A Servant has Fallen Asleep

Introduction

One thing about it, I don’t care who you are, how old you are, what your last name is, what color you are, what occupation you work in, your title in ministry, your accolades, your degrees, your accomplishments, or anything of the sort, if we are not caught up in the rapture, one thing is for sure, WE ALL will have to go down this road. Jobs says that “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” James 4:13 says that our lives “is even a vapor, that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” In other words, everything in our lives is temporary. You have a birth date, and you have a death date. Your birthdate is not really what matters, neither is your death date. What matters, especially to God, is what you do in between your birthdate and your death date. What matters is that dash in between your first and your last day on this world. Dr. Melvin did a lot with his time on this Earth. He was a worker and he continued to do something with his life. Whether it was running the Cleaners, the car wash, selling Herbs, traveling back and forth to New York to sell some clothes at the stock yard, traveling to the Minister’s Conference in Hampton, making CDs and recordings, or whether he was preaching the Word of God, Dr. Melvin was always doing SOMETHING. Tell your neighbor, DO SOMETHING!! So, the question that arises from this is what am I supposed to do with my life? What is my purpose? What is my reasoning for being here?

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Background

‌Our text today is found in Luke’s Book of History of the Early Church, The Acts of the Apostles. He is giving us a glimpse into Paul’s exhortation in a Synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia. He runs through the History of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Jesus. Yet, while as I was preparing for this message, while I was preparing my exegesis, out of text rises 2 verses that catches my attention. I wish I had time to deal with verses 16-43 in its entirety, but I don’t have the time, so I must deal with the 2 verses, that caught my attention which is the verses that I read in your hearing earlier. Paul takes his exhortation through David, whom he says God raised up and he gave testimony and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.”

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Body

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“Raised by God”

‌So, after King Saul had been removed by God, the scripture tells me that God raises David. I began to question the text a little because I said, God what you mean by you raised David? As I was questioning it and pondering on it, I began to literally see a hand raising David in my mind, sort of kind of like Jeremiah at the Potter’s House, he saw the Potter working the clay on the wheel and shaping the clay to his liking, I saw God working on David molding him to his liking. David’s not an imitation, he’s not a carbon copy, he’s God’s original, because he was raised up by God. When you are raised by God, you don’t have to be like anybody else, you’ll be proud to be who God designed and called you to be. When I think about Elder L.D. Melvin Jr., there was only ONE L.D. When you see Dr. Melvin, you knew Dr. Melvin was in the room. He had his own identity and his own way. Whether he was preaching or singing, Dr. Melvin was an original because he was designed and raised by God to be who his is. I wish we had more people in the body of Christ that was satisfied being who God called them to be. Don’t you realize who you are? You are God’s Masterpiece, you are the handiwork of God, he shaped you from before the foundations of the world. He tells Jeremiah, when you were in your mother’s womb, I knew you. God wants to raise you up to be who he called you to be. God raised Dr. Melvin up to be who he wanted him to be and God wants to raise us up.

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“Fulfill my will”

‌Not only is the reason I’m here is because I was raised by God, but another reason I’m here is to fulfill God’s will. Paul says in his exhortation that God gave the testimony, “I have found David, the Son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will.” David was literally raised by God to fulfill God’s will. The text doesn’t say that David fulfilled his own will, but that David fulfilled God’s will. The reason we are here is to do God will. I’m reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Mason Temple, The National Headquarters for the Church of God in Christ, in Memphis, Tennessee on April 3, 1968… He says “like anybody, I would like to live a long life, Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.” Dr. King was not so concerned with long life, that he lost focus or push to the side will of God. Yet it seems to me sometimes that we are not concerned with what God wants, unless it lines up with what we want!!! I’ll seek God’s Kingdom as long as God’s Kingdom lines up with what I desire for myself, but the moment God’s Kingdom doesn’t line up with what I want for myself, I question if it is really God. I heard this story one day.

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“A middle-aged farmer who had been desiring for years to be an evangelist was out working in the field one day when he decided to rest under a tree. As he looked into the sky, he saw that the clouds seemed to form into the letters P and C. Immediately he hopped up, sold his farm, and went out to P-reach C-Christ, which he felt was God’s leading. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a horrible preacher. After one of his sermons a neighbor came forward and whispered in former farmer turn preacher’s ear, ‘Are you sure God wasn’t trying to tell you to P-lant C-Corn.’”

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The farmer lost focus of the will of God for his life in being a farmer, looking trying to be a preacher. We as children of God must learn to be more concerned not by our own will, but rather what God’s will. God’s will may not lead you to the pulpit, it might lead you to guard the door as an usher, but that doesn’t make you no less or greater than someone else, because God’s will for you is just as important as God’s will for me, no matter where it is. One thing I loved about Dr. Melvin is that he never made anyone feel less than no matter who they were, and he always treated folk with respect. He fulfilled God’s will.

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“Fall Asleep (v. 36)”

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I must quit, but there is one more thing that grabs my attention. Paul told us that God gave the testimony, "I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill my will.” But what happens after, you have fulfilled God’s will. When you have served the Lord in the capacity in which he has called you to, what then? What comes next.

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V.36 says, “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.”

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The wording here grabs my attention because he doesn’t say David dies, He doesn’t say that David passes on, or even does he say that David transitions. What Paul says is that David, AFTER, he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep. Someone says, asleep. Sleep is defined by the Tabor Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary as “A periodic state of rest accompanied by varying degrees of unconsciousness and relative inactivity.” Someone says sleep. I was taken back because when we look at this, Paul is saying in reality that David died, this is evident because he says that his body saw corruption, it decayed, it broke down, yet Paul uses the word. It took my mind of Jesus in Mark 5, when Jesus went down to Jairus house, who’s 12-year-old daughter had just died, mourners had already arrived and took their place, in my imagination, I can see the funeral home loading the gurney to make their way to Jairus’ house, they were preparing the Last Rites of this young Lady. And all of a sudden, Jesus steps in and says, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” They laughed Jesus to scorn, and he put them out. He addressed the Girl and said, “Talitha cumi,” which is to say, Damsel, I say unto you, arise. This girl was dead to her parent, she was dead to her neighbors, she was dead to the mourners, but to Jesus she was only asleep.

Closing

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That’s what I came by to tell this family, Jairus Daughter, After David had done all that God had planned for him to do. David fell asleep. And after everything, that God had purposed for Dr. Melvin to do, Dr. Melvin fell asleep. Hear me really good, he’s not dead, he’s only asleep. Jesus says in John 11 “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Tell somebody “L.D. is not dead, he’s sleep.” But the good news about it is, if he is sleep, he’s got to wake up, why because he’s fallen asleep.

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And I hear Paul say in 1 Thessalonians 4, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are ASLEEP, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which SLEEP in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are ASLEEP. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead (the sleep) in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

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So Doctor Melvin has gone to sleep, but one day he’s going to wake up, not just him, but Mark is going to wake up and Roleshia is going to wake up, IN THE MORNING, IN THE MORNING!!! Not just them but all those that fell asleep in Jesus, someone’s mother has fallen asleep, someone’s father has fallen asleep, someone husband and wife has fallen asleep, someone’s child has fallen asleep, but I have good news for you, if they fell asleep, they are going to wake up. And when they wake up, there’ll be no more dying, there’ll be no more crying, be no more pain, be no more suffering, be no more nursing home, be no more doctors, be no more medicine, when they wake up, every day will be like Sunday, it’ll be always howdy, howdy and never Goodbye.