A Great Door Is Opened Unto Me (1 Of 2)

When the door of opportunity is opened for us, we have to be willing to enter.

Illus: Legend has it that the Mormons always gave Mark Twain a hard time about his opposition to their teaching that a man can have many wives.

He was always looking for an opportunity to set them straight. That opportunity came one day when two of them said, “Mark Twain, you are always giving us a hard time about us having many wives.” Then they said, “You give us one scripture that teaches it is wrong for a man to have a dozen wives if he so chooses.”

This was the door of opportunity that Mark Twain had been waiting for. He said in a humorous way, “I will be glad to tell you why the Bible teaches you can not have more than one wife.” He said, “It is because the Bible clearly teaches that No man can serve two masters.”

Opportunities are wonderful things, but with the opportunities come responsibilities.

The Lord says it this way in Luke 12:48, “…FOR UNTO WHOMSOEVER MUCH IS GIVEN, OF HIM SHALL BE MUCH REQUIRED: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

All we can do in this life is take advantage of the opportunities that come our way, and do the best we can do. THIS IS ALL THAT GOD ASKS OF US!

Paul was very much aware of the opportunities that were placed before him.

Let me show you THREE things that illustrate this in the life of Paul. (We will deal with one thing this morning and two more in the next service).

First, let’s look at-

I. THE OPENING

Paul said, “...A GREAT DOOR and effectual IS OPENED UNTO ME”

Paul had the fantastic ability to recognize opportunities when he saw them. Paul recognized that there were SMALL and LARGE OPPORTUNITIES. But he said this was a big one, “A GREAT door …is opened unto me.”

We can have all kinds of doors OPEN to us but if we can’t RECOGNIZE them as opportunities, they will not do us any good.

Illus: Many are failures in this life, not because they did not have opportunities come their way, it is because the opportunities came but they did not recognize them.

Many folks have a difficult time recognizing opportunities.

Illus: Many people are like the woman who was always looking for an opportunity to go to a garage sale to buy something cheap.

Now anyone who knows something about garage sales knows this is a special breed of people. They can walk up to a table full of goodies, and with this very serious look they will ask “How much?” And the man will say, “A dime”, and they will get this horrible look on their face and say, “That much?”

This lady was the queen of the garage sales. She took her newlywed daughter-in-law with her to teach her how to really wheel and deal with these people.

They started out early one Saturday morning, and they saw a sign that said, “Garage Sale”. They drove down the street, and sure enough they saw a garage door open, and a man was dragging stuff out into the yard.

She spotted OPPORTUNITY. She stopped her car and immediately they walked toward the garage, looking at the things he had already placed in the yard, but mostly at some of the items packed into that garage.

The mother, the experienced flea market expert, knew she had hit it big. A garage full of stuff and they were the first ones there. She had a hundred dollars, and if she played her cards right she could buy everything in the garage.

After a few minutes and several stern looks from the solemn-faced garage owner, he asked if there was anything he could help them with.

The way he asked her this question caused some concern. She said, "This is a garage sale, isn't it?" He said, “Lady, this is not a garage sale, this is my garage and I have been promising my wife for months that I would organize it and clean it out!

A lot of people couldn’t recognize OPPORTUNITY if it was to hit them in the face.

Illus: Years ago, some of our forefathers could have bought land for a few hundred dollars. Today that land may sell for maybe a half a million or a million dollars.

When this door of opportunity was open, they could not see it. Today that door is closed and never again will they have an opportunity to buy it so cheap.

If our forefathers could have recognized opportunity in their day, we, their children and grandchildren, would be very wealthy.

(HUMOR) It’s all their fault. If they could have recognized the opportunity, we would have it made!