When Jesus is Welcome in Every Area of Your Life

What if Jesus had full access to every room of your life? In this communion-focused message, Pastor Chris Teien explores Ephesians 3:16–17 through the lens of Robert Boyd Munger’s classic “My Heart—Christ’s Home.” Discover what it means to truly welcome Christ into every area of your life—not just as a guest, but as the Lord of your home. This episode invites you to reflect deeply on your spiritual walk, surrender hidden areas, and experience inner transformation through the Holy Spirit.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/16925910

Key Points:

1. Invite Jesus Into the Home of Your Heart – Based on Ephesians 3:17 and Revelation 3:20, this message begins with the need to welcome Christ not just for salvation, but for relationship and daily lordship.
2. Clean Out the Study and Renew Your Mind – Inspired by Romans 12:2 and Philippians 4:8, we’re challenged to examine what fills our minds—our media, thoughts, and motivations—and allow God to reshape them.
3. Reshape the Dining Room and Examine Your Desires – From 1 John 2:16, we evaluate what truly satisfies: earthly pleasures or doing God’s will? Jesus offers nourishment that satisfies the soul.
4. Return to the Living Room for Time with Jesus – Like Mary in Luke 10:42, we’re encouraged to make space daily for fellowship with Christ through Scripture and prayer.
5. Unlock the Hall Closet and Confess Hidden Sins – Drawing from 1 John 1:9, the message emphasizes repentance and surrender of even the most hidden areas of life to Jesus.
6. Sign Over the Title of Your Life to Christ – The ultimate step is not partial surrender but turning over full ownership to Jesus, letting Him be the master of every area.

Stories

Pastor Chris reflects on generational shifts in how people welcome pastors or guests into their homes—and compares that to how we welcome (or resist) Jesus’ full presence in our lives. He also shares personal insights about spiritual growth, prayer, and the importance of not compartmentalizing faith.

Quotes

• “Jesus doesn’t just want to visit your life—He wants to dwell and transform it.”
• “It's not the prayer that saves you; it's the One who hears it.”
• “You can’t binge holiness. You have to walk daily with Christ.”

Takeaways

1. Reflect: What area of your life have you kept off-limits to Jesus?
2. Renew: Begin a habit of daily time with Jesus in Scripture and prayer.
3. Release: Confess hidden sins and ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse your heart.
4. Respond: Surrender full control to Christ and invite Him to take ownership of your life.

Scripture

• Ephesians 3:16–17 – Christ makes His home in your heart through faith.
• Revelation 3:20 – Jesus knocks and desires fellowship with us.
• Romans 12:2 – Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
• Philippians 4:8 – Think about things that are true, noble, pure.
• 1 John 1:9 – He is faithful to forgive when we confess.
• Galatians 2:20 – Christ lives in me; I live by faith in Him.
• John 1:12, Romans 10:9, 1 John 5:11–12 – Assurance of salvation.

Keywords:
Jesus in your heart, Inner transformation, Christian life, Spiritual renewal, Personal relationship with Jesus

25m0406de

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

When Jesus is welcome in every area of your life. So this is to get us ready for communion. In Ephesians 3, verses 16 and 17, Paul writes, I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. This is what Paul wants believers to under to experience in Christ. So an inner transformation, that he would empower us, our inner strength through his spirit, so that we would be faithful, so that we would be effective, so that God could use us to accomplish his will in his ways. We all are given opportunities that are specific to us. So you have specific neighbors and coworkers and family and things that many of us will never meet or reach, that you have an opportunity to tell people about Jesus and to live your life out before them. And then he continues on. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him, your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. So I'm gonna, for the whole message, I'm gonna use the stuff from the How to Find God New Testament, the New Living Translation. It's interesting that our largest, fastest growing converged church uses the New Living Translation because they are trying to reach people that aren't familiar with Scripture. So when we use that translation, we're not saying that is our translation. We're saying that is a translation that has been well translated by Greek and Hebrew scholars whom we trust from institutions that we affirm. And so we also usually use the New International Version here because that's the church tradition. Many of you use the English Standard Version or the Christian Standard Bible or the New American Standard Bible, and those are all good. So for today, I'm going to use the New Living Translation. This idea, then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him, and your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. To make his home, that Jesus doesn't just save you to rescue you from the eternal fire of hell or to help you to be in the right place so that you can get a ticket to go to heaven. Jesus wants to be involved in your life. This is what this personal relationship stuff we always talk about is all about. So make his home means to settle down permanently, not just visit, but take residence. So he's looking to be an honored guest in your home, but he also wants to be in charge of what's going on in your life. So we trust him, we give him more access, and then we see more transformation. In John 14, 23, Jesus says, All who love me will do what I say. My father will love them and will come and will make our home with each of them. So this image is to represent your life. Okay, this is the northern Minnesota house version. Here you have a simple house and a truck with a standard cab. Probably can't transport the whole family, but it might be just what you need to get your firewood in and your boat out of the water. Just think about this log cabin home. If you're listening to the audio, that's on next to a lake and looking all nice and everything, as the home of your life. Okay? This is representing your life. And so it looks nice. And you might say that your life is your own. Yeah, you know that God created you and you were born into the world and stuff, but from that time on, you've been a self-made man or woman. What you have to enjoy is what you worked for and what you earned and is yours, and nobody's taking it, nobody's controlling it. And yeah, you want to have faith in Jesus and you come to church on Sunday, but maybe your life is, I don't know, compartmentalized. So you got your Sunday church life, and then you got the rest of your life, which is more focused on you. And so when we think about this house, when we think about this right here, would it be weird if the pastor just showed up? I don't know, five o'clock, six o'clock, knocked on the door, and expected to come in to talk to you about your spiritual life? In the old days, I heard the pastor would uh just show up and visit people, and so I heard from some older people that there was actually a special chair in the house for the pastor to sit in, and some people would run and switch some things around and clean some things up and put out the big family Bible like they'd been reading that all the time. You ever seen those big family Bibles? They're huge. And so that was the way that it was done. Now it seems to me younger people would like you to call in advance. Sometimes they would prefer to meet you in a coffee shop. Numerous times I've heard people say, What? You want to come visit me at my house? That's weird. And so it's just a different disconnect. But my question is if Jesus showed up at the door, would you invite Jesus in? Would you invite him in? Or would you say, hang on just a minute? I'll be out in a minute, and then start running around cleaning stuff up. Oh, Jesus doesn't need to see that. Oh, Jesus doesn't need to see this. Oh, I gotta go hide this. I'm gonna go shove this in the closet. So get it all cleaned up. Okay. All right, I think we're good. Yeah, Jesus, you can come in now that you've hidden stuff. Have you ever hidden stuff before? I've hidden stuff before. I went to one college that was really strict, and your RA would come in and inspect your room, and you had to, it had to be cleaned to a certain level and stuff, which I guess is okay. And there's been other times too where I've been in places where you had like camp and stuff where you have to clean stuff up. And I have literally hid dirty clothes under the bed or shoved dirt under the rug. Those rugs are real handy to shove dirt under. And sometimes we do that with our spiritual life. Sometimes we do that with our spiritual life. 74 years ago, 1951, Robert Boyd Munger wrote this booklet. I think it started with a sermon, wrote a booklet. Maybe you're familiar with it. In almost 75 years, I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard of it or read it, called My Heart, Christ's Home. And he imagined what it would be like if Jesus came to live in the house of our hearts, walking through each room and revealing what needed attention, what needed cleaning or surrender or transformation. And he had a lot of books, he had a lot of rooms. He had more rooms than we're going to talk about today as we get ready for communion because we only have so much time. So he had in his book, and you can get it, it's a booklet. It's still in print, by the way. I've heard that some of the best books that you can read as for Christian books are ones that are still being published after a hundred years. If they're still publishing that book after a hundred years, there might be something to it. So they are still publishing this booklet. I think InnerVarsity is publishing it, and you can get it from the Billy Graham Association. 74 years later, it's still being published. It's an interesting thing to think about. It's an interesting thing to consider. And so he had the study, the control room of our thoughts and media intake, the dining room where our desires and appetites are revealed, the living room, the place of quiet time and fellowship with Christ, the work room where our gifts and talents are used for his purposes, the rec room where our leisure and entertainment choices are tested, the bedroom where love and marriage are aligned with his design, the family room where fellowship and Christian community are nurtured, the kitchen where we serve together to nourish others in the faith, and the hall closet where we hide secrets, sins, and shame we think he can't see. And so that is what we are going to talk about. And I'm going to quote some stuff from the book. I'm not going to read you the whole book. It's not actually a very long book. It is about the length of a long sermon. But he writes In the beginning of it. It all begins at the front door. I will never forget the evening I invited him into my heart. What an entrance he made. It was not a spectacular emotional thing, but very real, occurring at the very center of my soul. He came into the darkness of my heart and turned on the light. He built a fire in the cold hearth and banished the chill. He started music where there had been stillness and harmony where there had been discord. He filled the emptiness with his own loving fellowship. I have never regretted opening the door to Christ, and I never will. Hang on a second. Yeah, okay. Sorry, usually the tablets here. Okay, so we need to invite Jesus into our heart, into the entryway. I'm gonna talk about that phrase in just a second. But Revelation 20, 320 says, look, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal as meal together as friends. Another version says, I will come in and sup with him. But this idea of that Jesus isn't just coming into your life to give you a ticket to heaven. He wants to be involved in your life, he wants to be involved in the things that you do. So this phrase though, inviting Jesus into your heart is interesting. So I now probably wouldn't use that exact phrase today. I wouldn't, I'm for making a decision to receive Christ. I've seen some people push back. David Platt made a big deal out of how wrong, how it's wrong to ask Jesus into your heart. I think it actually sparked a Southern Baptist denomination debate over it, and the Southern Baptist decided that it was still an okay way to have people come to Christ when it's done properly. So J.D. Greer wrote a book called Stop Asking Jesus into your heart, which is a misleading title because it's not really about not asking Jesus into your heart. It's about stop asking him over and over again, get some assurance of your salvation. Know that when Christ comes in, he stays. Every time you sin, you don't ruin it, and you have to ask him in again. Actually, JD Greer's book, Stop Asking Jesus into your heart, is a good book. I enjoyed it. But this idea. So sometimes when I'm doing message research and stuff, sometimes I'll post things on my own personal Christ Tyne.com thing because it helps people and because I can see how many people read it. And I'm really all about trying to be an ambassador for Christ wherever I am, however I can be. So I fully want to serve this church, but I also want to reach the neighbors and the people around and the world for Christ. And if I can do that, that's an awesome thing because I'm God's employee, as are you. And I want this church to grow. I want to fill these seats, but I also want people all around the world to get saved. But I don't necessarily want to travel all around the world. I'd prefer to be here to serve you. So I wrote a blog post about it and you can read it. It's kind of long, but then I always include other resources and links and video clips and stuff that you can watch from other resources to bolster and reaffirm what I'm saying. So if you look at the How to Find God New Testament, in the very front you find a section that talks about how to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and has a prayer that you can pray. And the author, Greg Laurie, would make it very clear that it is not the prayer that saves you, it is the desire to repent of your sin and to have Christ come into your life. That is what saves you. And John 1 12, yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So therefore, we need to receive Jesus somehow. So we need to accept that gift. A great way to do that is in prayer. Romans 10 9 says, if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. First John 5 11, this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the Son has life. He who doesn't have the Son does not have life. And then we already mentioned Revelation 3.20 in Ephesians 3.17. So when you say ask Jesus into your heart, you're asking him into the central core of your being, that decision-making area, that area in which is the inner you. So it's not into your aorta. Kids misunderstand what it means, but it's really asking Christ into your life, asking him into your heart, the entryway into your being. So the sinner's prayer, when done correctly, can cover all of those things. So it should include an acknowledgement of sin, a belief in Jesus' resurrection, a turning from sin, and a receiving Christ by faith and confessing Jesus as Lord. So if we take the classic Billy Graham sinner's prayer, he became famous for that. I believe many of you, at least I know one of you for sure, received Jesus Christ through this prayer. And when I've gone through the Billy Graham evangelistic training, maybe you did too. It was prominent, and it goes like this. And maybe you even want to pray this if you want to receive Jesus Christ and you agree with the things that I just said. Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior in your name. Amen. So I, if you've been around for a while, I have a pretty much the same thing. It's got a little different take on it. But many times I just assume there's people here or people watching online or listening that don't know Jesus and are ready to receive him as their Lord and Savior. And I want to make sure the door is open and they know the way. So again, it's not the prayer that saves you, it's the one who hears your prayer. And those are good things. Okay, so let's move on. Inviting Jesus in. Have you invited Jesus in? Inviting Jesus into the entryway of your life, into your life. So again, the first step in making the Munger writes, the first step in making the heart Christ home, if you want to know the reality of God and the personal presence of Jesus Christ at the innermost part of your being, simply open wide the door and ask him to come in and be your Savior and Lord. Alright. So number two, Revelation 3.20. Clean out the study and renew your mind. Clean out the study and renew your mind. So I don't know if you have a study. I don't know if you even have a library anymore. When I was younger in ministry, my bookshelves were just full of books. And then pretty soon I found out that I could get those same Bible commentaries on computer. And I didn't have to have a monstrous table and a legal pad and open all these books and write stuff down as I studied, but instead I could read it on the computer and on a tablet. And so therefore I started to get rid of a lot of my books. And if you saw my library now, I don't have that many books, but I've got a huge library of digital books. And I've got a huge library of audiobooks, and there's just a lot of stuff in there. And now today you have your YouTube history of what you viewed and all the stuff, and maybe beyond the study, you know what's in your what's in your user history, clean out the study and renew your mind. Romans 12, 2 says, Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. So Munger writes, as I followed his gaze, I became uncomfortable. There were some books on the shelves. His eyes were too pure to look at. He gave me a full-size portrait of himself. He said, Hang this centrally, and he said, on the wall of your mind. Would Jesus want to sit down and binge watch with you the things that you're watching? Maybe you're like us. Yeah, we watched that program, but you we use the vid angel filter, removing all the bad stuff. It was weird too, because it said it was a 40-minute show and it was only 25 minutes long after the filtering. Or pure flex movies or whatever. Um, not saying that media is bad. I'm saying that you want to watch out what you watch on media. Philippians 4.8 is a good filter. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. So think about that. Think about what Christ sees, you watch, because it affects your mind, it affects who you are, it affects the way that you think about things. Renew your mind with scripture. Don't buy the lies of the world that are very well packaged in media through music and videos and such. Number three, reshape the dining room, examine your desires. So this is actually not about eating protein instead of fat or stop eating sugar. This is about your heart desires, the things that you really want, the things that give you joy, the things that you want more than anything. 1 John 2 16. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but from this world. So a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. So here Munger writes back 74 years ago, he's telling Jesus while Jesus is sitting at the table, he said, My favorite dishes are money, academic degrees, and stocks, with newspaper articles of fame and fortune fortune as side dishes. Those are the things that I love. And he writes in his book that Jesus says that there's a better way, and that there are things that bring greater satisfaction. Jesus answers, I have food to eat, you do not know of. My food is to do the will of him who sent me. He looked at me again and said, If you want food that really satisfies you, do the will of your heavenly Father, put his pleasure before your own, stop striving for your own desires, your own ambitions, your own satisfactions, seek to please him. That food will really satisfy you. Try a bit of it. And that's good to think about when we come to communion here in a minute. What is it that truly satisfies you? And then for return to the living room, spend time with Jesus. And Munger talks about how when he first received Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he spent so much time and personal devotion with the Lord, and he enjoyed it so much. But as he got busy, as as things got, as he got distracted, he didn't do that as much as he did in the past. And so in his book, he talks about how Jesus promised, I will be here every morning early, meet me here, and we will start the day together. So morning after morning, I would go downstairs to the living room. He would take a book of the Bible from the bookcase, open it, and we would read it together. He would unfold to me the wonder of God's saving truth recorded on its pages and make my heart sing as he shared all he had done for me and would be to me. Those times together were wonderful. Through the Bible and his Holy Spirit, he would talk to me. In prayer, I would respond. So our friendship deepened in these quiet times and personal conviction. And so Jesus told Martha, There's only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken away from her. So Mary's sister Martha was busy in the kitchen making all the food and not spending any time with Jesus. And it's a plea for us to not abandon Christ in time of devotion. And then the last section we'll look at, or the last area, is the hall closet. Hiding things in the hall closet. So 1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. So that hallway closet. So in his booklet, he talks about how Jesus comes in. He's like, something stinks in here. Smells like something died. What is it? And Munger said that it was some stuff. It wasn't necessarily bad stuff, but it wasn't the best stuff that he was hiding, that he didn't want Jesus to have, that he didn't want Jesus to get at. And then he confessed that. And so he writes, When you have come to know and love Jesus Christ, one of the worst things that can happen is to sense him withdrawing his face and fellowship. I had to give in. I'll give you the key, I said sadly, but you'll have to open the closet and clean it. And he talks about how he cleaned it and cleansed it and how it was good. The last part was to sign over the title in conclusion, to sign over the title and let Christ be Lord of all. To not think that it's your house to do whatever you want, but to let Christ take over, to let Christ be the leader, the guide, the director, to turn over the title. Munger writes, He said, I exclaim, Lord, you've been my guest, and I've been trying to play the host from now on. I want you to be the owner and master of the house, and I'm going to be the servant. And then he writes at the end, so he took my life that day, and I can give you my word. There's no better way to live the Christian life. He knows how to keep it. And use it, a deep peace settled down in my soul, and that has remained. I am his and he is mine forever. We're going to come to communion now. And as we think about Christ being the owner and master of our life, as we think about any sin that we've committed in the past, think about Galatians 2.20, my old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So I'm going to skip that. But communion time is a time where we stop and we pause and we think about where am I in my Christian life? Am I growing in Christ or have I fallen away? Am I more committed than I was, or am I less committed? Am I distracted? Am I lazy? Am I fearful? Am I burdened and entangled by sin? And it is a time to let the Holy Spirit convict you of that sin, to confess that to the Lord, just like it said in 1 John 1 9. And then after you do that, and you still have some time left, because we're going to have a video with some music playing and give you a time to pray. And then after that's done, those few minutes are done, I'll come back up and we can take the communion elements together. But let me read the communion passage to get us on track here. I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So again, as the music plays, maybe you will confess sin in your life. You'll think about that, Christ making his heart or his home in your heart. You'll think about that, and think about areas of your life that you haven't yielded to Christ, or things that you've got hidden in the closet, things that are sinful, areas that you need to turn over to him. And so maybe you will even ask him to take control of your life. You know him as Lord and Savior, but you want him to be the guide and ruler and director and motivator and leader in a way that you haven't experienced before. Jesus, I thank you that we have this communion time. I pray through the power of your Holy Spirit that you would work on each person here in the few minutes the music plays as we have this communion time, that they could renew their faith, recommit to you, praise you for what you're doing, what you're gonna do, what you've done in the past. And this would be a meaningful few minutes. So we ask us in Jesus' name. All right. So he sacrificed his body on the cross, and then he also gave up his blood. This cup is a new covenant in my blood. So let's drink of the cup. Because without the shedding of blood, Jesus' blood, there's no remission of sin. And then he promises that he will be returning. So he will be returning at just the right time. And that is an exciting thing. Hebrews 13 20 says, Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. So next week is Palm Sunday, and then we have Good Friday and then Easter. So pray for people that you're going to invite.