Wake Up Sleepers

What an introduction.

Yeah, hey, figure your life out right now, bud.

(audience laughing)

Very unkind.

I cannot with them little dudes, man.

I was back there and I knew what was about to happen.

Well, thank you for that introduction, guys.

If you don't know what CBC is, it's Carols by Candlelight.

CBC, if you're just wondering what that acronym was about,

that's Carols by Candlelight, and it is a family tradition.

I would invite everybody to take full advantage

of those opportunities.

I know Christmas and holidays tend to be a busy season,

but what better way to spend it with family,

gather it around, and center it and focus on the kingdom.

So we're gonna get into the Word this morning.

We are closing out our year-long series.

We went from His Word, His life, and we've been

in His church, and this is probably the strangest way

to close out a series that I know.

And so if you would, stand with me if you're able,

and we'll read and find out what we're gonna be talking

about this morning.

So we're gonna be in Acts chapter 20,

Acts 20 · chapter mention

and we're gonna read seven through 11.

Are you ready?

Okay.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together

to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart

on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.

There were many lamps in the upper room

where we were gathered, and a young man named Eutychus,

sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep

as Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down

from the third story and was taken up dead.

But Paul went down and bent over him,

and taking him in his arms said, "Do not be alarmed,

"for his life is in him."

And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten,

he conversed with them a long while until daybreak,

and so departed, and they took the youth away alive

and were not a little comforted.

Father, we thank you for your word.

I thank you for the life that it brings.

God, I pray that our hearts would be ready

to encounter you today, that we would hear your call,

and we would respond to your voice.

I pray for every heart in the room,

that they would be awakened from their sleep to see you

and to hear you speak, Lord God.

I ask that your anointing would reside on me

through the power of the Holy Ghost,

that Jesus would be magnified and glorified

through my words and your scriptures today.

Father, we thank you.

It's in Christ's name I pray.

Amen and amen.

You guys can be seated.

This is probably one of the lesser known passages in Acts.

Typically gets overshadowed by Paul's trip to Ephesus

in chapter 19, where they have a full on riot

outside of the temple of Artemis,

or in chapter 21, where Paul returns to Jerusalem.

But if we read carefully and look closely,

then we can see some dynamic lessons tucked in here

that we can apply in our walk with Jesus.

Today we're gonna look at several external factors

and some internal reasons why we have fallen asleep

and why this is so dangerous.

So just to give you a little bit of a framework for this,

chapter 20 opens up after the riot at Ephesus

and Paul and his brothers are continuing on in their journey

in verses one through six.

I just wanna read this to you guys real quick.

I don't have it on the screen, so just listen.

Or if you have your Bibles, we are in Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

I'm gonna be reading verses one through six.

"After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples

"and after encouraging them, he said farewell

"and departed to Macedonia.

"When he had gone through those regions

"and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.

"There he spent three months,

"and when a plot was made against him by the Jews,

"as he was about to set sail for Syria,

"he decided to return through Macedonia.

"So Peter the Berean, son of Pyrrhus,

"accompanying him, and the Thessalonians,

"Aristochus and Secundus and Gaius of Derbe,

"and Timothy and the Asians, Tychus and Tropimus.

"These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas,

"but we sailed away from Philippi

"after the days of unleavened bread,

"and in five days we came to them at Troas,

"where we stayed for seven days."

So Paul had previously sent Titus to Corinth

to handle some church problems.

Anybody know anything about some church problems?

Don't eat y'all gun hall.

Don't be talking about church problems.

You're at my church.

So we've all encountered some church problems,

and that's part of it.

That's part of life in the body, right?

But here's what you don't do

when you encounter church problems all the time.

There are times when you don't need to be in a body

or a congregation or where God will pull you out,

but most of the time, the reason we leave

isn't the reason why God wants us to go.

We just don't like the problems,

and instead of staying and being a part of solutions,

sometimes we up and run, sometimes.

See that qualifier?

So Paul sends Titus to Corinth

to handle some church problems,

and he expected him to meet him at Troas,

and it bothered Paul that he didn't come.

And he tells us that in 2 Corinthians 2, 12, and 13,

it bothered him, it upset him.

But later, later Titus did come with some good news,

and Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthian church

and sent it on ahead with Titus.

Then Paul spent three months,

we just read he spent three months in Greece

before heading to Troas,

and it was during this time

that he wrote his letter to the Romans.

So that three month period before he gets here,

this is where he writes his letter to the Romans, okay?

So now we're at Troas,

and we pick up before Paul leaves town again,

and this story is absolutely ridiculous to me,

and I can see the entire thing playing out in my mind.

I don't know if you really understood what happened,

if you could see the scene or the scenario,

but if not, I would like to paint it for you a little bit.

So it says, we, we, who is writing the book of Acts?

Well, we know Luke wrote the book of Acts,

and Luke is a physician.

So we know at least Luke is there,

Paul is there,

and Eutychus who fell out of the window was there.

We can assume that all of his homies

that he just mentioned, being with him,

Tychus, Timothy, the Asians, whoever they were,

they're all there, okay?

And so we know it's at least Luke, Paul, and Eutychus,

and it's the first day of the week, it's Sunday,

and they've worked all day,

and here they are in the upper room,

and Paul has talked till midnight, midnight.

Some of y'all start getting antsy at 1201, 1202.

They work all day, show up to Bible study,

and Paul is just dragging on and on,

and they ain't eat nothing, right?

They haven't eat anything,

and Paul is talking until midnight,

and my buddy Eutychus, he's tired,

he goes up, props up against the window,

and he falls out of the window.

I don't know if you saw that.

Well, look how far he fell.

Look, third story.

If somebody falls out of that loft,

you're gonna be, and that's about what, one and a half?

So somebody, look, when you're driving in

and you see that Springhouse church up there,

somebody's hanging up there dropping those letters.

They're working on those letters,

and all of a sudden, wham!

So he falls out of the window, and I can just see him.

Look, they're all, Paul is just going on and on and on,

and the guy falls out of the window, splat,

and they'll run over, and they're like.

I don't know if this is what happened,

but this is what I imagine.

And they look out the window, like,

oh my gosh, he's dead, he's dead.

And then they run down there, they run down the stairs,

you know what I'm saying, 'cause they all had

spiral staircases, so they go down the stairs.

They go down the stairs, and they go there,

and Luke is a doctor.

That's why it's important that you know Luke's there.

Luke says, bro, he's dead.

He is dead, and Paul's like, this is what I do with my kids.

When they're hurt, their hands will be all twisted up,

and they're like, you're good, you're good.

That's literally what Paul says.

He's like, no, you're fine, please be okay.

You're fine, get up, get up, get up.

So they pick him up, and they take him back upstairs,

and in my mind, they prop him in a corner

like Weekend at Bernie's, and then,

look, do you know what I'm saying?

Look, think about, this is what, look.

And then they took him back away alive,

and they were not just a little comforted,

they were fired up.

They're like, oh my gosh, what a Bible study.

Dude falls out, they go down there, right,

and they pick him up, then they go upstairs,

and then they have dinner, and then Paul keeps going

until the morning, and now they gotta leave and go to work.

What a night.

What a night.

Some of you guys have had nights you'd like to forget.

I guarantee this was a night they will never forget.

(congregation laughing)

And it's just tucked in there,

little seven verses right there,

and Luke was like, you guys, you're not gonna believe this

if I tell you what happened in our Bible study.

This is why the gospel exploded.

They're like, either I'm never going to a Bible study,

or I've gotta come, one of the two.

It's absolutely wild and ridiculous,

but there are some context clues

that give us some insight as to why,

why did this guy fall asleep, and why is this important?

Well, notice it said they met on the first day of the week.

Now, why does this matter?

Because we know that usually Jews,

the first day, the Sabbath was on Saturday,

this was the first day of the week following the Sabbath.

That was the first mention of Christians

meeting together on a Sunday,

and it would have typically been a day

that they would have worked,

and Eutychus, being a young man,

he worked most likely all day,

and then went to Bible study,

and he probably didn't have a work from home or IT job.

He was doing something physical.

So the first clue that we have is he was tired.

He was probably tired, man.

It's midnight, and any time you're over 40

or getting close to that, midnight seems like a number

that's not even real anymore.

I looked at my wife a few years back,

I said, "Is this the same nine o'clock

"we used to get ready to go out at?"

Can't be the same nine o'clock.

I'm serious, I'm at the age

where I start thinking about timelines.

If you invite me to do something,

I'm like, "What time are we starting?

"How long is this thing gonna be?"

Now, I'm 45, I shut down, I can't.

I absolutely cannot.

So I get it, I get it, he was tired.

I can barely watch a show or a movie with my wife.

This is actual footage of me and Jess,

just about at least twice a week,

maybe three times depending on how the week's gone.

Sometimes, we don't have a lot of TV time,

but sometimes we wanna sit down

and watch a show at the end of the day,

or we wanna watch our stories, and this is us right here.

I am dead serious too.

She's like, "You're not even watching."

I'm like, "Yes, I am."

You see the progress right there?

That's me.

And in my mind,

and in my mind, I have only closed my eyes

for 30 seconds at most, at most.

It's been 17 minutes, and I don't even act like I was,

she knows I've been sleeping, mouth open.

I'll wake myself up, snore, I'm tired, man.

I get it.

I'm trying to figure out where we're at in the show

without asking.

Some of us are tired,

and when you're tired, you lose focus.

When you're tired, you lose focus.

Notice how your fuse is a lot shorter when you're tired.

Anybody notice that?

I'm a lot less patient with my kids when I'm tired.

I'm a lot less patient, a period, when I'm tired.

Do you notice that you're more susceptible

to temptation when you're tired?

A lot of times, the enemy's not coming at me,

oh, well, sometimes he does

as soon as I get up out of the bed, right?

It's full-on gauntlet, it's the war,

but most of the time, I don't struggle with temptation

to be my own boss or to be my own God

right after I've been prayed up and surrendered to the king

and I've been in the scriptures

and I'm ready to go attack the day.

It's usually later on when I'm tired

or things haven't gone well,

like those certain combinations.

When I'm exhausted, I'm more susceptible to temptation.

I'm more likely to say things like this,

man, I need a glass of wine,

or I need to veg out on social media or TV.

And this is not an indictment about anyone who drinks wine.

This is an indictment of when we make statements like,

man, I need this.

I need this to help me relax.

I'm tired, so I need something else.

What does Jesus say right here in Matthew?

He doesn't, look what he says, come to me.

Come to me.

Not run to that or go get that thing that you think

is going to help you relax or sustain you

or give you stamina.

Jesus says, come to me, all who labor

and are heavy laden in what?

I'll give you rest.

But then look, these two things seem diametrically opposed

to one another.

He says, come to me and I'll give you rest

and then take my yoke upon you and learn of me

for I'm gentle and lowly in heart,

you will find rest for your souls.

Do you know what a yoke is?

Y'all know what a yoke is.

We got an expansive population here for you young cats.

You've never seen oxen or farmers.

To be honest, I've never seen an oxen or farmers

in real life.

But I know what it is.

And there's two sides to the yoke.

One is the larger side for the lead animal.

The other is a smaller side for the one

that's gonna follow.

And guess what, it's four.

It's not, they don't put a yoke on them

and they just go hang out and sit in the barn.

They don't, they yoke them up to do what?

So he says, come to me, I'll give you rest

and then let's get to work.

What?

But you don't have to do the heavy lifting

because you're resting in me,

but you still gotta do something.

You still gotta walk.

You still gotta follow me.

There's work to be done,

but you gotta get out of the driver's seat, boy.

That's what's burning you out.

That's why you're tired 'cause you put on the big side

and you ain't got the muscle to do it, son.

I know you think you've been in here five days a week,

5.45 a.m., you think you look good in a t-shirt,

but you don't have the stamina and the strength

to drive this train.

So get on the small side and follow me.

That's what he said.

We need to understand that work is good

and the rest is holy.

Work is good and rest is holy

and sometimes when we're tired,

it's hard for us to stay awake and alert.

Hear what I'm saying?

We need the Holy Spirit to help us.

Clue number two, there was many lamps in the upper room.

Many lamps.

You ever come in the house and all the lights is off

and just candles burning?

That's like, you see it on the little fireplace?

That's a cozy atmosphere, ain't it?

Right?

Imagine this for a minute.

Again, think about the story.

It's a long day.

They hadn't eaten.

Paul is so, he is boring them to death.

Literally, it's midnight.

Paul even says, listen,

I know I'm not the most eloquent speaker.

Paul's not dynamic.

Paul's bringing truth.

Nobody liked Paul.

Nobody liked Paul.

Paul was a thorn in the Roman side.

He was taking everybody off.

They was running him out of town, hitting him with rocks.

They thought he was dead one time,

drug him out, threw him out in the bushes,

woke up next day, went to another town, was preaching.

Nobody liked Paul.

Read, listen, I don't know if y'all reading

the same thing I'm reading,

but I read it as if this is actual real life

eyewitness testimony.

If it's not eyewitness testimony,

why put a story like this in here that's made up?

You don't just make that up.

Nobody liked him.

It's a long day.

It's midnight and look, the lamps are burning.

And you stand over,

put a bunch of tiki torches in your bedroom

and see how that feels after about three hours.

Fumes, right?

Smoke rolling around.

Think about the oil that they would have used

in those lamps.

Certain type of olive oil.

When the, ooh, here's a side note.

When the olives were taken and pressed,

the first oil that came off of it was used

for the lamps in the temple.

The olives that were crushed and pressed

was used to light the way

and to anoint the kings and the people.

Okay, the oil that was in there was burning.

The oil was burning.

Smoke is rolling.

It's dim, it's cozy.

Probably a little hot and stuffy.

There's a bunch of guys up there that we hear.

And my man, Eutycus was like,

I just need to get over by this window for a minute.

You love fresh air, I'm tired, right?

I mean, think, put yourself in a situation.

So he gets over there by the window.

Can you see it?

You can see it.

You can see it now.

He moves closer to the window, gets some fresh air.

He sits back against the window sill and he nods off.

He nods off.

What happened?

What happened to him?

He got comfortable.

He got comfortable.

Some of us have fallen asleep

because we're too comfortable.

The reason why I struggle to stay awake

watching shows with my wife

is because I got too comfortable.

She said, babe, sit up, go get some water,

get some popcorn, eat something, do something.

To stay awake.

You gotta do something to engage you.

You gotta do something.

There's nothing to challenge us

or keep us engaged in the kingdom.

We show up on Sunday,

then we walk out of the building and we go about our life.

There's nothing to challenge us and encourage us

and keep us engaged.

We're too comfortable.

We're comfortable in my checkbox Christianity.

I'm comfortable letting this be the amount of word

I get for the week.

I'm comfortable learning this much of God's character

never to apply it into the world.

There's nothing to keep us engaged.

Do you know something can be interesting

without you being interested in it?

Something can be interesting

without you being interested in it.

The Bible warns us about getting too comfortable.

This is what happened in Exodus.

Now, the children of Israel

have been brought out of bondage from Egypt

and this is what they say.

This is the type of bellyaching they're doing.

And the people of Israel said to them,

oh, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord

in the land of Egypt.

This emphasis is mine, by the way.

When we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full,

for you have brought us out into this wilderness

to kill us this whole assembly with hunger.

Then the Lord said to Moses,

behold, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you

and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion

every day that I may test them

whether they will walk in my law or not.

The people were complaining

because they had gotten comfortable in Egypt.

Some of us have gotten comfortable in bondage

instead of walking in faith day by day by day

that God will be the one that sustains us.

We'd rather go back to the world to give us what we need

until we're full and fat and happy.

It's a challenge to walk by faith.

It's a challenge to walk by faith.

I guarantee your prayers are a lot different

when the ends don't look like they're gonna meet

than when they've been met, tied up in the night,

you don't even know where the ends are even at.

How were your prayers when you needed God to show up?

Crying out, God, I need you, I need you in this moment.

Or when you've had long seasons of sustained difficulty,

man, it's like a face step, it challenges you,

you're awake, you're alert.

And it may wear you out, but you're awake and you're alert.

But sometimes when we get too comfortable, fall asleep.

Just fall asleep, I'm cozy, I'm good.

Then he says in 1 Corinthians 2, this is what Paul said,

I decided, I made a decision, a decision, a choice

to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ

and Him crucified.

Paul says to only know Christ and Him crucified.

Newsflash, the cross is about sacrifice and suffering

so that you don't get too comfortable.

The world wants to fill you up.

God says to empty yourself, right, Chris?

Right?

The world says that you can do it, you got it, man.

You should be proud of yourself.

And Jesus says, hey, whoever humbles himself

will be exalted.

It's an upside down kingdom.

You can't beat me 'cause I want you to win.

You're not my competition.

I can rejoice with those who rejoice.

Because we're on in the kingdom, moving together.

You're not my competition.

When we get comfortable, we're in danger of falling asleep.

In this case, it got my man, Eutychus, killed.

It got Eutychus killed.

Thank God Paul was there.

Some of us.

Me and James were like, oh, dang, he's dead.

What are we gonna tell his mom?

We'd have panicked.

We'd have went and prayed over him,

but Doug would have been the first one down there.

Y'all coming down here or not?

And me and James like, oh my God, he's dead.

Thank God Paul was there.

So we got this story.

But being tired and comfortable

can certainly be problematic.

These are external factors, okay?

What about what's going on inside of us?

What about what's going on inside of us?

Why are we awake and alive

and we find ourselves sleepwalking through life?

What are some of these internal factors?

Well, the first one that you can extrapolate

is we're disinterested.

To be honest, we don't even really care that much.

We don't care that much.

Sometimes we're in here in church service

making grocery lists and playing video games.

I've done it.

The list, not the games.

Why?

Because I'm not disinterested.

I'm not interested in this.

I'm not interested in hearing this teaching.

I'm not interested in this.

I've already read that verse before.

I've read that before.

I've been here.

I'm guilty of it.

When was the last time we brought a Bible with us,

the church?

Again, this is not an indictment.

You may have your eye scroll like Rhonda likes to call it.

It's your eye scroll.

You can open up the scrolls to the passages.

It was the last time we brought this anywhere.

I'm not trying to be harsh, but we should examine ourselves.

If we truly understood even 10% of the redemption story,

it would consume our entire being.

But the problem is we don't understand the redemption story

because we come into it with a consumer mindset.

The Bible is all about me and my salvation

and God's plan for my life.

I don't find that anywhere in there

that that's the focus of this word.

I'm gonna tell you what, the last time I checked,

John 1 says everything was created by Jesus,

for Jesus and through Jesus.

I'm an ancillary character in God's family.

I am important, but the story's not about me.

So every time I pick this up, why am I trying to find out,

God, what are you trying to say to me?

What do you want me to do?

How can I be doing this?

Yes, that's a part of it, but that's not the part of it.

But when I go into it with this consumer mindset,

anything that doesn't apply to me,

I'm not interested in it.

It don't apply to me.

I've already been set free from pornography.

I don't have to worry about that.

You realize that a lot of time,

God doesn't want you just to be free.

He wants to set you free to help others be set free.

I shared this with 60 guys last night around a fire

about all the little ways God will use all of the hurts

and pains and healings in your life to help others.

But if I'm always looking about,

God, where's my next level of healing,

my next level of freedom?

And I'm not dismissing.

Please hear me when I say that God wants you set free,

that the scriptures are meant to encourage you.

They are meant to challenge you.

They are meant to inspire you.

But when I understand God's big plan of redemption

that he's building, he's bringing his family back together,

we are part of God's family.

And from Eden to Revelation,

the story is I want my family back.

And I will send my son to bring my other sons

back into the family.

It's the whole story.

That baby is totally fine.

If we can get through somebody falling out of a window

and keep having church service than a baby,

the man died and they was like,

"Pick him up, I'm not done with my sermon."

So y'all are hostages until I'm done today.

I promise you that.

Baby don't bother me.

We're raising people from the dead during the Bible study.

What are we talking about?

If somebody dying is not a distraction

and the crying baby is not,

'cause what a blessing it is

that our children are in church.

That baby gets to be around,

that baby gets to be in an environment

where the Holy Spirit is welcomed.

That baby gets to be around parents who are trying to come

and trying to listen to God's word.

That baby gets to be around parents that are active

and working in the community.

Parents that said, "I'm tired, but I'm here.

"I'm tired, God, keep me awake.

"Somebody take my baby."

(congregation laughing)

Right?

That's real.

And all the mamas in the room is like that,

gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

And there's my wife, my wife, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Right?

Baby's fine.

That baby's fine.

She's right where she need to be.

We're disinterested

'cause we either really don't care that much

or I got this, I've got this.

I read that, I've done that.

The next reason, which is actually listed third,

oh, they fixed it, praise the Lord.

My team, my team, can't do it without a team.

Second reason, while we're falling asleep,

is we're disengaged.

To disengage means to be emotionally detached,

emotionally detached.

This does not involve me, so I will detach myself from it.

Remember I just said the other part

is about a consumer mindset.

This is not interesting because I've already dealt with that

or attained that.

This one is, this don't apply to me,

so I'm not even gonna pay attention.

We're disengaged.

We have no problem staying awake for the action,

but not for the story.

And guess what?

Most of the Christian walk is the story.

Mastering the mundane.

The everyday ordinary walk.

Some of you guys that know me, most of you guys,

but what is my favorite day of the week?

Tuesday.

Tuesday.

Why is it Tuesday, right?

'Cause it's an ordinary day, James.

I think personally, this is not,

you can't find this in the scriptures.

Some days they tell you what day of the week it was,

but I personally think on those unlisted days,

all the cool stuff was a Tuesday.

I think David killed Goliath on a Tuesday.

It's my personal belief.

Can't challenge me according to the scriptures.

Somebody's gonna go back in the historical record

and they're gonna track that down.

Y'all will use stars and alignment

and you'll be like, here's actually when it was.

If it's on Wednesday, Wednesday's my favorite day of the week.

(audience laughing)

Think about it.

It's an ordinary day, most of the cool moments

that God has for us are the mountain top experiences

we didn't know we were gonna have.

David had no idea he was gonna fight Goliath that day.

Go back and read it.

Go back and read it.

His brothers are at the battle for two weeks

and he's back home with dad.

You're the little brother and all your brothers are at war.

You wanna be there with them.

No, you gotta be out here with the flock.

Now, mind you, David had a king's anointing

in a shepherd boy situation.

Are you hearing me?

A king's anointing in a shepherd situation.

And so some of us hit the anointing or the call

or somebody prophesies over your life

and you're ready to make it happen right now.

No, I need you to be out here

with these sheep for a little while.

I need you to be still so I can teach you a few things.

So David shows up, his dad says,

hey, I want you to bring your brothers some cheese and bread.

Take your brothers some snacks.

And David shows up and these boys have been getting

punked out by the Philistines for two weeks.

Goliath shows up every day and was like, you guys are weak.

There is not even a man out here that's willing to fight me.

And for two weeks, I'm like, shut up, man.

I'm talking about my mama like that.

And David shows up and what does David say?

He's like, are y'all gonna let him talk to y'all like that?

Y'all say, y'all been out here for two weeks

letting him talk to you like this?

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine

that dare defies the armies of the living God?

That's what he said, who is this guy?

And if you look at what he said, basically he said,

this guy doesn't know God and you know God.

Why are you letting him talk to you like that?

The culture doesn't know God and you do.

Why are you letting him run it?

Why do we let the world run the arts?

Why do we let the world have music?

Why do we let the world dictate what we do?

And we say, our Christians shouldn't be engaged.

We should just go along to get along.

Absolutely not.

Jesus stood as Caesarea Philippi and said,

on this rock, this revelation that I am the son of God,

that I am the Christ, on this rock, this foundation,

I will build my church and the gates of hell

will not prevail against it.

Do you know what gates do?

Do you know what gates do?

They try to keep somebody out.

You put up a gate or a fence or a wall, it's a protection.

It's a defensive mechanism.

And Jesus says right there in that moment,

hey, the gospel is more powerful

than the kingdom of darkness.

Its gates can't stop it.

The only thing that can stop it

is when my people sit back and do nothing.

When we sit back and we get tired and we get comfy

and we're disinterested and we're disengaged,

guess what, ain't no gates being broken

because we've not engaged the culture.

Because we're not awake, we're sleepy.

Finally, the one I think might be the worst

that we succumb to is we're disingenuous.

We aren't sincere.

We pretend to care.

You can only fake it for so long before you fall asleep.

Tell you right now, you can fake it for your spouse,

but that ain't gonna get you so far.

I tried that, did I not?

She'd catch me doing stuff and I would try to,

this is our first marriage, not our second marriage.

We've been married twice, never been divorced,

if that makes any sense, okay?

It's a wild story, just catch me.

Come by the shop, I'll tell you about God's goodness.

I wish I had time, I ain't got time.

So, what was I saying?

Oh, confess.

She would catch me doing something

and I would try to confess, how much can I confess

and be okay, right?

You ever done that?

How much can I tell this person

and then they forgive me without having to tell everything?

I'd be like, yeah, I smoked cigarettes three times this week

for 51 weeks, you know what I mean?

And then you like keep moving the line times five, right?

You know, you're like, how much can I confess?

You can fake it with your spouse,

you can fake it with your friends.

I faked it with my friends for a long time.

I faked it with them and guess what?

They faked it right back, knew I was screwing around,

knew I'd been smoking cigarettes for 51 weeks.

They ain't said a word, said a word.

That's a made up thing, but you understand what I'm saying?

I faked it with them, so guess what?

They faked it right back with me.

Well, I don't wanna call him out.

I don't wanna, what if I offend him?

Oh, God forbid you offend somebody into the kingdom

that you offend somebody out of their sin, God forbid.

You say something that causes the Holy Spirit to say,

I've been trying to get your attention

and you won't listen, so I said, Kurt.

I don't know, but I keep faking it with him.

It might take one of those moments.

What would it look like if I was authentic with people?

You can fake it for your kids.

I don't want our kids to see us going through problems.

No, what you need to do is let them see you go

through problems, see how you go through problems

and how you make up and come out of those problems.

That's like when we go gossip to somebody.

There's a statistic that shows

that most wives hate their friends' husbands.

(audience laughing)

Most wives hate their, their friends hate their husband.

I don't know if I said that.

Not hate their friend's husband.

Yeah, same thing.

It was messed up in my head.

So here's why, here's why.

They will go and they will say, girl, he did this

and he did that and he did this and he did that

and he did this and he did that.

And then they never go back and say,

but you're not gonna believe how he repented

and how God changed his heart.

Oh my gosh, he's been a different guy.

And so all they know is he's terrible.

Hey, come here, how you doing?

Good morning, right?

(audience laughing)

And you're like, what did I do?

I've been following Jesus for three years now.

Like, I don't understand it

'cause she didn't go back and tell on him, right?

You can fake it for your employer.

That's a big one, man.

A lot of people will work places

and their boss don't know what kind of person they are,

good or bad.

Hide in secret sin on company time

or a desire to pray for people,

praying quietly in a break room, scared to death.

Y'all know I'm telling the truth.

But then what?

Fake it till you make it is a lie.

What a joke, what a dumb, what a joke.

Don't ever tell me fake it till you make it.

'Cause you won't.

Why?

'Cause you've been practicing being fake.

How's that gonna help you be real

by practicing being fake?

That don't even compute.

I've been fake so long, I've finally been real.

(audience laughing)

Where is that in the gospel?

Where is that?

We're supposed to be authentic and genuine people.

And that even means saying, here I am,

here's what I'm struggling with,

here's where I'm at right now.

I lost my mind for three days,

I need somebody to help me.

You'll burn out, you'll get tired

and you'll eventually give up and give in.

Body of Christ, it is time for us to wake up.

Wake up and engage the culture and advance the gospel.

It is time for us to wake up from our slumber.

Did you notice Paul didn't stop talking

just 'cause Eutychus fell asleep?

It was only after he fell out of the window

they was forced to deal with it.

He didn't stop preaching 'cause you fell asleep.

But when you fell out of the window,

now we all gotta stop and go deal with it.

Now we all gotta stop.

You can sleep if you want to, but you're gonna miss out.

And guess what?

That's not helpful, I need you.

I'm tired.

I can't stay awake for a show.

Everything we've been talking about

this entire calendar year,

we've been exploring God's word, his church, his life.

We have had services where people had hands laid on them,

they were filled with joy, they were filled with joy.

They were filled with the Holy Spirit,

we're equipped and empowered.

We have encouraged relationship with the Holy Ghost.

We have shown you how God desires that relationship

to be sent out to advance the gospel.

And instead we just sit and get comfy and let Kevin do it

and let Barbie do it and let James do it.

Somebody else will do it.

You post something, hey guys, we need help doing this.

Somebody else will sign up.

Somebody else will show up.

Somebody else will hold the doors.

I don't need to help with offering.

Somebody already does that.

Baby, Kurt's tired of doing it.

He's really not, Kurt don't even do it.

Sign up, Kurt.

(congregation laughing)

But you know what I'm saying?

We got that mindset, somebody else will do that.

Somebody else has got that.

Because guess what?

That don't really interest me.

I'm not interested in serving,

I'm interested in serving where I wanna serve.

I said it, yeah, I said it, go ahead.

My email is [email protected]/theholyspirit.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to engage in the teaching,

to engage in the teaching, to become better equipped

to advance the gospel and make disciples.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to engage the teaching

so that we are better equipped to advance the gospel

and make disciples.

After they picked my man up off the ground

and carried him back upstairs, they have dinner.

They had dinner.

Now remember, this included a communion.

It says they broke bread, right?

That breaking bread is very important,

that phrasing, they broke bread.

It doesn't just mean our slang word,

they broke bread, they had dinner,

they went out to Apple, but no,

they broke the body of Christ in remembrance.

When they got together, they shared a meal

and they had communion together.

They broke bread to remind them

of the broken body of Christ.

They drank the wine together to remind them

of the shed blood of Christ.

Whenever we are tired, the Holy Spirit brings us back

to the cross of Jesus.

The man fell asleep.

He died, it affected the whole congregation.

God performed a miracle in his life

and the first thing they did was they went and had communion.

They went back upstairs and said,

we need to take communion.

Why?

Because it recalibrates us, it centers us,

it gets us outside of that consumer all about me mindset

and places our focus and our vision

on the cross of Jesus Christ.

And we can all come because the ground is level there.

We can all come.

And then Paul talks for the rest of the night

and rolls out at sunrise

and now they gotta go back to work.

What a night.

And you know what's crazy?

We have no idea what he even talked about.

Like this is not like,

and this is what you read in the book of Timothy.

Like this is what they were talking about

was the first Timothy.

No, we have no idea what they were talking about.

But apparently it was important enough

that they went and had communion and he kept on talking.

So that's why I said,

the baby crying is not gonna stop the message

because sometimes the word is important enough

that any distraction, anybody that's tired,

anybody that needs to heal,

gonna get healed and we're gonna finish the word.

Because the word gives life.

In the beginning was the word, the word was with God,

the word was not the Bible, the word, Jesus himself.

The Bible is not the fourth member of the Trinity,

the word of God, Jesus Christ is.

And the word was important to Paul

because he thought, I'm leaving tomorrow

and I've got tonight.

When was the last time we took advantage of,

this might be the only time I have

to say what I need to say to these people.

This might be the only time I have

to speak truth into somebody's life.

I'll let him keep going the next time I'll get it.

And he gets drunk and gets in a car wreck and kills himself.

Now I know that's drastic and extreme,

but when we take it serious,

the ordinary everyday moments

that God has given us in our life,

instead we're tired and we're comfy

or I'm not really interested or I'm only interested in myself

and so we miss it.

We miss it because we're sleepy and we're dozing

and it's time for the body of Christ to wake up.

Wake up!

Worship team, would you come out?

I'm tired.

Straight up, man's jacket wearing me out right now.

I ain't comfortable.

Are you tired?

I get tired sometimes.

It's okay to be tired.

I'm not saying like, this is not,

you should always be full of energy.

No.

But when I'm tired, I have to be aware that I'm tired.

Humans have this innate ability

to think about what we're thinking about

and you can recognize seasons where you're like,

God, I'm exhausted and I need rest

because I wanna pay attention

to the things that you have for me.

I wanna see other people's needs, but God, I'm tired.

I am not just physically tired.

I am emotionally drained.

I have been stressed out.

We just went through an extremely stressful political season.

Dear God, what a time to be alive.

Stress me how?

All my YouTube thumbnails, I'm like, can I get back

to football and that's stressing me out.

World almost ended for so many people.

There are global conflicts.

It is a stressful time and then see,

we can get tired real easy.

It's real easy to get tired.

And what does Jesus say?

Hey, come to me.

Don't run to anything else.

Come to me and I'll give you rest

so you can get back to work

so that we can get back in the fight

'cause the gates of hell are not gonna stop the gospel.

But I need you to do it.

You know, when Jesus said,

greater things you'll do than me,

he didn't mean you're gonna walk through walls

and you're gonna be raising everybody from the dead.

No, what he meant was I can only be in one place

at one time and I gotta walk everywhere I'm gonna go.

But when I go, I'm sending my spirit

and he's gonna be in you and you and you and you and you

and you and you and you and you.

And guess what?

You can go and you can go and you can go

and we are collectively a lot greater force

than Jesus the Christ on earth

being in one place by himself.

So greater things you'll do than me, why?

'Cause you're gonna advance the gospel

and bring more people back into my family,

back into the family, back into the family.

What if you're comfortable?

Are you too comfortable?

You got lazy in your walk?

You just relax, you're just chilled out.

Man, I got this, I'm good, I'm in a good season.

It's okay to be in a good place.

Don't get comfy.

Have you lost interest?

Are you even interested in advancing the gospel?

Are you even interested in becoming a disciple?

Are you even interested in making,

do you even know what that means?

Well, guess what?

Today's the day.

(gentle music)

Are you disengaged, are you detached,

are you simply faking it and acting like you don't care?

Well, it's time to wake up

and come back to the table of grace.

The table of grace is what centers us.

It recalibrates us and it allows us to focus

on the reason why we started the race.

Can I get some elders and prayer partners

to come down, please?

I love what Paul says here

because if you're tired and if you've gotten lazy

or you've gotten comfortable or you're not interested

or you're disengaged or you're faking it,

look what Paul says about the man who fell asleep,

taking him in his arms.

He said, "Don't be alarmed, his life is in him

"and life is in you."

So you may have dozed off, you may have stopped caring.

Well, guess what?

Life is still in you and you can wake up.

It's not too late.

You didn't fall out of the window.

You're not dead, you're under the sound of my voice

so I know you're under the sound

and the conviction of the Holy Spirit as well.

So you have the opportunity to come to this altar

and say, "God, I wanna wake up.

"I wanna get back in the fight.

"I'm tired, I'm comfy, I don't really care much,

"I'm disengaged, I need your help, Holy Spirit."

And so if that's you, I invite you to come today.

And if it's not you, then I want you to worship

and pray for those that have said, "Yes, I'm tired.

"Yes, I'm comfy.

"Yes, I'm not interested."

Because all of the brothers went down with Paul

and all of them went back up together

and were on fire at what God was doing.

So no matter what side of the coin you're on this morning,

you are responsible to respond.

Let's worship.