“Someone is Knocking”
By: Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
I was speaking with my parents on the telephone a few days ago. As most of you know they recently moved to Kentucky.
I asked them how they are doing in their church-hunting, and they told me that they have been attending a large United Methodist Church, but there is another church building in their neighborhood, a church building which has been standing vacant for several months after having been closed down due to a dwindling membership.
But there is a group who are hoping to be able to re-open and revive this particular church.
So, my eighty year-old mother and father told me, matter-of-factly, that they will be meeting at the church building on Saturdays for prayer, and then going out in the neighborhood to, of all things, put up door hangers in an effort to bring this church back to life!
Of course my dad always has to add a joke: “Sorry Ken but we won’t be putting any of your cards around.”
Yes, my eighty-year-old parents are putting up door hangers to try and bring back to life a church they have never attended…
…to bring back to life a church they have never had anything to do with in a neighborhood they have just recently moved into.
When I think about this, it makes sense. My parents have always helped make a place, wherever they have lived, better than it was before they got there.
And isn’t this what we are all called to do as Christ’s disciples?
What an exciting calling!!!
I wonder how God will use this church once it is back up and running again.
I wonder how many folks in the neighborhood my parents just moved into do not have a church home, do not know the Lord, do not know the love and benefits which come from belonging to a community of faith.
I look forward to hearing about how the Lord uses their efforts.
I also wonder how many folks in the neighborhoods around us, and around our church do not have a church home, don’t know the Lord, and don’t know the love and benefits which come from belonging to a community of faith.
If statistics can be counted on…
…there are lots.
What would happen if all of us, young, middle age, and even eighty years old and up would come together and pray for our church, then go out into our neighborhoods and put up door hangers?
How would the Lord use our efforts?
I’d be really excited to find out—how about you?
We’ve got the door hangers, we’ve got the people, there really is no legitimate excuse for us not to be doing this on a regular and consistent basis.
One day Jesus told His disciples: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Are we willing to say: “Here I am Lord, send me”?
In our Lesson from Revelation for this morning Jesus is speaking to a church that is about to be closed down.
Evidently there is an air of apathy about the place.
The folks have closed their hearts and minds to Christ.
They appear to be pretty well-off as far as worldly goods are concerned, but spiritually speaking Jesus says they are: “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
At the church in Macon, Georgia where I was associate pastor, the senior pastor gave a sermon on this passage.
He called it “The Church that Made Jesus Sick.”
I thought that was a pretty inventive title, and pretty much right on target as well.
Beginning at verse 15 Jesus declares: “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.”
I knew a music director who took her Youth Choir on a mission trip to the city of Chicago.
They helped a fledgling downtown church with their Vacation Bible School among other things.
One church they visited was not downtown, but uptown…
…they were in the part of town where the money was.
I remember the choir director telling me: “I had never seen such fantastic facilities in a church. They had this great big kitchen with a walk-in freezer. They had Sunday school rooms, so many Sunday school rooms. And, oh, their playground! Wow, they had the finest playground equipment. But they had no children.
It was the saddest sight I saw on the entire trip!”
Apparently, this church was rich in the worldly sense, but spiritually they were lukewarm at best!
Kind of makes you sick, does it not?
In our Lesson for this morning Jesus tells the Church in Laodicea that they have acquired much worldly wealth, and therefore, do not feel as if they need anything else.
As I quoted before, Jesus, instead, calls them poor.
And is this not how it truly is?
Often those who have the most of the world’s junk are those who are truly the most poor, indeed.
So Jesus tells them that they ought to become rich in the heavenly sense.
“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 overcome your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”
My goodness. This church that has all this worldly material stuff…
…well…
…Jesus tells them that they are, in reality, not only poor but also naked—implying that they are not even saved…
…they have not had their clothing washed white by the blood of Christ…
…and they are also blind!!!…
…spiritually blind, I suppose!
They must be blind to their own need of Jesus as Savior and Lord and also blind to the call on their lives, to spread the Good News of Christ to a dying world.
“The harvest is ripe, but the workers are few.”
In verse 19, though, Jesus tells them He loves them.
Jesus loves them despite the fact that they are blind to their need for Him.
Jesus loves them despite the fact that they are not using their gifts to spread His Good News.
Jesus loves them despite the fact that their deeds are making Him sick!!!
So He councils them: “be earnest, and repent.”
This means that they are to honestly be sorry for what they have done in the past, and make a complete 180 degree turn.
“Here I am,” declares the Lord of Lords, “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.”
Apparently this church is blind, but not deaf!
I don’t think Jesus is knocking in vain.
Will they hear that it is He knocking?
And when knowing that Jesus is knocking, will they be willing to open the door, invite Him in, and allow Him to warm the place up?
We might say to this question: “Of course they will.”
But not everyone wants Jesus to come in and eat with them, to make His abode in their hearts, shall we say.
Many folks would much rather He just stay outside!
What will happen when my eighty-year-old parents go “knocking on doors”, if you will, in the name of Christ…
…putting up door hangers in their new neighborhood in Kentucky?
Will everyone they speak to or will every home that receives a door hanger be receptive to their offer?
It’s highly doubtful, but all things are possible with Christ.
Will some folks respond favorably?
More than likely, yes!
Jesus has called us to be fishers of people, and I know that many of us have done more than our share of fishing.
Some days, it seems as if every time we put our line in the water something grabs a hold of the line.
Other days, nothing bites at all.
If we fish on a regular basis, on a consistent basis, though, we will bring in a good catch.
The same goes with evangelism.
It must be done regularly, consistently…
…it must be done—period!!!
And when it is done, God will bring in a harvest, “yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
What will God do with our efforts?
Are we willing to work in God’s harvest field?
In our Lesson for this morning, after Jesus tells us that He is knocking, and will come into anyone who hears and opens the door, He adds: “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.”
We overcome when, through Christ, we overcome this world.
We overcome when, through Christ, we realize that we are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
We overcome when, through Christ, we become rich, and clothed in white.
We overcome when, by allowing Christ to put salve on our eyes, we are able to see.
We overcome when, we allow Christ to love us despite our sin.
We overcome when, we are earnest and repent.
We overcome when, we hear Jesus knocking on the door of our hearts and we let Him in!!!
“These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.”
He knows our deeds.
He knows whether or not we are cold, hot or just lukewarm.
May we allow Christ to adjust us to the right temperature so that we can do His good work!!!
And let’s all grab some door hangers to put up in our neighborhoods as we leave this morning.
In the words of the hymn we are about to sing,
“It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in it’s glowing. That’s how it is with God’s love once you’ve experienced it; you spread his love to everyone, you want to pass it on.”
Let us pray the prayer of Ignatius of Loyola: Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward, except that of knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
