Our God Is the God of the Open Door

Brethren, as Mary and I were preparing for our move to come here, to serve you and the folks up in Beloit, we noted that a number of doors were being opened for us. God was providing for us in some very important ways, very significant ways. As I've mentioned to you before, we sold our home in less than 24 hours.

Once we put it on the market, we put it on the market on a Friday, on a Monday, I think at 4 o'clock and Tuesday at 10 o'clock in the morning, it was sold. Mary was unsure what her employer would be doing with her once she let them know that she was going to be moving. A lot of times with a company, especially a large company like she worked for, you tell them you're leaving and the security people come and escort you out right then and there.

But as it turned out, the door opened there and she was able to work the whole month of, or most of the month of May. So that was a great door opening. Building our home in Yorkville, a lot of different things there. But in your lives, not just in my life, but in your lives, when you think about what God has done for you, the miracles that God has performed in your lives, the doors that he's opened, even the closed doors that have led to something actually pretty good.

I think sometimes we think that a closed door is a negative thing. Today we're going to see where a closed door can lead to something very good. Now, we have asked God to open doors regarding service opportunities, to serve God. We've asked for open doors to serve our fellow man or people here in the congregation. We've asked for open doors regarding having children, family opportunities. We've asked for career opportunities and open doors along those lines.

Educational opportunities. Just this month, we've had three high school grads, Alex, Kaylee, and Katie, graduating their life as before them. I'm sure they're praying that God would open up the proper doors at the proper time. So this was on my mind, this idea of open doors, closed doors. And again, as Mary and I look to our being here to serve you and your needs, I began to think more and more on this topic. There are some doors that will open.

There are tremendous blessings. There are some doors that won't open that will give us challenges. But either way, there are principles for us to appreciate. And so if you are the type of person who loves to take notes, and you want to find out what Mr. D's sermon is about today, on the top of your paper, you can write this short phrase. Our God is the God of the open door. Our God is the God of the open door.

And if you would, turn to Acts 16. We're mostly going to be there today. We'll go to a few other places, but you might want to put a marker in there. Acts 16. Starting here in Acts 16, we see the beginning of what is known as Paul's second missionary journey. That's what theologians call it. This would be in the late 40s, early 50s AD. This journey would lay the groundwork for a number of churches to be formed. And of course, one of the things we're going to see in chapter 16 here is the formation, or the beginnings, of the church in Philippi.

The church in Philippi was a very strategic church, a church very close to Paul's heart, a church where when Paul had need in other areas, for example, when Paul had need in Thessalonica, when the people in Thessalonica thought maybe Paul was in it for the money, there was the occasion where he would work on his own, applying his own trade as a tentmaker.

But he would also contact the church in Philippi and ask for assistance for some of their tithes and offerings to continue to do the work. Now here in Acts 16, in the first five verses, what we're seeing basically is Paul wanting to go to churches, revisit the brethren, see how the brethren are doing. When he came to Lystra, he encountered a young disciple named Timothy. Timothy was highly regarded by the Christians in the area. Lystra in that area was in central Turkey, if you want to know a little bit of the geography there.

Initially the plan was simply to revisit the various areas, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, see how the brethren are doing. But then there was a, you know, let's take a look at verse five here. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily, showing the great power of our God. Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, you know, we're moving a little further to the west, we're moving closer to the Aegean, still basically in central Turkey, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.

They were forbidden. So God is closing a door here. Is this a bad thing? Verse seven. After they had come to Micea, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Now Bithynia is in northern Turkey. I'm sure there were a lot of people in northern Turkey that would have enjoyed the calling of God, the opportunity to listen to the Apostle Paul.

And was God denying those people that? Of course not. There's a reason why God was doing what he was doing here. And we'll get into that more and more as the sermon progresses. But here we see in verse six that they were forbidden by the Spirit to preach the word in Asia. In verse seven we see the same thing. So twice now, in the space of two verses, we see that they are told by God's Holy Spirit, they're given a closed door. What happens in your life when you think the door is closed? What do we do about something like that? Continue on in the story. So passing by Micea, they came down to Troas.

So now they're right on the Aegean, the westernmost part of Turkey. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night, a man of Macedonia, a man from Greece, stood and pleaded with him, saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. So brethren, one door is closing, but another door is opening.

So a closed door doesn't have to be a bad thing. A closed door can lead to an open door.

Verse 10, now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

And now we get into some really fascinating things. What I want to do from this point is to show the calling of some of the charter members of the church there in Philippi.

But also when we're done, I want to go through and examine some lessons to be learned about open and closed doors. And I think that as we go through that, you'll appreciate that. Let's get back into the book here, Acts 16, verse 11. Therefore, sailing from Troas we ran a straight course to Samoothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis. So they're going north and a little to the west, from there to Philippi, which is a neighboring city, which is the foremost city of that part of Greece, of Macedonia, a colony. Now the Romans, in their wisdom, they weren't just barbarians who went around conquering everybody. There was a rhyme and a reason to what they did. And as we progress through various sermons through the years, we'll go through some of these issues. But it's interesting here that Philippi is known as a colony. A colony normally would be settled by at least 300 Romans. They wanted to make a colony basically a little Rome. They wanted to make it something for the rest of that region to look at and say, yeah, you know, we the Romans, they're somebody that we don't want to emulate them in many ways. We certainly don't want to anger them.

Don't want to anger them because the legions will be on our doorstep. It was interesting that the Germans were crossing the Rhine into Roman territory at this one particular point.

And they thought they would be safe because the Rhine was rather wide. It was deep. It was swift running. They thought they could make these incursions into the Roman Empire, come right across back the Rhine, and everything would be okay. Well, the way that turned out is that Julius Caesar, I believe it was, brought the Roman legions up to that point. The Germans, I'm sure, were watching on the other side and thinking, well, there's no way they're going to cross this. And I forget what it was. I think it was something like 10 or 14 days. They built a pontoon bridge across the Rhine. Caesar marched his legions across, marched around for a while, just to show what could be done, marched his legions back, dismantled the bridge, and went back. Now, the idea was we can reach out and touch you. Don't mess with us. And whenever Rome would conquer an area, they would bring the city fathers, the various leaders into Rome. Because they wanted people to see the architecture and realize, you know, we're not just conquerors, we're not just army.

We're builders. We're educators. We have tremendous brain power. And I don't know if any of you are into movies. I've occasionally gone to see a movie here and there. The movie Gladiator, when Russell Crowe and some of the other gladiators are brought to Rome for the first time, they're standing looking at the Colosseum. And one of the gladiators looked at the Colosseum and said, I didn't think men can build such things. And that's exactly what the Romans wanted. It was a type of psychological warfare. So what we have here is that, as a Philippi, is a colony. And as a colony, the people there were free from taxes. They were free from military service. They elected their own officials. It was a little Rome. And it says, verse 12, Acts 16, 12, and we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city of the riverside where prayer was customarily made. And we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart. So here we see an open door. An open door towards salvation. Here is a woman. Here is the first member of the church in Philippi, a lady, a business woman, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to the heed of things spoken by Paul.

And when she and her household were baptized. So obviously, we were thinking about Father's Day for tomorrow, but this woman had a very good relationship with her family. As the Apostle Paul and Silas were talking to them, her and them, not only was she baptized, they were baptized. So again, they became a part of the local congregation. She begged us, saying, if you have judged us to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. So she persuaded us. So we've got a lady here of some substance, a business woman, who has the powers of persuasion. And so she persuades Paul. And of course, Paul has no issue staying there because the whole family was living there and so forth.

So what we're seeing here, brethren, is God had closed the door twice for Paul to go to one area, but opened the door for him to go to another area. Let's turn over to Romans chapter 8 for just a moment. Put a marker here. Romans chapter 8. You probably know where I'm heading.

Romans chapter 8 and verse 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

And of course, the Apostle Paul and Silas here, they're being led by God. They didn't go to northern Turkey. They wound up in Greece, and they're starting the church there in Philippi.

The point to see in this, brethren, at this point, there's going to be a lot of other things for us to notice. But at this particular juncture, the point for us to appreciate is that God knows what's best. When we ask God to open doors, and for whatever the reason the doors don't seem to open for us, let's appreciate that God knows the whole situation. We as believers must always trust in God's leadership, trust in his Spirit, trust that the closing of doors is at his will as well as the opening of doors. And of course, what we see here in Acts chapter 16, these few verses we've looked at to this point, is the tremendous door of salvation, a tremendous door of preaching the gospel in Europe. This is the first time Europe is now receiving the gospel through the Apostle Paul.

Let's continue on in our story here. Let's go to Acts chapter 16, and we go drop down to verse 16. Acts 16, 16. Now what happened is we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed the spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling.

So here we've got an individual who has a demon, and she has the ability to foretell future events, and she has the ability to do so correctly enough where she's making money for people.

So obviously she was to some degree successful in this endeavor. Verse 17, this girl followed Paul and us, crying out, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days, to Paul, being greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and he came out that very hour. A couple of months ago I gave a sermon over in Ann Arbor and Detroit about how demons work, their method of operation, and so forth. I'll give that same sermon here sometime in the future. I did quote this area here to make sure that we know that we don't have to fear demons. They want us to fear them, but we have God backing us. We don't want to do foolish things when it comes to the spirit world, but we have God the Father. We've got Jesus Christ backing us.

And certainly the ministry is there to help us along these lines. And in this case we see Paul getting rid of this demon. Verse 19, But when her master saw that the hope of their prophet was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them through the marketplace to the authorities. They brought them to the magistrates that these men being Jews.

Perhaps a little anti-Semitism here. And these men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city, and they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or to observe.

Then the multitude rose up together against them. The magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.

Pause for a moment.

These men are walking through an open door. These men are walking through a door that God opened for them. And as they walk through the door, God opened for them. Part of the result is they're being badly beaten. Part of the result is they're being thrown in jail. Part of the result is that they're feeling a great deal of distress.

Do we understand something about walking through open doors at this point?

Is a door only open when it's easy and nothing is going to happen that's anything negative? Or can walking through an open door at times a door that God opens for us? Could that lead to some consequences?

Now, we're going to see, brethren, that the consequences are going to turn out for the furtherance of the Gospel. God knows exactly what He's doing here. And as we're going to see in just a moment, both Paul and Silas were rejoicing at what God was doing. So again, this is something we need to appreciate about open doors. Sometimes there's opposition, sometimes there's difficulty, sometimes there's challenge. When God opens a door for us, it's not always sunshine and lollipops as we go through these doors. So verse 24, "...having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet into stocks." So here they are. Basically, what you're looking at is something akin to maximum security. I'm sure it was painful for their feet to be in those stocks. They had already been beaten. Very difficult time for them there. So again, one of the things we want to learn here is that there are times when we are walking through an open door that opposition will be there.

Think, brethren, about the... I'm not going to turn there, but think about Mark chapter 1.

In your notes, you might want to reference that. Mark chapter 1 verses 21 through 28.

Jesus Christ is beginning his ministry. Jesus Christ is going to the synagogue.

At that point, a demon-possessed individual rises up and confronts Jesus Christ.

Wants it divert the attention away from Jesus Christ and what he's about to do in his ministry.

Now, God is opening the door for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is walking through that door.

But as soon as he's walking through that door, there's opposition. Of course, Christ takes care of the demon. He gets rid of the demon, deals with the demon.

So again, brethren, don't interpret opposition or difficulties as an indication of a closed door.

If doing the work may look dangerous, if we assume that it's a closed door, we might be making a very big mistake. The scriptures make it very clear that you and I as Christians are going to suffer for our faith. Very clear on that point.

There are some doors that God has closed, perhaps to open at a later time. We'll get to that a little bit later. So let's not assume that opposition, danger, or suffering are absolute evidence that God has closed the door. It wasn't the case here.

Okay, let's continue on in the story. Acts 16, verse 25.

But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

Brethren, this is 2,000 years ago. This isn't a prison. There are no such things as civil rights.

Nobody is doing anything here that's politically correct.

Probably horrible conditions.

Generally speaking, from what I've read, most of these jails, if you got above 55 degrees, that was pretty warm. Because generally it was in the 50 degrees, you know, 55 degrees or colder.

Could be much colder, depending how far down you were in some of these prisons. But here you see Paul and Silas, they realize God's opened a door. They've already seen positive fruit, right? They've already seen Lydia being baptized, her household being baptized. The church in Philippi is starting. Good, positive, solid fruit. So here they are, they're praying, they're singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them.

That's also part of the open door. Yes, they were suffering physically, but spiritually other things were happening around them.

Interesting things. God ordained things were happening around them.

I'm sure those prisoners heard an awful lot of cursing. I'm sure they heard an awful lot of really negative things. But people singing praises to God, I'm sure that wasn't the what they heard very often in that setting. Now, we don't know what they were singing, but you know, one of the very first songs, I think the first song in all of the Bibles over in Exodus chapter 15, it's called the Song of Moses, talking about how God delivered the children of Israel from Egypt, talking about the great power of God. Now, if they're singing that hymn, and the prisoners are listening, then they are being set up for something very interesting. Let's continue reading here. Suddenly, verse 26, there was a great earthquake, so the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were loosed.

So perhaps, and I'm speculating here, perhaps they're singing about God as the deliverer, God in His great power, and all of a sudden an earthquake takes place, everybody's chains are loosed, and that gets everybody's attention. That gets everybody's attention. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners that fled drew his sword and was about to kill himself. Even in today's society, if you're a police officer, you don't want to do something wrong, get convicted, and be thrown in jail.

A former police officer in jail, forget it. Not good. And this fellow was thinking the same thing.

Perhaps he had mistreated a number of the people in that prison at times. He didn't want to be at their mercy. Verse 28, but Paul called with a loud voice, saying, do yourself no harm, for we are all here.

Brethren, that's a miracle in itself. You've got some pretty rugged individuals in that prison. They don't want to be there. Now their door is open, their shackles are off, all they have to do is walk out of that prison. But none of them did that. None of them did that. We are all here.

Verse 29. Then he called for a light, ran in, fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas, and he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Now, earlier on in the story, I talked about how this jailer had fallen asleep. But prior to falling asleep, had he been listening to the singing of hymns, the prayers of Paul and Silas, had he heard about the preaching of Paul and Silas, had maybe he even been to some of those sermons that Paul might have given or Silas might have given? We don't know that. But when we see here that he's asking about salvation, we know something has taken place in his life in the past.

Verse 31. So they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. Now, there's a lot in that verse. We don't have time now to go through all of that. We'll go through that some future point. Verse 32. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in the house. So at some point, this whole thing moved from the jail to the jailer's home. They took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes, and immediately he and his family were baptized. So again, we're adding more people to the church there in Philippi.

The door had closed to go to northern Turkey. The door had opened to go to eastern Greece on the Aegean. Verse 34. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them, so they were in his jailer's home. And then he rejoiced, having believed in God with all of his household. Now, brethren, is this the open door that Paul was praying for? That he would be out of jail? Is that the open door? The answer to that is no. The open door was that the gospel was being preached. The open door was that people were coming to salvation, being baptized, being added to the family of faith. That's where the door was being opened.

Let's continue on here. Verse 35. Now when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers, saying, Let those men go. Let those men go. Now there's an important principle here that goes beyond even what I'm trying to accomplish today in the sermon. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now, appreciate something.

Paul and Silas had left the prison. They had gone to the jailer's home. After being in the jailer's home, they go back to prison. They're in jail again. What's God doing here? God's doing something very powerful here. Not only for this particular instance, before Paul and Silas and the rest of God's people to proclaim the gospel from this point on.

Verse 36. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart and go in peace. But Paul said to them, They have beaten us openly, unconstemmed to Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now, do they put us out secretly?

No, indeed! Let them come themselves, and get us out.

Brethren, do you have rights as a Christian? You certainly do. Now, those rights as Christians have to be according to what's in God's word. But here we see in God's word, that Paul just didn't want to be treated any old way by the authorities. Now, was that because Paul was concerned about his personal freedoms? That Paul was concerned about his personal comfort? Or is Paul thinking it was God inspiring Paul to think, you know, here is another open door. These magistrates realize they've done wrong by me. I am a Roman citizen. I deserved a trial. I didn't get that. They were wrong. They were wrong. They're on the hook here. And I'm going to press this point, Paul's thinking. God's inspiring him to think. I'm going to press this point because from hereafter, they're going to kind of back away from Paul when he's preaching there in Philippi.

Word will spread to other cities in the region about this Paul of Tarsus. Be careful about him. We did him a bad turn there in Philippi. He's a Roman citizen. He's a man of letters.

Give him a wide berth. And so again, here we see where God, even though Paul and Silas are going through these beatings, jailings, all this sort of thing, the bottom line is God's opening all these doors. People are being converted. People are being added to the Church as a result of what's happening here. And again, brother, this shows us that you and I also have rights in our society. Verse 38. And the officers told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. Then they came and pleaded with them. Boy, has the worm turned here. At one point, they're beating them, throwing them in jail, putting them in stocks, throwing them in the worst part of jails. You know, not solitary, but maximum security. Now they're pleading with them and brought them out and asked them to depart from the city. So when they went out of the prison, they entered the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed. So Paul was going to do what God wanted him to do. He was not going to be fearful. And so what we have here, brethren, is the door of opportunity for the church there in Philippi, but also for the church in Europe in general. It would leave Paul and Silas and others the right to travel freely, the right to preach the gospel. I'm not saying that there weren't further persecutions and things of that nature. There certainly were. But this was a great help.

This is a tremendous help. So let's take a look now, brethren. I may mention that we were going to look at some principles of how God opens or closes doors. Let's take a look at this point.

Let's turn over to Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation chapter 3. We're done with Acts 16, by the way.

I want to go through, I think I've got six of them here. Six different principles. We won't take long. We'll be done before three o'clock. So don't worry about that. Revelation chapter 3, verse 7, And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, These things says, He was holy, He was true, He was the key of David, He who opens, He who opens, and no one shuts, and shuts, and no one opens. I know your works. See, I've set before you an open door, and no one can shut it, for you have a little strength, and I've kept my word, and I've not denied my name.

So I'm going to letter these. Letter A is that God is the great doorkeeper.

You know, the theme for the sermon today is, Our God is the God of the open door.

Letter A, God is the great doorkeeper. He's the one who opens doors, He's the one who closes doors, He's the one who knows what His will is, He's the one who will have His will accomplished, and so forth. Letter B. We saw in Acts chapter, I'm not going to turn back there, but in Acts chapter 16 verses 6 and 7, we saw how Paul and Silas, when they were attempting to go to northern Turkey, they were denied to be able to go there. So letter B, regarding opening and closing doors, one can only know a closed door by first trying it. One can only know a closed door by first trying it. How do we know the door is open? How do we know the door is closed? Well, we've got to be practical about it. Let's give it a shot. Let's give it a try. Paul gave it a try. Twice God says, nope, that's not what we're going to do here.

Letter C. An open door may become evident after one has experienced some closed doors.

How do we know the door is open? How do we know a door is closed? Well, you know, we keep our eyes open. What was it that God told Moses? Stand still. See the salvation.

You know, we as Americans, we want to be doing something. We always want to be in action. We want to be moving. There are times when God says to us, don't just do something. Stand there.

Take the time to look at the situation. Recalibrate our thinking. Understand what we're going through. So an open door may only become evident after one has experienced some closed doors. Letter D. Letter D. Our suffering may actually open a door of opportunity for the gospel. Our suffering may actually open a door of opportunity for the gospel. Let's go to Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians chapter 1 and verse 12.

But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which have happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. The furtherance of the gospel. Jesus Christ suffered, but look what took place as a result of his suffering. The Apostle Paul suffered, but look at how much of the New Testament he was able to write, that God inspired him to write. That we relate to because of his sufferings. So again, let's not think that suffering is always some negative thing. You know, brethren, there's an interesting... Over the years, I've known a lot of very interesting people in the church. Many years ago, when I was a member of the Detroit church, I don't think I was even ordained at this particular point. Just coming to services. After a number of years attending, one of the ladies in the congregation was baptized. I was kind of surprised, and a lot of us were surprised because we had known this woman for many years. We thought she had been a part of the church for all those years. One day, I walked up to her and I said, Kathy, if you don't mind me asking, I always thought you were baptized. I mean, you're a great lady and you do everything, and so on and so forth. I guess it never occurred to me, I never saw her at Passover, but I can be very observant at times. And I said, well, can you please let me know why it is that you're being baptized now? She'd been attending by that point about 15 years. And she said, well, Randy, it's really very simple. Over the years, I've watched my husband Jim. I've watched what Jim has been going through in his life. I've watched the trials, the tribulations. I've watched the times when he could have buckled, when he could have thrown it all away, when he could have just closed his Bible, walked away from church, but he never did. He never did. And as I've watched my husband, it has been a witness to me that what he has is the genuine article. What he has is the real faith. And I want that real faith. I've gone as far as I can go the way I am. I need God's help. And I can only have God's help if I receive his Spirit, have my sins forgiven, and so forth. So again, adversity creates tremendous open doors. Tremendous open doors. Letter E. Closed doors may be only closed temporarily. Closed doors may be closed only temporarily. We saw how the Apostle Paul was not able to go into certain portions of Turkey, but years later, I think it's over in Acts 16. Let's take a look over there.

I'm doing a dangerous thing here and going off script. I shouldn't say off script. These are actually my notes. I wasn't planning on using this. Acts 19, verse 8. And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading, concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not believe, we spoke evil the way before the multitude. He departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued for two years. So all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So even though Paul never went to northern Turkey, and he didn't go there for specific reason, his preaching and the word of his preaching encompassed all of Turkey, even though he physically never went there. Now, 1 Peter 1 brings us to the last point for me to give you today. This is letter F. Doors may be closed to one Christian, but open to another. Doors may be closed to one Christian, but open to another. 1 Peter 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, who the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Bithynia is where Paul wanted to go. God said no. Why? Because Peter was there. Because Peter was already there. God was watching his resources. God wanted to use his resources properly, judiciously, properly.

And so this is one of the things. God opened a door for Peter to go to northern Turkey, but he did not open the door to Paul to go to northern Turkey.

So, brethren, this year, as Christians, we look forward to many exciting opportunities. We look forward to many bright and exciting doors opening for us. We know that our Father God is the God of the open door. Today we've taken a look at Acts 16. We've taken a look at how God opens some doors, shuts others, and we can appreciate that God will do the same thing in our life. We want to be close to him. We are God's kids. And as God's kids, let you and I be praying that we not only have the insight to see an open door, to walk through an open door, but to appreciate what a closed door means as well.