This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I'm glad you're back for our look at Revelation chapter 3, day 3 today. We're
looking at verses 7 to 13. The angel of the church in Philadelphia, as we look
at these seven churches, remember we're looking at how Jesus' messages can
change our hearts and change our lives.

And in this message to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, to this church
in that day, he's speaking to us also. It's what Jesus says to a growing church.
It's what Jesus says when growth is happening in your life.

Let me read for you this entire message, Revelation chapter 3, verses 7 to 13.
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia, write, "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. I know your deeds. See I have placed before
you an open door that no one can shut.

I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not
denied my name. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim
to be Jews, though they are not, but are liars, I will make them come and fall
down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. Since you have kept my
command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is
going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown.
Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the
name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of
heaven from my God, and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

These are verses all about an open door. Philadelphia, it's a growing church.
God is at work in this church, but it's also a struggling church.

They're struggling with persecution. They're struggling with having little
strength. And if you ever look at yourself in this world and feel a sort of a
spiritual inferiority complex because of your belief in Christ, it seems like
everything else is gaining in the world but faith, realize that God has an open
door.

Truth is, one of the most depressing, defeating, and sometimes enraging things
in life is a closed door. I mean, just think of the pictures of it. You're ready
for a kiss on your girlfriend's doorstep and click, instead you're facing a
closed door.

That's discouraging. Or you're rushing to a teacher's class to get the
assignment in and the door is locked, a closed door. Or you have to get to the
store to get that all-important item and the door is locked.

They're closed. Or you're looking for work and you've knocked on a lot of doors
and the answer keeps being no. You're hearing the door slam shut instead.

This message to the church in Philadelphia, it's about how to allow the
refreshing breeze that comes through the open doors to begin to occur in your
life. How the open doors of Christ will let the fresh air of life into your
everyday life. And as we look at these open doors, we're going to look at three
keys.

I couldn't resist that, three keys with open doors. Three keys for opening those
doors in your life. These may not be the doors we're going to talk about today
that you're thinking of, but when you open these doors that we're talking about,
that's how the other door is open in life.

That's how the door to his abundant life opens in your life. And that's really
the true success of life. What do I do to open doors?

Number one, I get acquainted with the doorkeeper. Number two, I look for open
doors. And number three, I walk through the open doors.

That's what you do. Number one, you get acquainted with the doorkeeper. It's
relational.

It's like one of those expensive high-rise apartments where you've got to know
the doorkeeper to get in. And if you know them, they recognize you as somebody
who's supposed to be there. They just wave at you and wave you right on in.

If they don't know you, you're not getting in unless you know somebody that's in
there. You don't get in unless the doorkeeper knows who you are. And I've got to
know the doorkeeper, Jesus Christ.

You don't get in to a relationship with him, to the spiritual victories that you
want to see happen in your life, except that you know him. And as Jesus writes
to this church in Philadelphia, he says, "Here's who I am. I am the one who is
holy and true.

" That talks about his character. He's holy. He's distinct.

He's different. He's above us in greatness and purity. If doors are to open in
my life, in your life, I have to recognize that Jesus is holy, that he has a
distinct claim upon my life and character that no one else has.

It's not just me living my life on my own energy and power. It's living for the
holy greatness of Jesus Christ. He is holy and he is true.

And that word true, the Greek word there, points not so much to the attitude of
honesty as it's sort of the idea of the genuine article, the real thing. Open
doors begin to happen in my life when I recognize who Jesus really is in my
daily life. I recognize his character.

He's the one who's holy, the one who's true. I also recognize his authority.
These verses say that he is the one who has the key of David.

He is the one who opens and no one shuts it. And he shuts and no one opens it
up. If you want to do some further study of this, you can look at Isaiah 22, 22
to see where Jesus took this reference from, the key of David.

David takes this familiar symbol of authority and he ties it to himself. David,
the greatest of the Old Testament kings, the one who was promised an everlasting
kingdom. Jesus says, I am the one, David's descendant, I am the one, God in
human flesh, who holds the key to that kingdom.

And I'm the one who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. He's the
only one who has that set of keys. He is the chosen one to open up eternal life
and abundant life in my life, in my everyday life.

And Jesus says, you want to get acquainted with the doorkeeper, remember, I'm
the one who's coming soon. And that word soon throws us, it might throw you all
the way through the book of Revelation. Remember, soon does not mean the next
minute, soon means at any moment.

When Jesus says, I'm coming soon and he waited 2,000 years, some people think,
well, he didn't know what he was talking about. Well, of course he did. And soon
means at any moment.

I believe that from the moment Jesus first left, he is coming soon. He could
have come again at any moment that he wants. He could come in this moment if he
wants.

He is coming soon. So you recognize, you get acquainted with the doorkeeper. The
second thing to experience open doors is you look for the open doors.

Many of us, we have a tendency to fix our eyes on the closed doors of life, to
camp before them and to use them as an excuse for not moving anywhere. I'm just
going to sit here until that door opens. Possibly, the reason that you feel that
doors are always closed in your life is you're sitting in front of one closed
door.

And the need is to get up and look for the open doors. Now, why do I say that?
Because in these verses, Jesus guarantees, the doorkeeper guarantees that
certain doors are open to you.

He holds the keys. As you walk through the scripture, you can actually see
hundreds of doors that are open to you. The door of God's love, it's always
open.

Are you walking through it? The door of forgiveness, it's always open. Are you
walking through it?

The door of prayer, it's always open. Are you talking to God about whatever
you're facing? The door of witnessing, of sharing your faith with somebody else
and seeing a response, it's always open.

Now, I mention that one because that's probably the door that he's referring to
here in Philadelphia. This city, Philadelphia, was built strategically to be a
Greek influence in Asia. And Jesus proclaims here that he's going to use that
central location to open doors to their telling the good news.

When other people speak of the closed door in their life, remember that's an
open door for you to talk about Jesus Christ and the fact that he opens all
kinds of doors in our lives that may not have to do with what I want to have
happen, but they have to do with what I most need. If you're looking at the
closed doors and you're focused only on the closed door, begin to look for the
open door and begin with these things like God's love, God's forgiveness,
talking to him in prayer. And as you focus on that, then you're getting your
eyes above that one door to look for where's the open door?

Where does he want me to go? Who does he want me to talk to? Where does he want
me to live?

How does he want me to respond? Who does he want me to forgive? What's the open
door in my life?

And once you see it, you do the third thing. First you get acquainted with the
doorkeeper, second you look for the open doors, and third you walk through the
open doors. No matter how widely a door is open, you're not going to get
anywhere unless you walk through it.

And Jesus, as he talks to this church, says you're that kind of people. You are
walking through the open doors. And he talks to them in verse 8 and verse 9
about the kind of people that they are.

And as he looks at their lives, he sees why they're able to walk through those
doors. In verse 8 he says, "I placed before you an open door that no one can
shut. " And then he says to them, "I see, I know that you have little strength,
yet you kept my word and you've not denied my name.

" I see in that the character of someone who walks through open doors. Jesus
says, "I see you. You have little strength.

Go ahead and still walk through the door I've opened for you. " And when he says
little strength here, I don't think he's talking so much about the size of the
church or their resources, I think he's talking about what they probably feel
about their faith. They probably look at themselves and think, "We don't have
the power to change this whole continent.

We don't have the power to be that kind of witness. " The truth of the matter
is, when I am weak, Paul taught us, then I am strong. Jesus taught us, "When I
have faith as a mustard seed, then I can move mountains.

" Now that's opening a door. When I see that I have little power, it causes me
to look to his great power. There are times in my life, and there may have been
times in your life too, when I stood before an open door and not gone through
because I felt like I don't have the power to make a difference there.

I'm not worthy to walk through that door. I don't have the strength. I don't
have the ability to walk through that door.

If you'll walk through, knowing that you have little strength, when I am weak,
then on the other side of that door, you'll discover then he is strong, but you
have to have the faith to walk through the door. You're never going to discover
that then he is strong on your side of the door. Your faith step is to walk
through that door, even though you know you have a little power.

Jesus says, "I know you have a little power, but I see two other things in your
life. To the kind of people who walk through open doors, because you have kept
my word. " In the scriptures, in God's Word, the Bible, there is a map to the
open doors in our lives, to the open doors for our growth and character, for the
open doors for the kind of life that he wants us to live, the kind of
relationships that you and I can enjoy.

It's almost as if I'm sitting on a bus and I think, "I want to go somewhere, but
I'm not so sure where to go," and someone hands me a map. If I don't open the
map, I'm going to still be as unsure, but once I open the map, I see thousands
of destinations. That's what the Bible is like.

Now, I know you may not know the exact door that you want to know right now. Who
am I going to marry? Where should I live?

What exact job should I have? But I have discovered that if I'll walk through
the open doors that I see, the doors of growth, the doors of character, the
doors of living the kind of life that God wants me to live, then those other
open doors that I'm not so sure of, then they become clear. That's how you get
there.

You go where you see, and Jesus says, "You've kept my word. " That's one of the
keys to opening doors. He also says, "You have not denied my name.

" They lived in a city that was a very cosmopolitan city, and they had all the
pressure in the world, the kind of pressure you have, to try a different door,
to live up to this temptation or to try this pleasure, to live for the name of
Caesar and the worship of some foreign God. But instead, they never denied His
name. They never denied the character, the purpose, the authority of Jesus
Christ.

Trust in Jesus always remained alive in them. When you're looking for open
doors, trust in Christ is all-important. More than simply pointing to the door
or holding the key to the door, in John chapter 10 verse 9, Jesus says, "I am
the door, so I've got to trust Him in order to go through the open doors that He
has for me.

" This church, the church at Philadelphia, it was a great church which saw
before it the open doors of life. But look at why. Jesus says that they were
doing the simple things right.

They were trusting. They were depending on the direction of God's Word. They
were living with a faith in their everyday lives, even though they saw the
weakness in their lives.

Start simple. I know life can get complicated. I certainly understand that.

But if you want to walk through the open doors of faith, you've got to start
simple. Do the little things right, the simple things right. Trust in Him.

Depend on the direction of His Word. Have faith even though you see the weakness
in your own life. Let's trust in Him in that kind of way right now.

Jesus Christ, today is the day for us to walk through the open door of faith to
help us to trust you right now, to trust you for who you are and to trust you
for how you're at work in our lives. And even though I don't understand
sometimes, we don't understand sometimes, and we wish we did, instead of
fighting against what we don't understand, instead of camping out in front of
closed doors. Help us to look right now for the open door, to see what it is in
a relationship, to see what it is in the way that we relate to you, to see what
it is in our growth, to see what it is that's the open door in our lives right
now.

And help us to determine to walk through that by your strength, because of your
love for us. Jesus, thank you for the open doors in our lives, and thank you
that no one can shut them when you open them. In your name, amen.

Tomorrow, as we continue our walk through this chapter, we're going to look at
what Jesus says to a complacent church.