A Mega-Door for You

0:32 Psalmist said, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Just a moment to thank Dr. Neville Callum, Dr. John Upton, Dr. Randall Everett, and this program committee for giving me the great and unexpected grace of bringing the Word of God here today. I thank you for that great grace. And to all of those who have labored in the Word with me this week, the other five, in these sessions around the great metaphor of the door, I join with you in thanksgiving for this opportunity. In this final climactic and closing session, we come to the theme, Christ, the door of life.

1:29 In that regard, I would like to add as a subtitle, there is a mega door for you. In 1 Corinthians, the 16th chapter and the 9th verse, the apostle wrote these words concerning his ministry in the metropolitan city of Ephesus, a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. May we pray. Eternal God, in this moment and in this place. we claim that promise like those who come at midnight seeking bread.

2:30 You've taught us that if we, being evil, know how to good gifts, how much more will you give your spirit to those who ask? And we pray at this time your spirit in power and anointing and transformation might be present. In Jesus' name, amen. In the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, there is a tiny door, so small that even those who are short must bow down before they go into that door, as if to acknowledge the birth of the one there. It's a door of humility. In contrast to that, in the largest church building in the world, St. Peter's in Vatican City, the middle of the three doors leading into that basilica is called a door of jubilee.

3:35 In the year 2000, John Paul II tapped it with a hammer three times, sat down, some masons broke it open and they called it a holy door. Some doors of humility, a door proclaimed holy. On the other hand, there are common doors that lead to uncommon places. A million children have made the trip to that wardrobe closed closet made famous by C.S. Lewis. And behind that wardrobe door, a common place, they entered an uncommon land, Narnia. I've found surprising doors. For the last decade, I've taught a seminar on preaching as a guest at the Regent's Park College at Oxford, and just across the street is a 500-year-old college, St. John's. And looking at that for 10 years, I thought the stones were stained, the door looked old, it held no interest for me at all. But then this spring, I decided on a chance to go behind that door and discovered behind it the most beautiful garden that I'd ever seen. Acres of it. The door itself didn't promise what was behind it. The Apostle Paul, in the strict word order of 1 Corinthians 16.9 writes, a door for me is opened, great, and energetic, and there are many adversaries.

5:18 Our culture is used to the word mega. There's mega stars, mega rich, even mega vitamins, mega palace, all kinds, mega church. But here Paul uses the word mega door. a great door is open for me and there are many adversaries Paul's location when he wrote this was the great city on the western coast of Turkey Ephesus and he had an opportunity to spend three years there unprecedented anywhere else in his ministry but his situation was a report from the church at Corinth a church that misunderstood his motives mistrusted his intention changed his message, it seems that their hair was always on fire in Corinth. And they wanted him to drop everything in Ephesus and straighten out things in Corinth.

6:15 And I'm sure Paul must have had sometimes the compulsion to catch the first ship across the Aegean. But he said in this verse, no, I am not going to trade what is significant for what is urgent. I'm not going to exchange the main line for a sideline. I'm not going to get off of an aircraft carrier and get into a canoe. I'm not going to leave an eagle's nest and get into a sparrow's nest. Right now, this is my mega door. So he said, Timothy, Timothy, Corinth is your door right now. He looked at Apollos and Apollos told him, I'm at my door. Paul said, my door is here at Ephesus. If I were to give you the pith and the marrow and the substance of what I want to say these few minutes, it would be this. God has a door for you. And he is the opener of that door.

7:17 There will always be that which would pull you away from the door for you. You will face opposition in the face of that opportunity. But don't leave the door that God has given you. We're going to focus on this verse. First of all, God is the great opener of doors. We find here what the linguists call the divine passive. passive. The name of God is not mentioned, but it is implied a door is opened. Out of reverence and reluctance in the passive voice, the door is opened, but it means God is the great opener. Paul did not try to batter the door open. The church at Ephesus didn't elect a committee on opening doors. Timothy didn't try to take it off its hinges, and Apollos didn't try to pry it open. Paul is sure that what had happened to him was that which God had opened.

8:19 If you look at the ministry of the apostle, he was always agog, agape, heart pounding, breath abated, palms perspiring, waiting to see what door God would open. In 2 Corinthians 2.12, he wrote this very church again, and he said, When I came to Troas, there in Troy, to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was opened. when he wrote the Colossians in the fourth chapter. He said, pray, pray that the Lord will open a door for the word. There's that great mystery. In Acts chapter 16, Paul wanted to go behind door number one and go into central Turkey, but the spirit said no. Then he wanted to go behind door number two and go northeast toward the Black Sea, but the spirit of Jesus said no, and then he fell asleep. and there in stage four rapid eye movement double dose of ambiance sleep he had a dream and that dream was a man in a macedonian hat and behind door number three was paul's door he didn't know what was behind that door he couldn't conceive that lydia and a philippian jailer and a church at philippi and the bereans who would give their name to a thousand Bible study classes and the Thessalonians and the Corinthians and Areopagus, all of it was there and he didn't know it. You see, Congress, anybody can count how many seeds in an apple, but only God knows how many apples are in a seed. And behind your door, God has great surprises for you.

10:06 But we need to remember this lesson from this one verse. And that is maintaining a meaningful ministry means not demanding your door but discovering God's door. If you're going to have a faithful testimony, it doesn't mean trying to leverage your door but looking for God's door. Indeed, in the United States, there's a retail trick, a gimmick called doorbusters. A doorbuster is a steeply discounted product to get you into the store early in the morning with its glitz and its glamour. And usually when you get it and take it home, you wonder, why in the world did I get this thing? the glitz and the glamour allures you behind the door for something you didn't need to begin with congress there can also be spiritual doorbusters things that look so appealing on the other side of the door which is not your door if you go to the internet there's a business site a company of entrepreneurs called real fake doors the real fake door company will sell you a real fake door. A Victorian door, a Parisian door, whatever door you want, it's a real fake door. And so does the adversary seek for us to go through real fake doors. God is the opener of a door for you. I was talking one time with a well-known Christian minister who'd had ups and downs, and we were comparing our lives' story, and I told him, I've learned not to push open any door. And he said, Joel, I don't either, but I put WD-40 on the hinges.

12:05 I've learned you don't even have to put WD-40 on the hinges. Sometimes you don't have to go to the door. The door will come right to you. Look at our Lebanese brothers and sisters. There they are, with one and a half million Syrian coming across the border. Do you recognize that's the population of Beirut, the population of Dallas, the population of Perth? They didn't have to go. It came to them. And in coming to them, their door was right there. Bob and Janice Newell served with distinction at church in Houston, Texas. And then at the end of that time, what next? In Athens, they found a half million Albanians there looking for a place to meet, to share their culture, to discuss their faith. So they opened Porter and the door came to them. They didn't have to come to the door. The word for you this morning is this. Is there a door for you? Sometimes in services such as this, we get together and we have a memorial service for what God used to do. We look back at these passages and we say, wasn't it wonderful back in the apostolic days when God would open doors for people.

13:21 And we have a memorial service and we go home having a history lesson. But this morning, could we claim the isness of that wasness, the nowness of that thenness, the hereness of that thereness? Did not God open a door for Paul? And does he not have a door for you as well. Someone might ask me today, Joel, how do you find the door? Jesus said, what I see the Father doing, that's what I'm doing. It is to look for the invisible, but how do you do that? The late great devotional writer, Dallas Willard, chairman of the philosophy department, USC, spoke for all the ages when he said, the spirit within you, the word before you, and the circumstances around you. God's people find open doors by listening to the wind of the Spirit within, by looking at the glow of the Word before them and the flow of circumstances around them.

14:25 And if you're willing to do that, you'll find your door. But it is a door for you. Take another look at this. Paul makes it a personal door. The language itself in 1 Corinthians 16, 9 is so emphatic. It's a door, Paul said, for me. He uses the word mega door, but a mega door for me. How much time in Christian service is wasted because I want your door and you want my door? Paul said, this is a door for me. The same God who made no two sunrises the same, No two seascapes the same. No two mountainscapes the same. Even out here on the edge of human personality, this stump could do without it if I had to, would rather not, but I could. Out here we're told that there's an imprint on it unlike any other on this planet.

15:23 If God can do that with an appendage, he can also do it with the door he has for you. he has a place a door a mega door what it is for you paul's door was ephesus and he said i'm not going to leave it timothy your door your door is going to be corinth right now apollos your door why do we spend so much time all trying to go through the same door a great deal of evangelical christianity in the world is pragmatism and utilitarianism when we want to go through the door that seems to be working right now. For one person, it's Seekers Church, another a Believer's Church, for one a Praise Song Church, for another is a Hymn Singing Church, for one a Small Group Church. You know the list. Perhaps God has different doors for us at different times. Find your door. I read the other day that the longest known traffic jam in history was between Beijing and Inner Mongolia. It was 60 miles long, lasted 11 days, and took 400 policemen to keep the people calm. Sometimes I think our desire, our drivenness to find the door that is working for everybody right now can create that kind of traffic jam in the kingdom. God has a door for you.

16:45 in the last gospel, the last chapter, the last paragraph, Peter got worried about John's door. Do you remember it? Jesus in that fish camp by the lakeside said, Peter, when you were young, you went where you wanted to, but when you're old, they're going to tie you up and take you where you don't want to go. Peter didn't like that door, so he looked at John and he said, what about him? And Jesus said, what's it to you? You follow me. Concern about someone else's door is as old as the age of the apostles. No, what about your door? I wonder about this when I look at the world Christian mission. I'm not a missiologist, but the statistics concern me.

17:39 one-third of the global mission force is concentrated in countries where on paper there are only three and a half percent of the non-Christians. And yet nine percent of the world mission force is focused on countries where there are 73 percent of the world's non-Christians. It raises the question, are you, am I, finding our own door? But wait, from another angle of vision in 1 Corinthians 16, 9, Paul says there's always something or someone to pull you away from your door. There is reason to leave, grounds for abandoning, needs somewhere else. You know the Corinthian correspondence and situation.

18:34 Chloe's people had brought a word across the Aegean, and that word was, Paul, the Corinthians distrust you. The Corinthians don't understand your message. The Corinthians malign your motives. You need to get here right now. Is it not the impulse of many of us in ministry when we're misunderstood immediately to go set things right? But the Apostle Paul said, I will not leave the megador at Ephesus to go put that fire out, even though my relationship with you is edgy and prickly and strained and awkward. Let me tell you something I've learned in 50 years of preaching. When you're at your door, there's always a Corinth somewhere else. And you will leave your door at the peril of your own ministry. If I were to go to this instrument up here that was beautifully played and play a C and E and a G, it would be a bright, melodious, major key chord full of sunshine.

19:36 But all I have to do is change that E to an E flat, and it becomes a sad, melancholy, dolorous chord, a minor key chord, and in ministry you're always one half step away. from just that. Have you heard the tragedy of the neurotic rooster? It was a barnyard tragedy. The rooster saw the sun come up every day, and when the rooster crowed, he woke up the hens, the swine, the cattle, the sheep, and the farmer. The rooster began to be proud of what he did, and then he made a foul deduction. The rooster decided not that he crowed because the sun came up, but that the sun came up because he crowed. First, he became an insomniac rooster.

20:33 If he didn't wake up, the world wouldn't start. Finally, they carried him off to the home for disturbed roosters because he thought it all depended on him. Come close to me just one moment. What depends on you is your door. we need to have confidence in the door that god gives us or otherwise we major on what is minor we deify what is secondary we spend our energy on what is tertiary when god says i've given you your door leave the rest of the kingdom up to me god has not gotten dizzy and fallen off of his throne, Paul said, it's the door for me, and I'm going to stand by that door. Before you go to heaven, you ought to read the little book by Charles E. Hummel. It's a dynamite, tiny classic called The Tyranny of the Urgent. And in that book, he hammers away at the fact that most of us in Christian service live under the tyranny of the urgent rather than the significant.

21:45 that means sometimes you have to get apart from God and with God and find out what is significant for your life the minister who is available all of the time is not worth anything when he or she is available even Jesus after that great day of healing at Capernaum left some sick to be healed some demons to be exercised some dead to be raised but he went out to see what the father had for him indeed the apostle said it takes that to stay by your door there's always a reason but but but consider the consequences what if paul hadn't left the door at ephesus to put out the fire at corinth it underscores that there are consequences if we leave our open door simply this there would not have been a church at Ephesus. Had there not been a church at Ephesus, there would not have been a letter to the church at Ephesus. Indeed, this text would have not have been in 1 Corinthians 16, 9, and I would not bring a message from this text in the year 2015. And beyond that, during Paul's three years there, those churches of the Revelation were planted in the great basin of the Caister River. You know their names. Pergamos, Thyatira, Laodicea, Philadelphia. Those were the outgrowth of his work there. Had he left that door, you could take Revelation 2 and 3 out of the book in the canon of the Bible. There's a consequence if you don't stand by your door. But let me say that even more clearly. It was a consequence on a February night, an icy cold night in Fort Worth, Texas and the USA. I'd gone up to the Gamble Street Baptist Church to see if anyone wanted to go out, try to find someone to whom to bear witness. No one showed up that night.

23:43 I took someone's name, slid down West Seminary Drive in my car, came to a little frame house, almost stumbled on the ice going up to the door, knocked on that door, and a single man opened it. He was a firefighter. to my astonishment in his hand when he opened the door was a little green Gideon New Testament and looking through the screen door he looked at me and he said I'm surprised you came by he didn't know how surprised I was and he said, I've been reading from the book of Ephesians. He didn't even know how to say Ephesians. I said, you mean Ephesians? That firefighter, that icy night, threw the sagging screen door, said, preacher, I'm glad you're here. I want to know what it means when Paul wrote, for by grace are you saved through faith. I went in, sat down on an old green divan, and in a half an hour, he'd open the door of his heart because I went to that door, but I went to that door because Paul stayed by his door.

24:52 You see, there's consequences. They can last 2,000 years in terms of staying by your door for you, for you. There's a door. It may be some group, some ethnic group, some language group, some people group, some marginalized group. It may be some age group, millennial group. It may be boomers. It may be busters. It may be people in universities. It may be the dirt floor of a hovel, or it may be the guarded gate of a billionaire. But God has a door for you. And if you look at what the Father's doing, he'll give you that door. But Paul says this, opportunity and opposition go together. there's a door to me opened wide and energetic he said and there are many adversaries had i been writing that i would have said but there are many adversaries or i would have written it although there are many adversaries or i would have said in spite of many adversaries but Paul wanted you to understand something that open doors and adversaries go together if you were to put a theme over Paul's life if you were to inscribe something it could be this verse there's a wide open door and many adversaries he reminds us that opportunities and opposition go together look at the record of what happened to him there in that city Ephesus. It was a great city full of opportunities. It was the political center of the Eastern Roman Empire, filled with all of the influence in that kind of capital city. It was a city of culture, with the second greatest library in the ancient Greco-Roman world. It was a city of trade, crossroads of trade from the inland to the Aegean. It was a city of multiple cultures. It was a pluralistically religious city. It was a city like most of ours, obsessed with athletics, The Artemisian Games celebrating the great goddess was second only to the Olympic Games.

27:01 It was a great door full of opportunity. But read his ministry in Acts 19. And every opportunity was interleaved with opposition. When he got to town, he found the remnants of a John the Baptist cult who'd not so much as heard there was a Holy Spirit, and there was another Pentecost right there in Ephesus. What an opportunity. but then he went to the synagogue, and their hearts were hardened, and he wound up out on the street. Opposition. But then he rendered the lecture hall of Tyrannus, a professor of rhetoric, and using that hall at a different time of the day, crowds came to hear him preach Jesus. Opportunity. But then look, there were some who tried to steal the name of Jesus and use it as exorcist. Opposition. But then opportunity. The power of Christ seized that city so much that there was a bonfire of their books of witchcraft and pornography opportunity, but then opposition. Demetrius, who was the head of the Silversmith's Guild, saw the souvenir shops closing because people were believing in the unseen Christ more than the seen trinkets of Artemis' opposition. And there was a great riot. John Stott, the evangelical Anglican, said when Paul preached, there was a riot. When I preached, they asked me over for tea.

28:25 when you're ministering in the power of the spirit living in the book of acts you'll find opportunity and opposition go together it's part of god's thread in the universe there was day and night light and dark dry land and ocean sun and moon human and animal male and female sweet and sour negative and positive and if you're ministering at your open door there will be both opportunity and opposition. But we have a Lord who specializes in turning opposition into opportunity. Didn't He do it? Oh, look at Him anywhere you touch His life. there at the end of his life. What happens?

29:21 Betrayed by one of his own. denied by one of his own, abandoned by nearly all of his own. tried by the Jews, condemned by the Romans, rejected by the mob. But didn't he transform that? He took that kangaroo court of injustice and he turned it into your justification. He died in weakness to give you strength. He died ridiculed to give you redemption. can he not change opposition into opportunity we've talked all week about promising doors of love and learning and leadership and life but you remember the last door he went in he was carried into that door it was the door of an open tomb he went into that final fatal place that all humanity fears.

30:27 And they shut him into the place of deterioration and decomposition. Eyes closed in death, tongues stilled in death, hands paralyzed in death, feet immobile in youth. But didn't he turn that opposition into opportunity? The high priest put him in that door, but he came out the great high priest. He died under a mocking sign, King of the Jews, but he came out King of Kings. He died, Jesus of Nazareth, but he came out with a name above every name. He died without any authority, but he came out saying, All authority is given to me in heaven and in earth. Can't he turn opposition into opportunity? And here we are, literally, about to go out of these doors.

31:31 And the thousands present this July 26, 2015, at this 21st Baptist World Congress, might it be in the cumulative effect of everything that we've heard this week that we could take a moment under that Lord who turns every kind of opposition into opportunity to ask him, risen one, what is my door? Before we go out those doors a final time, in a moment that will never be recreated again, just like this, in this secular center that has been turned into a holy place by your presence. Might it be at this moment in a fresh way, a new way, a way that would say, God, show me my door.

32:30 I'll stand by it. I'll go through it. In an act of significance and solemn commitment, we could together say, Lord, show me my door. I know there's some here because I know you because I know me along a long life of ministry there's some here so weak that you might say if God showed me a door I could only crawl through it then crawl through it there's some here who would say I would do well if I could stand and walk through the door then he'll give you the feet to walk others of you swift and young with life before you could run through the door that God opens and a few of you fly through it like eagles. But let me tell you the goodness of that Lord. He won't make those who must crawl fly like eagles and he won't hold eagles down to those who crawl.

33:26 He'll let you get through your door. And I'm going to ask us, as an act of commitment, in solidarity with one another, as a symbol in great unanimity in a moment, to stand to our feet when I call you to do so. And I'm going to ask if all around you, you might take hand to hand, and most definitely if you can, someone other than you as a symbol of this great international gathering. A white hand on a black hand, a brown hand on a white hand, an Asian hand on a European hand, a global north hand on a global south hand, hand in hand in circles of prayer. And I would like for us in those circles to pray out loud all together for one another so that when we look back on this place in the years to come, we will remember the thunder of thousands of voices praying, God, show me my door.

34:38 Would you stand together? Would you stand together? Would you dare to make a prayer circle together? Hand to hand, someone other. hand to hand, the known and the stranger, and hand to hand right now all together, out loud, each in his own language, as if it were the very emblem of Pentecostal power, praying to the Father until this place roars with the prayers of God's people, God, show my brother, show my sister, show me my door. Would you pray right now?