Wake Up

If you ever take a moment to watch back to an older classic like the Andy Griffith Show, you mightnotice that life seemed simpler, and even slower back then. The telephone was tethered to the wall (much like it was when I was a kid), and people spent most of their waking hours being with the ones they loved and got along with. You watch scenes of Andy, Barney, and Aunty May enjoying sweet tea on the porch as Andy plucks away at his guitar. When the neighbours pass by Andy and company seemingly know all of them by name.

I have begun to appreciate that about some of our rural farmers. There is this sense of importance about time spent with neighbours, friends and family. My younger brother was telling me about when he, and the farmer he is working with, would be driving down the grid road they would stop and talk to almost everyone. There is an importance of community. As I have sat with some of the people at the Legion I noticed how people would identify homes as Mrs. so and so’s house, giving you a sense of the importance of community, and friendship as well.

Depending on who you are, and what type of community you find yourself in, this has changed. The phone is no longer tethered to the wall. It follows us everywhere. The T.V. no longer signs off for the night. Almost everyone is living an instant life. There is an importance placed on knowing a lot of people, but not knowing them well. It's almost like a popularity contest. The importance is not us necessarily knowing a lot of people, but it is a lot of people knowing us. I did a little fun study into our congregation and I found that on average our congregants have 290.5 social media friends, this number is averaged out over everyone I could find data on. However, 290.5 friends is still a relatively modest number compared to some social media influencers today. But this can show us how we might be, or can be influenced, by this idea of instant messaging, instant phone calls, instant communication.

In some cases, we see people out for supper with each other at the restaurant and the cellphone takes the privileged position right beside the silverware or the beverage. It might be face up, it might be face down. Couples on dates, parents, children, and friends all likely have a device close by. It sometimes sickens me, but then I realize I am not innocent of this either. To be clear, I am not trying to tell you to get rid of your devices. I am not telling you to delete facebook, instagram, snap chat, twitter, tiktok , truth social, youtube, whatsapp, facebook messenger, pinterest, reddit, linkedin, discord, twitch, steam, myspace, vine or anything else that you may use. But I am drawing our attention to the way the world interacts. One of our youth was telling me just this last week the feeling he got when he put down his game controller and he went and washed all the windows around his house. Taking the time away from the screen was almost relaxing. Refreshing. You hear about how when couples on a date turn off their phone the date they are on turns more meaningful. Likewise, when friends put down their phones they get more out of hanging out. There is no longer this, ding, chime, ring, beep, or buzz distracting you from the people you are enjoying.

There is this point in the Bible in 2 John 1:12 where John talks about how he has much to write to the recipient, but he does not want to use paper and ink. Instead, he hopes to visit the recipient and talk with them face to face, so that their joy may be complete. There is this sense that removing the ink and paper as a barrier from the equation can give them joy. He doesn’t eliminate the ink and paper, he uses it just enough to satisfy and keep the friendship informed. But there is more value to meeting the recipients, in person.

When you look at how friendships are made they are often made in person, seldom is a strong friendship formed without the face-to-face factor. Friendships may be maintained with phone calls, letters, or modern messaging, however, we can all attest to the importance of face-to-face interaction with friends. More often than not we can attest to the importance of best friends. We tend to have a large group of acquaintances who we may call friends, a smaller group of actual friends, and probably 2 or 3 friends who we feel the most comfortable with. We kind of see this with Jesus. Jesus normally had a large multitude of people following him so much so that there are upwards of 34 references of Jesus being followed by a crowd, being surrounded by a crowd, or literally having to escape to a mountain or sea because of a crowd. Jesus often welcomed the crowds, but we also see Jesus specifically withdrawing with his disciples. Further, we see Jesus' relationship with three specific disciples develop from the onset of Jesus’s ministry.

Peter, James, and John were among the earliest of Jesus’ disciples who had been with Him the longest (Luke 5:4–11). The Bible does not say why Jesus chose Peter, James, and John as His inner circle. These three men were present with Jesus during special events, being eyewitnesses of Jesus’ transfiguration (Mark 9:2–3), and witnessing Jesus raise Jairus’s daughter from the dead (Luke 8:49–56). Thus, these three witnessed Jesus’ greatest moments of glory and His darkest trials. They were His closest friends. We see Jesus call on these three friends specifically in Mark 14:32 during a time of overwhelming sorrow. We see Jesus plainly calling them out in verses 37, 40, and 41.

Lets read this passage Mark 14:32-42

Mark 14:32–42 NASB95

They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again He went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him. And He came the third time, and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough; the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. “Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”

We tend to forget that though the Gospel brings good news. It exists because of death, sin, and hell. We like to look at the gospel and see the happy part of it, and rightly so! There is reason to rejoice! But at this moment we find the full weight of the gospel crushing Jesus. Jesus was literally on the road to hell to defeat it for you and me, and it was not a light burden to carry. Mark 14:33 tells us Jesus was deeply distressed and troubled, Luke 22:44 says “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” We also see Jesus asking God the Father to take this cup from his hand if it was in his will. Luke 22:43 describes an angel from heaven appearing to Jesus to strengthen him. Mark describes the disciples who were with Jesus as asleep, but Luke describes them as being “asleep, exhausted from sorrow” in verse 45. In both gospels, Jesus urges the disciples awake so that they can pray and will not fall into temptation. He is abrupt and straight to the point. These are his closest friends and in this time of overwhelming sorrow he needed to be abrupt.

It begs the question who would you gather around you in your time of sorrow? Who are your three closest friends? If you know that hell was approaching how would you warn and alert your friends? Would you be willing to call them out abruptly? Have you truly formed a strong enough relationship to call them out? Jesus spent years with these men forming important relationships where he could say what was needed when it was needed. We see this playing out in Matthew 16:15-23

Matthew 16:15–23 NASB95

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ. From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

We see here Peter’s potential highlight of his life in verses 17-19. I can almost imagine Peter kind of strutting around with a smirk on his face looking at the other disciples and without saying anything, giving the look to them “did you hear that? Yah. that’s right.” But this is short-lived because when Jesus tells them of his death. Peter doesn’t like what he is hearing and tries to reprimand Jesus for this. Jesus responds by calling Peter Satan, a dangerous trap, and seeing things from a human point of view and not God’s.

Jesus was no stranger to calling out his friends when he needed to and now that the hour had come in the garden of Gethsemane where death/hell was approaching. Jesus was finding himself being abrupt with his friends again, literally waking them up.

When I think of my friends who are willing to be abrupt with me when I’m asleep and not aware of impending spiritual dangers I think of my wife, I think of my mom and even this Mrs. Rose Sanders from 100 Mile house. But I also think of this one friend of mine who I had in the military.

Simon is an individual whom I have known since we were in diapers. Our families had kind of drifted apart, but in the summer of 2012, I would be living my life the way I wanted to, spiritually asleep to the dangers that were approaching. I was on my bunk in my barrack room lounging, when this tall asian fellow walked in who I barely recognized. He looked at me with a big grin on his face and shouted “JESSE!” looking at him I realized I knew this guy as Simon Ennis. Simon and I would hang out at the JR’s mess all that summer, and we would become good friends again since we were sharing a room in the barracks. Simon being the Christian he was began to notice some destructive things in my life, and one day he called me out on it. He said Jesse you know without Christ in your life you are “f’d”. Now I don’t condone swearing, but in this particular case the way Simon used it, it shook me, it woke me momentarily from my spiritual slumber. Simon told me without the grace of Jesus Christ and the Blood of Jesus washing my sin away I was on my way to hell.

Well over the next couple of weeks I fell back into my spiritual sleep. But then there was this moment. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was a hard, heart-stopping wake-up moment. I was in this convoy, and we were headed along the open plains, guns at the ready, scanning for potential enemies as we rolled along. As we began to approach a tree line, I remember feeling very uncomfortable about this, something was telling me DO NOT GO IN THERE!, I addressed my concerns to my crew commander and despite my protest, we began to roll through this very narrow road way which bottle necked us. We could no longer roll along two by two protecting both our flanks, we had to maneuver into a single file. I remember almost getting to the end of this road and out of the trees, then smoke popped in front of us, then smoke behind, all at once I hear “CONTACT!” and like a light switch flipping on, gun fire erupts, there are explosions, the sound of artillery, and yelling. The sound of ammo casings falling from the top of the vehicle in thru the hatch. Then the next thing I know I’m looking out my window and there is a man emerging from the brush pointing a gun right at my face. And all I could think is, “I’m not ready to die.” At that moment I remembered what Simon said to me, Jesse without Jesus you are “F’d” you need to wake up and start living your life for Jesus again or you are going to end up in hell!

I remember in that moment asking God to forgive me and to guide me in how I should live my life. It was not easy, but I needed that wake-up call, and I needed a friend to remind me.

A true friend knows how to call out their friends effectively. They know what will shut their friends off, and they know what their friends will hear. Simon knew I was a soldier, so he talked to me like a soldier. And he knew I needed to wake up. It didn’t take all these Facebook friends for me to find Christ again, it took a few good close friends. And those friends to this day still hold me accountable to Jesus Christ.

Everyone here has their closest friends and they are considered inner circle friends to other people as well. We are all living with the good news that Jesus saves. However, sometimes selfishly, we forget that sometimes we need to be straight with our friends as well.

Jesus saves yes indeed! Without Jesus, we have very little hope.

But sometimes the world's distractions, devices and noises. Begin to lull us to sleep. We begin to focus obsessively on politics, or pop culture. Maybe our social media presence begins to take up our every waking moment. It no longer becomes about sharing the good news, but it becomes about adding to the noise. We begin to blend in with the world rather than stand out from the world. We begin to be concerned or scared that our friends, even our close friends don’t want to be bothered with the gospel. We think to ourselves they probably heard it before, maybe they’ll get mad or offended if I bring it up. Maybe they’ll get mad or offended if I remind them that all this stuff that is of the world, isn’t of God’s point of view. We have to ask ourselves are we really being a good friend, when all we are doing is adding to the noise in our friends' lives, stocking the fire of distraction. We need to wake up ourselves and stop living our lives according to the world's upsets, we need to stop living our lives according to the things that take our minds off of the truth. The truth is that without Jesus’ grace we do not have a chance! Without walking with Jesus and walking our own path we are screwed! We need to stop adding to the noise. Stop adding to the division and we need to start walking as the united body of Christ.

We need to tell our friends our close friends of this choice, we can take the gamble and live our lives according to our own will and then when the time comes we can stand before the father and say look I am a good person, I have done all this right, surely I deserve in! Despite all the good we have done we will find that the father will say to us I don’t recognize you. Because we were too scared to wake up our comfortable friends who were sleeping they will find themselves in mortal danger. However, when we boldly walk beside our friends and we wake them up alerting them to the dangers, holding them accountable to Jesus Christ, they may find themselves standing before the father saying father don’t judge me for who I am, but judge me for who Jesus Christ is. Look! I am standing in the blood of Jesus.

Sometimes being a friend is patiently walking side by side. However, every once in a while our friendships require us to be abrupt every once in a while, waking our friends from their peaceful slumbers. We need to be willing to alert our friends to what are merely just human points of views, which are dangerous traps, and not God’s point of view.