The Sunday between Christmas and the new year is always an interesting one and quite unique. Christmas has come and gone, but its theme and message are still with us. 2015 is almost over, and a brand new year, untouched and waiting for us, is just around the corner. With all this in mind, this week I ve been thinking about doors. Doors fascinate me! They come in all different shapes and sizes, and I discovered this week, different colours and designs, too. Have a look at some I found. (Slide #1) This one s rather formal in attractive timber. (Slide #2) This looks rather modern, still with the timber look. (Slide #3) This one s definitely modern! I kind of like it! Maybe on someone else s house! 1
(Slide #4) This one s weird! I can t even tell how it works. (Slide #5) Here s the other extreme. There s something medieval about this one! (Slide #6) Why would you bother? There s a lot of work in a door like that! Fancy coming home to that each day! Or this: (Slide #7) Does anyone like that? It s bright! It s colourful! It s hideous! 2
(Slide #8) This looks like a row of doors; but it s actually a composite picture of different doors, in similar settings. A bit much all together, but individually, probably OK. (Slide #9) Someone got all creative with a barn door here. Hard not to think your bull was escaping the first few times you saw it! (Slide #10) A similar treatment, for a garage door this time. You wouldn t want to drive home tired... or intoxicated! 3 (Slide #11) This door has seen better days!
(Slide #12) Here s the other extreme. What would a set of doors like that cost? (Slide #13) This one s pretty elaborate, too. (Slide 14) As I said before, doors come in all different sizes; or in this case a different door for each member of the family! 4 And finally; (Slide 15) a door for little people!
Of course, while some people exercise their artistic flair when it comes to doors, doors themselves are primarily functional. They exist for a purpose. What do you think when you see a door? Do you see an entrance, or a barrier? In different settings, doors serve both these functions. We see the prison door principally as a barrier. I hope we see a church door as an entrance. I wonder how others see it. Doors feature quite prominently in the Bible, where they are sometimes functional, but often symbolic. It s this symbolic reference to doors I want to consider mainly this morning as we anticipate the arrival of 2016. And borrowing Paul s terminology, I want to suggest that for us, 2016 is a wide open door. Let me speak firstly about I. A Year of Opportunity. 2015 has not been the easiest of years for many of us! Some of us may be happy to see the back of it! We ve faced some tough issues and difficult decisions. Are we ready to move forward to the opportunities ahead? I wonder what you see as you look ahead. 2016 offers us the challenge of A. Expanding Our Vision. In fact, we have a natural tendency to do the opposite. When life becomes difficult, or our environment seems threatening, our focus easily narrows. How do I best protect what I already have? The cultural climate for Christianity, even in just the past twelve months, seems to have gone into freefall. Look what they ve done to SRI in our primary schools! See the ongoing efforts to kill off chaplaincy, and even the singing of Christian carols at Christmas. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 1 It never has, and it never will. The very nature of light and darkness means that light will always triumph. In fact, the darker the darkness, the brighter the light appears to be. If I turn on my torch in the middle of the day, it doesn t seem to do much. The actual brightness of the light has nothing to do with the daylight around me; it has everything to do with the power in my torch battery. It appears much brighter at night. You are the light of the world, Jesus told his followers. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 2 The darker the darkness, the brighter our contrasting light will appear to be. We must not allow our focus to turn inwards. I remembered this week the words of an old gospel song we used to sing. You probably have to be my age or better to know the words of Rescue the Perishing! They challenge our focus: 1 John 1:5 2 Matthew 5:14b 5
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave. Weep o er the erring ones, lift up the fallen, tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save. Another verse reminds us: Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, chords that were broken will vibrate once more. We must not allow our focus to turn inwards. It isn t about me! The life of a disciple is to be other-focussed, as Jesus was; or we can t really claim to be disciples at all. 2016 challenges us to expand our vision. As one of the opportunities opening before us, I want to mention briefly, B. Extending Our Facilities. We spent time this year discussing the need, and the cost. This morning I want to consider the opportunity. I understand some of us would prefer to worship in a smaller church, rather than a larger one. I would have included myself in that category. Once. But I love the efficiency and effectiveness a larger church offers. It takes me about the same time to prepare a message for our congregation today as it did when we were thirty-five. It s hard to muster a flock of twenty-three little angels when your whole congregation is not much bigger than that. We could never sponsor around sixty children in Kenya if there were still only ten families in our church. I trust the doors of our church will always be open to anyone seeking to discover Jesus and all he offers. Our church doors are an entrance, not a barrier; and we must remove all other barriers, physical or attitudinal, that effectively keep people away. I loved the piece Anita read to us the morning of our Christmas with the Children. We love having so many young people here with us. The bit of noise we hear is not the price we pay for this blessing; as John reminds us, it s the beating heart of a healthy church. No barriers! Progress on our extensions next year will allow more people to come. In this context, we also face the challenge and the opportunity of C. Increasing Our Giving. This morning I want to foreshadow a message in the new year where we revisit our privilege and responsibility as Christians to give. Let s just note here that Paul establishes the guidelines for us in 1 Corinthians 16. We are to give according to the way God has blessed us, 6
and given us the capacity to give. If God has not blessed you, then you have no responsibility in this. If he has blessed us, then we reflect our gratitude by the way we give. As the cost of everything goes up, and our incomes rise; it s easy to allow our giving to remain at last year s levels. Or the year before that. More on this in a few weeks. 2016 will be II. A Year of Change, a year that will see us A. Doing Some Things Differently. Some of us don t like change much! Some of us may even dig in our heels when we sense change threatening! Change is taking place all around us, and within us, whether we like it or not. And some change is good for us. Rex Rigby, our National Superintendent, and Rob Simpson last month guided us through a review of our structures and our leadership. They reminded us that we are no longer a small church. We probably already knew that, but some of the ways we do things are more suited to smaller churches than those our size. We need to make some changes. They reviewed the way we make decisions, and especially the way we communicate these decisions to the wider congregation. The board will consider ways to implement their recommendations. We will be doing some things differently next year! Next year will be B. A Time of Transition, as we consider our structures, and our future, and move our church towards becoming the church we will need to be, to be effective in our changing community. Will this be easy? Maybe not! But 2016 is a wide open door of opportunity for our church. An obvious part of this transition will include a new senior pastor when I step aside at the end of next year. Our church board will appoint a search committee early in the new year to start this process. Let me challenge the whole church to pray, and ask God to guide us to the right person, the one he has chosen to step into this role. We should pray with confidence. Let s approach this whole time of transition with confidence in our God who wants our church to prosper and thrive, and fulfil its mandate, even more than we do. 7
Again, the words of a song come to mind: He has brought us this far by his grace. He has led us by fire and by cloud. He will bring us to Zion to look on his face; O blessed, O blessed be God! We don t need to fear transition; even when we re not sure of the specifics we re transitioning towards! He has brought us this far by his grace. He will continue to guide us as we continue to trust him. We sing, Guide me O Thou great Jehovah... as our prayer. What s the next line? Pilgrim through this barren land. We are designed for transition! This world and this life is not our permanent home; even though we try to establish a sense of permanence here. We re pilgrims, on a journey. There are better things ahead for us. Let s embrace the transition and the opportunities and possibilities it offers us. And in this context, we simply note C. Our God Never Changes! In a world of uncertainty, as we move through life s stages, and farewell some who have completed the transition we re moving through; this fact sustains us, and allows us to embrace the changes as they come. God is our constant, as we face another year, with its opportunities and uncertainties. The God who sent his Son to our world, more than two thousand years ago now, because he loved the world back then, loves us with the same depth of empathy and compassion. Why would we be apprehensive? As I reflected on these things this week, and the symbolism of doors and what they can mean to us, I turned to Revelation 3, and the assessment Jesus gave us there for two III. Contrasting Churches. Interestingly, he mentions doors in each assessment. The first church is at Philadelphia. (Actually these are the last two of seven churches Jesus reviews in the early chapters of Revelation.) Let s note his reference to a door in this church. To the church of A. Philadelphia: a Wide Open Door. Jesus says, These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 3 And he tells the people there, See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. 3 Revelation 3:7b 8
We should note that this was not a big church. Comparatively, it didn t seem they had a whole lot going for them. We read they had little strength ; and the Greek word for strength here is dunamis from which we get our word dynamite. At first glance, it didn t look like they were about to go off with a bang! But looks can be deceiving. They had remained true to God s word. They had not denied God s name. And Jesus recognised their faithfulness. He placed a wide open door before them, and he reminded them that when he opens a door, no-one can close it! Revelation 3:20 has often been used as a personal invitation; and it works beautifully in this way. But when we place it, or leave it, in its context, it s actually a sad indictment on a church that had lost its way. As we read the assessment of the church at B. Laodicea: Jesus (is) outside the door And the door to this church is closed. Isn t that sad? How could this have ever come about? It seems the church at Laodicea had grown. It had prospered and become wealthy; but in the process, the hearts of the people had grown luke-warm, and apathetic. They d become so self-absorbed and satisfied, that they d closed the door of their church, and left Jesus outside, knocking. Won t somebody open the church door and let me come in? A door can be an entrance, or a barrier! What a warning for growing churches in affluent western society! Does it inevitably follow that growth causes a church s spiritual temperature to cool and a loss of effectiveness? I don t think so. There are plenty of larger churches doing a great work in growing God s kingdom; and many smaller churches are declining and slowly dying. Surely the key lies in how we manage the doors before us. Is a door an entrance, or a barrier? The answer to this question surely lies, not in the size of the church, but in whether that door is open or closed. It also depends on our willingness to be obedient in walking through the doors God opens before us. I love the attitude of the Apostle Paul in this. He was no mug! Neither was he all starryeyed as he surveyed the landscape. Writing to his Corinthian friends from Ephesus, he knew the work God had called him to there was not going to be easy. There was a lot of opposition. 9
Acknowledging the difficulties, Paul was not deterred. His assessment: there is a wide open door for a great work here. 4 Is that how we see the year about to unfold before us? When Jesus opens a door, no one can close it; and we can walk through it with confidence. 4 1 Corinthians 16:9a 10