I often drive down to London and Essex for the day to see my family. A couple of weeks ago I went down to see my sister. I travelled alone this time as Kevin was looking after our dogs. It takes about 2 3/4 hours each way. I was fine driving down but on my way back it was dark and the M25 and M1 had their usual long stretches of invisible roadworks and so 50 mph was imposed for what seemed extremely long periods of time. It was raining and my wind screen wipers and the spray off the road were mesmerising. The heater was on the windscreen and it was getting warm and I was getting drowsy. Had I been in the passenger seat I would have nodded off to sleep listening to the rhythm of the rain, heater and wipers.
I had to stop off for a coffee in the end and put the cold air on my face to keep me alert. I certainly couldn’t be a lorry driver!
This brings me to 1 Thessalonians 5:6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.
We need to stay alert and focused in our Christian lives. How easy it is to become used to the rhythm and expect all to remain the same. Drifting along, coming to church as we may have always done on a Sunday. But life is not easy and it can become long and boring at times. Looking back at my drive all I can say is that my drive a couple of weeks ago was a long boring drawn out thing. I know the journey well and none of it was keeping my attention. It was a long ride and tiredness and boredom set in.
Many children in today’s world have a room full of computer games, their own mobile phone, TV, DVDs, television channels just for childrens programmes, toys galore but they don’t have anything to do. They say their bored.
Boredom is the plague of every parent with a child out of school. We fill their time. Mine went to an assortment of Beavers, Cubs, ballet, tap, gymnastics, music lessons, wind band, brass band, swimming lessons and air cadets. They were never in! But we are so busy filling their time that when they do have hours at home in the holidays perhaps they have almost forgotten how to play or use their imagination. My sister got married when I was 7 so I was pretty much an only child growing up. I would use my swing frame in the garden or the dining room table depending on the time of year- my mum would provide me with old sheets and blankets and I would make a den, using her pegs to fasten it all together. Mum would empty her veg baskets that used to stack on top of each other and I would take all my dolls with their blankets and make beds up for them in the tent in the veg racks and play boarding schools with them. I would spend hours drawing up registers and making up names …
But today we live in a technological world- a fast paced world from using microwaves to cook, to watching TV on i-player, satellite TV, getting our news as it breaks on the internet or 24 hour news channel- such that newspapers today are out of date by the time they are published!. We are used to quick fixes and can become numb and bored when we are forced to slow down. I wonder how many are so busy that like me they use the term “I haven’t even got time to think!”- so we keep going, doing the same thing, taking our eye of the ball, tired, weary, half asleep….. and the devil takes advantage of this. When things are ticking along, the eye is taken off the ball, cracks begin to appear in our relationships with each other or with God or both- or we start doing our own thing without reference to God.
If we are not alert, we fall asleep to that which is important. Mark 13:33-36 says We need to……..
“Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping”.
The time, that day or hour of which Jesus speaks is, of course, the Last Day when Jesus, “the Son of Man” will come. I think about that glorious day when He comes back for us and I for one do not want to be caught sleeping because I allowed the things of this world to blind me. I also think that in order for us to stay awake, we need to set some goals …..
I was falling asleep during my drive and I knew I had to do something to keep awake. I told myself that I would stop at the services and get something to drink. I mentally ticked off the sections of the journey- getting off the M25 onto the M1, getting past Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Leicester and then the slog off the final slog off the motorway through Coalville and Ashby back into Swad. This inspired me, it gave me something to look forward to and as I continued driving I found the drive to be somewhat better as I had some goals set during the drive. Isn’t this how life is as well?
Looking at the current time of the year we see this to be very prevalent in our society. We get excited as we look to the Christmas season, we look forward to seeing our loved ones, we look forward to the gathering, the food, the pure excitement of it all keeps our focus.
But as soon as it’s over what do we look forward to? It’s cold, the days are shorter, family and friends go back to their everyday routine and we feel as if we have nothing to look forward to. I know I sort of hibernate in January. Always a difficult and there’s the knowing there’s another 2 months before the days getting longer, and hopefully finer again.
I usually find I am wishing January away. Having always had mixed feelings about New Year’s Eve- these days I go to bed and like to ignore it- too many memories and I’d rather sleep it way under a warm duvet. Sleep is peaceful and untroubled.
So we can easily stop living because we have allowed the depressions of this world to step in and rob us of the joy that comes when we truly live for Jesus.
But we need to remember the goal that we set in our minds. The goal that Christ gave to us that created that pure joy and excitement in our hearts that gave us purpose and direction in this lost world.
Philippians 3:12-14 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Realise here that Paul is in prison, chained to a Roman guard, under horrible conditions. Yet despite that, he writes these wonderfully positive words.
His goal is eternal life with Jesus. That is what he is reaching for & striving for every day. His goal is heaven.
The little goals I set before me as I was driving really helped get me through the difficulties and they helped to keep my focus on my main goal, my final destination. I wanted to make it home!!! The little goals I set in my life help me get through the sad and weary times.
Now here is the point. If our main goal is heaven, if our main goal is eternal life with Jesus Christ, we aren’t to fall asleep and allow the devil to creep in by pulling us away from God, When you’re spiritually asleep it means you’re unaware of what God is doing right now in the world. The Bible tells us in many places that we need to wake up. “Putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”
Here, he mentions two pieces of armour, the breastplate and the helmet. The breastplate protects your heart and the helmet protects your mind. A chest wound can be fatal, so Roman soldiers wore a breastplate to protect their vital organs. The Bible calls it a breastplate of righteousness. It’s not our righteousness, because our righteousness is like filthy rags. It’s the righteousness of Jesus that protects our hearts. When we put on the righteousness of Jesus, God no longer sees our unrighteousness; instead He sees the righteousness of His perfect Son. Breastplates had a front and a back. Two leather straps connected the back plate to the breastplate. Faith puts on the back plate. It’s like faith says, “I’ve got your back.” Love puts on the breastplate, because love comes from the heart. So that’s how we put on faith and love as a breastplate.
The helmet of salvation protects our head, which contains our brain, or in spiritual terms, our mind.
Sometimes people are so content, they just get into a spiritual rut, where nothing ever changes. God is trying to say to every one of us today, “Hey, wake up! The alarm has gone off.”
So how many here today are spiritually complacent. How many switch off in a sermon, how many have nodded off after I’d done 10 minutes of this sermon! How many listen to a sermon mentally looking around as they feel that there is a certain person who should be hearing it. Well – this sermon is for you individually, not everyone else. Whilst I am talking collectively, God is personal, we have a personal relationship with him, the teachings, inspiration from as sermon are aimed at you individually as well as a church- so if you have nodded off or sitting there comfortably- wake up.
Spiritual complacency- hearing the words every week of forgiving others, for treating others as if they were Jesus himself, for loving others even if not liking, for not judging and you say yeah yeah, we know all that- but then something happens because you were half asleep and feelings take over. You become hurt, angry, defensive and the easiest thing in the world is to hit back or to turn your back and lick your wounds, to seek righteousness from others and impose judgement on the persecutor. But the peace of God is not about feelings, forgiving someone is not about how you feel. Your brain thinks, your heart feels but deep within you, in your soul there the Holy Spirit and the peace of God resides.
We can forgive without feeling it in our heart- it is an actual act- giving it to God and saying you will forgive- it doesn’t changed those feelings and it takes time to recover from deep hurt but if you keep licking those wounds, you’ll just keep opening them up and forgiveness cannot take place. How many of us can say we haven’t judged, haven’t gossiped, haven’t relished at a bit of drama and dressed it up with our own self-imposed righteousness?
We know nothing or what others are going through right now. We know nothing of the demands on their emotions, time, etc. We know nothing of what happened to them this morning, last night because we are all good at putting on an act and only revealing to others what we want them of see and sometimes that means words and actions that result can are not of the Spirit. So wake up! God is talking to me personally here, he is talking to you too- not the person in the pew next to you or in front tof you or behind you.
Paul concluded this section on the second coming with this directive, “Encourage one another and build each other up.”
The words you speak to people can either build them up or tear them down. In the book of James we read that the tongue can either be a refreshing fountain, or a deadly fire. Do you use your words to refresh people, or to burn them up?
Have you ever said something that as soon as you said it, you wished you could take it back? The problem for some people is that they put their mouth in motion before their brain is in gear. Sometimes just a single word of encouragement can make a difference in someone’s life.
So how do we need to wake up to all this? We need have some stops along the way, some short term goals that will keep us awake and focused on the main goal.
The obvious one is to make the goal of attending church each week. And here’s the thing if you find you have something on in the morning, then what is wrong with attending the evening service? Church needs to be planned for, not the first thing to be dropped in our busy lives to make room for other things. It is a discipline soon lost. Start missing church and you drift away and fill your time with others things rather than God. We need each other. When church is missed, not only are you then vulnerable to drifting and pulled away from others belonging to Christ, but you are denying others of your presence- your gifts, your wisdom, your support and guidance.
HEBREWS 10:25 ‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’
In this one verse, we are warned to not stop meeting with other Christians. There are some who will only sacrifice enough of their time to attend one service per month. Once that person gets into a habit of forsaking another meeting, it becomes easier to not attend other church functions.
God knows that every time you attend a service, you are giving up something else. You give up sleeping late to be here Sunday morning. It’s a matter of discipline. We need to discipline ourselves to be here, to gain inspiration, guidance and to have something to look forward to each week.
Secondly we need to make the goal of reading God’s word, reflecting on what we have read – not just the words or the story being told but the message we are reading for us today and for us personally in that moment- and of course praying each day. My daughter Tara brought me “The Message” for my birthday. This is the Bible written in every day terms. It isn’t perfect but what it makes me do is read a passage twice- I will read it in the Message first and often think “really, did God really say that or Jesus do that?” then I’ll read it in my NIV and discover that it is written in a different way or there is a slightly different slant to it and then I think about it.
I have started doing this when I eat my breakfast and again at lunch time if I’m working from home- because the old bedtime routine just wasn’t working with me usually falling asleep on God!
You have to be prepared to change your routine, to stretch yourself to try something different or it becomes too familiar and you can drift off- take your eye off the ball! If I’m tired I can read a few pages of a book and then realise I haven’t a clue what I’ve just read and have to re-read it! My eyes have read the words, my fingers have turned the page but the mind and heart hasn’t engaged at all. So you need to do it when you are awake and actively thinking about what you are reading.
Once you make the goal of implementing into your daily schedule devotion time, you will realise that it is a good habit and your day just isn’t the same without it.
Thirdly we should make the goal of finding a ministry area to serve in.
I Pet. 4:9-11 “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”
Generally, churches have more people than they do jobs but not everyone offers to serve in some form and so a very few people are doing all the jobs. It might be that you think a job is too onerous or you couldn’t do all that was involved. However if everyone took a tiny part of what was needed the jobs would be completed with the effort shared amongst us all.
Going back to my drive, once I’d got off the motorway and had the dark final 35 minute drive back home, I had to do something drastic in order to stay awake. I rolled the window down and let the cold air hit my face.
This was a wakeup call. I needed something to simply slap me in the face and wake me up fully as I was feeling half asleep. I was not alert anymore, had lost my focus and was just going through the familiar automatic motions of driving through habit.
Here are my favourite “Wakeup Call” verses:
“The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” Romans 13:11-12
“Why are you sleeping?” Jesus asked his disciples. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” Luke 22:4
“How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Proverbs 6:9-11
“Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.” Revelation 3:3
I believe these verses are like rolling down the window. They are meant to wake us up when we find ourselves dozing and becoming complacent.
Paul not only told the believers to encourage one another, he encouraged them. He wrote, “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10) God has a plan for your life, and that plan doesn’t involve experiencing God’s wrath because of your sin. He has appointed you to receive salvation through Jesus Christ.
Dawn's Journey 