Make Room in Your Heart for Christ
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2009 · 29 November 2009
We have three Sundays left before we celebrate Christmas. We can already see that many people are real busy shopping and thinking about what to buy for whom. But God is not interested in all that outside stuff; He only looks at the condition of our hearts. And in these following Sundays I would like to have our hearts more focused on Jesus.
How do you make room in your heart for Christ? How is the heart prepared to receive Christ and follow Him? This is a very basic and important question. It is especially important for those of us who do have Christ dwelling in our heart but do not yet have a clear understanding of what that means.
When you read the letters of Paul it is amazing how he never tires of telling us how we became Christians. In Romans 6:6 he says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that . . . we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” In 1 Corinthians 1:27, "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
In 2 Corinthians 3:3 he says, "You are a letter . . . written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." In Ephesians 2:5 he says, "He made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” Paul reminds us again and again how we came to have Christ dwelling in our hearts.
I can say personally that there are at least four effects of how Christ came to dwell in my heart. It makes me love Christ more, it makes me need the Holy Spirit more, it deepens my security in the love of God, and it humbles me and makes me want to follow Him every day.
So how is the heart prepared to receive Christ and what does that mean? Tonight’s answer to that question comes from Matthew 16:13–20 which explains how to recognizing Jesus for who He really is and then how that changes your every day life.
“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
“16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
“18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.”
In this text Jesus asks the disciples personally, "Who do you say that I am?" The first step in preparing our hearts to receive Christ is by recognizing who He really is. First He asks what people say, but then He wants to know what we personally think of Jesus.
In this text Peter answers for the group in verse 16: "You are the Christ [the long-awaited Messiah] the Son of the living God." Jesus says Peter is blessed for giving that answer. So now the question becomes, how did Peter come to have this true insight into the identity of Jesus Christ, how did he know who He really was?
Verse 17 gives the answer of Jesus, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” To recognize Jesus for who he really is, you need something more than flesh and blood.
Every person who has ever been converted to Christ became a Christian on the basis of a limited understanding of what was really happening. So don't be surprised that there may be biblical descriptions of what happened to you that you may not yet understand. It takes a lifetime to grasp the depth and wonder of the miracle of conversion to Christ.
Let's ask some questions to unfold the meaning of Matthew 16:17. What does Jesus mean when He says, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you"? And what is being affirmed when Jesus says, "My Father in heaven has revealed this to you"?
1 Corinthians 15:50 says, "I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."
The meaning is that ordinary human nature cannot enter the Kingdom of God. But there will have to be a change. There will be a spiritual body, similar yet different. Flesh and blood is man in his present limited, ordinary state.
So when Jesus denies that "flesh and blood" has revealed his true identity to Peter, He is saying that mere human powers by themselves cannot recognize the true glory of Christ. Neither your humanity nor anyone else's has opened the eyes of your heart to recognize the truth and beauty of Christ.
The natural man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Why not? Because (as Paul says) apart from the Spirit of God we inevitably assess heavenly things as "foolish."
Apart from the work of God in our hearts we don't like the humiliating implications of Christmas: that we are under a curse and need a Savior, that we are dirty and need a Purifier, that we are lost sheep and need a Shepherd, that we are terminally ill and need a Physician, that we are rebels and need a Mediator and Reconciler.
What does Jesus mean in Matthew 16:17 when He says, "My Father in heaven has revealed this to you"? How does God reveal the true identity of his Son to an individual person?
Let us look at one illustration of how Jesus expected people to recognize him for who he really was. In Matthew 11:2–6 John the Baptist is struggling with doubt about Jesus in the prison. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you He who is to come, or shall we look for another?"
He says in Matthew 11:4-6, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me."
The work of God in revealing His Son both then to John and Peter (and now to you and me) is NOT the adding of what they saw and heard in Jesus himself, but the opening of their eyes of their hearts to taste the divine glory of Jesus.
But making room in your heart means more than just understanding who Jesus really is. Let’s go back to what follows verse 17 where God revealed this knowledge of Jesus being the Messiah to Peter. Verse 18, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” What does this mean to you and me?
For more than 1500 years the Catholic Church has maintained that this means that the church was built on the apostle Peter. But it was not on Peter himself that the church is built, but on all the apostles as His appointed and inspired teachers of the gospel. Paul himself says in Ephesians 2:20 that the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
The Lord is building His church on the truth of Himself, and because the apostles were endowed with His truth in a unique way, by the preaching of that truth they were the foundation of His church in a special way. And we too are partakers of this truth and we too have to continue to build the church by following Him.
Jesus continues in Matthew 16:18 and says that “the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” What people fear the most is death itself and here Jesus says that even death has no power to hold God’s redeemed people. Death will be defeated by the cross! Be strong and courageous in following Him, do not fear death.
And then Jesus says in verse 19, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Here Jesus speaks about the authority of the church to declare what is divinely forbidden or permitted on earth! John 20:23 says, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Here Jesus tells us that the church has power to discipline unrepentant members.
In other words the church as a body of true believers has the right to tell an unrepentant brother that continues in repeated blatant sin that he or she is out of line with God’s Word and that he therefore has no right to fellowship with God’s people in church.
And then we come to Matthew 16:20 where we read, “Then Jesus warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.” For many this is a perplexing verse. Why did Jesus say that? Why wouldn’t He want everyone to know that He is the Messiah?
We find the answer in the next verses where Jesus explains to his disciples that He has to die on the cross for the sins of the world, that He had to suffer and be humiliated to pay the price for our sin and that the disciples. That thought was very strange for Peter and the apostles at that moment.
Let us read the following verses, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, "Never, Lord!" he said, "This shall never happen to you!" 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
A few moments before Peter was praised by Jesus for giving the correct answer as to the identity of Jesus and now a little bit later he was rebuked because Satan had influenced his mind. The disciples of Jesus were not ready to tell it to the world because they themselves did not understand what Jesus was teaching them. And we too are not effective Christians if we do not understand this.
Peter and the apostles did not understand that Christ Jesus was not a physical conqueror who came to set the Jews free from Roman oppression as they had hoped, but instead was a suffering Servant who came to set the whole world free from the oppression of sin and the devil for those who believe.
And because the apostles at that time had not suffered yet they were not allowed to tell others that Jesus was the Messiah. They did not understand that recognizing who Jesus is was not enough, they needed to take the next step to take up their cross, which means to deny themselves, deny their fleshly wishes, and do the wishes of God in their life.
This second step we could clearly see after the resurrection of Jesus in all the remaining apostles. They all became fearless in proclaiming the gospel and setting an example of what this second step means. And except for the apostle John all others picked up their cross and were martyred.
Taking up your cross and following Him daily does not mean that we have to live with a particular difficult life circumstance or endure a handicap of sorts or deal with a debilitating injury or suffering with sickness or with poverty and hunger. No. Many think that their particular life circumstance is their cross but that is wrong.
But the real meaning of picking up your cross is not that, it is to deny our own fleshly desires, to deny that we are the most important in our life, to deny that life is all about satisfying our desires. Picking up our cross means that we live every day to do the things of God; we live to focus on loving Him and loving others and witnessing to others.
Still many Christians do not understand that precisely through denying ourselves God will make us more like Jesus. Shortcuts to instant wealth and health are there to lead us astray and deceive us on how to follow Jesus. Love and humility and serving only come through putting in practice denying our wishes and doing the will of God daily.
"Deny" (Greek aparneomai) means to disown, disregard, forsake, renounce, or reject. The application is to subdue the flesh and bring it under submission to the highest authority. This is not negative, such as denying oneself something, but rather it is positive action.
It is saying "No" to self-will in order to say "Yes" to what Jesus Christ wills you to do. This enables you to let Jesus be truly Lord of your life allowing you to enjoy the benefits of being a child of God.
To take up your cross daily was also well understood by men such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him to come and die." This means death to self and to become obedient to God's calling.
This is the symbolic meaning of taking up the cross. The cross is a symbol of death. When someone carried a cross down the road to the place of his execution, he forgets all worldly issues, because death is near. In picking up our cross our focus is no longer on our worldly needs and dreams anymore, it is all only for Jesus now.
Henry Blackaby says that when he is seeking the Lord’s direction and the Lord’s will, he has to reach the place where he can honestly go before the Lord with no will of his own in the matter. Then he is able to pray and find the Lord’s direction.
How shall you prepare your heart this Christmas to receive Christ? Fix your gaze on him in his Word. Look to Christ! Consider Jesus. And pray that God would give you eyes to see and ears to know Him. And then with that understanding pick up your cross daily for your good and His glory.
Are you making room in your heart for Christ this season of advent? What is it that fills up your life? Is it work or is it a desire for more stuff or is it focused on Jesus? Let us remember again what Yesus did for us on that cross and celebrate the Lord’s Supper.