By: Johnson O. Lawal
Series: Receiving through servants of God
SUNDAY 18TH OCTOBER 2026 – RECEIVING THROUGH SERVANTS OF GOD
I want to further and briefly share with us on ‘Receiving through servants of God’. We have actually digressed a little into looking at some other ways through which we may receive from God. The first thing I pointed out is that we can only receive what God has provided. Anything God has not provided, we cannot receive. Our faith cannot lay claim to something that God has not provided. So, when we are talking about receiving from God, our focus must be on receiving from Him what He has provided. That is why we need to be educated in the knowledge of God’s provisions for us. And we must keep that in mind.
Then we looked at a number of ways through which we can receive from God. As I pointed out, we can receive from God through prayer. We can also receive from God by declaring His word, saying the same thing in agreement with Him. Then, last week, we looked at something else about receiving from God, which has to do with seeking out God’s provisions.
I will read to you again from Matthew 7:7, which says:
“Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.” (NIV)
Now Jesus is not saying the same thing using different phrases or words in this text. Rather, He is saying different things. He is showing us different ways to receive from God, what we may call ‘Receiving dimensions’. First, He speaks about asking, which has to do with praying to receive what God has provided. Then He speaks about seeking, which has to do with going out to lay claim to what God has provided for you. And there is a third thing, which is knocking. He says the one who knocks will have the door opened to him. So, knock, and the door will be opened to you.
When do you need to knock? It is when you want to gain access to something, and you realize that the door to access that thing has been shut. That is when you need to knock. You may have the right to the place that you want to enter, but as long as the door is locked, what do you do to gain access? You knock. Even if you do not have the right to access the place that you want to enter, when you get there and find the door locked, what do you do? You knock!
So, we knock when we believe that what we need is behind a closed door. This shows us something about God’s provisions: there are provisions of God for us that are behind some closed doors. If we are to access those provisions, we must knock on those doors. There are opportunities that God wants us to take advantage of that are behind some closed doors. If we want to take advantage of those opportunities, then we must knock on those doors.
Now we have an assurance from God that if we knock, the door will be opened to us. What we need to understand, then, is those cases in which we need to knock. I think I should dwell on this aspect this morning because of the little time that we have.
See, there are times that we stand in front of open doors and we are still expecting God to open them. So, it is not every time that people are expecting God to open certain doors for them that God actually needs to open those doors. The reason is that those doors are already open. They are standing before open doors; it is just that they do not know. And where you are standing before an open door and you do not know, it does not matter what you say or what you do, what God has provided for you will not be yours, unless you go in and take it.
Let me give you some Scriptures to validate that:
Revelation 3: The Church in Philadelphia
In Revelation chapter 3, we have a letter that the Lord Jesus Christ wrote to the church in Philadelphia. From verse 7, it says:
“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…” (Revelation 3:7-8NIV)
The Lord is bringing this church a word, which is that He has already placed before them an open door which no one can shut. Will they, then, need to knock on that door? No. Why? It is already open. And the Lord is drawing their attention to the fact that the door has already been opened.
Now we may not know what door the Lord is referring to here. But I am sure that when the members of that church received the letter, they understood what the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking about. He was telling them that He had already opened a door for them which no one could shut. So what they must do was enter, because there was already an open door for them.
1 Corinthians 16: Paul at Ephesus
Let us look at another example from the Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 16, from verse 8. This is worth noting.
“But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.” (1Corinthians 16:8-9NIV)
Paul is informing the brethren in Corinth that a great door for effective ministry has opened to him in Ephesus. Therefore, he has chosen to remain there to take advantage of that open door. You see that Paul needed to know that there was an open door; otherwise, he would not have made any effort to take advantage of it. He was not praying that God would open a door for him. It was not by knocking that God would open a door for him. The door was already open. It was up to him to enter and make the most of it.
Hebrews 3: The Door of God’s Rest
Now let me give you an additional example from Hebrews chapter 3, from verse 15.
“As has just been said: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’ Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.” (Hebrews 3:15-19NIV)
This is a reference to what happened to the children of Israel whom Moses brought out of the land of Egypt to take into the Promised Land. When they got to the threshold of the Promised Land, they were unwilling to enter. Why? They were unwilling to enter because they did not know, or did not believe, that God had opened the door for them.
God wanted them to have rest. We are talking about a door of God’s rest here. They had been in Egypt for decades, in fact centuries, of suffering. But God, by His mighty hand, led them out of Egypt so that they could enter the place of rest He had prepared for them. For them to enter that place of rest, God needed to open the door to the place. And God did that. He opened the door for them to enter the Promised Land. But they were unwilling to enter. They did not believe that the door had been opened for them.
So, there was an open door for them to enter into God’s rest, but they would not use it, because they did not believe that it had been opened. Why did they not believe? They were afraid of what was behind the door: the giants. They did not even think that God could open that door for them to take the land. So when it was time for them to enter the land, they would not enter it. Therefore, God swore that none of them would enter His rest. So they all wasted away in the wilderness.
The Point
What is the point I am making? When Jesus is talking about knocking on doors, it is not every door that is locked. It is not every door of God’s provisions for us that is locked and that we need to knock on. There are doors that have already been opened for us.
Of course, we may need divine revelations to know that certain doors have been opened for us, which is why, of necessity, we must continually pray that God will open our eyes to see those doors that He has already opened, so that we can begin to take appropriate steps to take advantage of them. Can you relate what I am talking about?
I am saying this because a lot of times we find God’s people praying that God will open certain doors for them, doors which are already open. And if a door is open right before you and you are still asking God to open it, how do you expect Him to respond? The best He can do is to open your eyes to see. As He said to the church in Philadelphia, “See, I have placed before you an open door which no one can shut.”
So I want you to keep this in mind this morning: you may have certain doors that you have been knocking on, expecting God to open them. They may be doors of favor, doors of opportunity, doors of rest or doors of promotion. Now you need to find out whether those doors are actually shut or not. If they are not shut and you are expecting God to open them, you are wasting your time.
Hebrews 4:16: The Door of Grace
Maybe I can add one more point before I close. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16, we are told:
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
There is an open door here. What God is saying is that anytime you need grace, anytime you need mercy, you will find an open door for it. He says, come boldly, because the door is wide open. If you are waiting for God to open a door of mercy for you, you are wasting your time, because that door is open. Your part is to go inside and take it.
For somebody who needs salvation: the door of salvation is wide open. You do not need to be knocking on the door of salvation for God to open it, because it is already wide open. What God wants you to do is to come inside and take salvation.
So there are doors that are already open before us, and my prayer is that God will open our eyes to see those doors, so that we can go in and begin to make the most of what is ours, what God has already provided for us.
But since Jesus says, “Knock, and the door will be opened to you,” it means that there are doors that have not been opened. And we need to knock on them; otherwise they will remain shut. We have a guarantee that if we knock on those doors, they will be opened for us. But we must do the knocking, for we cannot open them ourselves.
If you have the key to a door, you do not need to knock; all you do is open it and go inside. But if you do not have the key, unless you want to break the door, you cannot go in without having the door opened for you. And if you break into a place that you have no authority to enter, what will you be regarded as? A thief! A burglar! And you will be given the treatment of a burglar.
Well then, since there are doors that are shut, we have a duty to knock on them. But we also need to know which doors are shut and need our knocking. When we know them, we know it is our duty to knock, and we can begin to knock and expect God to open them for us. Is that clear this morning?
Let us bow our heads and thank God: We ask, O God, that you open our eyes to see those doors that you have opened for us, doors of your provisions, so that we may go in and begin to make the most of your provisions for us. Amen.
Keynote
Not every door needs a knock. Some are already open, and the need is not to ask God to open them, but to ask Him to open our eyes to see them and then walk in. Knock only on doors that are truly shut, and trust that every such door will open.
• Receive only what God has provided, so know His provisions.
• Asking, seeking and knocking are three distinct ways of receiving.
• Open doors need entering, not knocking: Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-8), Paul at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:8-9), grace and salvation (Hebrews 4:16).
• Israel failed to enter the open door of rest through unbelief and fear (Hebrews 3:15-19).
• For doors that are shut, knock, and the promise stands (Matthew 7:7)
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