Jesus Shows Up When We Lock Doors

A Prayer I Prayed

Many of us have prayed a prayer about closing doors and opening doors. We’ve prayed a prayer that sounds a lot like this: God please open a door that you see fit. The question I pose to you today is what does our prayer look like in a place of fear. What do we expect from Jesus when we close doors out of fear. Understand that fear and peace can’t work in the same place. Walking by faith requires a high sense of perseverance and resilience.

Here we are in John 20 and Jesus has been crucified, died and risen but understand the leader of this movement is now dead. Because of fear they could not see the triumph. The door of victory was open but because of fear they could not see it. The could not see the victory because fear had blinded their minds.

John 20:19-23 “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.””

The Holy Spirit is Good News

The power of the Holy Spirit is good news to us today.

John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

Do not fear, we have the Holy Spirit on our side no matter what you are going through. The Holy Spirit allowed the disciples to act on Jesus’ behalf.

There should not be any fear! I do not fear because of who I have been commissioned by! “So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you”.

I’m not saying times won’t be tough, I’m not saying times won’t be frightening the living daylights out of you. What am saying is God doesn’t commission us to failure. If God sends us there is victory in the land He is sending us to.

If God sent me, I have no reason to fear. The problem we face is we see the triumph through our eyes in consideration of our strength and not God’s strength.

This is not the first time that fear caused us to close doors that God intended to keep open. I’m reminded of the spies sent to Caanan, God was sending them there because sometimes His grace is great enough to show you what to expect, in effort to motivate you to stay the course.

The disciples had every right to fear. These same Jews had murdered the same Jesus that fed five thousand, helped the blind to see and the lame to walk. The same Jews that crucified Jesus was the same Jesus that allowed Peter to walk on water, commanded the winds and waves to stop and bring peace to the seas. In the spaces of fear we have to remember the peace that Jesus has given us before we even arrived at this moment.

What is This Peace that Jesus Gives

“Peace be with you”. Peace is not going to remove the problem. Peace is a lot more powerful than that. Peace is a set of favorable circumstances involving peace and tranquility. Meaning to be without trouble, to have no worries!

I don’t have to worry about the circumstance I just have to trust the controller of the outcome. Salvation is on the other side of that door we closed we just have to know that power of God is on the other side of that door we closed. We just have to open it and walk by faith.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

The same enemy that has us hiding behind the closed doors of life will never have the power that God has.

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.””

You want to conquer the doors you closed, tap into the courage of God. It’s going to take some strength to get over our fear.

Understand that the inability to forgive is attached to our fear of letting anyone else in. Put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. They left their jobs and families to follow Jesus. Understand that if anyone knows how to provide us with a blessing after sacrfice is Jesus.

His wounds brings peace to our lives. He is not showing us the wound in his side and the holes in His hands to frighten us, Jesus is showing us that if He can overcome crucifixion and death, through His power we can conquer the issues we have in our life.

We know that John wrote this passage, we also understand that this "was the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20-24 ). John is familiar with cultural norms, He knows the messianic expectations of the Jews based on texts like John 1:20 , John 7:40-42 . John also knows about the hostility amongst ethnic groups such as the Jews and Samaritans. John also understands Jewish law, Pharisees inability to see past their own arrogance and ignorance.

If we pray that God open doors we have to have the faith that God can change the locks of the doors we closed to be for our benefit when we open them. Stop looking through the peep holes of life looking for enemies and open the doors of life and walk through that threshold with confidence to know that Jesus came to bring peace not additional stress to our lives.

The Good News is Peace

Locked doors will never give us peace, the only thing that happens when we keep locking doors and shutting people out is we might make the mistake of locking out people that are a part of our journey to peace.

No matter how isolated you desire to become, no one can keep the savior out! He comes with a message of peace based on what He sacrificed by dying on the cross.

Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”

How does this apply to us today. The Lord deals with us with tender grace and mercy even in our fear, doubt and unbelief. We can’t see Him or feel his wounds but we do have the word of God to sustain us. One thing the book of John does is affirm a real faithfulness in Christ. The message or the purpose of this book begins and ends with Christ. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

I can’t ask for a sign when I keep locking doors God intended to keep open.

Fear is all around us but we can’t be paralyzed by fear. We turn on the news they’re reporting on things that bring fear to our lives. Covid, war, racism, oppressive politics and illegitamate policing. Jim Wilson and Rodger Russell once stated in Let’s Stop Scaring Ourselves, “In the ‘60s we were worrying about a population explosion. In 1973 a warning predicted that by 1993 the world would exhaust its supply of gold, mercury, tin, zinc, oil, copper, lead, and natural gas. As Y2K approached, computers were expected to be the downfall of civilization. A lot of the news we see and read is geared toward making us fearful. While some things are legitimate causes for concern, let us not be paralyzed by fear. Always remember that Jesus is Lord, and “in him all things are held together.”