Message to Philadelphia
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:
8 ‘I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.
The fellowship I attend is called "Open Door" Christian Fellowship. We are strategically located right in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in our city. And we have people from the neighborhood that do worship with us.
What I am about to say is not a rant or complaint against my fellowship. It is not even intended to be negative at all. It is a universal truth I have found in every group of people whether believers or not. And it is an extremely hard truth to identify in ourselves while very easy to spot in others that don't share our little group.
While our name is what we want our fellowship to be we too have many closed doors.
Like I said every group has them. It is central to human nature to want to be with "safe" people. I want to as much as anyone else. We let anyone come in the doors but I must say that I know a few leave feeling that they were not even seen much less welcomed. If it is so with those who come to us what is it like to those who we go out to win.
James 2:1-4 (NASB)
1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?
I once was the speaker at a church in a town not far from my home. I came early as I always do to prepare and just see if I can get to know the church a bit before I preach. Sunday school was just about to begin when I arrived. I came in the building and no one said hello though there were at least twenty people standing in the lobby talking to each other. I went to find where the adult Sunday School class was and as I wandered around the halls no one even looked at me when I passed them though I was looking at them. I thought I would test my thoughts on the condition of the church by standing right at the door of the adult class in the way of the entrance to see if anyone would talk to me. Sure enough though people had to literally go around me to get in the class not a single person made eye contact and no one spoke to me.
I knew preaching was not going to be easy.
I went back to the lobby and sat there waiting to see if anyone would notice me. I probably could have waited till the service was over and the last person had to usher me out before anyone would have. I finally went up to someone and said, "I am preaching here today." They suddenly were all about me! But I knew what was really happening and shared with them my experience in the sermon. Needless to say I was never asked back to speak to them. If they had of perhaps they would have found the reason they had not grown in years.
THE DOOR WAS OPEN BUT NO ONE WAS WELCOME
It is a hard thing for us to welcome people who are different or just new to us.
I find that the simple act of honest welcoming is one of the most important indicators of the success of any group.
It is true of every human interaction. From Walmart to coming home after work the simple act of greeting people with warmth and appreciation for their presence is crucial to any relationship building that occurs afterwards.
As Christians we struggle with a tendency to believe association with others who do not share our exact theological perspective will somehow be wrong and must be avoided.
I have been seeing this massively in the last few years. And it is interesting that very few can see it when I mention that perhaps they might be as guilty of it as I am.
The ability to see life in a compassionate and understanding way from other's perspectives is vital to our having succesful relationship with others. Perhaps you will recognize the struggle I have had when I have felt that I either had to cover up my differences with others or else put it right out there so they would reject me before I had a chance to invest my life into theirs and end up hurt by their rejection of me when they found out that I did not always think the way that they did.
The problem with flight or fight is that neither stance is life giving to relationships. When we flee we are not hurt but end up alone. When we fight we break the very life source of relationship.
Of course the most prevalent stance of our generation is neither flight nor fight it is just ignore them and they will go away. And that is the most devastating stance one can give as a symbol of God.
No one ran from me when I came into the church. No one tried to push me out. I was just not seen.
I wish I could say that was the only time that I experienced that kind of attitude in a church. Sadly I could tell of countless stories in my own and other's lives that tell the sad tale that though we say we want to win the world for Jesus we can barely go out of our way to greet and welcome someone when they come univited to our fellowships.
I also know that there are more intentional ways that we open the doors and put out the welcome mat but don't really want anyone to show up. And if they do show up and don't fit in our little enclave we make sure they know it and leave right away.
As I have looked for this quality in every human group, every organization, nation and family I have found it. Especially as I have have looked for it in myself I have been shocked to find it deeply rooted in me.
Our faith worldview can be one of the areas we engage in it the most without realizing it.
Spend a little time with us and you will find where we close the door. Even if we are exceptionally broad minded or loving we all have a place where we retreat into our inner fortress in either fear or pride.
It is because we are flesh and blood. I see it as a universal trait endemic in our fallen state.
Yet I am not content to leave it there. I have never been so. I want to ruthlessly see my life in this mirror of relationships to see how I can move beyond humaness to being like the one who said he set an open door to me and did so when I was not welcome in any church or group of people except those who were just like me.
As individual members of Jesus' body and as fellowships we need to constantly ask the questions, "What am I doing that welcomes people into my life as Jesus did?" "What am I doing that makes it impossible for them to get close to me and Jesus lets them get close to Him?" and "What am I doing to drive people away from me?"
The best but most vulnerable way to find out is to begin asking them or at least listening carefully with a heart to know to what they say. If you listen without defenses they may hint at it. If you can manage to not respond in pride they may take you seriously and actually let you know. That knowledge is worth more than all the gold in the world.
We need to identify anything that places a block to the welcome Jesus gives them when he invites them to come to the open door of His house. We need to not decieve ourselves that we have no road blocks to take down...... not even with those we love the most.
And we need to go into that open door he set before us first so we can know how to lead others into it.
This all sounds good until we come to the thorny "issues" that make us rethink openess.
I am amazed at how much unconditional love is preached yet in practice we believe it is for us few that gather in our little group but not for others. Again this is universal. I have a friend who has given up church. He feels that going to a building and sitting for an hour or two listening to a man or woman preach and looking at the back of his brother's or sister's head is nothing about the real fellowship that the Bible teaches the first christians enjoyed. And he is absolutely right. Unfortunately he missed that he too could be caught in the horrible vice of elitism as many who are part of the "no church - home church - para church - true church" movements can be gripped in. He does not reject others on the basis of their denominational label, particular sin, views on the last days, gifts of the spirit, church government, or even the celebration of holidays (which my particular fellowship struggles with).
He rejects them because they go to a building based fellowship.
I have no issue with house meetings. The early church was only house meetings.
I have no issue with para church ministries..... they are not actually para church for anywhere the people of God do the work of the kingdom there the church is.
And I have no issue with those who build buildings that are fit for kings except that perhaps we could consider the needs of the world in equal fashion to our own.
But what seems to be the case - often even in me - is a lack of grace that can let others do all these things without feeling that we need to separate ourselves into our own little groups and push those who don't agree with us out the open door Jesus sets before them.
I believe the enemy of souls has used this tendency in us to quite an advantage.
In a very practical way I want to share at least one area I have seen it to be so. There are thousands of others.
USING SIN AS A BASIS OF REJECTING OTHERS
I once listened to a preacher belittle homosexuals and lesbians to such a degree that I wondered if he was struggling with those very issues in his own heart and could not find grace for himself. I found later through a great tragedy that he was profoundly struggling with his own sense of belonging in God.
When we choose a rejection of a particular sin as the hallmark of our fellowship we close the door to those who need Jesus's help and for whom he does not close the door. We also do not walk through the door of grace ourselves.
Right now some who are reading this will say in their hearts, "there it is he is soft on homosexuality." Perhaps my experiences with those who have struggled with their sexuality whether homosexual or heterosexual and especially my own personal struggle with hetero-sexual lust makes me realize that just knowing something is wrong is not life giving. My point is we might as well go to the most clear divisive point in the church today to see the problem of grace and truth meeting.
When we make one particular sin the point we stop welcoming others to the open door of God's grace we close the door on all He wants to do for them, all He wants to do through us for them and on ourselves.
My best friend in my early life with Jesus struggled so deeply with his hidden homosexuality that one night he put a hose to his exhaust pipe and took his life. I don't need to ask if homosexuality is wrong. It took his life. But I also don't need to ask if it was right for him to hear a pastor belittling and villifying homosexuals from the pulpit. Yet there I sat with him at church not knowing how the message of this also bound preacher we were listening to would affect him. I so wish I had been able to show him the open door of mercy that Jesus sat before him.
I see the clear understanding that all sex outside of marriage (which biblically is the cohabitation of a man and woman in a sexual union) is forbidden by God and called sin in scripture.
I also see that continuing in intimate fellowship with those who say they are in relationship with God and yet practice these things is forbidden.
Yet I see also that Jesus lived, ate, drank and related to those who practiced such things. And he found a way to bring the truth of their destructiveness to them.
We can't communicate with people we don't spend time with.
We can't communcate effectively with people we do not value.
We can't communicate with people we have already consigned to the outer darkness of our rejection.
And we can't communciate with those we pretend to agree with so we can remain in relationship with while in our hearts we know we are being false.
How do we hold the Truths of the Bible and yet hold out the Grace of God?
That has been a life long quest for me. It has caused me to have to look at myself very closely for the unintended or intended messages I send along with my witness of Jesus. Both denial of the truth that God speaks about sin and denial of the Grace he has for those captured in it's grasp are wrong.
I have come to see that Truth and Mercy met on the Cross and brought life to the world. Whereever they meet in our lives they bring the same life forth.
John 1:14 (NASB)
The Word Made Flesh
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.John 1:17 (NASB)
17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth [a]were realized through Jesus Christ.
I would like to give three easy steps to how truth and mercy meet in every situation. I can't.
I see in Jesus' life that it meant telling an adulterous woman to go and sin no more after saving her from and angry mob of men who did not see their own need of grace.
I see that is meant telling that same group of men that they were sons of the devil.....
Yet I know the driving heart of Jesus was to see all of us come to understand his actions have always been out of the meeting of truth and grace in his heart of love for us.
He loved the Pharisees as much as the adulterous woman. He sat before both of them the open door of grace.
To the one he let her know she could enter in even though I am sure she could hardly imagine it to be so.
To the other he showed them that their pride kept them from finding the door they so deeply needed to enter and by their actions and hardened proud hearts kept others like the adulterous woman from finding as well.
Both were true.
Both were an invitation to grace.
So today I find an Open Door before me. It is a place of welcome for me to come to Grace. The question is not if the door is open.
It is will I go in?
It is will I show others that it is open by my showing the open door of grace to them and welcoming them to enter it just as He does?
Matthew 23:13 (NIV)
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
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