In the Gospel of John there are seven ‘I am’ statements that Jesus made concerning Himself. There is much to learn about Jesus just by studying these names. Jesus said, ‘I am the Bread of Life’; ‘I am the Good Shepherd’; ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’; ‘I am the Light of the World’; ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’; ‘I am the True Vine’; and the subject of this post ‘I am the Door’.

John 10:9 (ESV)
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

 ILLUSTRATION:  Doors
A man hurt his finger when he was downtown. He asked someone where to go for help. So he went to the building and there were two doors marked “Physical” and “Mental.” He went in the “Physical” door. Inside that were two doors marked “Bone” and “Muscle.” He went in the “Bone” door. Inside that were two doors: “Surgery” and “Therapy.” He went in the “Surgery” door. Inside that were two other doors: “Major” and “Minor.” He went in the door marked “Minor,” and he was outside. Someone said, “Did they help you in there?” “No, but that’s the most organized place I’ve ever seen.”

• So much for these kinds of doors. Let me ask you a question today.
• Have any of you built your own home?
• If you could build one, and money was no object – you could literally build your dream home….
• What good would that home be if it didn’t have a door?
• What good is a million dollar mansion without a door?
• The door is one of the most important parts of a house.
• You cannot access anything in a house without a door.
• Think of your spiritual life – your spiritual journey as a house with doors.

Hebrews 3:1–5 (ESV)
3 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,

• Notice the language, God was the builder of the house and Moses was faithful in it.
• Spiritual life is like a house.
• Three things I want you to understand about this spiritual house you are in.

1. There are open doors
2. There are closed doors
3. There are keys that go hand in hand with doors

• Caution: we are going to use the term ‘open door’ in the exact Bible sense that it is used.  We are not using the term colloquially.  For example, the phrase ‘open door’ to describe some type of progress they could make.   I could say, If I go to dinner with a business associate it might ‘open a door’ to some step up.    Sometimes we speak in terms of how ‘giving of finances’ open ups doors to things.
• That’s not the kind of door I am talking about.  The difference between those doors is who opens them.   If I use the example of going to dinner with a business contact, that’s you trying to open the door.
• The doors of your spiritual journey only Jesus can open.
• What are these doors?

Doors are Places of Transition.

• You walk through open doors to engage in a different activity.
• When you walk through a different door in your physical house, you are doing something different from you were doing in the previous room.   If I walk through the door to the kitchen, I am going to be doing something different from if I open up the door to the shower.
• So, when you walk through a door, something different takes place.
• A transition takes place in your life
• Spiritual life is all about transitions.
• Transitions are changes
• Generally humans don’t like change – we don’t like transition.
• But stuff changes all the time around us.

ILLUSTRATION: How Stuff Changes
Money – in 1946 there was such a thing as a $10,000 bill
Mealtimes – in the 14th century, breakfast was at 5 AM, lunch was at 9 AM and dinner/supper was at 4 PM.
Food – only 135 years ago there was no such thing as a banana – it was first at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia  in 1876.  They were sold as a novelty wrapped in tin foil for 10 cents apiece.
Workplace has changed –  in 1872 a business run by Zachary Geiger had the following rules:
Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the furniture, shelves and showcases.
Each day, fill the lamps, clean the chimneys, and turn the wicks.  Wash the windows once a week.
Each clerk was to bring in a bucket of water and coal for the day’s business.
This office will open at 7:00 AM and close at 9:00 PM daily except on the Sabbath.  Each employee is expected to spend the Sabbath Day by attending church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord.
Men employees will be given an evening off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.
After an employee has spent 13 hours working, he should spend the rest of the time reading the Bible and other good books contemplating the glories and building up of the kingdom.
The employee who has performed his labors faithfully and without fault for a period of 5 years in my service and , and who had been thrifty and attentive to his religious duties is considered to be a law-abiding citizen and will be given an increase of 5 cents a day in his pay, providing the profits from the business permit it.

• How many of you can agree that stuff has changed?
  In your spiritual journey stuff changes – transitions take place – doors open.
  It’s about moving from one activity, one calling, one project the Lord may have you working on to the next it could moving into another phase of the same calling you are in.
  Sometimes there are things that we have to let go.  Why? because you don’t take a shower in the kitchen!
  If you have been saved for any length of time, God will often have led you to do something different and oftentimes be someplace different from you were when you first got saved.
• Some doors in a house are closed for a reason.
• Closed doors means, ‘No Transition available.’
• You are not the Associate Pastor of Grace – that door is closed to you.  Al is the Associate Pastor to Grace that door is open to him.
• Closed doors mean – ‘no transition’.
• How many of you closed certain doors in your house when you were raising children?
• How many of you close certain doors in your house when you have guests come over?
• How many of you run to close doors when someone unexpected shows up at your door?
• How many of you close certain doors in your house just to find peace and quiet? (you close the door so no one transitions in.
• Closed doors have a meaning – they mean something – no access – no transition.
• So, doors are places of transition.

Doors are Spiritual Entry Ways

To salvation

Jesus said, I am the door – John 10:9

Revelation 3:7–8 (ESV)
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
8 “ ‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

You see all three elements here – open doors, closed doors and keys.

• Doors are ways into things in God.
• The first door you walk in is the door of salvation
• Jesus is the Front Door into the House called the Kingdom of God
• You cannot get into that house any other way than through Jesus the Front Door.
• In that house there are other rooms – all of them have doors.
• Some people stay in that foyer area and don’t ever go through any other door into any other room. There are a lot of believers in the foyer.
• They are like the children of Israel who spent 40 years in the wilderness (when it only took 6 days) – they just keep going around and around in the foyer.
• They have not followed the Spirit of God accurately – maybe they weren’t taught to follow the Spirit – maybe they didn’t know growing in God.
• I see a lot of people like this – stuck in a room!
• And you look at them 10 years and they haven’t grown any – they haven’t improved any – they are just swirling around.
• What caused them to sin yesterday – causes them to sin today.  They are stuck.
• In order to get to the next room – in order to walk through the next door you have to understand that you cannot just decide want you want to do with your life for God (overall).

Rules of the House #1: Doors Are Predetermined

• When you walk into the first room, the foyer, through the salvation door, understand that the doors for your life or your house are pre-determined.
• The kingdom of God is not corporate America – you don’t just make your way.

James 4:13–15 (ESV)
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

• This man’s calling was to be a business man.
• He violated house rule #1

Rules of the House #2: You Cannot Arbitrarily Go into Any Room on Your Own Choosing.

• You have to wait until the door opens
• You have to wait until Jesus (the builder and owner of the house) sets before you an open door.
• Spiritual entry ways are only revealed one way – spiritually
• It’s the reason why some stay stuck in a room – they have not developed enough to be led.
• The concept of doors is all about following the Holy Spirit (your tour guide in your spiritual house) from one room to the next.
• Learn the Way of the Spirit with You.

• It will help to determine whether a door is open or whether a door is closed.
• The “way of the Spirit” – what that means
• (Acts 10 – Peter had a trance, Revelation 1:10 – John was in the Spirit, 2Corinthians 12 – Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven – the Bible records these but never tells you what those experiences feel like – only what happened).
• Now the question is why? – Why don’t we have more detail.
• Why doesn’t the Bible give us more detail about these spiritual experiences?  Because the way of the Spirit is different person to person.  How God leads you will be different from how God leads the next person.  In fact it may not even be the same between you and your spouse – many times radically different.  My wife receives direction completely different from I do.  In this area, we are as different as black and white!
• This is why I always admonish strongly –
• Get a journal – write it down.
• (Couple of issues here)
• Issue of respect
• If God takes time out of His busy schedule to come and talk to you, you should have enough respect for that to take the time and write it down.
• Issue of recognizing patterns
• As you this patterns will emerge
• Issue of obedience
• If you write it down – you can go back and see if you missed anything.
• When you get over into spiritual areas – Remember how things are sensed and mentally record it. (Prophecy in a service getting ready to take place – how many of you can tell it?  –
• That sense is what you record.
• If you do that, you will begin to be able to trace the way of the Spirit with you – the way God leads you – the way He deals with you.

Rules of the House #3: Pushing Your Way into a Room is not God’s Best

• People trying to push their way into things – they are trying to create doors where doors don’t exist.
• Jesus is the one that opens them and Jesus is the one that closes them.

Psalm 127:1 (ESV)
1 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

• It is the Lord that builds the house with doors for your life.
• Since, it’s His house and His doors – you cannot walk freely through any room in that house.
• You have to wait until the door opens.
• In the Temple, (a house God decided to have built according the pattern of a house He had in heaven) you couldn’t just push your way into the Tabernacle.
• You couldn’t just walk through the door into the Tabernacle, and then march through the door where the table of show bread was and you surely couldn’t walk into the Holy of Holies! – You would be dead.
• The door to the Holy of Holies was open only one day a year.

Rules of the House #4: – Pushing Your Way Out of a Room is also Not God’s Best

• Sometimes people don’t like what’s happening in the room they are in and they want out.
• They try to create an exit door to get out of the room.
• Creating your own doors to get in and creating doors to get out are both mistakes.
• That’s a mistake – stay in the room.  You will never develop correctly if you don’t stay put.
• Mark it down!!!!
• You will not enjoy everything that happens or takes place in the room you are in.
• Grow up man!
• Spiritual life is not about your comfort and ease and it is not about you being properly entertained!

Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

• The Bible says Jesus endured the cross – it didn’t say anything about Him enjoying it.  He despised the shame that it brought to Him.  In fact in the garden, He was trying to talk the Father out of walking through that door.
• Many people who despise what goes on in the room they are in try to create their own door so they can escape.
• Wait a minute, you wouldn’t do this in the natural.
• You wouldn’t walk into someone else’s house and start knocking holes in the wall because you don’t like where the doors are at.
• You may not like how the doors are laid out but you know what?  IT’S NOT YOUR HOUSE!

1 Corinthians 16:9 (ESV)
9 for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

• This was a door Jesus opened for Paul and you know what? – there were a lot of problems in the room.
• You are not always going to like what happens in the room you’re in.
• The standard though does not change
• You are led into things and you are led out of things.
• And in between those two, you stay put!
• I don’t care what happens in that room you’re in!
• Are you serious don’t you think God knows what’s going on in that room you are in?
• Here’s the standard, you should never be led by offenses – never!
• You walk through an open door – you stay in that room until the next door opens and the previous one closes.
• The most critical mistake you can make is to try and create a door where one doesn’t exist!
• You are not a mercenary.
• You are a soldier in the army of God.
• So, doors are Places of Transitions, Spiritual Entry Ways and…

Doors are Spiritual Opportunities

Acts 16:6–10 (ESV)
6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

• Did you notice the two closed doors?
• What was Paul doing trying to do going to Asia, and Bithynia?
• Knocking on doors – checking them to see if they would open.
• Look at a Bible Map of this account.
• Paul starts in Antioch and goes to Lystra, where he picks up Timothy.    The distance from Lystra to Troas is 420 miles.  The average rate of travel in New Testament times is 18-20 miles a day.  That’s 3 weeks travel time if Paul does his 20 miles every day and doesn’t rest.
• So for 3 weeks, we could say it this way – for a season – Paul had no direction what to do – the only direction he had been what not to do!
• Does this sound familiar?  You are in a room and you are ready to move on – ready to get at some things and the Spirit says no.
• What do you do when the answer is no!  Do what Paul did, when the answer, he kept walking.  Do your 20 miles just like Paul did.
• Now walking through this open door at Troas, they cast the devil out of young women, get thrown into jail – get beat and thrown into jail. (You won’t enjoy everything in the room you are in.)
• At midnight they are praising God…

Acts 16:26 (ESV)
26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.

• When you are in the room you’re supposed to be in, that’s where true ministry takes place and if you are a lover of Jesus, that’s what you want – you want to be able to help somebody – to be able to minister to somebody.
• So here’s the last thing.

Call to Action:

The Spirit of God will lead you through many doors if will allow Him to. He knows what is best for your life. There is great joy and freedom in following Him fully. Here’s the good news, you may not enjoy everything about the room you have been asked to walk through today, but you will be the freest you will ever be in your life if you simply follow Jesus through the open door.

Question: Describe a particular room that the Lord has led you into. How has walking through that door helped to transform your life? Please leave a comment in the comments section below.