Behold I Set Before You an Open Door 1985

To start off by saying that one of the most popular men in this city was a chap who stood in front of a restaurant downtown every day at lunchtime handing out free samples. He always drew a crowd. Hundreds of workers on their lunch hour, secretaries, business executives, civil servants would come for their generous taste of steak, turkey, delicious rolls, strawberry pie.

The idea was that after people had a taste of these things, some of them at least would go inside the restaurant and eat. Well, now maybe the portions that everybody got as a sample were so big, too big, maybe they became too attached to this fellow who kept handing them out. Whatever it was, very, very few people among all these hundreds who came for their sample ever walked through the door into the restaurant.

In the summertime, the door of the restaurant was wide open. You could look in and see the tables all set, the waiters and the waitresses standing ready to take care of things. You could smell the delicious food.

But as long as this man with the samples was standing out front, passing them out, his followers at least, the people who kind of gathered around him, were satisfied to take their little sample, munch on it, and go on their way. One day, the sample seekers came to the restaurant doorway, and the sample man was gone, without a word of explanation. And people got angry.

What's the deal? He didn't even tell us he was leaving. What's going on here? Over the door was the sign which said, welcome. So they kept coming back every day, looking for the sample man.

He never turned up. So after about a week of this, some of the people who came decided they would at least walk through the door and try out the restaurant. And to their amazement, they had food and fellowship such as they'd never known in all their lives.

It was marvelous. A few more weeks went by. And then one day, when every seat in that restaurant was filled, the door slammed shut.

Immediately, crowds of people came to the outside of the door, pounding on the door and knocking and kicking and screaming, let us in. We want to be part of your restaurant, too. But the door never opened again.

Reading from Revelation chapter 3, verse 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, and who shuts and no one opens, I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie. Behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and learn that I have loved you, because you have kept my word of patient endurance. I will keep you from the hour of trial, which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never shall he go out of it. And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Now it would be presumptuous for any congregation of believers in this land to claim for itself these words spoken centuries ago to an assembly of believers who were experiencing trials such as we have never known. You have kept my word. You have not denied my name.

The believers in the ancient city of Philadelphia obviously had a purity of heart and a commitment to Jesus far beyond ours. And yet, there is a word in this letter for us. The words of the Holy One, the true One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens, I know you works.

Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut. The Lord of heaven and earth has indeed, and in fact, set before this assembly, all of us here, an open door. He has opened the way into the presence of God.

He has given us access. If we want to, we can walk through into the presence of God and have our ears open so that we can hear a living word. We can have our tongues loosed so that we can speak that word and live that word.

This is a fact. This is something which has happened and is happening today. The risen Jesus is among us, obviously at work through his spirit, and he's doing among us the very things he did to that deaf mute when he was here during the days of his flesh and blood.

The passage that Steve already read for us, let's just look at it again briefly. From Mark chapter seven, verse thirty two, they brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they saw him to lay his hand upon him and taking him aside from the multitude privately. He put his fingers into his ears and spat and touched his tongue.

And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, epithet, be open. The words of the holy one, the true one who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut. And his ears were open and his tongue was released and he spoke plainly and he charged them to tell no one.

But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.

Here was this man who could not hear and whose whose words were so garbled you couldn't even understand them. Suddenly there is an open door in front of him. His ear is open so he can hear.

His tongue is loose so he can speak. Now, the issue is, what's he going to do with this open door? If a year from now we come to this man who has been healed and we hear him speaking words from God and living those words, we know that he then walked through the open door, heard a word from God and is being changed by it. On the other hand, if a year from now this man whose tongue has been healed is now speaking with that tongue, small talk, gossip, greed, and is like all cluttered with the trappings of Babylon, then we know that this man stood in front of the open door, nibbled on the samples but never walked through, went on about his business and remained deaf to the voice of God.

When Paul came to Corinth or Ephesus or Philippi, he was the sample man. He would give people a taste of the kingdom of God in some way. There would come a living word through this man's mouth and he was far from eloquent.

Then he would say, go through the door. Jesus Christ and him crucified. Behold the Lamb of God.

Walk through. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Enter the kingdom.

Those who walked through the door had their ears open and their tongues loosed, became the church. Then Paul would leave and the church would continue. The church would continue.

It did not need Paul because these people weren't standing around outside the door nibbling on the samples. They were partaking of Jesus to the full. Partaking of Jesus to the full, their ears were open, their tongues were loosed, and they became ministers, servants to each other.

They exhorted each other, encouraged each other, healed each other, counseled each other, wept for each other, prayed for each other, worked with each other, and together they brought living bread to the world beyond them. Now you say, but what if they had a problem and Paul wasn't there to help them? What would they do? Well, that happened many times, no doubt. We even have illustrations of it in the New Testament.

And Paul would say, find somebody in your midst. God will use them to solve that problem. Listen to him chewing out the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 1. Paul says, when one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge the angels? How much more matters pertaining to this life? If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are least esteemed by the church? I say this to your shame.

Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? In other words, you've got somebody in there who can solve that problem, who can settle that issue. Find him! Or when the Hebrew Jews and the Greek Jews started having problems, very early in the life of the apostolic church. Then the problem wasn't, the issue wasn't, Peter, what are we going to do? Peter, do something! But it was rather, find people among you who can handle this thing.

And so we read in Acts chapter 6, verse 1, Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the Twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you, you pick them out, we're not going to pick them out, you pick them out, sudden men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Ahio. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands upon them, and the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.

Of course, this kind of thing won't work if we're all standing outside the open door nibbling on samples. But if we are, in fact, if we go through the open door and get inside the restaurant, that is, if we partake of Jesus to the full, putting it another way, if we pay the price of functioning as a body, then it will work. And the price of functioning as a body is very simple.

When you go through the door into this restaurant, you not only go in there to eat, you go in there to serve. Everybody in this restaurant not only eats, he, she also serves. And Jesus illustrates this very, very clearly in John 13, the Upper Room, Last Supper.

13.2 of John. And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going to God, rose up from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

Making clear, very clear, that in this glorious kingdom, eating and serving always go together. That when you go through the door into this restaurant, you are committing yourself not only to partake of his body and blood, you are committing yourself to serve. Not to be served, but to serve.

When you go through this door, it's no longer nibbling samples on the outside, American churchianity, but it's coming in and you are committing yourself to being a servant. Everybody. No exceptions.

Reading on in the same chapter, verse 12, 13 of John. When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you know what I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord. You are right, for so I am.

If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Clear cut. The commitment is to partake of his body and drink of his blood, but is also to serve his people.

And the mentality switches. It's no longer, what are they doing for me? These guys aren't cooperating with me. They don't fit into my program.

You know, I'm not getting my needs met. That mentality is repented of, that is seen as sin, and now it is, Lord, what do you want me to do? Here I am. You call the shots, and you will.

It may not gratify our ego, but it will please him, and it will cause us to grow. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Okay.

How do we present our bodies as spiritual worship to God? Great, you know, to present our bodies even in worship here, during this time. Wonderful, and we should. But, you know, actually, the presenting of our bodies as spiritual worship means that we present our bodies to God in service to each other.

That we commit ourselves to serve each other using our bodies to serve each other, even if it takes energy, strength, sweat, nervous energy, stewing and fretting and wondering, how am I going to do this? How is this thing going to work out? Fitting in, making commitment to each other, and then using our body to take living bread to that world out there. And the two go together. Be not conformed to this world.

Be not conformed to this world, Paul goes on to say in Romans 12. Okay, how do we break conformity with this world? Very simply. You know, we break conformity with the gimme attitude of this world, the serve me attitude of this world, the do something for me mentality of this world.

You owe me something. I mean, the world is just full of this. Everybody's, you know, do something for me now.

You owe me something. But now we break with that. And we commit ourselves.

We commit ourselves under God. The main thing I'm going to do now is be a servant to my brothers and sisters. All of us, without exception.

That you may prove, you know, wait a minute. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may demonstrate what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We demonstrate what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God by one, serving each other.

Two, serving living bread to the world. Being servants. And that's the issue.

If we're prepared to do that and willing to do that and serious about it, and we'll tell God that, he'll give us lots of chances, lots of opportunities, and the whole atmosphere of our body will just begin to glow in a way it hasn't ever yet. To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, the words of the Holy One, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your works.

Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut. The door is open, waiting to receive men and women who are willing to serve. Who will then be as valid, as powerful, as fruitful, and as holy a church as that church in ancient Philadelphia.

In Revelation 3. Behold, I have set before you an open door. Those who come through that door as servants. Faithful servants.

Consistent servants. Holy servants. Joyful servants.

Will be my church. And the gates of death will not prevail against them. Ever.

Let's just wait upon God in silence.