God is Knocking, Will You Hear and Answer? (Part 2)

Let’s review what we learned last week and see how much we can remember. We will start by looking at the verse at the center of our study.

Revelations 3:20

“20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Ok, now let’s review some of the highlights and a few of the things we learned that might help us this week as we finish.

Man’s heart, by nature, is shut against God.
God never stops knocking, but people stop hearing God knock because they stop listening or ignore what God wants to show them.
God’s knock is gentle, and He will not force us to open the door of our heart to Him.

There are many ways God might knock on the door of your heart to show you that you are lacking, but we spoke specifically about two.

The first was our conscience. We learned that the conscience is the upset you might feel when you do something God is not pleased with.
The second was the preaching or teaching of God’s word. This is another way we discussed that God might use to knock on our hearts’ door.

Finally, here are a few other things we learned last week:

We talked about the moving of the Holy Spirit with conviction.
We reviewed the lesson of the rich young man that came before Christ, and he learned that the riches of his youth: knowledge of the scriptures, obedience to God’s law, good behavior, strong core values, and success in life were not enough to have a relationship with Jesus.
We learned that Jesus also wants us to forsake the idea that morals and good behavior will save and keep us into eternity. He does not want people to rely on good morals and religion. Jesus wants to have a relationship with us.

So today, we will continue our scripture study on revelations 3:20. Because after God saves us, it doesn’t take long for us to learn we have an enemy. And as you’ve heard, brother Ross says, again and again, the enemy is out to destroy us. The enemy is tricky, and he has methods of destruction that he loves to work on good people that love God. So let’s expose the enemy at his game, and we can learn to defeat him in our lives. The critical thing, young people, for you to win this battle is to always be sensitive to God’s knocking at your heart’s door.

God’s Knock to Us Throughout Our Lifetime.

Song of Solomon 5:2

“2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.”

The book of the Bible Song of Solomon is a love story of two people and the challenges they face during the course of their relationship. We can learn from this book about the challenges we might encounter during our Christian walk, especially when life challenges us and keeping our love for Jesus alive and fresh is at stake. These two lovers are a metaphor of our own relationship with Jesus. Let’s look closely and see what we can learn.

First, the woman knows the goodness of her love, just as we know the goodness of God and His love to us. It is clear these two have a relationship with each other, just as we have a relationship with Christ, but sadly she becomes sleepy. It seems the relationship may no longer be as important to her as before, so it’s probably safe to infer that she is no longer working to keep her love alive and the relationship fresh. Unfortunately, if we are not watchful, this same scenario can happen with us in our walk with Christ, and we can also become sleepy, taking our walk with Jesus for granite.

There are reasons people become spiritually sleepy, and we will explore those reasons. Also, let’s not forget that we have God, but there is also an enemy whose goal is to destroy us, and the enemy works hard to cause spiritual sleepiness. One way the enemy loves to take advantage is through the everyday things of life.

He starts with little things like:

Not having enough time to pray in the morning and making life busier and busier robbing us of time to pray.
The enemy will make it, so we are too busy to study his word.
He’ll cause us to be too busy to make it to worship services.
As you become sleepier and begin to take your relationship with Jesus for granite, prioritizing other things ahead of Christ will be easier.

The woman heard her lover’s knock, but she did not shake off her sleepiness to open the door to him. Have you ever been asleep and then wake up, but you are so tired you might bump into something getting out of bed, and then you run into the walls trying to feel your way to the other room. When first we wake up, we are disoriented, so the woman hears the voice of her beloved and wakes but is not awake enough to open the door to Him. He wants her to open and thank God He ever so lovingly continues to knock, to compel his loved one to open the door to Him. But she must be willing to shake off her sluggishness. Do you hear God knocking? If yes, are you ready to shake off the sleepiness and answer the knock at your heart door?

Ephesians 5:14

“14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. “

Here the scriptures address sleepiness and time. Time should be our chief commodity, and we need to control our time instead of letting it slip away. Setting time aside for God is our responsibility. God can’t do this for us. He gave us free will to choose Him by our initiative but what God will do is continue to knock. When we get off track, God will gently nudge us back on track, and He’ll do it the same way He did before we were saved. Rember what we learned? God will knock through our conscience and our ability to read the word and listen to the teaching. God will sometimes even use other things like conversations with others or a situation to help us understand that He wants us to spend time with Him. We need to work on all our relationships in life. If you have a friend and you never check in with them, how long will you remain this person’s friend? Will the relationship continue to grow? I don’t think so. Our relationship with Jesus works the same way. If we never read the word or talk to Jesus, how will our relationship with Him grow? We might continue to be obedient to a doctrine or a prescribed list of teachings that show outward holiness, but our own righteousness will not be enough without a relationship. We will remain immature babies in Christ.

The Kind of Relationship God Wants to Have With Us

Revelation 3:20

“20 …I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Let’s conclude our scripture study by understanding the last part of Revelation 3:20. The prefix sup comes from the word supper, which refers to the evening meal History teaches us that the evening meal was when families came together to share the day’s events as they ate together. So why do we need to cover this? It seems pretty self-explanatory. The problem is that the concept of supper as coming together to share is lost in families today. No one is to blame for this happening. It’s just the way the family structure has evolved. In many homes, parents work long hours, and kids come home to an empty house or an older sibling. As young people grow up, they take on jobs and go to school. Other families have young people and children in extracurricular activities. So to understand the kind of relationship God wants to have with us, we need to know why these words are used in the scriptures. Otherwise, we will continue to learn about religion but have no idea how to build a relationship with God. And religion without a relationship with Christ will not satisfy the longing in our hearts.

God wants us to come to Him with the events of our day at the end of the evening. He wants to sup with us, sit with us and hear all about our troubles. God wants you to tell Him how much His grace has helped you through the difficult things and share your heartaches, pain, and grief with you. God wants you to reach out to Him during the day and wake up in the morning, giving Him thanks. He is eager to share your life with you to hear your laughter and dry your tears. All this will help you build a relationship with Christ, and you will feel connected to the one who has your life in His care. So if God is knocking, will you open? Answer, and say yes to a relationship with God.

SBT