The Door Opened By The Resurrection

TEXT - Rev. 3: 7-13

Ever run into a closed door, locked from the other side, shutting you out, making you feel excluded? (pause)

I hate that feeling of being shut out! Easter, for me, is about an Open Door; God’s invitation to life - full and abundant life right now and eternal life in His house.

Our text is packed with assurances about our access to God, to life, to Heaven.

Revelation 3:7-13 (NIV) To the Church in Philadelphia

7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David.

What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds.

See, I have placed before you an open door

that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. 10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Let’s talk about the doors opened by God to you and me.

He opened the Door of Forgiveness to us.

The Bible tells us that our disobedience to the will of God caused the door of access to Him to close, for He cannot look on sin! Not only did humanity lose access to the Presence of God, they also lost the promise of Heaven. The grave stood as the ultimate closed door - you might even say, slammed shut and locked!

All manner of attempts to pry it open are tried.

∙ Some tried morality - ‘if only I am good enough, the door to God will swing open again.’ But, guilt remains.

∙ Most try religion, you know, rules, regulations, rituals. But religion only adds to their sense of guilt and frustration when despite best intentions, they fall far short of their own expectations, never mind those of God!

God’s true desire was not to shut us out, but to welcome us in. He offers a welcome, opens the door to us through Jesus! After a long discussion about our failings, our spiritual quandary brought about by our repeated disboedience, Paul says:

"Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves.

God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. " (Ephesians 2:8-10, The Message)

He opened the Door of Reconciliation to us.

Beyond forgiveness is restoration of relationship. Ever messed up by doing something that hurt another person? Like any of us could deny that!! Hopefully, after some time passes and after an apology is extended, the person lets you know that you’re forgiven. It feels good to get a note or a phone call that eases the pain of guilt. But, sometimes, you still feel the person pulling away. They just don’t want to resume a friendship. You can feel that trust isn’t there.

But, in other situations, the person is willing to work it out, to restore the friendship. Doesn’t that feel great?

God went beyond forgiving us for offending Him by loving other things more than we love Him, ignoring Him in favor of doing our own thing, and even outright disobeying Him because we are so willful. In Christ, He opened the door to reconciliation.

I love the picture painted by that familiar verse in Revelation

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20, NIV)

This open door not only benefits us with God. When we are forgiven and reconciled to Him, the gift of His

love, He makes us better people who know how to open the doors of reconciliation so desperately needed in

this world.

"We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters." (1 John 4:19-21, NLT)

He opened the Door of Acceptance.

Now, please do not take what I am about to say as so much pyscho-babble! It is the truth!

God restores self-esteem through the new life given us in Christ Jesus. I’m not talking about arrogance or even confidence in self. I am talking about learning to accept who you were created to be in His purposes.

The Scripture repeatedly tells us that each of us is given spiritual gifts, that we have a unique place to fill in God’s Body, that we are able to love God in ways no one else can! But, if we are full of self-hatred, loathing for our personality or our place in this world, we will never know the joy of living in the Center of His will.

There are good reasons that many people spend their entire lives trying to be somebody else, trying to fit in, trying to fill a role that was created for somebody else.

∙ Early in life, just about every one of us realized that we weren’t on the inside.

∙ Maybe we didn’t make the tryouts for the team. The coach didn’t even notice us.

∙ Or perhaps our Dad was pre-occupied with work and in our immaturity we interpreted his distance as meaning something was wrong with us.

∙ Perhaps we had a class in which we got a “D” in spite of our best efforts and that grade staring back at us, couple with our parents angry, screamed “you’re a defective human being.”

∙ That first love stole your heart, turned your world upside down, then dumped you for the cheerleader.

∙ The college you wanted to attend rejected your application.

∙ At work, you repeatedly were passed over for promotion.

∙ Divorce broke your heart.

The list of things that disappoint us is long. It’s not too hard to conclude that we not worth much, that the best course of action is to put on a thick, self-protective armor. Trouble with armor is that it is effective at keeping harm from coming our way, but remember - it also locks us in!

In my favorite book in the Bible (what is it, church?)..... That’s right - Ephesians – there is a passage that never fails to create a lump in my throat, a deep emotional response to God’s declaration of my value to Him.

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son." (Ephesians 1:3-6, NLT)

"I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms."

(Ephesians 1:17-20, NLT)

If YOU believe that passage, and invite God’s mighty, life-transforming start to work in you, there is no way you can hang onto your self-hatred. You will be healed and you will be able to step through the door acceptance - of yourself, and of others!

Finally, in the Resurrection, God opened the door of Heaven to us.

It may surprise you to learn that most Americans believe in that Jesus rose from the dead. George Gallup reports that 85% of us affirm a belief that Jesus lives today.

The Bible makes the Resurrection the pivotal Truth of our Christian hope. Paul asserts that if Christ is not raised then our faith is futile! I’m not going to work through the evidence for the reality of the Resurrection. That would be a sermon in itself. I believe the Bible presents ample evidence for the historicity of the event. If your wanting to explore that evidence, let me suggest that you get Lee Strobel’s excellent book, The Case For Christ. It’s well written, not too difficult to read, and comprehensive!

The question is, so what difference does the Resurrection really make for us 2,000 years later?

The pivotal moment when the One who holds the keys unlocked the Door of Heaven and held it open to you and me was that first Resurrection morning! On the Cross, Jesus satisfied the Father’s holy demands, taking the guilt of our sinfulness on Himself. That is a wonderful Truth. But, even more wonderful is that He came back, threw open the tomb, stepped out, and pointed the way through the grave to Eternal Life!

The Bible invites us to a dance of joy saying,

“The truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries. There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man." ... "It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! "

- (1 Corinthians 15:20-21, 56-57, The Message)

I know I sometimes act like I’m the first person to ever lose a family member to death, but my Dad’s death a couple of months ago, was a life-changing event. I’ll never read a passage about eternal life or Heaven in quite the same way again. When they lowered that casket holding my Dad’s body into the earth, it was bleak moment. I’ve been back to that graveyard several times, just to stand by that bare patch of earth, but no visit was quite as sweet as one last Saturday.

My grandson, Gavin, who is in the first grade, was out riding in my Miata with me and he asked, “Grandpa, would you take me to the grave of your Daddy?”

“Well, Gavin,” I explained, “I might cry and I don’t want to make you sad.”

“But, Grandpa, I really would like to see where it is.” So we drove to the top of the mountain and into the cemetery. As expected, when I pointed out where Dad’s body lay, I could not hold back the tears from sliding down my cheeks.

At that moment, I felt a little hand slip into my hand and squeeze it. And from the mouth of child came words of hope I know to be true because Christ was raised. “Grandpa, your Daddy loved God and Jesus. The Bible says that if we love Jesus, we go to Heaven when we die, so you’re going to see your Daddy someday, and then when you die, Grandpa, I’ll love Jesus so I can see you again, too!”

I could not stop crying the whole ride home! But, those tears were tears of hopeful joy!

Dear friend, today - Easter, 2009, God holds open the door to Heaven. "He says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2, NIV)

Step through the doors of forgiveness, reconciliation, acceptance, and ultimately - Heaven by choosing, in Gavin’s words, ‘to love Jesus.’

Here’s the promise -

"Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in." (Ephesians 3:17, The Message)

"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” (Romans 5:1-2, The Message)

Amen

Jerry D. Scott,