Hey good morning friends, can you believe that it is 2022? I tell you that I'm going to be writing 2021 on my checks until sometime in March, except I haven't written a check in like three years. So I guess in one way it sure seems like the times they are changing, and yet in another way, at least in regards to coronavirus, some things never seem to change. With cases soaring in our communities that's around our church, and with many including some of our wonderful staff team testing positive this week for the virus, the elders and I thought it'd be prudent to take a one week pause on our in-person gatherings and go virtual.
Hopefully, this permits everybody impacted during the Christmas break with all of the gathering in the traveling to get healthily, to clear the virus, to get through quarantine protocols, and then hopefully all of us can regather again in person next Sunday. So thanks for your understanding, trust me, nobody, nobody wants to cancel in person less than I do, but we thought it was a prudent step this week to ensure everybody's safety. And this is where the community part of our name comes in. As a community, as a community church, let's be praying for health and healing for everybody in our community, those that are part of our church, and those that are our neighbors.
This is both our privilege and our responsibility. Now, some of you know that we were scheduled to start a new series this week called Legacy. We're going to kick off the new year together looking at what we're all leaving behind. Guys, everybody wants to leave a legacy, and the truth is everybody is leaving a legacy.
We all are. It's just a matter of choosing what it is you're leaving behind and what's going to be said in known of you when you're gone. And as we're going to see over these weeks, that matters. What I've decided to do though this week, because of just being virtual, is to bump legacy forward one week and start when we can beat together again next Sunday.
Hopefully then many of us can gather in person and we'll get at all this all important legacy that each of us is building. That allows me to do that is to share with you today. Well, a special kind of New Year's Eve weekend thought. If you've been around Men and Hills for any amount of years, you know that this Sunday, New Year's Eve weekend Sunday is always a special one for me.
Long before I was to leave Pastor Men and Hills, I've been giving talks and sharing feelings on New Year's Sunday here at our church, because I've always and still believe that New years, well, it matters. Now, look, I get it. We've got a holiday for everything now, right? I mean, today is January 2nd.
You can look this up. January 2nd is Science Fiction Day. Think I'm joking? Check it out online.
I mean, it's silly, right? If you want to look ahead, you can start preparing for January 11th. That's Learn Your Name in Morris Code Day. January 21st is Squirrel Appreciation Day.
And maybe the only one that actually makes any sense. January 16th is Nothing Day, because that's what all of these holidays amount to. Unfortunately, the rise of these Nothing Days has reduced the importance of days like this, New Year's Day, New Year's weekend. And here's why.
Because God, our God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, is a God of order and not disorder. God in his infinite wisdom could have chosen randomness in terms of time and season, but he did not. The very dawn of creation, God says, quote, let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve. Listen now, as a sign or a sign to mark seasons and days and years.
Guys, God designed us to have this mark, right? To count seasons and days and years. That's why every year for all of time, it's not random. It's very precise.
Every year it takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes, and 16 seconds to travel around the sun. That's the actual length of a year, just 44 seconds shy of 365 days and 6 hours. If you want to do the math, you can understand why we have to have a leap year every four years to square ourselves back up again. And God did this as a sign for seasons and days, sure, but also for years.
One year ends with its four seasons and then another begins again. And I believe, I truly believe that one of these signs that God gives us is in a sense the sign to stop, pause, reflect, and change. Before you go around again, stop, pause, reflect, and change. This is my long way of telling you that I still believe in the concept of New Year's solutions.
And sure, I know the common ones like you guys do lose weight, get in shape, save money, and those are great. But this New Year's weekend, can I ask you to join me in considering one new one? It's for 2022. And here it is.
This is what I'm going to try to do new in 2022. This is what I'm going to try to do new in 2022. I'm going to look for and I'm going to walk through opened doors. That's my resolution.
This year, and I hope you'll join me in it. I hope you'll look for and walk through opened doors. What do I mean? Well, let me share my inspiration with you.
The last book in the Bible, as many of you know, is a book called Revelation. Now we know it is a book. It's actually a letter written by John, the disciple of Jesus, to seven churches in the ancient Roman prophets of Asia. John, he wrote while in Roman exile on the island of Patmos, and his letter begins with Jesus' message to these seven churches.
Now here's what I want you to listen to. Listen to Jesus' message to the church in the city of Philadelphia. These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. When he opens, no one can shut, and when he shuts, no one can open.
Here's Jesus. I know your deeds. I've placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know you have little strength, yet you've kept my word and you haven't denied my name.
Guys, check that out. Jesus says to a local church, one that has been faithful but who's tired and couldn't that describe a lot of faithful churches and faithful people after 2021 and 2020. And now the beginning of 2022, he says, look, I know your deeds. And look, look, I've placed before you an open door that no one can shut.
Guys, do you know, do you live like God is still doing this? That he's still opening doors for faithful churches and faithful people. Because I think way, way, way too often, faithful churches and faithful people see God as the God of closed doors and limited opportunities. If you were introduced to God, maybe the way I was introduced to God, maybe you've seen him this way.
You see, when I was first introduced to God, he was the God of don't do this and don't do that. He was the God of boundaries and limits and narrow ways. I was told that the good news of Jesus, the gospel, was there, there were now lots of things I couldn't do anymore or shouldn't do anymore and limitations on possibilities because well, God had a very specific plan for my life and while it was never explicitly stated, there was this underlying thought that, well, God had a plan for my life and so I better not miss it because if I missed it, I'd never be who I was made to be or do what I was made to do. Friends, this year, what's new for 2022 is a new way to see God a different way.
This year I want to see him. I want you to see him, not as the God of the closed door, but the God who opens doors. Now before I go any further, just so you don't understand me or don't misunderstand me, as followers, right, of God, as adopted sons and daughters through faith in Christ. There are certainly things that God says no to and would have us not do.
I mean, what good father doesn't say no to his children? What good father doesn't tell or demand his child not to do things that would cause him terrible or inseparable harm to him or to his other kids? I mean, that's what good dads do. And so when we love God, when we obey him because we trust him, of course it results in us making God honoring choices to abandon things that are not of this new nature or this new family we're part of.
But my fear based on my experience is that becomes the end of our Christian stories, that faith becomes limited to the doors that God closes for us or on us. And so we spend most of our lives sometimes way too long, way too longingly staring at closed doors. This is neither the gospel. It's not good news.
And it's not our God. You see, God is the God of the open door for his people. I'm going to go even further. If you were here over Christmas, I kept telling you a week after a week that peace is not a how but who?
That Jesus is not just our way to peace but well as the Apostle Paul wrote it to the church in Ephesus for Jesus himself is our peace. Well guys in that same way, Jesus is not the way to an open door. By his own confession is recorded by the same John. He said truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Jesus is not the way to some new door, some new path, some new opportunity. Jesus is the door. You enter through him to the new way, the new life, the new path, the new opportunity. He is the God of the open door.
He is the open door itself. But why then do his people spend so much time staring at closed doors? Now doors themselves are rich in imagery. We know this, right?
Doors can be an image of safety, right? Every night when I go to bed, I do the same walk around my house. I go to every door in the house and I make sure each door is shut, locked and bolted. I mean, Jesus is that, right?
Doors can be places to hide behind, places to go where people don't know what's going on behind them and you can let your guard down and just be used, not for just a bit. All the posing and the pretending. The Psalmist wrote, you're my hiding place, you'll protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. You see, Jesus is that too.
He's our safety. He's our deliverer. He's our hiding place. It can be simple as a rejection or closed opportunities, right?
She slammed the door in my face and the scriptures are a fleet with stories of God doing this, closing doors to guide his people. I'll give you a last one, doors can mean rest. I heard a study this week that happened years ago and they asked moms of little kids what their favorite room in the house is. Can you guess?
That's right, the bathroom. Why? Because they can go in there and shut the door for a few minutes and find some peace. You see, Jesus is that door too.
It was he who famously said, come to me, all you who were weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. See, we know Jesus in all of these capacities. It's such familiarity. What we see, Jesus in his role is the open door as the door opened so faintly.
But I'm here to remind us this morning that that is who he is. That's what this promise to the church in Philadelphia is. And I believe based on the totality of God's work in the scriptures and through history and time that this promise is not limited to just the church in Philadelphia, but to all who like that church have little strength yet have kept his word and have it denied his name. God is the God of opened doors.
In fact, it's not just opened doors, but opened doors. Why? Because that's who he is. He opens them.
He opens them for his people. This is what God always does for people of faith. It's a picture, what he's doing for this church in Philadelphia, what he wants to do for each of us in our lives. It's a picture of a boundless new opportunity, limitless possibilities.
It's a picture of a different and better tomorrow, of another chance for a life lived on purpose, right? For good. New adventure is full of lives with new found significance, with never before conceived of possibilities, to do good and make a difference, to make our lives count for eternity and for God's purposes. These are the doors that he opens for all of his kids.
This is what God does. This is who God is. And as his sons and daughters, we should live lives not lamenting closed doors, just spending our lives, staring at closed doors. But we should be a people in constant anticipation, constantly searching out, constantly looking for doors opened.
That's my first observation. Actually, that's my first encouragement for you this New Year's Weekend. I'm telling you God opens doors for people of faith. So live this year, expecting them to open them and be sure to be looking for them.
That's what he had to tell the church in Philadelphia. Look. The story of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, to begin centuries earlier. Think about it with a call of Abraham, right?
And what does God say to him? Go. From your country, your people, your father's household, to the land I'm going to show you. And that was all he was given.
One word. Our redemption, the story of God and the gospel begins with one word, go. In fact, think about it. Where's the great story of faith in the scriptures that begins with stay?
There is no stay here, stay safe, stay warm, stay comfortable, get more, get cozy, right? These stories aren't there. You get comfortable and cozy when you go with God, wherever it is, he goes with you because that's where the comfort is. You can be cozy and comfortable anywhere.
I mean, we know this, right? We were sighted to each other all the time, right? Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I'll feel or fear no evil for you or with me. You're robbing yourself.
They comfort me. God opens doors. And when the door is open, the command that comes is often a simple one. Go.
And I know, especially when we're comfortable, go is scary. I mean, go. Go is unknown. Go means you might not know where or how it's going to turn out.
Go means you're going to have to, well, I guess you're going to have to trust God. I mean, a godly go means there's no guarantees about outcomes. God opens doors for people of faith and he calls them to go, not with promises of outcomes, just the promise of his presence. It's all through the scripture.
He opens a door for Noah, right? He tells Noah, I want you to drop everything you're doing. I want you to refocus your life on building this arc. Everybody's going to think you're crazy.
You're going to lose all your respect in your community. You're going to face their judgment and hostility. And then when it's all over, you're going to have to start Earth. Well, you're going to have to start civilization all over with some great to prevail and loneliness.
But don't worry. I'll go with you. In fact, God says to Noah, I'm going to give you my sign. I'll set my rainbow in the sky for you as a promise.
And Noah says, yes, I'll go. I'll walk through that door. We just saw God did the same with Abraham, right? God tells him much of the same.
Leave everything you're familiar with. Go from your family and your country and your people and go to a place you don't even know. But Abraham, I will be with you too. And I'm going to give you a sign of my presence.
Circumcision to which Abraham must have paused and said, now, wait a minute, Noah got a rainbow. Are these signs open for negotiation? You see, guys, God is the God of opened doors. God is the God of go.
Noah, Abraham, you could go on and on. God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him, let my people go. God sends David out to fight Galat. He tells Joshua to go and take a land.
And I believe God has put so many open doors for his people, generation after generation. But when I fear it, so few of God's people have found God's purposes in their lives because so many of us have been worried to walk through the door instead just waiting for guarantees. God's go comes with one guarantee, his presence. That's it.
But I believe what scripturely you'll see is that it's more than enough. I mean, if you just thought about how many doors God might have opened for you that you've walked right by or maybe just closed because of fear, here's the truth, right? There are plenty places you can go without God because you're seemingly safe, but there's a life that waits for us for all of us, right? That God has for us, that you cannot step into without Him.
See, the doors God is usually open. The doors of God are usually opening. First people, his people are going to need his presence in order for it to work out. Those are the kind of God-opened doors.
Those are the ones where the opportunity is so large and so good and seemingly impossible to achieve without God. I mean, that's the thing, right? How do I know if God's opening a door for me? Is there a way to determine in 2022, well, what's the difference maybe between a God-opened door versus some other opportunity?
Is there a way to know? Yeah, I'll give you two ways to know. Two doors to look for in 2022. The first thing that you're going to notice about doors God is opening is they're really impossible to walk through without them.
I mean, if it's a layup, if you could do it with your eyes closed, if success is guaranteed, it's probably a door of your own making and not his. God does not call his people to the safe and the cozy and the mundane. I mean, how many of us have passed up doors because we didn't feel well a peace about it or a peace with it? Now, I don't know where that comes from.
Every open door I see in the Bible usually came with terror and fear, not peace and tranquility. Doors that God opens are usually walked through by the faithful muttering under their breath, Lord, there is no way this is going to work out unless you're in this. See, this does not mean you go and do stupid things or you don't prepare or do your work or do the research necessary for success. Of course, you do all those things.
But open door faith, open door living, right, requires faith out of the faithful. Faith does not remove danger. A simple look at the Scriptures reveals that. Faith does not remove danger, but faith makes the faithful dangerous.
See, you've got us with you. You're safe, but safety isn't synonymous with certainty. And so many of us, we wonder why we see so little of God's hands in our lives, but the truth is that most of us, we live our lives with so much certainty. There's no reason for God to ever have to show up.
We don't walk through any open doors that might have any risk associated with it because we've got everything covered ourselves. There are so many fascinating stories in our studies on regret. Being a man in around my 40s as I am, emphasis on around, these new years are making, well, more of a significant dent on me as I realize they're quickly diminishing. So this year as I was reflecting on that, I came across an interesting principle about regret.
And I look at a lot of studies about this and they all have one underlying premise. Here's what it is. It turns out that when you're younger, 20s, 30s, 40s, our biggest regrets tend to be things that we've done. Oh, I wish I hadn't taken that job.
Oh, I should have never dated him. Oh my gosh, I just wish I hadn't bought that house or that car. But interestingly enough, for people, well, I'm my age and as we get a little bit older, right, the concept of regret migrates. It changes.
Instead of our biggest regrets being regrets for things we've done, as people get older, their greatest regrets tend to be things that they hadn't done, that they didn't do, choices they didn't make, doors left out on walkthrough. It's almost as if you get older, you start to realize maybe it wasn't about the safety and comfort and the peace. Maybe it was about the life that was on the other side. See, that's the first way to determine if God is opening a door for you and it's not just your creation.
Now, the second thing is if God is opening a door for you, it's going to involve and result in always the blessing of others. I mean, this is the mission of God. It's his purpose in our world and he's given us the opportunity to join him in the work. What did God tell Abraham when he gave him the open door?
He goes, Abraham, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. Abraham, this door is going to result in your blessing. It's going to result in your name being great.
And I mean, here we are thousands of years later talking about him. So God nailed that one. But Abraham, I'm blessing you to be a blessing. In fact, in case he got confused, go back and look over and over.
God would again remind him every time God came to him, Abraham, I'm blessing you, but I'm doing it so you'll be a blessing. The doors that God opens for you may benefit you. They may bless you and that should surprise you. God longs the blessings on the daughters.
But the doors that God opens for his people will always, always result in the blessing of others many times over. Guys, how many of us examine, evaluate opportunities based on the blessing that will come to us if we choose to walk through the door rather than the blessing that might come to others? In fact, I'll go further. How many of us have walked by open door after open door year after year because we didn't even see it because we're looking for doors that would bless us?
In fact, here's how you might know if this is an issue for you. If during this talk this morning about open doors and new opportunities and possibilities for life in 2022, if everything that comes to mind while I'm speaking to you, if everything that excites you about these possibilities only has to do with opportunities for career change or personal gain, then it's likely you're missing opportunities for God to move in your life all over the place because you're looking for the wrong door. Guys open doors. God's open doors are never, never merely for your personal gain or for financial reward.
I mean, sure it might result in that. Abraham's name was made great, but that is not what God is up to or about trying to make your name great or my name great. God is trying to make his name great because he's the only body that can help anyone. Bless anyone, save anyone.
It's here in 2022. I want to encourage you to start looking for open doors that would result in the blessings of others and trust me, you'll find them and if you'll walk through them, even though you can't be guaranteed of the blessing yourself, if you'll walk through them, you will be blessed. Those are two things to look for. If you want to live an open door life in 2022, if you want to go and not stay, if you want to live a life without regret, look for doors where you have to have God to walk through them with you, where there's some risk involved, where the outcome is not simply guaranteed, where you can't control everything and every circumstance.
And also maybe for the first time, this year commit to looking for doors that if you walk through them, they might bless you, but they'll definitely bless others. Are you looking for open doors to bless others? So those are the two doors for you to look for. I'm going to give you one thing, you're going to have to abandon though, if you want to live an open door kind of life in 2022.
You're going to have to abandon the very narrow idea that God has a specific and particular purpose and design for your life. Now I know this is a really prevalent mindset in the Christian community and I really think we miss the point when we live this way. I mean, when you live this way as a believer, right, it's like you're walking on this tight rope, right, that God has this very peculiar pathway for you. And you're always afraid that if you get off of that pathway, if you go to the left or the right, if you go through the wrong door, you could miss God's purpose in calling on your life.
Guys, this is such an anti-gospel idea. The whole point of our faith is that God can restore, redeem, and renew anyone, that even the most desperate of sinners is but a prayer away from new life, a new dawn. I mean, so what the heck would make us think that God could not restore, redeem, or renew even the worst of our decisions and mistakes? God can always redeem you going through the wrong door.
No door you can go through which God couldn't restore, renew, or redeem. Our greatest fear should not be that we choose the wrong door. Just thinking that God only has one particular cause, way for our life. It's very limiting.
It's paralyzing. Our greatest fear should be, well, the one the older generations tell us is regret, that we choose no door at all and simply stay where we are. God is not the God of stay. He is the God of go.
I love how Erwin McManus puts it. For believers, because this is the way it is. God has created his way. This is kind of our marching orders.
We go until we get a no. Some of you think the other way, right? Well, I'm going to stay right here until God tells me to move. Tells you to move.
The whole of the scriptural command for our lives can be summed up in one word and it's not stay. It's go. When Jesus left to ascend to heaven, He left one word ringing in the earthly atmosphere. Go and do what?
Bless. Go and make disciples. This same John, the last chapter of his gospel. Here's what Jesus says.
Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I'm sending you. Now that seems like an antithesis, right? Peace and go.
But peace is a who. And that who is sending you? Go. We need to wait for him to tell us what to do or where to go.
Here he did. So we go. We choose some way, some open door. We look where God is giving the opportunity to bless others and we go through those doors until we get a no.
And that's the final thing I'll leave you with this New Year's Eve weekend. Don't regret walking by open doors. God is open. And one of the ways we do that is we assume that the door he's open are big and giant and grandiose.
I think sometimes they are. But often those doors, those big giant ones, they're reserved for a present to people that have proven themselves to be people who will walk through them because they've walked through the small doors that God opens before us each and every day. Every day, today, this weekend, multiple times a day, God opens before each of us a new possibility to step through the door of blessing by faith. And the best way to learn to walk through big open doors, which are scary, is to learn to walk through small open doors and watch how God works.
Mostly, open doors are small. They're daily. It's about following Jesus moment by moment by moment, assuming that he's up to something, looking around for it. Every moment comes with its own open door.
See, Jesus told that church in Philadelphia and I think he tells this church in Mendum. But hold, look, see, search for it because I've said before you right now this day an open door, a God-w ordained opportunity for purpose and good. It doesn't have to look big or impressive, but it's about seeing. It's about searching for it and listening to God when he calls you to walk through it.
Every moment comes with a door. In 2022, ask God to open your eyes to them. Look for the small opportunities. You know what they are.
The small doors to love someone may be unlovely. To forgive somebody that you really have a hard time with. To bless, to befriend, to reach out, to listen, to walk across the room. Every moment has one.
Friends walk through those doors. You know, there's a lot more to say on this topic. In fact, there's probably a series that should be done on open doors and closed doors, how we walk through them, how can we discern. But for this year, I want to encourage you to join me in looking for and walking through open doors.
There's likely only regret in the staying, but there's God, life, and blessing, and meaning, and purpose just over on the other side. Now look for them this year. And when you find them, you go.