5-10-09 Open Doors

You’ve all been given a peace of paper and a pencil. Take that out right now and write down a couple of numbers. Write down the year in which you were born on the left side of your paper. You can cover this up if you want to, but write down the year in which you were born, and then make a little dash, and then over here, on the right side write down 20_?_ and then you can make a question mark, because that’s the day your life’s going to stop, and we don’t know when that is. Okay?

So write that down, and I’ll write my year of birth up here…(laughter) just wanted to see if you were all paying attention. This is how old my kids think I am!

 

Now here’s the deal. Every one of us has one of these dates (birth date). It’s kind of a mystery; we remember and celebrate this day each year when it comes around. And, every one of us is going to have one of these dates (dates that we die) also. We don’t like to think about this one very much, but it’s coming. You have no control over this first date. Nobody asked you when you wanted to be born, or whether you wanted to be born; ready or not, you came. And you don’t have very much control over this last date here. But this little dash-this is yours. You will decide what you’re going to do with this.

 

Have any of you noticed this part of your life (the dash) just seems to go by faster and faster with each passing year? There’s a verse in Psalm 90 where Moses says to God,

Teach us to number our days, because we don’t know how to do that very well. so that we might gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

 

Help us to use this (the dash) in a way that really matters, in a way that counts. Because God invites us to make our little dash a part of what he is doing, because then up there will come down here in our lives and in the lives of those that we touch.

 

It’s one of the great images in the Bible: Paul’s in prison and his little dash is going to end any day. And his prayer is this. He says:

Pray for us, too, he says to the people, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly this mystery, this gospel, this news of Jesus-as clearly as I should. (Colossians 4:3-4)

 

Now, it’s very moving to me to think of Paul in chains, in prison. He doesn’t know when he’s going to die. His little dash could end any day, but he says, “Pray for me”-not “for my survival,” not “for my safety,” not “that I’d be released from prison,” not “for my comfort” He says, “Pray for open doors, open doors,” just “God, give me another open door, give me another open door into somebody’s heart, so that I can share about your goodness.”

 

Paul’s greatest desire is to help others enter the kingdom of God. His greatest desire is not for himself, but for others to receive God’s blessing and God’s goodness and God’s love in their lives, because he knows that it’s just hell without it. Love is not selfish; it’s selfless. As Christians, we are called to be expressions of God’s love on this earth. We are called to be encouragers for those around us. We are encouraged to live selflessly, because that’s God’s definition of love.

When I was first moving towards planting this church in Lawton, I did some surveys in Lawton. One of the questions that I asked was this: What good thing or good deeds to do you see the church doing in our community? And people who were not apart of a church were hard pressed to answer that question. They don’t see the church doing anything outside it’s four walls. Why? It’s because the church’s love – your love and mine – has generally been centered inward. The church’s has traditionally been self centered. We tend to love those who are like us and avoid those who are different from us. Obviously these are general statements

Paul says this to the church in Thessalonica. He says,

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 (NIV)

Our love is not to be caged up in the church, but instead, it is supposed to explode into all the world. They, the world, all those who are not here, yet – they will know that we are Christians by our love – our love for them.

Jesus said this: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus is saying, “I am the King of Heaven and Earth. Right now there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of heaven. Right now there are many people living in darkness. Right now there are many people who are living in hell; Right now there are many people who are lonely; right now there are many people who are hurting; right now there are many people out there who are looking for truth; right now there are many people who are looking for life – abundant life – joy filled life, and I am the answer, Jesus says, to all their issues.

Jesus says, “Go and share this good news with people everywhere – in Lawton, in Paw Paw, in Decatur, in Mattawan, in your home town, in Michigan, in the U.S, in the world. Go and share this good news.

Paul was asking the church in Colossi to pray for open doors – to pray for people’s hearts to be opened – to pray that God’s love would touch others and they would receive him. Pray for their hearts to be opened to the Good News and to God’s love in their lives. Pray! Pray! Pray!

But how many of us pray for such things? Most of our prayers are selfish. Sometimes, still today, I still find myself in a selfish rut where I pray only for me – for my needs and my concerns, and I neglect the needs of others.

I find it interesting that there is no “Me” or no “I’ in the greatest commandments of Jesus. When Jesus was asked about what the greatest commandment in all the Bible was and he said,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

The greatest commandments tell me only to love. That somehow everything else in life will be good if I only have the ability to love God and love others. But can I say that I’m journeying toward loving God with all that I am, if I’m not praying for open doors and not looking of opportunities to share his good news with others?

As a fun way of getting at the heart of some of our issues, I want to ask you a question. The question is, “What do you think is the most dangerous object in your home?”

 

This guy named Larry Laudan, who’s a professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaii, and he has written a book about risk, and he devotes one whole chapter to dangers in your household. Some of them are what you’d expect, like 460,000 people every year are injured by kitchen knives. 100,000 people every year are injured by manual and power saws-power tools. Some of the dangerous items surprised me, like draperies. Every year twenty people in America are strangled to death on drapery cords. Wouldn’t have guessed that. Every year some 4,000 of us seriously injure ourselves on pillows. Don’t even know how that happens, but if you’re one of those 4,000 people-be careful because pillows can be dangerous.

 

So, turn to the person next to you, if you don’t mind, for just a moment, and guess:

What do you think is the most dangerous-lots of dangerous ones-what do you think is the most dangerous object around your house?

 

Turn to the person next to you and just take a guess. What do you think? Okay, now I want you to see what I think is the most dangerous object in your home. Thank you, guys. This is an easy chair. We do not buy these chairs for their beauty; we buy them for their comfort. Anybody know what’s the name of the number one best-selling chair in America? La-Z-Boy®. Not “Risky Boy,” not “Worker Boy,” but “La-Z-Boy.” And we buy them so that we can be immersed in comfort.

And I want to give you a picture of what this chair can do in a human life. So I’m going to need a volunteer for this one. Andy Ross, I’m going to ask, if you don’t mind, Andy, now that you’re a new member of our management community and a paragon of spiritual maturity, would you come on up and have a seat in this chair?

 

And then there are some things I want to do to increase your comfort. When you sit in a chair like this, you need a special pair of footwear. You don’t have to put these on, but they’re my slippers, so they are hygienic. And then there is a special kind of food that we like when we sit in a comfortable chair, and we call it comfort food. So, I have some of that here. This is a glass of soda, and here is some chocolate. So here’s some comfort food.

 

And then we just don’t sit in that chair, we have to be watching something, which is television. But you know, even then, in the old days, you had to get up from the chair and go over and change the channel, or turn the set off or on. So God invented the remote control, so that we could change channels from the chair, as God intended.

 

And we get so dependent on these; you want to see something ugly around the house, just watch someone lose the remote control. In fact, I’m not making this up, they have now invented a new kind of remote control, where if you’ve lost it, you clap your hands, and it starts beeping so you can find it. And part of what’s troubling to me is I know some of you-the only thing you will take away from this message is, “I gotta get one of them remote controls he was talking about.”

 

But it’s a little bright right now, so could we turn the lights down a little bit, because that’ll make Andy a little bit more comfortable?

 

Now, here’s a question. Does this look like a man who’s ready to spring into action? Does this look like somebody who’s poised for a season of explosive growth and development, who’s ready to sacrifice himself? If God asks him to do a hard difficult thing, does it look like he’s ready to say, Yes?

 

If this is all that life is about, if it’s just about getting free from stress and challenge and problem and making yourself as comfortable as possible, does that make your heart beat fast? Does that make you want to spring out of bed in the morning? Does it look like he’s even going to stay awake for the message? I don’t think so, so I’ll take this back, but you can keep the chocolate and soda. Would you all say “thank you” to Andy for being willing to do this?

 

Now I’ll tell you what I think is so dangerous about this chair, because I think it’s a dangerous deal. What’s dangerous is not the stuff you’ll do while you’re in the chair; it’s the stuff you don’t do when you’re in it. It’s the relationships that you never deepen. It’s the people you never serve because you never even see them, you just don’t go there, you never know how much they need God, how much they need you. It’s the great prayers you never pray,

O God, would you open doors, would you be at work?

 

It’s the spiritual conversations, those bold conversations where your heart’s just pumping because so much is on the line, and you’re saying, God, help me help this person take their next step towards You, whatever that next step is.

 

It’s the gifts that you never give, it’s the spiritual gifts that you never exercise, it’s the spiritual battles that you never fight, it’s the victories that you never win, it’s the tears that you never weep, it’s the open door you never walk through. You were made for something more, something bigger, something better than a life in this chair.

 

We live in a society that says, This chair is it; man, this is what you want to work for, live for, buy. But the reality is that this chair is the most dangerous thing in your home. This chair is the most dangerous thing in churches all across our country. This chair! You were made for something more. God’s calling us to something more than life here.

 

Scientists did a study years ago and they took an amoeba and they put that little amoeba in an ideal environment. It was a wonderful moment for that amoeba, kind of like for Andy in this chair a moment ago. Perfect temperature, perfect humidity, perfect amount of light, perfect amount of water, perfect food conditions. That little amoeba had no stress, no problems, no challenges. Know what happened to that amoeba? It died. It died. Too much comfort is a lethal thing.

 

It’ll destroy your body, oddly enough. Feels wonderful to your body for a moment, but it’ll kill it. And it’ll kill your soul. And it’ll keep you from participating in God’s mission.

 

When we participate in God’s mission, we help people enter the kingdom of God; we help them enter into God’s love.

 

Sometimes, it not that we have such a love for our own personal comfort, so much as, we have a misunderstanding of what the church is.  We say things like “I’m going to church” or someone will ask you, “Where do you go to church?” and you might respond, I go to church at the middle school or the church off of 29^th street, but the church is not a building, it is not an event, and here’s the thing, it is not a destination. We don’t go to church. We are the church. The church, you and I, have gathered here for worship – to worship God and learn about him. You did not come to church this morning; you came to worship with the church.

 

When I say things like, “I need to go to church” or “I haven’t been to church in a long time” or I go to the church on 29^th street, you’ve made the church a destination.

 

Church isn’t the destination. It’s a connector to where you’re going – to where you want to go. Our destination is the Kingdom of God. Church is not the destination. That’s what happens in many dieing churches today. People have “arrived” at the church. It is they’re destination. There is no “Going and making disciples”. The only going that they do is they “Go to church”.

 

Think about it this way. An airport is not the destination. Shannon and I had to go through three airports in order to get to San Antonio last year. Yet, none of those airports were our destination. Many church people believe that the church is a building and that the church is an event. In other words, they believe that the church is the destination. Though we don’t believe that mentally, we sometimes get stuck in ordering our lives in such a way that church is the destination. Jesus only uses the word “church” twice but he uses the words “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven” over a hundred times. The church is not the destination, but a hub, an airport, or a vehicle that takes us to the kingdom of God.

 

The kingdom of God is up there coming down here. It’s heaven coming to earth; it’s anyone and anyplace where God is allowed to govern as King. It’s anyplace where God’s power, authority and love rules.

 

Paul’s dash is nearing the end and the only thing that he’s concerned about is more open doors. He says, “Pray for open doors for the Gospel of Christ”. The most important thing in Paul’s life is that others would enter the kingdom of God – that others would experience God’s love – that others would receive healing for all their wounds – that others would find truth and blessing in their lives – that others would experience up there coming down here in their lives – that others would experience hell being bound in their lives and the flood gates of heaven being opened up and the blessings of heaven would rain down upon them. That’s what Paul wants for himself and that’s what Paul wants for others. That’s “loving your neighbor as yourself”.

 

Jesus says, “Go”. Don’t get too comfortable here! Sure this is a great place. Sure, your life group is a great place, but don’t get to comfortable there. Those are not your destinations, those are just hubs.

 

When I asked people in this community what good the church was doing, they did not know how to respond. They didn’t have an answer. They had not been receiving the love of God from the church, because, in recent years, the church has traditionally been a destination. Jesus says, NO!

 

Next week we are not going to talk about going, we are going to Go and share the love of God with our community. We will not be worshipping as usual, but instead we will worship by sharing kindness with our community together.

 

Some of you may be concerned about working on the Sabbath. This is what Jesus taught about that:

 

Jesus said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:11-12 (NIV)

Come with old work cloths. Come ready to serve. Come ready to Go!

Until that time, pray for open doors. Pray for the opportunity to express God’s love to those that we serve. Pray that others would enter the kingdom of God and receive all the blessings of God’s love. Pray for God’s love to overflow in you, so that you can share that love with the others that you find yourself next to.

 Afterwards we will be serving lunch.