You know in many ways, life is all about the doors. We come into doors and go out of doors. We open doors and shut doors. Sometimes, we slam doors, no need to confess, we’ve all done it. And if you really stop to think about it, it’s the closed doors in life that really are the most difficult to deal with.
Let me explain what I mean. I want to give you some examples of how closed doors negatively impact our lives. For example, I have an older brother, which means that I’m the baby in the family. How many of you, on all of our campuses, are like me, you’re the baby…which also means that you’re the favorite? And the better looking? And the more talented? I could keep going!
So I have an older brother and I don’t know why he loved to do this to me, I think it’s just an older brother thing, but my older brother loved to hide behind closed doors and scare me to death. He did, and to this day, if you were to wait behind a closed door and just let out a little boo, I would probably scream like a little girl because closed doors can be scary! They can be scary.
If you can’t relate to being terrorized by an older sibling, maybe you can relate to this…remember when you were a kid? Remember what lived at night behind your closed closet doors? Huh? How many of you had a monster who lived in your closet? Come on, raise your hands! Yes sir Jack, and I don’t know what it was but when you would pull those covers overtop of your head it was like a magical force field protecting you from the monster who lived behind the closed door. Why? Because it was scary, it was scary.
I was thinking about it the other day, closed doors can also be quite frustrating. I mean, it’s frustrating when you want to get into a door but the door won’t open. Locking yourself out the house, that’s frustrating. The only thing more frustrating than that is when someone else on the inside of your house locks you out of your house. That’s really frustrating! How about this? Walking up to a store, thinking it’s open, only to find that the door is locked and it’s closed. Frustrating.
Here’s something I found, my kids can’t stand locked doors, they get frustrated! We have a “no-lock” policy at our house; we don’t lock bedroom doors and such, except for Tabitha my wife and I. We have an exemption! If you pay for the door, you should be able to lock it. And it never fails, never fails. Some of you parents know where I’m going with this! If I go to the bedroom to, I don’t know, let’s just say, take a nap with my wife, and I lock the door behind me, it’s only a matter of time. Parents, am I right? I’m telling you, you can start the stopwatch, we’ve got precisely 7½ minutes until somebody starts knocking on the door. That’s frustrating and TMI.
But that’s the nature of a closed door. Closed doors are scary. Closed doors are frustrating, and sometimes closed doors are heart breaking. They’re painful.
My little niece Anna, a few years back closed the car door on her finger. It was painful. Oh man! They sent me a picture; the tip of her finger was barely hanging on. I think we might have that, if you want to see it? I’m kidding! We don’t have it. What’s wrong with you people? Even if I did have the picture, I wouldn’t show it to you because it was GROSS and it was heartbreaking!
Closed doors can be that way. And you see here’s what I know today about you, without even knowing some of you. Here’s what I know about you. I know that you have felt the fear and the frustration and the heartbreak of a closed door.
• The closed door of an opportunity. The closed door of a new job, of a promotion you were promised, of a better financial future. But that door never opened. It’s scary, it’s frustrating. It’s heartbreaking.
• Some of you have experienced the closed door of a relationship, and you thought it would be one way forever, that he would be your one and only, that she would be with you till the end, only the door closed. You thought your kids would grow up to be your best friends and now the relationship is so strained, you hardly ever see them. The door is closed. You thought you could count on him, but he walked out. It’s a closed door.
• Maybe it’s the closed door of health. The door shut when the doctor said cancer. The door shut when the test was positive. When infertility was the consuming topic and it was scary and it was frustrating and it was heartbreaking.
• Or maybe you’ve stood outside the door that seems to be closed the tightest of all…the door of death and you have stood by the graveside of someone you love and when that door shuts, there’s nothing scarier, more frustrating or heartbreaking in this whole wide world.
This is the reality of the life we live. We live in a world full of closed doors, but here’s what I want you to know today. And please don’t miss this: God never wanted for this world to be like that! God did not create a world of closed doors…instead He created a world of doors wide open.
In the beginning of time, God created perfection and placed man and woman in the smack dab middle of it…in the Garden of Eden. And the Bible says that the door was wide open. That man and woman experienced everything just like it should be and their relationship with God and God with them was a wide open door. But you know what happened? Adam and Eve slammed the door on God. They choose their way over God’s way, their will over God’s will, their plan over God’s plans and everything changed. In that moment, something called sin entered the world and forevermore the world would be full of closed doors. Things are not the way they should be anymore! You don’t need me to tell you that this is a broken, fallen, messed up, hurting, world full of fear and frustration and heartbreak and it all can be traced back to this closed door. The door that closed because of sin, and now we’re all sinners. Every single one of us have slammed this door.
Our youngest child is Taylor and a few months back we were talking to Taylor about sin and I asked her if she had ever sinned, and she was really hesitant to answer. I think she thought I was trying to get her to confess to something so she wasn’t sure how to answer. But I explained to Taylor that everybody sins. You’ve sinned, I’ve sinned. We’ve all sinned. So the next day Taylor was at school and apparently she was repeating this life lesson to some of her friends and she proceeded to convince one little boy that he was sinner. At first he said no, but she convinced him and he finally said, well whatever! The funny part of the story is that the little boy’s name was Jesus...spelled JESUS! I started thinking about it. My child convinced Jesus he was a sinner! Are you following me?
We’ve all sinned except Jesus and God had already said, that the only way this door could be opened back up once it was shut was through the shedding of blood and so do you know what God did? He did the unthinkable! Though he was not the one to shut the door. Though He had been betrayed, hurt and sinned against, God, the Bible says, took an innocent animal from the Garden and God killed it. For the first time ever, death was experienced and God shed the blood of something innocent so someone guilty could open the door. The blood was the way for the door to be reopened.
Now can we fast-forward through history? God’s chosen people were the Israelites and they had repeatedly slammed the door, and slammed the door, and slammed the door on God and His love and His way and there’s a period in history where God decides that sin must be paid for and that payment was going to be the first born of every household. The oldest sibling – sorry guys! It’s another slam against you! The door of death would shut on the firstborn of the house, but then God said this, if you’ll kill a blameless, spotless lamb, and put the blood of that lamb over the doorpost of your house, you will live. In essence, the blood would once again open the door.
Now these are just two foreshadowing examples of what would one day come to be. Just two examples of what would happen in the future on a day we now know as Good Friday. So you’ve got the blood in the garden, the blood on the doorposts. And wouldn’t you know it? Even though God did this to open the door, we continued to slam the door in God’s face. BUT, then Jesus shows up and Jesus makes this audacious claim about Himself that would forever change the way we view the door and endure the fear, the frustration, and the heartbreak.
Jesus said, John 10:9 NASB: I am the door; (so play along with me. Who’s the door? JESUS! Jesus is the door) if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. I know pasture isn’t really something that any of us are looking for right? But all of us, every single one of us are looking for that which pasture represents. We’re looking for safety and security and peace and provision and Jesus Himself says, look no further! Because once again I am opening up the door and the way Jesus opened the door for us is through His death on a cross. Watch this. Jesus’ blood now was the way for the door to be opened forever so we could walk through it…to be saved, to live the life God intended us to live, and to be in relationship with God. Jesus is the door. It’s all coming together now isn’t it?
But this is not the end of the doors you see. Because after Jesus died on the cross, they carried his bloodied, beaten, lifeless body to a tomb where they shut the door once again. Only this time, they locked it tight with a stone in front of the entrance. They set guards in place to make sure no one could open the door. Jesus was dead, all hope was gone, the door would be forever shut. And we would all be forced to live in the reality of a world with closed doors…full of fear, frustration, and heartbreak. And that’s where the story could’ve ended.
For many of us, that’s where the story has ended. This closed door is a representation of our relationship with God. But, I want to tell you something today. That is not God’s plan. God loves you more than that! God cares about you more than that! God wants a relationship with you more than that. Though you have sinned and slammed the door in the face of God, though you have made mistakes, though you haven’t done everything the right way, you need to know today that God is not satisfied with the door between you and Him being closed and locked tight.
That’s why the Bible says that, Matthew 28:1-6a NLT: Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint. Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead…” Jesus is alive and the door is once again opened!
I’ve come to proclaim to you today, to those who have felt fear and frustration and heartbreak, I’ve come to tell you that the door is open and Jesus is alive and He invites every single one of us to come through Him to find salvation! Come through the door to new opportunities, to new possibilities, to new peace, to new joy, to a new beginning, come through the door to NEW life!
Some of you have been so confused about the door to God. You’ve thought the door was religion or good works or trying harder or being better, but that’s not it at all. The door is Jesus and once you walk through that door you’ll discover the love and acceptance and forgiveness and salvation that you’ve been looking for and your life will never be the same because Jesus is the door and that door is wide open for you today because of Easter! Jesus is alive and you never have to fear or be frustrated or face heartbreak alone again – because Jesus makes all things new.
We have three kids…they’re all getting kind of big now. Brayden is 11, and Emma is 10 and Taylor is 7 so this doesn’t happen quite as often anymore but it used to be that late some nights or early, early in the morning, I would hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming down the hallway, and into my bedroom door one of them would come. They would tap me on the shoulder and snuggle into the bed under the covers between Tabitha and I and whisper, I can’t sleep, I’m scared, I had a bad dream. But there was always something about our open door at the end of the hallway that would make it all better! Today I’m saying to all of you who have been afraid, all of you who can’t sleep because of a bad dream, if you’re frustrated, if you’re heartbroken and burdened, there’s an open door, His name is Jesus, and he can make all things new in your life. The door is open for you!
Let me be very clear today, Jesus wants to make all things new in your life, He does, but this open door relationship doesn’t happen automatically. You see, friend, you’ve got to walk through the door, you’ve got to accept this gift for yourself. In fact, speaking of a different kind of door later in the Bible, the door of your heart, Jesus says this, Jesus says Rev. 3:20 NLT: 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 together as friends.
You know what I believe is happening right now for many of you? Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart! Please do not ignore it. You are not here by accident today. On everyone of our campuses, I believe that God has brought you here today, that this whole experience today, the whole entire thing has been for you and for this moment and very clearly I believe that God wants many of you, his lost children, to open the door and come home to a relationship with Him.
You’ve heard the Gospel, the good news that Jesus died for you, that Jesus rose again and He’s alive and wants a relationship with you and now He’s knocking at the door of your heart and in just a moment I’m going to invite you to open the door. If you do not know Jesus today but you’re ready to begin a relationship with Him. If you’re ready to accept His forgiveness, to be made right with God in Heaven, and to live your life for Him, then I want to invite you to say a very simple prayer with me today. If you today know that you have slammed the door on God through your sin, but you want that door forever opened up by Jesus, then I want you to pray this prayer with me and give your life to Jesus Christ.
With every head bowed and every eye closed. No one moving around, no one stirring. This is the moment of decision. God’s presence is here. He is speaking to you and I don’t care what you’ve done or where you’ve been. I don’t care if you’re a 12 year old or 20 year old or an 80 year old, it’s not too early and it’s not too late for you. You’re about to be made new by Jesus Christ. Your life is about to be forever changed. I want you to silently in your heart to God, repeat this prayer after me if you’re ready to walk through the door of Jesus, just say: Jesus I want to know you. I receive your forgiveness for my sin. Thank you for dying on the cross. Thank you for rising from the grave. Thank you for being my door to God. I will live my life for you. In your name I pray, AMEN!
I want everyone to look this way. I believe today that many of you, many of you, just prayed that prayer and began a relationship with Jesus and let me tell you something, when we were planning this service months ago, I very cleared sensed God leading me to help you take it one step further. I want today to be a defining moment of you. I don’t want this to be a prayer you pray and walk away from and never remember again, I want Easter 2013 to be a moment that is forever etched in your heart and soul because this is the moment your life forever changed and so in just a moment on all of our campuses, I’m going to count to three and when I hit three, if you just prayed that prayer with me, I’m going to ask you to take a bold step. To make it official, to nail it down. Jesus died for you publicly, so I’m going to ask you to do something for him publicly, when I hit three, all over the room on every campus, if you prayed that prayer with me, when I hit three just like the 3rd day that Jesus rose from the grave, I’m going to ask you to stand to your feet, slip out from the seat you’re in and come forward to the stage to the stairs on your right. We’ll have people to meet you there and today I want you to walk across this stage and symbolically walk through the door. That’s right, walk through the door demonstrating that you are now in relationship with Jesus.
This is going to be a moment you’ll never forget, as a church we’re going to stand to our feet and celebrate with you as you do and then you’re going to return to your seat. Nothing freaky, nothing weird, just an outward response of a prayer you just prayed. And if you meant it, it’s time to show it. If Jesus is now your Savior and your Lord, and you just prayed with me, let’s make official, let’s nail it down, let’s walk through the door. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. My campus pastors are going to greet you on every campus. Our church is going to celebrate with you like you just won the Super Bowl. You know who you are, on the count of three. 1, this is for you, 2, don’t wait don’t delay, 3 – come right now!
