Sunday we heard from Ed Young, Pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas.
Acts 20:7-9 is the first instance of someone sleeping in church! Sleep is funny, because you don’t know you’re asleep until we wake up. The truth is a lot of us are sleeping in church. We may not be asleep physically, but maybe we’re asleep spiritually.
Ephesians 5:14 tells us to wake up! If we’re sleeping then we can’t understand the will of God and therefore we can’t understand life and we end up sleepwalking through life, unaware of what God wants to do in our life. If we’re sleepwalking through life, we’re gonna end up walking into a cesspool of sin, even if we’re in church and hanging out with the right people.
Some are asleep to knowing Christ. They may be on a performance or religion track trying to earn their way into heaven. The problem is we will always fall short, and scripture makes that clear. The good news is Jesus has already done all the work! Our admission into heaven and a relationship with God has been paid by Jesus’ death on the cross. Are we on the do track or the done track?
Some are asleep to growing. Satan loves to sing lullabies to Christians. He wants us to be comfortable, to stay complacent and never experience all the great things God has for us. He also knows that a Christian fully alive and growing is a threat to him! So he sings:
“Rockabye believer in the tree top, snoozing will cause you’re growth to stop. Ignore the alarm and stay in bed, you’ll never reach your potential you sleepy head.”
They may be a believer and thats about it. Wake up! God has an amazing plan for each and every one of our lives that would blow our minds, but we’ll miss it if we’re asleep! Wake up and start growing by reading God’s word, obeying, and serving in your local church.
Some of us are asleep to sowing. Scripture says we reap what we sow and if we’re sleeping we’re not gonna do much reaping! We have time to leverage and do great things in God’s Kingdom, but the only time we’re guaranteed is now. We are to sow all we have according to the law of the harvest that scripture lays out. The law of the harvest is we are to sow the first and God will bless the rest. We give the first day of our week to church and God will bless the rest, we give the first 10% of our finances and God will bless the rest. So many are asleep just to attending church and then they wonder why are lives are chaos!?! The weekend getaway and gonna fix it, the hunting/fishing trip aint gonna fix it, God has given you a place to meet with and hear from Him through His local church. All of us one day will stand before God and when He asks you what you did with His church some of you will say you slept through it! We’re to sow our time and talent by serving in your local church. God has given us our gifts to glorify Him and impact the lives of others for Jesus. We are to sow our money by tithing. Many choose to sleep to tithing, and when we choose that we place our finances under curse. If we sow the first God will bless the rest. Its our choice! We need to wake up!
