Wake Up!

GOOD MORNING CHURCH FAMILY!!

Some of you, I don’t believe are quite awake this morning! Did you sleep? I hope so. You know, I love my teenagers. All 4 of them. As adults, I think that we often forget what it was like to be a teenager. You know what I mean: we knew EVERYTHING, our parents knew absolutely NOTHING about living in the modern age, whenever it was for us, and we were beginning to stretch our independence a little further every day. But you know what I miss most about being a teenager? Sleep. The copious, seemingly superabundant, profuse, and downright lavish amounts of sleep. Does anybody here remember a time when that was the norm? Well, maybe some of you didn’t grow up with the type of parent who would let you sleep like that. I know that, in my home, we had to be up to be ready for school, and for church, but if there was no church the next day, or no school, well, then we were allowed to sleep until about noon. Anybody here remember when you’d have gone to bed at a decent hour, like 9-10 pm, gotten up at 5-6 am (although I am sure some of you who were children of farmers probably had it earlier), tired and beat, and could still sleep if given half a chance? When I was in high school, it was about a half-hour bus ride to school. I called that morning nap. After school on the way home? Afternoon nap. It seemed like I was always exhausted. And frankly, it hasn’t gotten much better for us as adults, has it? Man, if given the opportunity, I could go to bed by 10, and not get up until 11 am. And even then, I could take an afternoon nap.

Dear, are you okay to drive?

Sometimes, though, taking that power nap can be a real life-saver, can’t it? After 9/11, my Air National Guard unit was activated, and sent from Wichita, KS, where our base was, to Whiteman Air Force Base, near Knob Noster, MO. For those of you who don’t know, that is about a 3.5 hour drive or so, in a normal car. In any case, we were working some weird shifts. Somebody in our leadership chain got the brilliant idea to have us work 3 twelve-hour days, followed by 3 twelve hour nights (notice the 24 hours between when you end your last day shift and begin your first night shift), and follow that up with 3 days off, which began at 7 am after you come off of a 12 hour mid shift, with each shift going from 7 to 7, am or pm, respective to whether you were on days or nights. Even better, was when our leadership decided to let us go back to Wichita on our three days off. This meant that, in theory, you would get off of a 12 hour night shift, drive upwards of 3-4 hours to get home, and then leave 2 days later to go back home. To save on gas and whatnot, those of us who chose to go home often carpooled home together. I had a car. I was often driving, and my usual passenger was either a friend of mine in the maintenance shop, Larry, or my Director of Operations, (then) Maj. Curtis Cohn. With Larry, it was great: he’d share all sorts of awesome stories of ages past for the unit (I was still relatively new, having only been in for about a year and a half), and awkward with Maj. Cohn, as he was polite and made conversation, but it was a bit intimidating, having your boss’s boss’s boss in the car with you. In any case, one day, the morning came, and nobody was going back to Wichita. I was solo. And it was a long night. Oh, well, Airman Krones, go buy some highly sugary caffeinated sodas, some chips or such, and get on the road. What I should have done was gone back to my room in billeting, taken a nice, long nap, and then driven home that evening. But I was young. I was an idiot. And I did the singularly most stupid thing I have ever done in my life. I drove. I stopped by the base convenience store to get my beverages and snacks. It was a cold and windy day. The route we always took was the same: You left the base on Missouri 23 north towards Knob Noster, and head west on Highway 50. I was doing fine. Drive west past Warrensburg, merge onto I 470 West, then merge onto I 435 West. This is where things get…bad. The next exit is for I-35 South towards Wichita. The last sign I remember seeing was “I-35 1/2 Mile.”

Last thing I saw pic

I was hurting. I was tired. It was the middle of Kansas City RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC!! I was in a compact car, doing upwards of 60-65 mph, and I WOKE UP!

When I woke up pic

Route Pics

Church family, I tell you today, it is only by the Grace of God, and the hand of an angel on the steering wheel that I am standing before you today. I do not remember anything between that first and last sign. I immediately took the following exit, went to the nearest gas station, and found out exactly how far out of the way I was: I had driven nearly 10 minutes and over 7 miles, in heavy Big City morning rush-hour traffic, around curves and bends that I don’t remember taking. My chin was on my chest when I woke up. At the gas station, I was a panicked wreck to say the least. My heart was going a mile a minute. I wasn’t going to sleep for the next day, let alone the next few hours! That said, on my adrenaline rush, I got back on the highway, and drove as far as the outside of the Kansas City area, and pulled over to the side of the road to take a nap, you know, the smart and prudent thing.

When I read what would become our Scripture reading for today, this story came to mind, and I think I know why, but let’s see what you all think:

We are all on

Let’s take a look back at our Scripture reading for today. Turn with me to -

English Standard Version Chapter 3

3 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

“ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Wow…that’s some heavy stuff, am I right?

Let’s break it down and see what we find, okay?

First, who wrote this? John, the apostle, who was banished to Patmos for preaching the gospel, and it seems that Jesus came to him in vision, and told him to write everything he saw and heard, and to start out with a message to “the seven churches” and Jesus names them: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Interestingly, Jesus had a harsh message, at least in part, to all the churches except Smyrna and Philadelphia, but we’ll get to all those at a later time. For now, we are going to look at Sardis. Sardis was a pretty wealthy town, some 37 miles southeast of Thyatira. They had a neat history. Over 600 years before John penned Revelation, Sardis was the capital of the kingdom of Lydia, ruled by a wealthy ruler named Croesus. By the time of the Roman period, its importance had…diminished some. They were still rich, don’t get me wrong, but their pride was in their past glory instead of their present reality. In fact, one author pointed out that no city of Asia at that time showed such a sad contrast between their past splendor and their present decay as Sardis. And, because they were rich, and their city was built on a hill so steep, that it was considered a natural citadel, and its defenses seemed secure, which made the citizens overconfident, and as a result, the city walls were sloppily guarded, and the city as a whole was captured by surprise…twice. Both times, enemy troops climbed the steep hill by night and found that the Sardians had set no actual guard. This was the careless attitude of the whole city.

In any case, Jesus tells them that he knows about all of their outreach, and help with the poor, and clothing the naked, but tells them that He knows it’s all a facade, and that they are spiritually dead! He tells them that there is still time to turn things around, but they need to WAKE UP! Like the rest of the city, the careless attitude had crept into the church, and they had grown complacent and careless. Jesus reminds them to KEEP remembering their conversion as a result of hearing the gospel, the good news, and to keep it and repent! He then warns, as he did in the gospels, that if they don’t get their collective rears in gear, that He will come like a thief in the night, and will be unprepared for His second coming! He goes on to say that there are a few folk in Beaver City…I mean, Holdrege, I mean, Kearney, I mean Broken Bow, I mean the Conference, I mean the Union, I mean the Division, I mean the SDA Church, I mean Sardis (whew!), who have not given in to being “of the world” and that they still walk with Him. He then tells them what their reward is if they just repent and remain faithful (read: continually overcoming temptation) to Him and His calling, telling them they get a white robe, their name in the book of life, and that He will confess their name before the Father and His angels. Lastly, Jesus tells us that this message isn’t just for Sardis, but says “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” This is repeated every time He talks about one of the churches! Maybe, just MAYBE there’s something in there we should glean!

TITLE 3 -

We need to recognize that this message is for us as well.

We need to

We need to look to the cause of our spiritual decay.

We NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

A Timeless message

The message that John gives us through Revelation is three-fold applicable: it was relevant for the original Sardian church. They became as complacent as the society in which they lived, allowing the complacency to creep into their faiths. Later on, after the Reformation, Protestantism became almost purely scholastic, with the original reformers having passed away, their successors became engrossed in doctrinal and theological arguments and degenerating into lifeless formalism and spiritual lethargy. Central America and South America, among other areas, are growing as fast as the early church in Acts as led by the apostles. Last year, one evangelism campaign in southern Peru resulted in over 4200 people. A month before that, in Rwanda, a record 95,890 people were baptized after a two week campaign. These people aren’t unchurched. They aren’t hearing the Good News for the first time. But they are hearing the grace and mercy of Jesus as well as the unique message of the SDA church for the first time, and they are coming to Christ. What’s the difference? A faith-filled fervor, a love for Jesus, and a true love for and excitement for bringing people to Christ, based on a solid prayer and devotional life that is filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Root Cause

We, as American Seventh-day Adventists, have, as a whole, become lazy. Today, we, the Adventist Church, who believe ourselves to be and call ourselves the “Remnant Church,” especially in America and Europe, have become spiritually lazy, forcing all of the work upon our leaders, forgetting that we are the “Body of Christ” not the “Head, shoulders, upper chest and arms of Christ.” We have lost the fervor for winning souls for Christ. We are afraid of what our friends and neighbors will think of us. We are afraid to welcome the blatant sinner into our church for fear of what other churches will say, offering everyone the love, grace, and mercy of Christ, and standing up for God’s Word and God’s Law. We see a lack of immediate results, and give up, wanting instant gratification instead. We love making excuses like: I’m too busy, I’m too young, I’m too old, and just about any other excuse one can think up. We are the SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST church. We have lost the message of the near and imminent Second Coming of Christ. When Jesus does come, some of the most surprised folks will be Adventists, I’m sure. Even more so, we are called to walk the line of living in the world without being of the world. For too long, we have walled ourselves inside these four walls, expecting people to come to us. We, as a church, are hemorrhaging young people between the ages of 18-35 because we refuse to change, because we refuse to follow the example of Jesus and meet people where they are.

Now What?

What do we do?!

Well, first and foremost, it’s time to WAKE UP! We have been sitting on our backsides for far too long. Your leaders, myself and the elders, cannot carry all of the load. We need to get back on our needs, and go to God to ask forgiveness for our complacency and to find out exactly what His plans for us are. God has given us all sorts of Spiritual gifts once we have put our faith in Christ. I can’t tell you what you need to do, other than to recommit yourself to Christ and following the Great Commission by making disciples of all nations. The first of those nations needs to be our own, surely. Let’s be clear: I’m not saying to stop helping the efforts overseas, but we have to remember that we have folks here who need to be taught and prayed for and loved with a Christ-like love, so that the Holy Spirit can do His job in convicting them of the truth, and leading them home. We can’t do that from inside these four walls. We need to go about making friends with new people, and show them that we love them for who they are RIGHT NOW, as they are RIGHT NOW, and let the Holy Spirit convict them of their sin. Our job in this is simply to love them. That’s it. It really is that simple. We are to love people into the kingdom.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Conclusion:

Conclusion:

AMEN

Let us pray.