VIDEO
This year we are retracing John Wesley’s favorite
texts, and this one was the grist for his sermon entitled, Awake, Thou That Sleepest!
…for the light makes
everything visible. This is why it is said,
“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.” Ephesians 5:14(NLT)
and Christ will give you light.” Ephesians 5:14(NLT)
Mr. Wesley presented this
text under three headings:
1. He Described the Sleepers
2. He Enforced the Exhortation
3. He Explained the Promise
made to those who awaken and arise.
I see no reason to attempt
to improve on Mr. Wesley’s method here, but I will update the words a
little. (Language has changed a little
since 1742!)
More than 25 years ago
George Barna wrote a book entitled The Frog in the Kettle[2] which
describes the church as a frog in a cooking pot. If the frog was thrown into boiling water he
would jump out; however, in this scenario the water is “frog-body temperature”
– frog-warm,
if you will.
A frog in a comfortable situation will sit there indefinitely. And if you raise the temperature slowly, the
frog will adjust to the increasing warmth, and still not move. Eventually when the water reaches boiling
temperature, the frog will sit there and cook from lack of initiative to get
out of the hot water.
George Barna describes the American church as having sat in the rising
temperature of increasingly-more-comfort, leading to Godlessness, for many
generations, and we are cooking – at this point in very imminent danger of
going past well-done. We are sleeping
while being cooked!
Wesley Described the Sleepers
First – Exposing the Resters
I have to be careful here. I
heard an exceptionally fine sermon by Bishop Claude Richard Alexander in
Charlotte this past week which was entitled, They Rested! The sermon was on maintaining an appropriate
rhythm of Sabbath instead of being a workaholic!
We don’t want to misrepresent, so please understand, we’re not talking
about appropriate rest – this is about those who are somewhat
comatose as far as spiritual living is concerned.
John Wesley described the frog asleep in the kettle – unbelievers, and
believers who are sound asleep to their need of God’s grace. Without a clue, they are full of the sickness
of sin – apathy towards God, no desire of new birth from above, having a
godliness – a form of being a Christian – but unknowing – having no
relationship with Christ. They even
revile, or make fun of those who do walk with Jesus.
They may be nice people, great church members, moral and even kind and
generous – but listen to how Mr. Wesley characterized them:
But know ye not, that, however highly esteemed among men such a
Christian as this may be, he is an abomination in the sight of God, and an heir
of every woe which the Son of God, yesterday, to-day, and forever, denounces
against "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites"? He hath "made clean the outside of the
cup and the platter," but within is full of all filthiness. "An evil
disease cleaveth still unto him, so that his inward parts are very
wickedness." Our Lord fitly
compares him to a "painted sepulchre," which "appears beautiful
without;" but, nevertheless, is "full of dead men's bones, and of all
uncleanness."
The bones indeed are no longer dry; the sinews and flesh are come upon
them, and the skin covers them above: but there is no breath in them, no Spirit
of the living God. And, "if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."….He abides in death,
though he knows it not. He is dead unto
God, “dead in trespasses and sins.”[3]
That’s the condition of the sleeper.
The word in Greek used for those who sleep indicates
being “down” as in lying on the floor, being in the condition of ne-kros
– a corpse! So this has nothing to do
with physical rest; it has everything to do with spiritual, mortal necrosis – a
sin-rotting of the soul.
There are many words offering different concepts of sin in human
experience. There is the concept of
transgression – where we know what is right and choose rebellion. There are sins of omission, where we forget
to do what is right, or, worse, we remember, but are too lazy; we slip off the
path, and miss the target of Christian living.
So the kind of sleep Paul is warning about
is an echo from Isaiah(60:1) where the prophet passionately pleads
for God’s people to wake up and shine the light of God for the nations. And Paul again echoes it in his
letter to the Roman church telling them to come out of their apostate sleepiness:
This is all the more urgent, for you know how late
it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when
we first believed. Romans 13:11(NLT)
One author I read put it very well about the sleeping church
members:
It is important that we understand that the water in which the frog is
cooking is not the culture. The danger
to the frog is not secularism, liberalism, or atheism. To believe this is to conclude that these
worldviews are more powerful than the message of the cross.
I believe the water in which we are boiling is our own spiritual
apathy, missional indifference, and prayerless irrelevance. In essence, the frog stands in danger of
boiling in its own water. Just as Jesus
warned some of the churches in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 about their
precarious spiritual condition, we too must recognize our own need to take
responsibility for the situation.[4]
So, updating John Wesley’s
language (quoting Paul the apostle), we have Exposed the Sleepers,
and…
Second – Encouraging Resurrection
Mr. Wesley wanted to Enforce
the Exhortation, meaning he wanted to highlight it, underline it, and
make it bold type: RISE
UP FROM THE DEAD! Of course Wesley was quoting Paul, who was
quoting Isaiah, who got it right from God – who rather knows what He’s talking
about when it comes to rising up from the dead!
The
Greek word, again, is an·is·tay·mee, which means to rise up
again. It is the same root word from
which we translate “resurrection”.
Oswald Chambers pointed out
in his book “My Utmost for His Highest” about the man Jesus encountered, who
had a crippled and shriveled hand; Jesus told him:
Stretch out your hand (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed.
But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we
will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us
the power of life.[5]
Some (many I fear) just
won’t take the initiative – that first step – towards God. In Wesley’s sermon he posed the parable of
the Prodigal Son, who was estranged from his family, particularly his father,
and living in a land far away. He had
run out of the inheritance money and was sitting in a pig pen of poverty and
starvation. He finally came
to himself, remembering how loved and well-cared-for he was at
home. He literally ran home.
Mr. Wesley then asked the
question if it could be that we, who are living in such spiritual death sleep,
can finally awaken, but NOT run home to our heavenly Father? How insane is that?
America’s poet, Ralph
Emerson said:
People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there
any hope for them.[6]
I pray that if you are
somewhat awakened, but have yet to arise out of your sleeping sickness that you
will be unsettled entirely until you are moved by God’s Spirit to
resurrect from the dead and run to your Father.
Exposing Sleepers,
Encouraging Resurrection, and then…
Third – Explaining the Reaction
Mr. Wesley said he would Explain
the Promise which is given to those who awaken and arise from sleep
– light!
Many have debated what, precisely the Bible means by that, and how
Wesley saw it. In his sermon he said
that no matter what your condition, spiritually-speaking (assuming you’re still
drawing breath), this promise is for you, and it is very connected with seeing
the One Who IS the light.
And seeing Jesus tends to change everything!
Jesus said: I am the light of the world. If you
follow me, you won’t have to walk in
darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”[7]
This is resurrection language…the light that leads to life. That which leads is a pathway – a
direction. Later Jesus explained fully
to his disciples what that meant:
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No one
can come to the Father
except through me. John 14:6b(NLT)
In John Wesley’s thinking (which is Biblical thinking), this pathway
begins at the moment of surrender to Christ.
There is a promise of Jesus’ light which leads to the way, the truth, and
the life…which is true relationship with God.
But that is a beginning; we are like newborn babes starting on the
pathway of eternity, and in need of learning so much. It is like when you were in your mother’s
womb; you had no cares, and no needs that amniotic fluid and your umbilical
cord couldn’t supply. But the moment you
made your entrance into this world everything changed.
The moment your eyes were
assaulted by the light – and your behind by the doctor’s hand – it was such a
rude awakening, and made you question if leaving that warm Momma-nest
was such a grand idea.
But in all, you’ve come a
long way, and God’s prevenient grace, including light from above, has been
watching over you and changing you – helping you see the right pathway to a
heavenly position as a child of the King.
In his book, An Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver
Sacks tells about Virgil, a man who had been blind from early childhood. When
he was 50, Virgil underwent surgery and was given the gift of sight. But as he
and Dr. Sacks found out, having the physical capacity for sight is not the same
as seeing.
Virgil’s first experiences with sight were confusing. He was able to make out colors and movements,
but arranging them into a coherent picture was more difficult. Over time he learned to identify various
objects, but his habits—his behaviors—were still those of a blind man.
Dr. Sacks asserts, “One must die as a blind person to be born again as
a seeing person.[8]
That warm nest of a womb you
once occupied is similar to the cocoon of the frog’s kettle soup. It seems so much simpler to keep to the
darkness – keep to our nice warm comfortable life.
And God, without having
first consulted us, created us with a responsibility to awaken, arise and
embrace the light of Christ. He bids us
like the blind man near the pool of Siloam – you let me cover your spiritual
eyes with the mud of creation – now go, wash and see. And when you see, you will then not be
content to sit in that earthly pig pen of your comfortable yesterday; it will
then be time to come, follow me.
Fellow amphibious kettle
dwellers, frogs in the kettle, awaken….arise….let your light shine!
[1] Title Images [modified]: Froggydarb at the English
language Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons and FiveRings [Public
domain], from Wikimedia Commons
[6] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leadership,
Vol. 7, no. 4.
[7]
John 8:12(NLT)
[8] Terry Seufferlein, Norman,
Oklahoma. Leadership, Vol. 19, no. 1.
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