Awake O Sleeper

Thank you once again for singing. We talked a little bit about sleeping when we were talking about Jonah sleeping in the boat. And so if you look at Romans 13. Romans 12 to 16, well, Romans 12 to 14 and 15, maybe a little more because there's greetings and salutations and 16. But from Romans 12 on, God is telling us, hey, now that I just explained systematically, for the most part, how salvation works from Romans 1 to Romans 11, starting in Romans 12, I'm telling you, here's how you now live.

OK, if you believe these things. And so a lot of people separate Romans 13 out as the chapter about government. Right. And it's just the one that either tells us to submit to the government or we should always rebel or, you know, everybody's got a different thought on it lately. But there's more to Romans 13 than be subject to the governing authorities.

In verse 11, Paul says, and do this knowing the time that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. he says for now salvation is near to us than when we believed well he says do this do what well it's what he says previously render to all what is due them verse 7 verse 8 owe nothing to anyone except to love one another verse 9 you shall not commit adultery you shall not murder shall not steal you shall not covet it if there's any other commandment is summed up summed up in this word you shall love your neighbor as yourself and he says love does not work evil against the neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And he says, do this, knowing the time that it already the hour for you to awaken from sleep There a sense that God has that he wants us to be sober and alert He wants us to be awake Ephesians 5 verse 14 Paul says, for this reason it says, or he says, awake sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.

There's just this theme in scripture of don't be asleep, be awake. Now, we can't say that God is the one who says he gives to his beloved sleep in Psalm 127, I think verse two, and then also say that God wants us to awake, oh sleeper, and that somehow we're never supposed to sleep, but he gives his beloved sleep. The idea is not whether you're sleeping in your bed or not.

The idea is, are you missing out on what's going on around you because you're paying attention to just taking care of yourself? So this isn't I'm not here to advocate for you to not take care of yourself. In fact, I would argue that for most people, the way that you will best help others is if you wisely and properly take care of yourself. And so that's not what I'm trying to say.

But the idea of just being alert, knowing what's going on around you, don't sleep through it. There's a metaphorical storm around us right now. The divine wrath of God abides on everybody who doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the creation groans with a longing for this to be over. Don't be asleep. Don't be the sun that shamefully sleeps in harvest.

Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations For some of you that will look different than other ones Some of you may be your talent in fulfilling the Great Commission will be supplying people who fulfill it more directly through preaching or through evangelism Some of you will create things that other people use. You know that, you know, the missionaries need medical care. Did you know that?

And they go to countries where they need medical care. They need people that know how to build things. They need water. Like, there's a lot of jobs we can do that support the mission of the church worldwide that aren't all, hey, I have to stand on a box and preach. Now, maybe you don't think you sleep much. Some of you probably don't. a lot of us will probably if you could look back in time at how many hours you spent staring at your phone at night and how many hours you slept some of us would wish that we maybe would have just slept another hour a lot of those nights maybe we'd feel better and be healthier I think that what we want to exhort ourselves to as especially we come to the table where we're reminded the sacrifice of Christ is not sleeping in bed but being asleep as to what's going around on around you.

To being so utterly focused on yourself and maybe, like in Jonah's case, your own disobedience at times. And you're missing out on opportunities to love and serve others. And so I don't want to bring condemnation as we come to the table. I want it to be a time of reflection, though, enough that I don't want you to walk away bludgeoned by the law and by God's commands, but I want you to have enough of a sense of thinking about your life, maybe just one aspect of it Are you paying attention to what going on around you Are you awake and alert and sober enough to be a helpful influence in all these areas And as you come to the table, you're reminded that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins.

That Jesus Christ drank the cup of God's wrath that was owed to you, and your biggest problem in your life has already been taken care of. And I'd like to argue that if God has already taken care of your biggest problem, his divine wrath being satisfied upon his son rather than you, you can spend maybe a little more effort serving him and serving others. And for some of you, you've done that.

Some of you are tired today because that's what you did this week. I know two people here. I'm not going to name their names, but not many people here anyway. I know two people here who spent part of their week just traveling to another place just to be of service to another person who was hurting. All right. So I don't I'm not here to condemn you and say, well, you're not doing enough.

You're all you're all sleepers like Jonah. It's not what I'm trying to say. Just want you to think about it. We all have our weeks where we maybe do more than others. And so I'm very proud of what people of this church do. I'm very thankful for the effort we put in to love others.

Both of the people I'm thinking of served others selflessly this week and they served nonbelievers. And that's a testimony to all the people that saw them this week, maybe. And the Lord will use that hopefully for the salvation of souls. And so as we come to the table, I want you to consider. consider yourself before god and how you can pray that god might give you more opportunity to be of service to him and to those he puts in your path for the sake of his name