“The Living Room and the Work Room”

“My Heart, Christ’s Home” part II

Psalm 1:1-3, Mark 6:30-31, John 15:1-7

May 8, 2005

First Presbyterian Church Carson City

Pastor Bruce Kochsmeier

 Purpose: For people to learn practically what it means and looks like to have Jesus take up residence in their lives.

      Whether or not we do it consciously every one of us is searching for meaning.  We all want a life that matters; that gives us a deep sense that being here is truly satisfying.  And whether we realize it or not we all are confronted by and may attempt myriad ways of finding this meaning.  Every generation invents seemingly new attempts, but they are all essentially the same thing; attempts to fill a longing for significance that is inside every one of us.

     Jesus said we will never know this satisfaction until we are quenched by the water that he alone can provide.  He was very exclusive about this because he came to love us and he knew we would never know the love we need until we let ourselves truly fall in love with him.

     That’s why we began this journey last week of allowing Jesus Christ to truly make his home in our hearts.  Because until we have Jesus Christ as the God of all there is living in the center of our lives we will not know the wholeness that we long for.  Today we consider what it means to experience Jesus in the living room of our lives.

     To know this experience of Jesus in the living room of our lives the Psalmist says we will be happy, blessed, literally, “on the right track” when we are not following the advice of the wicked or taking the path that sinners tread, or sitting in the seat of scoffers, but delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on it day and night.  David says in this Psalm that the person who does this will be like a tree planted by streams of water.  So the key to the living room is being planted.  Are we planted in Jesus?  Are we delighting in God’s word such that it is what we turn on morning and night?  Are we sitting down with Jesus in the living room and letting him teach us because it is what makes HIM joyful? 

     We too easily think that if we aren’t letting Jesus nurture us every day, morning and night that WE are the only ones who might miss out.  But God created us for relationship with himself.  Jesus died and rose again so that he could have us for himself.  When we aren’t in the living room every day with Jesus we are depriving him of the relationship he died to have with us!

     I just love it when I get a chance to watch God make a difference in someone’s life.  It’s like watching fruit come on to a tree.  My friend Dennis Knowlton is showing this to me.  Dan Belcher is showing this to me.  They ask these great questions that can only come as a result of letting God us use to grow his produce.  Thursday in our men’s group Dennis asked, “Why don’t we hear it when God has something great to tell us?  Why does he have to whack us on the head (or heart) to get us to pay attention to such a blessing?  It’s a great question.  Why do we NOT curl up in the living room with Jesus when he has the very BEST there is to teach us about this life and our place in it?  Because we are sinful.  Because we are listening to the advice of the world, following the world’s view of what is right, and believing the voices who say that God’s word isn’t really authoritative rather than being like a tree planted by the river of God’s word; delighting in it.

     Oh my friends here is the treasure that we miss because we don’t trust and delight in God’s word as simply that, God’s word.  So subtly and easily we miss this because we think we can live without it for a day or more.  But that is like trying to live without laughter and love for a day – which too many of us try to, do too often.  To not spend time with God in the living room of our lives is to attempt to live without joy.  To do this is not to live at all, but at best simply to exist.

     One of my youth pastors, (you knew it had to take more than one to raise me, especially since junior high was SIX of the best years of my life), one of them, Ben Patterson has recently written a book titled, “He Has Made Me Glad” on the subject of joy.  In it, Ben describes two ways that joy can come to us.  He says that “One [way] is for it to sprout slowly and richly, as a seed does in a field: sowing tears and reaping joy, seeds turning gradually into bushels and bundles.  But another way for joy to come is suddenly and tumultuously, like streams in the desert of the Negev.  When they do come they bring flash floods with them.  I’ve stood in a desert, sweltering in blistering dry heat, and watched thunderheads pour rain on a mountain miles away.  I know better than to stand in a dry streambed when that happens, for when the water comes it will roar down, a watery wall that carries away everything in its path.  Joy can be that way too”, he writes.

     Ben asks the question, “What kind of joy do you want?  True, joy is joy either way, and both bring an abundance of delight.  But if we put stipulations on the way God comes to us, he may not come at all.”  Or, as in “My Heart, Christ’s Home” we may race by the room not even remembering that God is there.  Ben points out, “Remember, the Holy Spirit is sovereignly unmanageable.  He reserves the right to be God and appear when and how he wills.”

     When it comes to experiencing the joy of Christ in the living room of our lives I suspect many of us have been living in a joyless desert where we have even missed risk of flash flood because we simply haven’t made time to let God’s Holy Spirit blow upon us.  It’s time to get our feet wet and more.  It’s time to be planted by the river of God’s word and let the wonder of God’s Holy Spirit drench us with his presence so much so that we are so soaked the joy and delight in knowing God drips all over those around us; such that it penetrates us down to our soul; such that we can’t keep from laughing out loud. 

     Way too often if we experience anything approximating the presence of God’s Holy Spirit it is not a drenching but a dry cleaning!  We need a joy that is lavish and even messy and certainly beyond our control or definition.

     It is in this joy that Jesus leads us out to the work room to surprise us once more.  Without joy; when we are not delighting in being present with God there is really nothing significant that can come out of our lives in terms of fruit.  Oh we might accomplish a lot, but it won’t really matter.  That’s why we keep trying to make and acquire more stuff.  And it only exhausts us.  Jesus could see that in the disciples and he sees it in us.  That’s why he calls them away to the other side of the lake; to rest, to be fed and to be equipped to abide in him so that great amounts of fruit may produced. 

     You may not think anything great can come out of your life for God.  You may think that’s only my job or someone more spiritual, but God wants YOU to know the joy that comes from having him pour out his good news into someone’s life through YOU.  And when we let ourselves go to the work room with Jesus; when we abide in him, when we let God‘s Holy Spirit take hold of our very practical lives things WILL happen because it will not be us doing it, but God pouring his amazing grace through us.  There’s no other substance in the world that will do what God’s grace can do for the broken, sinful state of humanity and the exciting news is that Jesus Christ wants to speak of this good news to someone through you.  He wants to change you life and change lives through YOU.  God’s Holy Spirit will unleash that current of joy that is missing as we let him make his home in our hearts and as we spend time letting him mentor us.   

     Every one of us wants this.  It is the longing of our hearts.  It is God’s longing for us.  It is the longing of the world that Jesus has commissioned us to be pouring his lavish joy upon.  The way to know this joy is to be daily abiding in the living room, allowing the peace and power and delight of God’s Holy Spirit to inform us and set us free.  It is in this freedom that we will be led into the work room of life; to the streets and the living rooms and bedrooms of people who are longing to experience this same joy.  And in these places God will use us to make his joy abundantly known.  There’s no time for anything less.  Come let us spend time with Jesus learning today how to be instruments of his joy in the world.  Amen.