Upset the Church: Sleepy Christians
Tim Rivers | July 24, 2022
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Tim Rivers: It's been so good to be here, and we've been in the book of Revelation. We've been doing this series called Upset the Church. If you've been paying attention to this series, you probably noticed that there are some very poignant things that we've been talking about. There are some things that are very convicting. Conviction is not a bad thing. It's the work of the Holy Spirit, but I want to give you a little context for the relevancy of what we've been talking about. We've been going through the seven letters written through the seven churches in Asia.
Any Bible nerds in the building? Self-professed Bible nerds. This is for all the Bible nerds. I'm a Bible nerd. I've given myself to studying the word of God. I love the word of God. In fact, I'm finishing my doctorate right now in seminary because I nerd out on this stuff, you know what I mean? People are like, "Why are you doing that? Because I just love the Bible," but I want to give you a little bit of context because the book of Revelation is a book of revelation.
[laughter]
The first chapter opens up with John saying, "I was on the — on the Lord's day," and then he describes Jesus coming to him and giving him revelations about the second coming, Christ's return. This is known as eschatology or the study of last things. Jesus tells John, "I want you to write down a lot of stuff that's going to happen when I return, and before I return." Then we go into chapters two and three in chapters, two and three, Jesus addresses the seven churches and he begins to see where they're at and say, "Hey, you're doing a great job here, but here's some things I need you to fix."
What Jesus is doing before he gets into the seals and the bees, and the wars, and all that stuff that you read in Revelation. Essentially what Jesus is telling the churches is this, "I need y'all to get ready so that you can receive me when I come again, this is why these letters are so relevant to us because it's like-- Jennice and I, we may get a phone call and there's a person that's going to come visit us that night. Or they call us and say, "Hey, I'm going to be there somewhere between today and tomorrow. I just need y'all to be ready."
Well, I'm calling Jennice and going, "Hey, is there anything I need to go get at the store? Is the house ready? What do we need to get ready in the house so that we can receive our guests?" That's what these seven letters are. These seven letters are Christ saying to us, "Hey, church believers. I need y'all to be ready so when I come, there won't be a shock effect. You can receive me with open arms." We've been going through it, and if you've been hanging out with us you know we talked about side chick Jesus, why in hell would you stop? We talked about counterfeit Christianity.
Before we get into today's lesson, God works in mysterious ways. If you weren't here last week, you're not going to get this reference. You need to go back and watch the video. We talked about Gucci, it's all Gucci. I presented this Gucci shirt to y'all that cost me $5.25, and went home, of course, put it in the washer, and Jennice sent me a picture this last week after it had been through the washing, she says, "Check this out." I want to show you this picture before we get into today's lesson. This is what it looked like after it's been washed.
[laughter]
Now, some of y'all already know where I'm going with this, but when you're fake, it ain't going last. When you're a counterfeit, when you go through some stuff, it ain't going to-- I can start preaching just about this picture, but I just want y'all to know, stay real and buy the real thing. Amen?
Congregants: Amen.
Tim: Y'all ready to go into this week's? Turn in your Bibles to Revelation 3, the book of Revelation 3:1. Here he goes, "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." Yikes. "Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the side of my God." Woo. We've already covered four churches. Today we're going to cover two and then next we're going to cover one. We're going to turn up next week, so bring your shouting shoes, whatever those shoes are.
Let's read the second church and this is going to be verse number seven. "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David. Who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and one can opens. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut." I could shout right there. "I know that you have but little power, but yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name." Somebody say amen.
Congregants: Amen.
Tim: Today, we're going to cover two churches as we did last week, but today, the churches are going to be a little different. Last week, we talked about two churches who were two sides of the same coin. They both were dealing with pressure externally and internally to compromise, and because some of the saints compromised, then they ended up eating meat offered to idols and in sexual immorality. This week, we're going to look at two churches that are complete opposites.
The church at Sardis, who Jesus is speaking to and He's telling them, "Hey, you are professing to be alive. You're telling everybody that you got life in you, but you are dead." This is the same thing that Jesus told the Pharisees. Remember the Pharisees thought they were all that and a bag of chips and Jesus rolled up to them and said, "Hey, listen, you say you know all of this. You say that you know the law, but you are nothing but white sepulchers, you are a beautiful tomb and then you're filled with dead men's bones."
The message to Sardis is, "I need y'all to wake up because if you don't wake up, I will return and it will be as if a thief is coming to you in the night." He addresses the same thing when he talks about the 10 virgins, right?
He says, "There's some that are sleeping in the church, they're going to miss the fact that Jesus is coming again." The second church that he addressed is Philadelphia. They're literally the opposite. Only thing he can do with Philadelphia is given accommodation because Philadelphia is one of two churches, the church at Smyrna and the church at Philadelphia that Jesus doesn't give a rebuke to. He literally says, "Hey, you're doing a great job, and because you are staying awake, and because you're staying alert and you're doing my work, I will set before you an open door, which no man shall shut."
Let me just stop here and say this, "When God opens the door for you, ain't nobody going to shut it. When God provides an open door in your life, no devil in hell, no person at the job, no crazy family member, no weirdo that's down the street, no psyched-out church member can stop the open door in your life. You just got to stay awake and believe that God is going to come through. If you believe it shout amen.
Congregants: Amen.
Tim: I want to talk to us about what we should do to prepare for the coming of the Lord. I want to talk about the difference between being asleep and being awake. The title for today is Sleepy Saints. Sleepy Saints. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you for drawing us into your house. I pray that in the next few moments that you will begin to give us Revelation of your word, wake us up, help us have ears to hear, mind to understand, and a heart to receive your word. We thank you for what you're going to do in Jesus' name, and somebody say amen.
Congregants: Amen.
Tim: I want to address two obsessions in our culture currently. On the one hand, you have hustle culture. If you're a millennial or a Gen Z, you're familiar with this. If you're not, let me catch you up. Hustle culture is the mindset that there's always more, a bigger house, a fancier car, a new relationship, a better promotion, a bigger job. It's the mindset that we grind all the time. We do not stop. We don't settle. I feel like everyone is in hustle cultures like that. We're going to keep going. Don't stop. Don't settle. Quit your job if you need to, if you get a better opportunity.
There's this mindset within a lot of us in this culture that wants to move forward, but here's the problem, there's nothing wrong with work. In fact, when God speaks to Adam and Eve at the very beginning, He says, "Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, and have dominion." Those are progressive terms. God wants us to work, but you need to know the difference between grinding for God or Godly grind and hustle culture. Does God want you to work? Yes, but the biggest difference between hustle culture and grinding for Jesus is who are you working for?
If you want to know the difference between like hustle culture and grinding, and working hard, just ask the question. Who are you working for? There's a difference between ownership and stewardship. I personally don't like to use the word ownership because I view everything that I have and everything that I receive as the Lord's. In fact, the scripture says, "Everything you do, do as unto the Lord." Remember the example where Jesus calls the three. He tells the story of the master and he calls the three servants, and then he gives them talents.
Whose talents did they belong to? They were the masters. When a master comes back, he's wondering, "Did you steward what I gave you well?" Work hard, but don't buy into the idea that you're trying to build bigger barns to fill it up with stuff that you want because godly grind always includes other people. The second obsession that we're dealing with right now is the obsession of self-care. There's people missing church right now because they're self-caring. And the spa, hey, if you're at the spa, welcome, God can speak to you there as well.
The problem with self-care is, a lot of people call it self-care but really, it's self-obsession. People wanting vacation and they ain't even working. Why are you on a vacation to Bahamas and you've been willfully unemployed for the last year? Who's paying for that? Yes, rest. Yes, take care of yourself, but remember God set the principle for rest. He worked six days and on the seventh day, He rested from all that he had done and he looks back and says, "What I did was good." Don't rest until it's good, and number two, don't rest unless you worked.
The principle of rest is attached to work. Here's the funny thing, people will misconstrue the scripture where Jesus says there are two great commandments, love the Lord your God, and then love your neighbor as yourself, and people are like, "Well, I can't love my neighbor unless I love myself." How am I supposed to take care of my friends if I don't care about what I care about myself? How in the world am I supposed to do that for them if I don't do it for me first? That was a rhetorical statement that Jesus made. He was saying, love your neighbor because you love yourself.
In fact, Paul writes about it and he goes, "No man yet ever hated his own body." You ain't got to be taught to take care of yourself. You automatically will take-- Has anybody, when you're hungry, just been like, "You know what, I am not going to feed myself, I would rather die."? No, we take care of ourselves. We're in the in-between, as believers, we have to find the balance between working hard and being content, or being lazy and complacent. What God is calling us to do, is to be awake, is to be alert, is to not fall asleep. That's what we're talking about today.
In doing so, I want to take you to a story in Genesis chapter 28. Let's go there, Genesis 28:10. It says, "Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Harran. He came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep." First of all, let me stop and say this, how tired do you have to be to confuse a stone for a pillow? "He dreamed and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reached to heaven, and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Behold, the Lord stood above it and said, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north, and to the south, and in you and your offsprings shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.'"
What a phenomenal promise from God. This is the same promise that was given to Abraham and Isaac, and now it's given to Jacob. Check this out, verse 16, "Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.'" My man was sleeping during the promises of God. He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." What a phenomenal story. I want to give you a little bit of context before we get into the meat of this message. You have to understand what brought Jacob to this place in the first place.
Jacob is one of two twins. Of course, twins are two, that's self-explanatory. Before he is born, God speaks to Isaac and Rebecca and says, "Hey, there is going to come two nations out of Rebecca and they're going to be an odds of one another. However, I have determined that the older will serve the younger." When Jacob and Esau are born, Esau comes out first and Jacob comes out holding on to the heel of Esau. Since birth, these guys have already been at odds with one another. Jacob, which means supplanter, heel grabber, Schemer, Jacob is born into the world and he already starts having an identity placed upon him.
His mom is telling him, "Hey, you, your brother is going to serve you at some point." but his dad loves Esau, so he's in conflict." Jacob is going about life, but you have to put yourself in Jacob's shoes. Imagine being a young child and everywhere you go, people around are calling you a schemer, a supplanter, a deceiver, everywhere you go, until finally at some point you are going to start believing what people place on you. That's why you have to be very careful who you're around, and what they say to you, and what you let in your ears. If you allow negativity to be spoken to you, eventually you going to start believing that about yourself. That's why you got to believe the report of the Lord. Amen.
He is listening to all of this and the scripture then gives us this story where Jacob, he's now up in age, he's being a chef, he's cooking, he's close to the cat. His brother Esau is out hunting and he doesn't get anything. Esau is coming back from being away for days, hunting, and trying to get some meat. He's coming and Jacob is right in his pathway. You can smell the gumbo; you can smell the jambalaya. It's the wrong thing to preach about during lunchtime, but here we go. Esau is coming, he can smell some good food and he's starving.
He rolls up to Jacob and he says, "Jacob, I smell what you cooking, bro, and it smells really good. How about you hook a brother up because I'm literally about to die. I'm starving." Jacob looks at him and says, "Say less, fam, I got you a bowl right here." This is just like something a younger brother would do. "However, I will give you this bowl in exchange for your birthright." That don't even make sense. It don't even equate because a birthright was essentially what you would have to become the judicial ruler over your family when your father passed away. You also would get a double portion of the paternal inheritance.
Essentially, when Isaac passed away, Esau would inherit all this stuff and Jacob is saying to him, "I will give you one bowl of stew in exchange for everything that you will get after dad dies." Esau is so hungry that he makes the irrational decision, "Hey, you know what, fine. I'll switch it out because I'm about to die anyways, and if I die, I ain't going to get the birthright. Yes, you can have the birthright, give me the stew." Let me just stop and say this, make sure that you stay filled up because when you're hungry, you make irrational decisions.
Oh, Lord, that wasn't even in my notes, y'all. I just felt like somebody needed to hear that. Make sure you stay filled up because if not, you're going to start trading the promises of God for stuff that's just going to feed you temporarily. Let me move on, I'm sorry. This is the first example where Jacob deceives his brother Esau. Esau goes about his business, so as Jacob. A few years later, Isaac is going up in years and Isaac begins to get closer to death, he can't see as well. His mother, Rebecca, Jacob's mother, starts scheming again with Jacob.
She's like, "Son, I done heard the word of the Lord. He said you're supposed to be the one that rules over your brother. Now that your father is up at age, let's deceive him." Here's the thing, you got to stop deception, if not, your kids will do the same thing. Uh-oh. She schemes with him and she says, "Listen, I'm going to make your father's favorite meal, and then we are going to put goat skin on you, you're going to go in there, and you're going to fool Isaac into giving you the blessing instead of Esau." First of all, how bad is your skin that goat skin gets confused with your skin? You need a dermatologist.
Jacob goes in there with goat skin, he goes up to Isaac, he knows that Isaac can't see very well, he's already blind but he can listen and hear very well. Jacob goes in and he's like, "[clears throat] Hey, dad, I'm here with your favorite stew." and Isaac is like, "You smell like Esau, you feel like Esau, but you don't sound like Esau. Jacob is like, "Man, I wish I could do sign language right now, but I can't, so just eat the stew and bless me." Isaac, he eats the stew and he blesses Jacob. He puts all the blessings in favor that Abraham received from God, and then Isaac received from Abraham, now Isaac has put it on Jacob.
He tells him, "Now you are blessed." Jacob now has both the birthright and the blessing leaving Esau with nothing, then he goes about his way. Esau comes in to his father and he says, "All right, dad, I'm ready for my blessing." Isaac is so in shock and so dismayed that he cries and he says, "Esau, I'm sorry, but I've been deceived by your brother and I've already given away your blessing." Esau begins to cry out and he's angry, and he just, "God, give me something dad." Dad's like, "I can't give you anything because the blessing is only reserved for the one that receives it and your brother has already received it."
This then becomes the identity of Jacob. Jacob then now has bought into the identity that was placed on, he's now a schemer, he's a deceiver, he's a supplanter. It comes to the point where Esau says, "You know what, when dad dies, I will make it my life's go to kill you." Jacob talks to Rebecca and Rebecca's like, "Son, is time for you to go." She packs up the stuff, and says, "Go to my brother's house and your uncle Laban, and he's in Haran." Jacob begins to make the journey of about 550 miles. He's making this journey to go to Haran.
I don't know if you were here a few weeks ago, but I preached the message called Why in Hell Would You Stop? If you remember, we talked about Terah, the father of Abraham, how he was journeying from the Ur of the Chaldees to go to Canaan, but he stopped in Haran. Then Abraham continued from Haran to Canaan and was blessed by God. It's amazing to me that Jacob decides when he is ready to run away from the promises of God and the place where God had him. When he starts to run away, he goes back to where God had brought them from.
Let me just stop and say this. When you start to dabble and try to accomplish the work of God by yourself, and then you run into trouble, you will always go back away from the promise of God. He is on his way to Haran. While he's running, he's tired, he's worn out. He's sleepy. He finds a place to rest. He lays down and goes to sleep. As he is sleeping, the scripture says that the windows of heaven are open up, and a stairway comes down from heaven to earth, and angels begin to ascend and descend.
The voice of God standing at the very top of that ladder. He says, "Jacob, in spite of the fact that you are a deceiver and a schemer, and a supplanter, in spite of the fact that people have written you off, in spite of the fact that you went about it the wrong way, in spite of the fact that you really don't deserve this moment, I just want to let you know that my promise for you is not predicated on how perfect you are, but my promise for you, it lasts for generations. Jacob, this is what I want you to know the same promise that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, your father. I'm now giving to you.
Wherever you go, I'm going to give it to you. If you go to the east, it's yours. If you go it to the west, it's yours. If you go north, it's yours, if you go south, it's yours. I want to bless you so much that in you, all the families of the earth, every single person who is blessed can trace it back to you. Jacob, I'm going to be with you. I'm going to accomplish it with you. I'm going to accomplish it for you. Here's the thing, Jacob, you don't have to do a thing. I'm the one that's going to do it." It's one of the most phenomenal promises given to a human. Jacob was dead asleep.
When Jacob wakes up having this dream, you would think that Jacob would've built an altar right then and said, "You know what, I don't care what Esau got planned. I just heard the voice of God. I'm going back right now. I'm going to claim what's mine. I'm going to walk in the authority of the spirit. I'm going to walk in the authority of what God gave me," but instead, he was so tired and so sleepy. He confused the promise with just a dream. He gets up and instead of building an altar which signifies a covenant that he made with God, he builds a monument to a missed moment.
When you are tired, you will confuse the promises of God with just dreams for the future, [laughs] because right then Jacob's life could have been changed. It could have been rearranged, but instead, he was sleeping through what God had for him. He missed the open heavens, why? because he was a sleepy saint. Then he leaves that moment and he goes to his Uncle Laban's house. This is where there's a plot twist because now the deceiver is being deceived.
Jacob rolls up and he sees a hot bud, watty, Rachel. He's like, "Man, she's fine. What I got to do to get her?" Laban's like, "Yo, just work for me seven years, just work for me seven years." Then Jacob's like, "Man, she is so fine. It's a yes for me." He works seven years. It's the wedding date. Yes, sir, we are about to get this on. He knows that the consummation of the wedding is coming. Y'all know what consummation is, right? He's ready. She comes walking down the aisle, and got a veil on. Remember in the Bible, they didn't have electricity. Dark is dark. It's pitch black.
By the time he and Leah do their thing, he wakes up the next morning, he's rolling over expecting to see Rachel, and instead, he's like, "My God, who are you? You look just like your sister. Wait, you are the sister." Leah is laying in this bed and he gets so upset. How, first of all, how ugly do you have to be to work another seven years for the right one? He works another seven years and he gets Rachel. He gets deceived, deceived, deceived. Then he works another seven years. Even after the 14 years for Rachel, all while, getting deceived, until finally, Jacob said, "Enough is enough."
He finally wakes up. He finally has a jolt in his spirit that says, "You know what, God gave me a promise 20 years ago and now it's time for me to go back and get what God said he had for me." Oh, I'm about to preach now, because Jacob had to get to the point, just like the prodigal did, where he had to come to himself. He had to finally wake up. Jacob had been asleep for 20 years. He'd been sleeping on the promises of God for 20 years. He'd been sleeping on what God said he wanted to do for 20 years. He had monuments built to missed moments.
He had a monument built saying, "Man, if I just realized that God," God was there, you were asleep. God was there. He gets up from where he is at. Now he's fully awake and he's going back home with a pep in his step and with a mission. He says, "Even if my brother kills me, I'm going back because now I'm awake." Then we find him at a place called the Brook of Jabbok. When he gets there, he's at a crossroads because his brother is coming with an army to destroy him from the front, and Laban is coming with his army from behind.
He doesn't know what to do. You know what he does? He tells, takes his family and all his possession. He goes, "Y'all go on ahead because I'm going to stay awake. I'm going to do whatever's necessary for my life to be changed." In that moment, when he wakes up, the scripture says there appeared a man and begins to wrestle with him. This is a theology, because God in fleshly form begins to wrestle with Jacob. God says to Jacob, "Hey, let me go just like you let go of the promise 20 years ago. Hey, won't you release me because I know you've been playing games with me and you've been asleep for the last 20 years. Hey, let me go. I'm giving you the option to go back to sleep."
Jacob said, "I will not rest until I have prevailed with God. If it kills me, I'm going to stay awake until I get the blessings that God said are for me." The scripture says that Jacob wrestled with God until the breaking of the day. All night long, he wrestled with God and God finally said, "You know what, now you are fully awake. Now you've finally come to your senses. Now you're ready to get this inheritance. Now you're ready to see the open doors. Now you're ready to see the stairway. Now you're about to be the person that I called you to be." He asked the question of Jacob, "Jacob, who are you?"
Jacob has to confront who he's been all of his life. Jacob says to him, "God, I am Jacob. I am a supplanter. I am a deceiver. I am a schemer. I'm a heel grabber," and God says, "No longer are you going to be called Jacob, because today you woke up and you wrestled with me, and you wrestled with me to the breaking of the day," and the scripture says God told Jacob, "No longer will you be Jacob, but from now on, you will be Israel. Why? Because you wrestled with God and you've prevailed."
I'm here to preach and tell somebody you've been sleeping on the promises of God and God's calling you to wake up because the windows of heaven are open and the doors are open that no man can shut. How many of us in this place have been sleeping, coming to church but dead asleep, reading the Bible but dead asleep? The problem with Sardis is they didn't think they were asleep. They thought they were alive but Jesus said, "Hey, listen, you are going to miss me coming because really, you are daydreaming. You are sleeping."
The word "dead" here in the Revelation doesn't mean void of life. It means dying. Jesus is telling the church at Sardis, "Listen, I got promises for you. I got gifts for you. I've got an open door for you, but you're dead asleep." The question for us today is what's got you sleepy? What has you tired? What has you awake but not really? Have you ever watched a movie? It seems like you blink but you know you missed something?
[laughter]
Is that anybody like, "That happens to me."? It used to not happen, but now I don't know if it's three kids, but I will go blank for like 20 minutes. I thought I was awake, but I'm like, "I totally missed something important in this movie because I fell asleep. I thought I was awake but I fell asleep." In the movie of your life, when God is giving you the greatest scene in the movie, are you asleep and missing it? I believe God's calling us to wake up and smell the coffee, get out of bed, roll out of your comfort zone and say, "God, I'm here to wrestle with you."
If it takes putting my hip out of place, if people are going to talk about me, if people say I'll walk for them, if people say you're never going to amount to anything, I got the promise of God on my life. When God opens the door, nothing is able to shut it. Not a person, not a demon, nothing is able to shut it. Again, I ask you the question, what has got you sleepy? If you go back and you look at Sardis, the church at Sardis, when Jesus addressed it, it wasn't just a spiritual address. If you look at the history of Sardis, Sardis claimed to be an impenetrable place.
It was built on cliffs that were very difficult to scale. The Watchmen on the wall would make sure the enemies never got there. Around 246, 247 BC, Cyrus II, laid siege on Sardis. It is told in history that the Watchmen on the wall of Sardis fell asleep. When they fell asleep, the enemy scaled the wall, came into the city and they led siege to the city. Supposing that they were impenetrable, but when they went to sleep, the enemy creeped in. The question that we have today is, is the enemy laying siege to your life? Is the enemy rocking your world? Is he robbing you a promise that God made for you? Is he deceiving you because you're asleep?
God's calling us to wake up, wake up from your slumber, wake up from your sleep. It's not time to play church, church. It's not time to go through the motions. It's time to wake up. If you noticed, we named this series Upset the Church, because over the last four weeks, we've allowed the scriptures to rock our world and upset us. You have to do some internal work. You have to be honest and say, "Who am I? Who have I become?" Imagine Jacob having to confront the fact with God in front of him, that he'd been sleeping.
"I'm Jacob. I've become what they said I was going to be. I know you gave me promises, but I felt like there were too much for a person like me, so I've been sleeping." Have you been sleeping? Maybe it's a ministry that God's called you to, but you don't feel like you're worthy of it, so you went to sleep. Maybe it's forgiveness that God has called you to, but it's uncomfortable, so you went to sleep. They say that when you're dying, the first thing that happens is you get tired.
You ever watch those movies, that dramatic moment, the guy is laying there. He's been shot. He says, "I'm just so tired." It's the first stage to death. The question for us today is will you wake up or will you go to sleep? One thing's for sure, there's an infection — that's laid before you that's been opened by God and it's for you. You just got to stay awake and walk through. Don't let your sleepiness and tiredness rob you of the promises of God. Don't try to do this on your own. You can't do it.
You'll work for stuff that you didn't even want. You do things that don't even satisfy your soul. When you wake up, you say, "God, I'm putting the hustle culture aside. I'm putting self-obsession aside and I just want to be awake in your presence. God, just open up the windows of heaven and let me see that stairway." You would close your eyes and bow your heads. The question that I have today for you is how many of us have monuments built to moments? [chuckles]
If I just would've married that person, if I just would've said yes to that job, if I just would've moved when I had the opportunity, if I just would've applied for that ministry position. If, if, if, if, and God is saying, "Let's get rid of the ifs and wake up, because what I have for you is better than you can even imagine." See if you're in this place or you are watching online. You're like, "Man, I've been tired. I've been asleep. I've been sleepy." Want you to slip your hand up right now? Wherever you are in this building, slip your hand up, "Man, I've been tired. I've been sleepy, man. The promises of God, man. I feel like they've been slipping me by."
Just raise that hand as high as you can, wherever you are, just raise it because I want to pray for you. Lord, you see these hands that are raised in this room and all over the place, your saints, your people who have grown weary because of the journey, because of circumstances in their life, may be sleepy. Maybe they've been asleep. I pray right now that you would wake us up. Wake us up to realize that the windows of heaven that are open for us are not for some future day, but they're for right now. Help us to rest in your promises without falling asleep to your word. Help us to receive what you have for us so that we can accomplish your work and not waste time in toil.
I thank you right now for an inundation of faith. I thank you for hope that's reawakened. I thank you for a fresh fire, a fresh wind to take us into your presence. We give Your name all the praise, all the glory, all the honor, all the adoration, because You're worthy of it, in Jesus' name. Somebody shout, Amen.
