Sermon Tone Analysis

*“AS WE FACE TOMORROW”*

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*(I Corinthians 16:9-10)*

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*            /“I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost.

For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”/*

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*/            /*Everyone knows how discouraging life is if we face nothing but closed doors along the way.

How frustrating it is to look in this direction and that direction with ambition and desire — only to find the doors closed in your face.

The Apostle Paul knew something about the frustration of closed doors.

In the sixteenth chapter of Acts, he had started with his missionary team up the center of Asia Minor on a missionary journey.

Along the way, he desired to turn to the south to enter new missionary territory, but Acts 16:6 says, “they were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.”

God closed that door.

So Paul then tried to turn to the north to enter another new field.

Acts 16:7 says, “They tried to enter Bithynia, but again the Spirit would not allow them.”

God closed the door in their faces.

So they passed up a narrow corridor through Asia Minor and finally came to Troas — on the sea.

Now, they were like the children of Israel on the edge of the Red Sea — the water in front of them, forbidden terrain on either side, the angry Egyptians behind them — and nowhere to go!

But just as God parted the waters of the Red Sea and thus opened a door for His people long before, God opened another door for Paul in Acts sixteen.

When Paul slept in Troas that night, he received the famous vision of “a man of Macedonia, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.”

God had closed the doors into Asia and southern Asia Minor and had led His missionary into an apparent box canyon, a dead-end street, in order to open the door for them to carry the Gospel into the continent of Europe!

So Paul knew how God closes doors and opens doors for His people.

In our text, Paul rejoices over God’s provision of an open door.

There are some striking parallels between his situation in Ephesus long ago and our situation as we face all our tomorrows.

The text reveals these similarities.

*I.

A GLORIOUS OPPORTUNITY*

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*            *First, the text mentions a /glorious opportunity.

/“A great door is opened unto me,” Paul wrote.*  *An open door speaks of an available opportunity.

The idea of the open door is used in such a symbolic way many times in the Bible.

In II Corinthians 2:12, Paul wrote, “When I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, ... a door was opened unto me of the Lord.”

In Colossians 4:3-4, he said, “Pray for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it (the mystery of Christ) manifest, as I ought to speak.”

When Paul returned from his first missionary journey, he called the church at Antioch together to give them a report of the journey and its results.

Luke records the account in Acts 14:27 in these words: “And when they had come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.”

The common denominator in all of these occurrences of the term, “open door,” is this.

The term is always associated with soul-winning, evangelism, outreach, and Gospel advance.

*            *We must note that in each of these references the door was “opened” by God Himself.

Spiritual opportunities are not automatic.

They are gifts of God.

Speaking to the church at Philadelphia in Revelation 3:8, Jesus said, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it.”

Since opportunities are gifts, they must be seized.

If they are not seized, they may be forfeited.

*            *Years ago, a New York sports writer related a story in his daily column that illustrates the necessity of grasping opportunity when it presents itself.

He wrote about a New York Yankee baseball game that had gone down to the wire.

He said, “There were two out in the ninth inning, with the tying run on third base and the winning run on second base.

A Yankee base hit would mean winning the game.

Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game of baseball, came to bat.

The count on Lou went to three balls and two strikes.

The fans were in an uproar.

The pitcher wound up deliberately and the third strike came in straight over the middle of the plate and the umpire called ‘Strike three,’ for Lou Gehrig hadn’t moved his bat.

Very slowly Lou turned and spoke to the umpire.

At this the crowd went wild, because Lou Gehrig was one of baseball’s greatest gentlemen, and no one had ever heard of him arguing with an umpire.

The reporters piled over the seats and right out onto the field.

They swarmed around the empire.

‘What did Lou Gehrig say to you?’ they all asked.

‘It will make sports headlines.’

The umpire smiled and yelled to Lou Gehrig to come over.

‘Lou, tell the boys what you said to me when I called that third strike on you.’

Lou looked a little bewildered as he answered, ‘Mister Ump, I only said, I would give ten dollars to have that one back.’

Our opportunities are like that; they must be grasped.

If we do not grasp them today, the day will come when we would give anything to have them back.

There are many who rush blindly into their tomorrows without a thought that they are God-given doors of opportunity and filled with exciting spiritual possibilities.

Just think of the tremendous opportunities that today and tomorrow hold for us.

The first “open door” is the door of /salvation/.

For some reading these words at this very moment, today holds the opportunity for eternal salvation from sin and hell.

Jesus Himself used the language of the open door to point out the opportunity of salvation.

In John 10:9, He said, “I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.”

A companion of Martin Luther in the days of the Reformation exclaimed, “Thank Heaven, Martin has made the entrance shorter and simpler by dismissing a thousand gate-keepers!”

Just as the ancient city of Troy (the Troas of the New Testament) had only one gate, there is only one door to the Father and to heaven.

And that door stands open to “any man” who will simply “enter in” by faith.

The chorus of a children’s song presents the truth of it:

 

                                  “One door and only one, Yet its sides are two:

                                   The outside and the inside, On which side are you?”

Another “open door” is the door of*/ /*/service /for Christ.

When we finally stand before God, will some of us cast regretful glances backward, wishing that we might have used our opportunities more faithfully?

The pleasures and pursuits and concerns on which we spend so much time now may seem strangely small then.

We should view things /now/ as we shall view them /then/.

If we have eyes to see, there are “open doors” everywhere.

The Bible says, “As we therefore have opportunity, let us do good to all men/” /(Galatians 6/:/10).

The announcement of that verse is that /“we have opportunity!”

/As Christians seek to “do good to all men,” God Himself gains a passport to the world.

So our use of our open doors /gives to God open doors, as well!/

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*            *A man who had been converted to Christ came to Charles Spurgeon and asked him what he could do about winning others.

Spurgeon asked, “What do you do?”  “I am an engine driver.”

“Then,” said Spurgeon, “is your fireman a Christian?”

“I don’t know,” said the man.

“Go back,” said Spurgeon, “and find out and start on him.”

There is a door of service, a missionary door, for every one of us, not in Africa or Australia or the islands of the sea, but where we live and work.

The door of service for Christ is wide open today.

Another “open door”* *is the door of /spiritual growth./

This open door holds out to us all the glorious possibilities of an open Bible, and communication with God through His Word.

How many of us are closing the door every day by wasting the opportunity of Bible study in favor of television-watching or the reading of inferior literature.

The open door to an open Bible may not always be with us!

Then, this door is also the door to richer personal fellowship with God through prayer.

The purest luxury this side of heaven is the luxury of unhindered fellowship with God through prayer.

Today and tomorrow, our heavenly Father calls each of us to a closer fellowship with Himself.

And this door remains open when many others are shut!

The enemies of Christ put John the Apostle in exile on a little island called Patmos.

One day he wrote, “I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven” (Revelation 4:1).

He was isolated from his friends — men could shut those doors and rob him of fellowship with loved ones — but no man could shut the door between him and God.

All of these doors — the door of salvation, the door of service, the door of spiritual growth, and many other open doors — make a promise.

There is victory just over the threshold!

The text speaks of glorious opportunity.