The Sleeping Prophet

Yeah, if you haven't opened your Bibles yet, get to Jonah chapter one.

We're going to be in that text today, and we'll even be in it on Palm Sunday. Jonah chapter one.

We did start a series through this book last Sunday, and if you missed it, it's online.

I would encourage you to go back because I don't have time today to go into

the historical context or some of the considerations about this book,

but it's all there from last Sunday.

And one of the things I also provided you last Sunday, I'm convinced that Jonah

is an incredibly profound and pointed book.

And one of the things that I gave last Sunday was this little handout that kind

of showed how much it mirrors itself.

Chapters one and two are paired with chapters three and four,

and it's an amazing thing. And if

you missed this handout, it's on the information kiosk out in the lobby.

Also just wanted to equip you with something else today. I know we talk about

these cities as if they're just kind of words on a page, but they're places is on a map.

And so I provided you, I had Debbie print out a insert in your bulletin.

It's a graphic like this.

And one of the things I wanted to show you guys was this is kind of an estimated

kind of potential route that Jonah was taking with this ship and what had happened

and where he may have been spit out.

But one of the things you'll see, obviously we're down here,

I'm going to use my laser, so pay attention.

Down here, we have the Northern and the Southern kingdoms, Israel and Judah.

And Joppa is the city where Jonah kind of ran away to, to get on a ship and head towards Tarshish.

Now, a lot of people kind of don't know where Tarshish is. Do you know where Spain is?

It's at the southern tip of Spain. It's right over here. So this is the whole

Mediterranean sea that we're looking at.

And the attempt was to go from here to the furthest known place of the end of the world.

Tarshish was at the end of the world, of the known world that they could figure

out. But the Lord interrupts that plan of Jonah's, doesn't he?

So keep that tucked into your Bibles. I want to continue to equip you.

But also, I guess one thing that would help you to know is the distance between

there to there on your bulletin insert is an inch and a half,

probably, maybe an inch or less.

But in real life, it's about 2,500 miles.

The distance from land to Nineveh, no matter where he got dropped off by that

fish that we're going to see in just actually in two weeks, that distance is

at least three to 500 miles.

And that was walking or riding some sort of creature.

And so this isn't just as quick of a turnaround thing as we picture it because it's so short in a book.

This could have been months of travel to get to Nineveh, which we'll see in

chapter three, the week after Easter, Jason's going to be preaching that Sunday.

So keep this in mind, keep this tucked into your Bible as you kind of go into this book.

Some of you might have study Bibles and the map's already laid out for you.

That's great. You can hand this insert to somebody and say, hey,

let me tell you about Jonah.

And then let me tell you about Jesus. It's a good platform.

Now, I mentioned last week that throughout this book, we're going to see this

book as both a window and a mirror.

What does a window allow you to do? It allows you to see through and into other

things. It'll give you insight.

Now we're going to see how much of a window this is when it comes to the very character of our God.

We're going to be given insight into his mercy and grace and as marvelous and

as scandalous as those things are.

We're going to see it and we're going to see how unchanging our God really has

been throughout the generations.

We're reading a book and we're going to get to a point where God extends mercy

and grace and forgiveness and delays his justice, delays his wrath to the worst

people on the known planet at the time.

I mentioned last week that commentators say that the Syrian empire was as close

to a terrorist state as anything was.

They were just an absolutely wicked people. And I mentioned last week,

it's like, yeah, the wickedness got so potent. And it just, it came before the Lord.

Now we've talked a little bit about Assyrians and their nature.

I know there'll be more to come about who they are, but this is going to be

a window for us into the very character of God, into his heart,

into what he's willing to do that might shock you.

But I also mentioned that this book is like a mirror.

This book is going to turn the mirror towards us and cause us to look at ourselves,

examine our own hearts, our own habits, our own thoughts and beliefs.

It's going to cause us to examine our view of God, our view of people who don't

know God, our view of people who are living rebellious, crazy lives.

It's going to turn the script and make us look at ourselves.

And I want to tell you today, we're only in three verses, verse four, five, and six.

And I can tell you that this text for me was very much a mirror,

very much looking to my own life, looking to my own thoughts and my own character.

And the reason why is because we're still in the part of the book where Jonah

is in his descent into rebellion.

We mentioned last week how the scripture three times, actually twice last week,

once this week, it says Jonah went down.

C.S. Lewis talks about how the process of holiness or sanctification is like

pressing further up and further in.

In a sense, you're getting elevated above the world and you're pressing into

the very heart and character of God.

If that's the case, then the opposite is true as well.

Rebellion and sin is further down and further away.

It's a descent into distance.

And so the text today is very much going to be a mirror for us because of the

nature of what's going on in Jonah in these three verses.

And so I want to be very careful when I say this. I know that today is going

to make you uncomfortable.

I know that typically when you think of church and those fire and brimstone

preachers, I don't want that.

Like there's one thing if that's constant, like if that's just all they do and preach that way.

But it's another thing when a pastor who loves you too much decides that there's

a Sunday where he needs to warn you,

where he needs to consider the longevity of your relationship with Christ and

to be as open and honest with you about the nature of sin,

about the nature of rebelling against God's word.

So what I want to encourage you to do is, this is not void of the gospel.

This doesn't ignore what we just got to partake of, the grace and the mercy

of God that's in Christ Jesus.

We're looking on this text with new covenant eyes, not old covenant eyes.

But the problem is the God who established the old covenant of law is the same

God who fulfilled that one and established the new covenant of grace.

He didn't change, just the terms of the relationship did.

But how he deals with his children, that stayed the same.

And so I'm going to ask the Lord to carefully, well, I don't need to ask him

to be careful. He can do what he wants.

I need his help for me to be careful.

So let's pray. God, we're coming right now. We've got this text that you have.

Written, that you have inspired, and we know it's still relevant for our day.

We know it's still applicable to our own lives.

And so I just pray, Lord, right now that we, as your adopted sons and daughters

covered by grace would be willing and eager to embrace all that you have for us in this text.

So whatever is not to be from this text, may it float away like chaff in the wind.

Whatever you desire for us to hear from your word this morning, may that be what stands.

Because God, we love you and we love your word, because your word alone brings

life. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we're at the part where Jonah is rebelling from the Lord.

And he mentioned last week in the text, it doesn't say that he was just running

away from the Lord's word or the Lord's command. What did it say he was running away from?

The very presence of God.

There's just something about God that he was running away from.

And so God had told Jonah to go east and he went west. He told Jonah to head

inland and he runs to the sea.

He was told to go to the city, the great city, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, Nineveh.

And instead he runs to the city that's at the end of the earth for Israel.

He's boarded the ship. He paid the fare. The amount to which he was willing

to go to, to run from the Lord is terrifying.

But he's on the ship and they have set sail. And we get to verse four.

Says this, but the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea and such a great storm

arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart.

So this great wind comes and causes this great storm.

And even we saw in the text when Kim read it, that the sailors who were very

likely really experienced sailors, they get terrified and they know something's up.

They know that this isn't just a natural storm. There's something supernatural about it.

And we'll see that more next week when we get into the rest of chapter one,

they know something strange is afoot.

You know, what else is ironic? The satire in this book is amazing. What does the ship do?

On the sea, the ship did what? It threatened to break apart.

The word threatened literally means to contemplate, to think about.

So here we have the ship being like, yeah, I think this is going to be enough to break me up.

Like, this is the personification of a ship.

Later, we're going to have cows bowing down in repentance and being close.

So there's, it's just a very intriguing book.

But already we see this storm breakout because of Jonah and his rebellion.

This violent storm breaks out. You know, there are times in scripture where

we're told in God's word that sin itself can punish us,

can cause great conflict and consequences in our lives.

One passage comes from Proverbs chapter 21.

Proverbs 21 · chapter mention

It says, the violence of the wicked will drag them away, for they refuse to do what is right.

There's a sense where sin itself, rebellion itself, brings about all sorts of consequences.

And if there's something that we can learn just already in the first part of

our passage this morning in verse four, it's simply this, that all sin is chasing storms.

Every time we fail to walk in a command of the Lord or do the opposite, we are chasing storms.

Now, I want to tell you that not every storm in your life is caused by sin.

That's very clear. We know Job was confronted by his friends saying,

bro, you done something to deserve this, man. It doesn't get this bad for righteous people.

He's like, I have not sinned. And we find at the end of the book, that's right.

That suffering, that storm was not caused by any rebellion or sin in Job.

But we do know that every sin itself will result in a storm.

How many of you guys saw the movie Twisters when it came out?

Okay, so I'm not talking about the old one. Right. You remember the old one and two, right?

All I remember about the old ones was the time where it says, there goes a cow.

There goes another one. No, I think that's the same one. That's all I know from that movie.

Then there was this new one that came out. Like, what was it last year?

And I know some of you went and saw it for other reasons, just for the plot line.

Who the main lead character is, the male character. He's running around in a

white shirt in the rain. Sorry.

I'll call it out. I'm going to call spade a spade. But you know,

that character, that team in that movie, they were thrill seekers.

They would go and seek after the tornado and plant themselves in it to get the thrill of the ride.

They were storm chasers.

And in the very same sense, sin does that very same thing.

You are going to try to find the storm and ride the wave.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think being in the middle of a tornado

is the most pleasurable thing.

But sin is doing that very thing. In fact, there's an Old Testament scholar

named Derek Kidner. He said this.

He said, sin sets up strains in the structure of life, which can only end in breakdown.

Sin always chases storms.

Another way to say it is that storms are always attached to sin.

It's why the proverb itself says that of the seductress, her feet go down to death.

It's why the proverb says that laziness will bring on poverty like a robber.

It's why the proverb says that the allure of the wine bottle in the end will

bite like a snake and sting like a viper.

You know, one author said it this way, and I know this is a trigger word, but he says this.

He says, sin is the suicidal action of the will upon itself.

Sin is pleasure-seeking in a tornado. It's chasing storms.

In fact, this is what Tim Keller says. A lot of what I've been learning about

this book has come from Tim Keller's book called Rediscovering Jonah.

And this is one of the things he says.

He says, all sin has a mighty storm attached to it.

The image is powerful because even in our technologically advanced society,

we cannot control the weather.

You cannot bribe a storm or baffle it with logic and rhetoric.

You know, what else you can't do? You can't podcast it. You can't life hack it.

You can't change the outcomes. There's no podcast episode, no self-help teacher

that can change the effects of sin and the lifestyles of it.

And here's the thing, like right here in this story, the results of Jonah's

rebellion and disobedience, they're immediate.

They are visible. They are physical.

It's very much this mighty storm that's billowing around them,

and it's directed right at Jonah.

It's sudden, and it's furious.

But I think we get confused into thinking that that's the kind of storm we're

talking about when we say all sin chases storms.

A violent storm might not be the norm for the effects or the consequences of sin.

The results of sin can also be like the

physical response that you have to a debilitating dose

of radiation you don't know you're in the environment of it you don't feel the

immediate effects it's not like a sword a strike it's not like a bullet penetrating

it's just it's tearing into you and you don't even know it and when you finally

realize it that you've been exposed to it It's way too late.

As I can tell you this from personal experience, that I have had sin habits

from my teenage years wreak havoc in my 20s.

They affected me deeply in some of

my closest relationships because of the struggles that I had years prior.

I didn't know the damage they were doing that would affect other people later on.

So it's just the nature of sin. It's the nature of what it looks like when we

say, no, God, I don't like what you say. I'm not going to receive your word.

Let me go on my own way. It just, it happens.

But here's the thing. In this text, was the storm natural?

Did it just come out of nowhere from nothing?

No, somebody sent the storm. Who was it?

The Lord. Verse four. Very first words, we awake, but the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea.

Some of your translations might say, he hurled. It's the same verb that's used

of a spear back in 1 Samuel 18, it was tossed into the sea.

It's this vivid picture of God launching this mighty tempest onto the sea around Jonah's boat.

Guys, we're not just talking about the natural consequences of sinful lifestyles or habits.

We are actually, at this point, we're talking about God disciplining his own.

This storm comes to correct, to wake up, to mercifully call out a prophet in rebellion to his God.

You know, the Bible, I said earlier that the Bible talks about how sin has its

own consequences, its own punishments, its own devastations and chaos, right?

Not only that, but the Bible speaks of other times when God disciplines us himself

when we are in sin and we're unrepentant.

In fact, in Proverbs 16, he says this, the word of God says this,

the Lord detests all the proud out of the heart, they will not go unpunished.

Now, one of the things I don't want you to do here is to confuse this with justice

for those of you who are in Christ.

We're not talking about justice here. We're talking about mercy.

We're talking about love, not wrath.

You know, in this environment where we see the exhortation or the character

of God being willing to discipline his own kids, pastors and preachers,

and you might even do it in your own conversation.

We appeal to parenting a child, right?

We're like, would you allow your kid to just go run out into traffic and just

be like, all right, don't do it.

No, you're snatching them by the ears and get out of the road.

Now that appeal is not just out of nothing. I've given it to you before.

It comes from God's word itself.

The Bible itself makes this appeal that our God, our father in heaven is willing

to do and allow hard things in our lives to discipline and correct us.

This is the passage. It's kind of long, so hold on to your horses.

Hebrews 12, I've got it in the New Living Translation. It says this,

and have you forgotten the encouraging words?

The encouraging words.

God spoke to you as his children. He said, my child, don't make light of the

Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you.

For the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one as he accepts as his child.

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children.

Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

I know some of you are like, no, I know that kid ain't disciplined by their

parents. They are a wretch, right?

If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children,

it means that you are illegitimate and not really his children at all.

Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit

even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever?

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how.

That feels like me. And I don't even know if I'm doing the best I know how.

But God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness.

No discipline is enjoyable while it's happening. It's painful,

but afterward, there will be

a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.

So why on earth does God do and allow this sort of thing, allow for the natural

storms sin causes to billow into our lives?

But also why does he allow and cause certain things in our lives that are painful

in response to our sin? What's the point of it all?

Well, there's a book I'd highly recommend called Knowing God by J.I.

Packer. One of the things he says in this, he says this, Still,

the Lord God blesses those on whom he sets his love in a way that humbles them

so that all glory may be his alone.

Still, he hates the sins of his people, and he uses all kinds of inward and

outward pains and griefs to wean their hearts from compromise and disobedience.

Still, he seeks the fellowship of his people and sends them both sorrows and

joys in order to detach their love from other things and attach it to himself.

Now, if you hear that and you think, well, man, God is this egomaniac who just

wants all our love. Like, why is he so selfish?

Oh, you forget that he wants your best and your best is you loving him.

The best thing for you is to know how to and to walk in loving him.

Man, this is so good. I might say it's gospelicious.

Realize that for Christians, every difficulty has built into it the power to

reduce the influence and the power of sin over our own hearts.

That every storm has the potential to wake us up to the truths of our own circumstances,

of our own identities, of things that we would never otherwise be able to see.

That storms have the potential and the ability by God to develop faith,

to develop hope, to cultivate love and patience and humility and self-control

in us that nothing else in this world can.

God can use those storms. That's called redemption.

But the point still stands, church. My brothers and sisters,

all sin is chasing storms.

And what's even harder is what we find next in the passage.

In the next verse, what we see, verse five, the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his God.

They threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load.

Brothers and sisters, there's another hard pill to swallow.

It's that all sin causes collateral damage.

Brothers and sisters, this storm was meant for Jonah, but those who were in

close proximity to him, those who were in the same boat, These experienced sailors,

they're the ones who are terrified.

They're the ones who are seeing the chaos around them and are fearing.

And look at what they do. They start paying the price by tossing things overboard,

losing parts of themselves, losing their own possessions to try to survive.

All because of Jonah.

All because of one man on the boat who was running away from his God.

When I told you about how all storms are chasing storms and how it's like pleasure

seeking in the middle of a tornado,

you realize also that that tornado causes havoc on the neighborhood it runs through.

It leaves behind a pile of wreckage, a wake of destruction.

It affects other people. Those of you who had parents who were abusive,

you know how it's affected you now.

Those of you who had a dad who was a drunk, you know how that's affected you now.

A mom who was passive aggressive and critical, you know how that's affected you now.

Maybe a boss who's constantly frustrated and annoyed You know that's how it's affecting you now.

Sin not only chases storms, but has and causes collateral damage.

Now, you might ask the question, how can God be both just and good to allow

my sin to affect other people?

That's a very real question, and it's not wrong to ask, but there are some wrong answers.

The right answers are the following. First, he's showing us just how devastating sin really is.

And if you need as vivid a picture as possible to see how devastating sin is,

look at the cross, the blood, the body.

There's another answer to that. Why would God be so this way in allowing someone's

sin to have an effect on others.

It's because he has a plan, had a plan, he executed the plan that he himself

would enter into the suffering of everyone's sin,

take it all on himself and offer forgiveness in its place.

So it's okay for God to do this. I mean, he's God, but it's not okay for us to be okay with our sin.

It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay for you to stay that way.

Brothers and sisters, our sin will have lateral consequences,

wreak collateral damage for those closest to us. Don't believe me?

My wife, my children, my church family will suffer more and more as I let my

love for God wane and fade,

as I indulge my worldly pleasures, as I entertain greed and anxiety,

and as I can't find contentment and peace in Christ, you guys will suffer.

My wife will suffer. My kids will suffer. It's just natural.

And there will be damage inflicted because of that.

More real. Somebody leaves the bar late at night with too many bottles in them

and they take out a family.

We just had that happen down here a few weeks ago.

Life lost because someone was not in obedience.

Those closest to you or in close proximity to you will be the ones who also suffer in the storm.

And notice how the sailors were tossing things out. Let me ask you this.

What price are those closest to you paying right now because of your sinful habits?

I promise you, they are paying a price. They are making certain sacrifices.

They are having to go out of their way.

They are having to walk on their tippy toes.

They feel like they're constantly on eggshells, potentially.

They will end up caught in the storm with you. They will have to make adjustments to accommodate you.

And so right about now, you might feel about this big.

And that's not my heart for you. But I am going to ask this.

How many of you right now are saying, all right, that's enough. I'm tired.

I do not want to keep walking in the way that I am walking.

How many of you are starting to disdain your sin and longing for holiness that

God's already handed out to you and said, you can walk in this.

You are free to walk in this.

Are you wanting that now? Because that's what the point of all of this is.

It's like, God, I'm so sorry. And this is the way that I've been living.

And I know I want to live the right way. And I need your help.

If that's where you're at right now, then you are right in step with what this

text is designed to do in us, designed to create in us, this longing for holiness,

this moment where we decide that we're going to repent, here I stand.

Music.

I will not go back to that lifestyle. I'm going to press into the Lord further up and further in.

It's okay to recognize the devastation of sin that it wreaks in our own lives

and in everyone around us.

It's okay for us to let that be what says, all right, God, I'm done. And you throw it down.

It's a terrifying truth to realize how devastating our sin can be,

not only in the storms that it causes in our own lives, but also in the damage

it can wreak in those around us. That's all terrifying.

It's all humbling, but that's not the most terrifying thing in the text.

That's not the most heartbreaking, the most terrifying reality from the story

of Jonah this week is that we can be completely asleep to the chaos and the

destruction that our sin is in.

Music.

To the lowest part, to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and

fallen into a deep sleep.

Brothers and sisters, some of you may have fallen asleep in the storm thinking

that the storm in your life is the norm for life.

You've been able to kind of be lulled into sleep because you think,

well, this is just life as itself.

And you have no realize that the storm that's in your life right now is attached

to your sinful habits that you entertained last night, to the arguments that

you had with your spouse earlier this week.

And you think that's just normal. So you fall asleep and you have no clue the

effects that it's having on those around you.

Your anxiety and your inability to offer those things up to God and leave them

at the throne, have you fallen asleep to?

Because that's just normal life now. Well, we're supposed to feel anxious.

No, we're to be anxious for nothing.

Your complacency, your unwillingness to seek after the Lord,

it is causing havoc for your kids.

And you've fallen asleep to the lullaby of complacency.

Your adultery, your sexual immorality, your drunkenness, your bitterness,

your laziness, all of those things, they're wreaking havoc. Are you asleep?

Have you fallen asleep? Verse six, the captain approached Jonah and said, what are you doing?

Sound asleep? Get up, call to your God.

Maybe this God will consider us and we won't perish.

You know how crazy this is? What is this? God sent his prophet to point the

pagans towards himself.

And instead, even now we have pagans pointing the prophet toward God.

The sailor captain comes up to Jonah with God's very words in his mouth, get up, call.

That's what we see in verse one or verse two. God says to Jonah,

get up, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach. Call against it.

Brothers and sisters, I had a pretty stark realization as I was preparing for

this this morning that I realized that my role this week might be to be like

the sea captain in your life.

What are you doing sleeping?

What are you doing sleeping?

Get up. Call to your God.

God, you know, yesterday I was praying over this and just shedding tears because

like, I think I've been here long enough to get to know you guys well enough. And I, I.

There might be some of us who are sleeping in our sin. We're sleeping in our bitterness.

We're sleeping in our frustrations. We're sleeping in our anxieties and we're

not awake to the collateral damage. We're not awake to the chaos.

So what are you doing?

Sleeping. Get up. You know, if,

if there's a passage that I think correlates really well with this,

it's in the book of Joel, you know, that prophet that not too many of us read.

The people of God are in a place just like Jonah, where they have wandered off,

they are indulging in their sin, and they are not repenting, They're rebelling.

And God sends this, I don't know, a herd, a flock of locusts.

What would be the right word? A swarm. That's the right word.

A swarm of locusts into the land and the locusts just ravage everything.

There's the storm. There's the storm there.

And you might think that that's just God being cold and distant and cruel and callous.

But do you realize, look at what God calls out to.

Look at what he says to his own people in the middle of that,

in the middle of that storm. He says this in Joel chapter two,

even now, this is the Lord's declaration.

Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning,

tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. Why?

Because he's gracious and he's compassionate and he's slow to anger.

He's abounding in faithful love and he relents from sinning disaster.

Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him.

This is for you who feels too guilty. This is for the one of you who feels too

ashamed. This is the one who thinks, why would God even still want me?

How could I consecrate myself unto the Lord with what I've done,

with my adultery, with my pride, with my arrogance, with all of these different things?

How can I expect God to receive me in this very moment I've been sleeping?

I've fallen asleep to the lullaby in the midst of the storm.

How can God still want me?

Now, even now, turn to me, is this invitation, just come back, wake up.

God in this very moment can revive you.

Will you wake up and seek him?

Will you ring out your heart before him?

Because there's not going to be judgment waiting for there as you ring things

out and the water falls or the nastiness falls out of your heart,

you're going to find that God's like, listen, I could tend to this.

I can help you in this. I can comfort you in this. I can be trusted for you in this.

Turn with your whole heart and wring it out before him.

Say, God, I'm far from you and I've fallen asleep. God, I'm living anxious every

time I wake up and I don't know how to cope with this. God, I'm always fighting

with my spouse and I seem to constantly be angry.

God, I've been in sexual immorality and it's broken too many things in my life.

Whatever it is, you're not going to surprise God.

And whatever it is, he already covered it with his blood on the cross.

So are you going to wake up?

Are you going to wake up?

Some of you, some of you need to make not just commitments today.

There's a way for this to become information that we know and have no application into how we live.

You need to wake up from that.

God is saying, even now, ring out your heart's turn back to me.

It's never too late.

To alcohol, to drugs, your addiction to pornography, your constantly entertaining,

sexually immoral relationships, your gossip, your bitterness,

your pride, your envy, your discontentment, your anxiety, your depression, all of these things.

He's just saying, listen, don't fall asleep in those things.

Just come to me with them.

He's the good father. He knows how to care for those in need that are His.

So, some of you need to today not just make a commitment in your head.

Some of you need to show visual repentance. And so, I think at this time,

we're just going to have a response song.

I think we just need a moment where we can kind of prayerfully engage with all of this.

We sang of the holiness of our God earlier.

Do we sing about the holiness of our God saying, yeah, you are holy and you can keep it?

Or do we sing about the holiness of our God because we know that he's held it

out to us and said, you are free.

Now walk with me in this.

Some of you need to make a visible sign of repentance before the Lord so that

your brothers and sisters can pray for you, love on you, encourage you. Thank you.

Every head bowed, every eye closed, I would just encourage you right now,

if you're somebody who's saying, yeah, I absolutely need to wake up.

I've fallen asleep in complacency. I haven't sought after the Lord.

Or I've continued to struggle with this and I just can't experience the freedom

and I just feel like I've fallen asleep to the lullaby of the enemy saying,

there is no power for that.

If that's you, would you just raise your hand?

Praise God. Praise God. You can put your hands down.

I want to give a next step for you, if you would be willing to.

I know we have several shepherds and leaders here who would be willing,

men and women, who would be willing to come and pray over you if you are wanting

to be joined in waking up and seeking after the Lord with your whole heart and

you don't want to be alone in it,

would you come and kneel at the altar and we'll have, I'll be available.

I know some of our shepherds and some of our female leaders will be glad to

pray with you as well. Would you come now?

And the rest of you will have a song that you know in heart and mind,

if you just keep your eyes bowed and your head bowed and your eyes closed and

you just sing this out to the Lord about the holiness of our God,

and just continue to pray for those who are needing God's grace to wake up.

This is how we're gonna end our time together. So let's...

Music.

God, we are seeking, needing revival.

In one sense, you've risen us from death to life.

And yet, even as Christians, it's too easy for us to kind of fall asleep to

the lullabies of the world, to the temptations, and we can settle into them

as if they're normal, as if they're the way things are meant to be.

And God, we realize that this morning you are moving in a way that's waking many up.

But God, for those who are unwilling to admit it, unwilling to confess that

reality, God, I pray that the storm would not relent.

I pray that the storm would continue until they wake up.

Do not resign them over to their habits do not resign them over to the way they

are they are living you love them too much god i pray that you would do whatever

it takes to wake each of us up,

because we want to love you with our whole heart mind and strength,

so god we are willing to be a people who say do god whatever it takes to get

us up out of our sleep in rebellion.

To cause us to run wholeheartedly unto you, to turn back to you,

to rend our hearts before you, and to love you.

God, we pray all of this in Jesus' name. Would you do the work? Amen. Amen.

Amen. If you guys would stand, I'd love to pray a benedictory prayer over you from Ephesians 3.

But if you need to continue to seek the Lord, this will be open.

You can continue to pray.

Don't hesitate. And if you're thinking, man, I wish I had done something at

the call. You can come now. I don't care.

Interrupt me. Do whatever you got to do. It's for your good.

Don't forget, we've got choir practice after this. we've got the egg stuffing

after this. Please be participating in those things.

Here's Ephesians 3. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all

that we ask or think according to the power at work within us,

to him be glory in this church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations

forever and ever and all God's people said amen.

Love you guys so much. Be blessed.