English
Korean
Spanish
EULESS?Roy Fish, longtime evangelism professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and now interim president of the North American Mission Board, took those at the Empower Evangelism Conference on a narrative journey through the rooms of his heart, explaining that Christ desires to be at home in us.
“When Jesus came into my heart he took the loneliness and gave me great companionship with him,” Fish said.
Reading from Ephesians 3:14-19, Fish said verse 17, “and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith,” speaks to Jesus’ desire to be at home in the believer’s heart.
After 50 years of knowing Christ, Fish said he is still the greatest thrill in his life.
Crediting his friend Robert Munger, a Presbyterian preacher, for his sermon topic, Fish said he aimed to give it a fresh twist.
“When Jesus came into my heart,” Fish said, “I decided I wanted him to be in every single room in the home of my heart.”
Traveling into the first room, “the living room of my heart” which was the mind, Jesus found the space small and the walls thick, Fish joked. “I was embarrassed,” Fish said. There, the Lord found pictures on the wall “of the living room of my heart?jealously, envy or arrogant pride, resentment or bitterness” and impurity, Fish explained.
“Lord, I’ve tried at times to pull these pictures down off the wall of my living room, but I’ve just not had the power to do it. Can you help me?'” Fish said. “He said, ‘I believe I can, Roy.’ And I watched while with strong fingers he reached up and pulled every single one of the pictures down off the wall of the living room of my heart.”
Noting that the walls were now bare, Fish said he asked God for a picture and Jesus replied, “‘I have one.
Why don’t you hang it where you can see it always.’ And he gave to me a picture of himself and he put it in a prominent place on the wall of the living room. And I’ve discovered when I keep my eyes on that picture it has a way of keeping other ugly pictures down off the wall of the living room of my heart.”
“The Scripture tells us, ‘Keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.’ Keep your eyes on that picture of him.”
Speaking of the mind, Fish said, “What you think is tremendously important. What you think is of great import to God.”
Then, into the next room they went, Fish said, “the library of my heart.” There, Jesus found racy novels, pornographic trash, other ungodly things. After disposing of the ungodly books, Fish asked the Lord if he had any books to replace them.
“‘Yes I do, Roy,'” the Lord said. “‘I have 66 books. I want you to take them and put them on the shelves of your library.'”
“This Bible has tremendous import in impacting my life. And it makes great claims about itself. ‘Your word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God. Your word is a light to my feet and a lamp unto my path.'”
Fish told the congregation: “You won’t get to the know the God of this book well unless you get to know the book of this God well.”
Next came the sitting room in the home of his heart, he said.
“We took a seat and I began to talk with him. You can do that, you know. You can talk to him anytime about anything and anywhere.”
“I discovered that Jesus was the most sympathetic, understanding, compassionate listener I had ever
talked to,” Fish said, adding that there was “nothing that he wasn’t interested in.”
Fish then told of entering the den after days of being away and finding the Lord there.
“Lord, what are you doing here in the den?” Fish asked. “I’ve been waiting for you,” the Lord replied.
Fish said he realized he hadn’t been there for a week, and the Lord said, “As much as you need this time with me, Roy, I want this time with you.”
“Friend if you are his tonight, he wants you and he wants time and fellowship with you,” Fish reminded the audience.
After that, the two of them entered the workroom, Fish recalled. After making their way down dusty stairs into a dimly lit room, Fish explained to the Lord his lack of ability at using the tools there.
“As he controlled my arms and my fingers, they touched those machines in the workroom of my heart. I want to tell you, I have never turned out anything like that before. Oh, I realized it wasn’t I doing it; it was Jesus doing it through me. And I realized he was trying to teach me the open secret of effective Christian service. It’s not a matter of my turning it out on the level of my human best. It’s a matter of my yielding myself to him, that he might live his life in me and through me and serve on the level of his divine best.”
“Friend, I want to tell you,” Fish said, “without Jesus ? you can do nothing.”
Finally, as they walked the house, a bad smell was detected, Fish said.
“I think I know where it’s coming from,” the Lord told Fish.
“We went to the closet at the top of the top of the stairs” and “I’d forgotten he had X-ray eyes. I thought I could hide those secret sins from him.”
“He said, ‘Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.'”
Fish said he then realized “what was the most precious thing in life?conscience fellowship with Jesus the Lord.”
Fish said unless God has the keys to every room of the heart, people rob themselves of their joy in him.
Quoting a version of Ephesians 3:17, Fish said: “I pray that Jesus will settle down and be more and more at home in your hearts by faith.”
“I believe he was talking along the line of what I’ve been sharing with you tonight,” Fish said of the Ephesians 3 passage.
“Somewhere along the line I realized he was not just the guest of my heart, he was the landlord. I’d been treating him as a guest. But the truth is, he purchased it all. I signed the deed of my heart over to Jesus Christ early in my Christian life.”
The overriding theme of walking with Jesus is grace, Fish reminded.
“It’s grace. It’s grace. It’s grace.
