In 1970 a love song debuted sung by Dawn and Tony with Tony dreaming of a downstairs neighbor that he would like to dance with whom he had fallen in love with having only glanced at her a few times. Him being shy wanted the neighbor to make the first move toward formal introductions. The chorus lyrics go like this, “Oh, my darling, knock three time on the ceiling if you want me. Twice on the pipe if the answer is no.”
A number of years have passed by for the early church and they are seeing God do powerful things. In between moments of revival, the Jewish church along with Romans continued to antagonize and to silence this uprising of people who are followers of Jesus or what was termed as The People of the Way. Peter by this time has had a number of powerful moments with God, Gentiles also came to the knowledge of Jesus, and disciples and apostles in the faith are moving outward at an accelerated pace. To hope to quell the upsurge it was decided that if a leader was taken down that maybe it would quiet this movement and eventually it will die. So Peter is in prison and miraculously an angel sets him free. He goes over to Mary’s house, the mother of John Mark, and knocks on the gate. Rhoda goes to see who is knocking and when she recognized Peter’s voice she ran to the brethren inside who thought she was losing it that she only thinks it is Peter but it is Peter’s ghost because after all Peter was sentenced to die.
I build all of this and now tie in my illustration to say this: how do we respond to knocking on the door of our hearts? We see there are two general responses. The first response is one of joy and jubilation. Many of us have seen or maybe we’ve experienced it that when someone is newly a Christian that everything is amazing. His grace, His love, His forgiveness…Although there is a struggle with sin and temptation, we make best efforts to attend church. It isn’t that we are nervous about the people in the church but it is because being a Christian is new including what and where and how to get involved. Everything is new and an experience. So to avoid sensory overload perhaps we missed a service or two in our early days to try to process what God is wanting to do in our lives. But the point is that there is joy in being clean. Cuss words we uttered like an open sewer now make us cringe when we hear them. Our hearts become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit as well as knowing that our hearts have temptations and battles. We desire accountability. We eagerly share our zeal. We share our hope. And this is Rhoda. She loves Jesus; she loves the people of God; and everything is cool and awesome. She believes in miracles. She truly believes God can and will respond to prayer. She is at this prayer meeting and her prayers are indeed touching the throne room of God.
I wish to pause for a moment to segregate the “mature” Christians into two categories because there are indeed two separate and distinct groups. There are the old draft-horse Christians who continue week after week grinding away and who remain faithful unto God toward the things of God even if their body and mind are slowing and beginning to betray them. They dutifully attend church events and remain faithful to the things of God because they know that someone has to do it and their love and passion for Jesus is strong enough and their love for souls is strong enough to continue to propel them on. Morning prayer, giving, serving, etc. continues faithfully in their lives. I also wish to add that these are the Christians (this specific group) who do the things of God with only genuine desires and not to seek “a reward”, not to receive the praise of man, not to do things to avoid getting in trouble with their pastor, and not do things to show off or out of pride “look at me” or “I still have it”. I really want to emphasize this last part because those who do the outreaches for the wrong reasons are the ones who eventually end up like the other mature Christians I write below. And only the Holy Spirit and you know the truth, but I do wish to stress Matthew 7:21-23 because Jesus knows whether we’ve done things for God correctly or out of pride, ego, fear, or guilt.
And then we see the reaction and response of the more mature Christians in Acts 12:15. They dismissed Rhoda’s zeal and glee when she announced that Peter was free and at the gate. And two things about this that to me is ridiculously annoying that I have seen. (I am not saying the following is the same for all mature Christians, but it certainly is a solid percentage that we need to take note and address.) First is that older (as in saved-longer Christians) pray for God to bring in sinners who get saved and have that new-convert zeal. Why? Being very honest is so the new Christian will go on the outreach, bring in people, are excited for Jesus thus leaving the older Christian to not have to do anything, don’t have zeal toward God, and nothing is more expected from them. Which secondly and ties hand-in-hand is an incorrect view that dues have been paid and so let the new Christians do all the heavy lifting. Let them go on the outreaches; let them always be at the church to set up and tear down; let them be challenged with attendance. And sadly I have truly seen this happen a lot, especially in older churches (don’t believe me, take note of a small church with a handful of people and how many go on the outreach in percentage versus a church of hundreds of members and how many of them attend outreach or an event). This group also backs off (or eventually will) from weekly outreaches to only attend the major outreaches before revivals in their town. Family events and things become more important and their personal calendar is filled with more time out of the church than in the church. Church attendance begins to drift little by little. Work becomes a more common excuse to miss church activities or even services. Morning prayer isn’t an excuse to rush out of bed to get a hold of God but now morning prayer (daily seeking God in prayer) doesn’t exist or has been paired way, way down. We are sorta happy that visitors come to church, just don’t sit in our chair at church and preferably in another row. We are happy that people are giving their lives to Christ, just don’t make more work for me.
And so we have these mature Christians who chide Rhoda. We know her name because she has a love for Jesus and for Jesus’ people. God takes note of her. She believes in miracles. She prays and sees God move or hears God’s voice. While the mature Christian (not all but a number of them)—you know, the ones who’ve preached their sermons, taught the Bible studies, been/are a pastor for a while, went on outreaches, who are the realists who believe (somewhere beyond the rainbow) that God does things but in reality (or “has been my experience”) God is busy over there to mess with these matters. And so their response to Rhoda? Peter is dead. It is all over for the church movement. And what are we gonna do now? And all of this is happening during a church prayer meeting. These people in this prayer meeting (except Rhoda) are praying words and Christianese is spoken but there isn’t any real belief that God will do the impossible. Our faith level is so low we cannot even blow the fuzz off a peach. To us who fall into this group, God doesn’t move mountains any more. God doesn’t heal. God won’t move in miracle money. All this may never be said audibly, but inside we sincerely and sadly believe it. We dread or are annoyed with another church service or another church event. Rather than working with people in grace and love we become cynical, bossy, always right, “we’ve always done it this way”, etc. And to further this point that anyone who pokes at our lack or challenges our commitment, we fight back by misinterpreting Matthew 7:21-23 and other scriptures that we are saved by faith (And yes, there are those who believe that our works save us and is why they dutifully do everything in church all for the wrong reasons, wrong heart, and eventually develop a bad attitude. I was chief cook and bottle washer of this group years years ago.) and so we are exempt from doing anything for God. We don't hear the door knocking and even if we did, we dismiss God.
So, has there been a knocking at the door? Do we hear it? Who is there? Is it Jesus wanting to fan the flames in our lives? Is it a miracle? Is it a lost or hurting person (or Christian) who needs us to bring Jesus closer to them (or perhaps rather them closer to Jesus)? Who is knocking at the door? Will we answer? And perhaps more importantly, how will we answer?