I
want to share with you another mystery of the Kingdom of God: In the Old
Testament, kings believed that God gave them direction in dreams. If they
wanted to know what they were supposed to do as a king, they would try to dream
to receive direct word from God.
If
they weren’t getting any messages in their dreams while lying in their beds at
the palace then they would sleep in the temple, believing that it would work
better there. This is the origin of the time-honored tradition of sleeping in
church.
Did
you hear about the pastor, who had a self-esteem problem, who went to see a Psychiatrist.
One of the questions he was asked was if he ever talked in his sleep. “Oh no,”
he answered, “But I do talk while others sleep,”
Or
did you hear that a man asked his doctor if there was anything that could be
done for his snoring. The doctor asked if it disturbed his wife. The man
answered, “No, just the rest of the congregation!”
Finally,
did you hear about the person whose insomnia was so bad he couldn’t even sleep
in church?
The
Apostle Paul addressed the issues of Christians and sleeping.
Owe no one anything,
except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the
law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not
murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other
commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as
yourself."
Love does no wrong to
a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this, you
know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For
salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far
gone, the day is near.
Let us then lay aside
the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as
in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and
licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.
Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the
flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13: 8-14, NRSV)
The Greek word used in this passage for sleep is “hypnos,” and can be defined as to “slumber as if asleep.” It is the root word for hypnosis and Paul is using it to mean a state of spiritual conformation to worldly ideas/ideals that humanity needs to wake-up from.
Paul is saying that people need to come fully
aware from being in a state of “not awareness” of what is going on around us.
Each
of us works hard to automate our physical bodies and mental processes as much
as possible to avoid over stimulation and repetitive tasks.How many of you
remember getting dressed, combing your hair, driving to church this morning?
Trivial details, right?
If
you think about how many autonomous systems and processes, like breathing
(approximately 17,000-23,000 per day), eye-blinking (about 16,000 per day), eating,
driving, seeing and other things that our bodies do each minute of the day it’s
not too hard to think that the human mind and body tries to put other things
(thinking?) on automatic pilot as much as possible.
Doing
things in the command center of your brain is much too boring. It’s why we
sometimes have to do a double-take, or we are misled by our brains constantly filling
in details by guessing because we’re too busy or lazy to actually see for
ourselves.
Don’t
believe me, but have you ever been frustrated by one of those hidden picture
challenges where you never see the image other people see? Your brain is too
busy telling your eyes that that hidden object isn’t really there because it
doesn’t belong there, so it really isn’t there.
What
do you think Paul is telling humanity to wake-up and do? Paul is saying we need
to fully come to realize the need to make Jesus, God, and our salvation the
very center and core of our being. He is saying that everything we do needs to
be done from a believer’s perspective. Serving and following God is a conscious
and constant choice.
As
humans who put stuff on human auto-pilot we aren’t quick enough to get ahead of
the consequences of our behavior. Let me give you an example probably none of
you wants to hear – “the ALS ice bucket challenge.” It has raised $ 100 million
in the last 3 months.
ALS
is a terrible disease with a horrible outcome. In our compassion it makes sense
that we would want to help find a cure. Things like this challenge makes each
of us feel like kids on the schoolyard playing daring games and “can you top
this?" It’s just plain fun and it becomes very pleasurable. Everybody’s doing
it. What delightful temptation.
But
as Christians are you aware that the majority of the money raised has been
going into “embryonic stem cell research,” that capitalizes on aborted fetuses?
Hmmm, so much for our commitment to the sacredness of life as created by God. Whoops,
now we’re supporting something we’re against, aren’t we? Also at least 21% of
your donation goes for administrative overhead.
Now
sure you can always ask the ALS foundation not to use your donation that way –
but how many people remember to do so? Will the ALS Foundation prove they did
so? I’m not saying don’t take the challenge – but be more deliberate as
followers of Christ not to rush into something just because everybody else is
doing it.
Generally,
any activity that takes the culture by storm has a cloud somewhere in that
glittery and appealing outer wrapper. Don’t they say, “The Devil’s in the
details?”
It’s
just another way Christians get overtaken by culture and compromised by the
evil among us masquerading as light. As Christians we have to learn to walk
softly and slowly among the culture and society we live.
Let
me give you another example. So many Christians brag about Joel Osteen and his
wife and how positive and upbeat they are. Just last week Mrs. Victoria Osteen,
in the weekly church service she leads, said that God’s big purpose was for you
to be happy.
If
fact, she went on, that if you aren’t happy then God isn’t happy either. Wow,
the average Christian doesn’t even recognize what heresy that is. Listen to
what she actually said:
“So,
I want you to know this morning — Just do good for your own self. Do good
because God wants you to be happy. . . . When you come to church, when you
worship him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself,
because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?”
Friends
we aren’t here to be pleased and catered to by God, we are here to honor,
praise, and Worship Him. But sadly, I can see why the majority of churchgoers
would yell amen to her words as they snore along. People do feel good when they
think they do good.
False
teachers like the Osteen’s would have been stoned in Jesus’ time. We need to
see that many are being led astray as they slumber. I think we ought to flee
from them.
Meanwhile
our society gets worse. James Engel summarized the belief system and the
presuppositions that commonly prevail among what he calls the society of modern
man:
“God,
if He exists at all, is just an impersonal moral force. Man basically has
the capacity within himself to improve morally and make the right
choices. Happiness consists of unlimited material acquisition. There
really is no objective basis for right and wrong. The supernatural is just
a figment of someone's imagination. If a person lives a "good life,"
the eternal destiny is assured. The Bible is nothing other than a book
written by man.”
This
is the belief system and automatic mindset Paul calls us to awaken from. Our
schools, newspapers, magazines, media outlets, social organizations, even
churches reinforce and set this agenda in almost every avenue of life.
One
could even say the current status of American government, from the presidency
to congress, is sleepwalking or perhaps golfing, thru life.
Sadly
the only aspect of our government that is awake is our court system, which is
bound and determined to destroy our laws, overturn legal protections, and
impose the tyranny of the few on the many.
Christians
for the most part, swim against this strong current that labels non-conformists
as politically incorrect, haters, and old fashioned extremists who are out of
touch. In some countries Christians are considered highly dangerous.
Did
you know that Scotland’s provisional constitution, on hold pending a vote for
independence, requires children to be taken from parents holding “extreme views?”
“Life,
liberty, and the right to be free from religion?” That’s not freedom of
religion that’s freedom from religion that many “religious free government” lobbyist organizations could
get behind.
What
Paul is calling us to is discernment. Discernment is simply defined as to
perceive by sight or other senses, leading to a mental recognition that there
is a difference between choices such as right from wrong. The Greeks had a word
for it, “genosco,” which means
learning by a combination of education, experience, and faith and hope in the
future.
Discernment
in Scripture is the skill that enables us to differentiate. It is the ability
to see issues clearly. We desperately need to cultivate this spiritual skill
that will enable us to know right from wrong, what we ought to do and we ought
not do.
We
must be prepared to distinguish light from darkness, truth from error, best
from better, righteousness from unrighteousness, purity from defilement, theoretical
theology from practical theology, and have an answer in season or out.
Friends,
the easy road is always found in Satan’s words to Eve, “Did God really say?” (Genesis 3: 1).
The
hard work is always in responding in a way that uplifts and honors God’s Word
and Work. Of course to answer that way we have to immerse ourselves in the
Bible and stay on the believers’ path to Heaven.
Make
God first in all things. Let Him be the Auto-Pilot of your life. Amen.
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