep, deep inside. Internalize Him. Ingest Him. Welcome Him into the inner workings of your life. Let Christ be the water for your soul.
Are you thirsty today? COME. Listen to the evitations of Christ. They are for you!
“Come and you will see”
“Come, follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
What will your response be to His Evite today? Yes, no, maybe? He leaves the choice up to you. Listen to this familiar verse:
Revelation 3:20 – “Listen! I am standing and knocking at your door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together.” (CEV)
John 10:9 goes one step further “I am the door, and the person who enters through me will be saved.”
He is standing at the door of your heart right now, knocking. Do you hear Him? Open that door by faith and He will come in. Will you have a response or an excuse today? Let Him satisfy the deepest places in your heart, where only He can go.
