Mission Sent
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Mission Sent
The Devil's Two Strategies: How Stress and Success Put Us to Sleep
Ever feel like you're sleepwalking through your spiritual life? You're not alone.
In this eye-opening exploration of Romans 13:11-14, we uncover the alarming reality that many Christians have fallen asleep in the midst of a spiritual war. The statistics are staggering: Americans spend over 4.4 million years monthly streaming TV, 215,000 years playing video games, and 2.5 million years scrolling social media—yet claim they "have no time" for spiritual growth.
The enemy's strategy is brilliantly simple. Unable to defeat God directly, he instead lulls God's people to sleep through two primary tactics: overwhelming stress and comfortable success. When stressed, we seek escape through various distractions and self-medication rather than turning to Jesus. When successful, we become complacent, forgetting there's a battle raging around us. Both conditions keep us spiritually unconscious.
Paul's urgent message to "wake up" isn't just about avoiding sin—it's about recognizing that salvation is nearer today than yesterday. In moments of crisis, we default to our lowest level of training, not our highest. Have you been training yourself to turn to Christ or to temporary comfort? What fills your mind daily—social media feeds or God's truth?
The solution is wonderfully straightforward: "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ." This means intentionally wrapping ourselves in His character through careful choices about what we consume, how we spend our time, and where we turn when life gets challenging.
Wake up. The night is far gone, the day is at hand. The world doesn't need more sleeping Christians—it needs believers who are alert, engaged, and actively participating in God's redemptive work. Where have you been sleeping, and what will it take for you to wake up?
I know it's our last Sunday and this is usually a family service, but the content we're going to go over today isn't necessarily kid-friendly. Alright, so, and actually it's only a certain part of it. That's not Now. That being said, everyone else, we're going to jump into Romans 13. We're actually going to finish out the chapter today. That's right. We spent over six months in Romans 12. We did all of Romans 13 in a month, so that is cool. Other than that, I'm going to pray and then I'm going to jump into it.
Speaker 1:So, father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, god, that you have given us your word, that we may use your word in our lives to look more like your son, father, that we may know who you are. So, father, we ask and we pray that, as we go through this, that it not be my words that people are hearing, but yours, father. I pray that, through the power of your spirit, I just preach your word to the best of my ability and, in your spirit, just cover everything else to change us from the inside out. Father, we pray all of this in Jesus name, amen. All right, we are going to jump into verse 11, and it says this. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand, so let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual morality and sensuality, but in quarreling and jealousy. Not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord, jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to qualify its desires. Now I'm going to ask you a question, and it is not a trick question. I know sometimes people like ask me after service, that like they'll come up to me and they'll go. Hey, I knew the answer to that, but I thought it was a trick question, so I didn't want to answer it. All right, and this one all you got to do is show you raise a hand.
Speaker 1:Now, when we just read through that, how many of you? What you heard was this Paul giving you a list of sins that we, as Christians, should not commit. Raise your hand. If you heard that, if we're honest, most of us that's like immediately where our mind went to right. We see this list of sin and we go, oh, okay, checklist. I love when we get these lists of sin, right.
Speaker 1:When you go into Galatians five, right before he talks about the fruits of the spirit, paul talks about the fruits of the, or the works of the flesh. Right, and it's very easy for us when we get these lists to just concentrate on what that is and we go, okay, those are the things I can't be doing in my life. However, here's what I want to tell us all this morning. That's not even what Paul's talking about, right there, that wasn't an exhaustive list of sin. In fact, the sin is secondary to what Paul is talking about. See, what Paul is talking about is we use these things to escape our reality about? Is we use these things to escape our reality? We self medicate. So, therefore, we get drunk, right. In today's times, everyone self medicates, it seems, because all you gotta do is drive around Deltona and you can smell it everywhere, right, you just smell that sweet devil's cabbage just being burned from car to car to car. See, and when we see these lists, we think that. But that's not what Paul is talking about here. Those are secondary, those are escapes, because Paul isn't trying to focus his readers on the sin. Paul is trying to focus readers on this one Wake up. Wake up, see.
Speaker 1:And for us to understand this, we have to understand this God has an enemy. Peter would tell us like this, that the devil is a lion, a roaring lion, seeking only to kill, steal and destroy. Now here's how he does it. You ready? The devil knows he can't win a fight against God. He's not dumb In fact I would argue he's probably smarter than all of us in this room combined but he knows he can't win that fight. So here's what he does. If I can just put Jesus's followers to sleep, then I don't have to worry about you fighting against me.
Speaker 1:See, here's the thing. Think of the biggest, baddest person. You know that, one person that you're like man. I would never in a million years try to enter into a fight with him. Like Tyson, like prime Tyson, not the Jake Paul, oh, I could beat up a retired guy. Okay, I'm talking about like that person.
Speaker 1:For some of you it might be like a Delta Force operator or a Navy SEAL, or in for whatever reason JT is pointing to himself. But here's what I want you to understand Take that person, put them to sleep, could you win that fight? Like, could you win a fight against someone who's not awake? Like, if they just like got knocked out, could you win? That is what the devil does to God's followers. See, here's the thing we don't understand. The devil fights us all the time, even if you are a child of God, because the more he can keep you down, the more he can put you to sleep, the less you're going to be able to fight for or with him. And you ready. Here's how he does it, because there's two strategies he uses, and I did a lot of research this week and, being a math guy, I had to work out all of this. Now, these all go to the average American. All right, this isn't even a worldwide thing, this is just here in America. You ready.
Speaker 1:Every month, every 30 days, americans spend an equivalent of 4,452,054 years streaming TV. Here's what I want you to understand about this. Okay, that's in years, not hours, and the reason it was in years is because years is a bigger measurement, because if I were to do this in hours, it's in the billions. That's every month. Every month, we spend more time watching TV here in America than the entire recorded history of mankind. Another thing we can look at is every month we here in America play 215,915 years worth of video games. And on this one I'm going to go ahead and tell you because this one was a little harder for me to get numbers on All right, because there's a huge range that it could be, so on this one I picked the lowest numbers that sociologists have estimated that people play. So this is actually a lot higher. It could actually be more than double this, depending on which study you wanted to follow.
Speaker 1:Think about that 215,000 years worth of time is spent in your room playing a video game. And lastly, because some of us, we don't watch a lot of TV, we don't play video games, but every month we here in America spend 2,568,493 years scrolling through social media. Here's how we spend our time. And you mean to tell me that we're not sleeping. What could you do in your life if you had 2,568,493 years to accomplish it? But we don't. And then here's the thing that just really gets me, because here's the excuse all the time I ain't got time, you got time. In fact, if you were to put together the average time for all of these a day, it would come out to 10, 20, 30, no, yeah, 32 hours a day. Now some of you in this room are like, well, that's more than 24. How does that work? Here's the thing we have time and it's an average. That's why it's more than 24. We have time. It's what we choose to do with our time that affects our lives.
Speaker 1:I went out fishing for the first time in like two and a half months, thursday, which isn't normal for me. Usually I'm at least a once a week kind of guy and I literally had to force myself to go out, which, again, isn't normal for me. But with so much things happening over the past month and a half of my life, it just got pushed to the back burner. Pushed to the back burner, pushed to the back burner and all I could think of is I don't have time to go do this because I have all of these other things. I mean, we're about to start school, there's so much stuff up here that we have to do. Like, all of this stuff is just like weighing on my mind. And yet I went, I forced myself to go, and I was telling Debbie last night that you know what? I'm glad I went, because I didn't realize how much I needed to go, because when I came back, I'm going to tell you I was a different person, and it wasn't just because I out caught JT yet again although that might have had something to do with it Because, see, the devil uses these two ploys when he's trying to put you to sleep.
Speaker 1:You ready. He uses stress and he uses success. Those are the devil's two ploys to put you to sleep. And what Paul is sitting here talking about is this Wake up. We devote so much of our time and so much of our energy to electronics. And then you wonder why some preachers are out going hey guys, ai might be the Antichrist, not going to lie. And if you are interested in that, we can have a whole conversation, because I can definitely see how people line up with that. Because our gods today aren't Baal, they're not Asherah, they're not Dagon. You know who our gods are Samsung and Vizio and Apple. And if you have an Android, sorry, you're broken to begin with.
Speaker 1:And what the Bible is saying is this Wake up, stop sleeping. And it's not just Paul. In Ephesians 5.14, which I understand was written by Paul, so if you were sitting here going, hey, that's still Paul. It says this, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says awake, o sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. In Isaiah 61, it says this arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Speaker 1:In Revelation 3, 2 and 3, it says this wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in sight of my God. 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. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 6, again, I get, it's Paul. It says so. Then, let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and sober. In Jesus's words in Luke 21, 36, which he, mind you, says the week before he's dying, this is like one of the last, like big pushes he gives to his disciples. He says this but stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the son of man.
Speaker 1:See, the Bible has one message concerning what Paul is talking about, and it's this wake up Too many of us. This is how we spend our lives just sleeping, you're cozy in your bed and you don't want to get up, but yet the Bible is sitting here saying be alert, be watchful and be ready. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 16, 31 maybe, paul says this stand firm, act like men, and he's not just talking to the males when he says that he's sitting here going wake up. Too many of us. We're just so passive when it comes to our life. And then we look at these lists, right, we see all these sins. We go, oh, drunkenness and orgies and sexual immorality. And we read through that and we go, hey, that ain't me, that's not what paul is talking about, though. He's not just sitting here going hey, only if you're one of these people. Like I said, those were secondary to what he's saying. We use these things because we're trying to escape.
Speaker 1:The reason why social media gets you is because your life is so stressful that you would rather sit here for hours, just scroll and just look, because your mind doesn't have to process anything. And for so many of us, we use that excuse. I'm just so tired, I just need to relax. There's just so much going on. No wonder none of us look at Jesus and go yeah, he said, take your, he'll take my burdens Because we're all sitting here going no, I got this, I'll figure it out. And so the devil comes along and he just goes just lay down, just scroll.
Speaker 1:You know what I just found out last night? When I watch YouTube on my TV, we use Apple TV and it has the time up in the corner. But when I turn YouTube on, the app shuts down the clock. You know why? Because the app doesn't want me looking at the clock and going oh crap, I just wasted an hour and a half of my life watching fishing videos, or I'm not going to lie. Like I told you all last week, these body cam videos are really just getting me this week and I found one that only does FWC stuff, so it's all about the outdoors and stuff like that, and it just like. There was a guy who was 35 trout over his limit that I just watched the other day and he acted like it wasn't a big deal. That's why we have such a hard time catching fish now, because we've got these people out here just keeping everything. But see, it does this on purpose because it knows if I'm sitting here looking at the clock, I will spend less time.
Speaker 1:And all of these companies whether it's Facebook, snapchat, instagram I don't even know what other ones because I don't use it they do it on purpose, because their goal is to keep your attention. Does anybody in here know what the average attention of a US adult is right now? Lower Seven minutes, and that's the average. There are some that are much shorter than that, and when you start getting down into teenagers, it's actually less than a minute. You know why? Because they have trained their brains through things like shorts and reels to only pay attention for up to a minute. Think about that. We have literally rewired our brains because YouTube found if I can give you shorter things, you'll watch more of them, because you don't feel like you've been on it that long.
Speaker 1:And some of you know this Not because you did the research, but because some of you have sat there and went oh crap, I just spent an hour doing this. I've just spent two hours on my phone, and then we're the same ones that go I ain't got no time. See, all of us have the same amount of time. It's what we do with it that matters. And that's why the Bible is sitting here going wake up, stop being bogged down in the everyday of your life Like, if you're honest, would anyone in here say this sounds familiar I wake up, I go to work, I deal with stress all day at work and then I come home. Then, when I get home, I get to deal with stress all night until I go to sleep. I use whatever method I can to de-stress. I finally go to sleep only to wake up and go to work, and for most of us, that's how we view our life right, until what comes the weekend.
Speaker 1:Loverboy knew this back in the 80s. That's why they wrote the song Everybody's Working for the Weekend. Because we sit here and we go Ooh, just got to get to Friday night. If I can just get to Friday night, think about it. You're at the water cooler, right? Hey Bob, how's it going? Happy hump day. Why? Because we've built our life around this and then we just get stuck in this cycle and it just becomes everything about us. And what Paul is sitting here saying is is understand this. Here's why you need to wake up, because you're closer to salvation today than you were yesterday. You're closer to Jesus coming back today than we were yesterday. None of us think about it like that. Right, for fun, I'll look at Debbie and go hey, I have a limited number of heartbeats and one day I am going to die because I know what it does inside her mind. But think about this Does anybody in here know what day they're going? Anyone, anyone like sitting here going? Hey, I have this many days left. Just, jt, see, think about that. None of us know that, but I do know this you are one day closer today than you were yesterday.
Speaker 1:How many of us live life like that? How many of us live life like, seriously, like you're trying to defuse a bomb and you can just watch this countdown clock going off? None of us, right, because I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get around to it. We didn't even start taking family vacations until our kids were like almost teenagers. Why? Because there's always tomorrow. And then my dad died and I went uh-oh, sometimes there's not a tomorrow. Because it wasn't an expected thing, it wasn't this like big buildup and we know he's going to go. I just got off the phone with him a couple of hours before. We talked about some Marvel TV shows, and then a couple hours later he's gone and I went. We can't live life like this. We can't live life just sitting here, sleeping through it, streaming through it, scrolling through it.
Speaker 1:But I would go out on a limb and say that's the vast majority of us in this room, some of us. We love those role-playing games, right, because we can get lost in another world, and yet you do absolutely nothing in this world. I love it, and I'm going to call out JT, not because I think he's wrong in what he's doing, but just because he's my son, and if anyone I'm going to get mad, I would rather it be him. Jt is really, really good. Last I heard, he was like in the top 1% of all players on Rainbow Six, which is just this military game, right. So one day I'm walking by his room. I wanted to see how good he really was, and I walk in and I'm like dude, let's do this in real life though. Let's get some BB guns, let's go in the backyard and let's see who shoots who first.
Speaker 1:Now, for some of you, you're like that is ridiculous. What is wrong with you? It's not ridiculous, it's redneck. Okay, this is what we do. This is how we have fun, because I go when there's an element of danger in it. All of a sudden, it ain't a game anymore and, as someone who's kicked in a lot of doors, that makes you feel alive, doesn't it? He wouldn't go do it with me and I'm sitting here going. You got all this training and I can listen to these other 10 and 12-year-olds cussing you out, because apparently you guys are like the most amazing people in the world at this.
Speaker 1:But take it to real life. Let's see if these skills transfer over. Do you know that since Minecraft has been created in 2011, people have spent 600 billion hours billion with a B playing that stupid game? They're like oh, it's not stupid, you can build these worlds. There's a world right outside here that God told us all the way back in Genesis. Go and make it, make it look like the garden.
Speaker 1:You won't go into the real world and do stuff, though, but, man, we'll get in front of a TV and we'll just sit there and, oh, look at this block. You know who needs you to build blocks? Homeless people. I just saw they're taking sargassum, which is a seaweed that when it was up on the beach, it just stinks to high heaven, and they couldn't get rid of it fast enough. So some smart person went hey, you know what we can make out of this bricks and you know what we can do with these bricks build houses for the homeless. So we're solving a problem and then using that solution to solve another problem.
Speaker 1:But not us. We're fat and lazy Americans. Here's what we're going to do I'm going to sit and just stand in front of this TV, bow down and worship it as I sit here and just oh, you just push A. That's how we spend our lives and you think that's living. When Jesus said I came so that you may have life and have life abundantly, you think he meant it was just to sit in front of this magic box and worship that. And if you guys think I'm being harsh, understand. Jt has heard this speech at least a dozen times throughout his life. Dozen times throughout his life. In fact, it got much worse because JT's had to bow down to pray to his Xbox before, because that's an idol in your life and, as your father, I'm going to fight that idol and I'm going to show you it can't win because it ain't nothing but plastic and silicone inside, and I'm much stronger than that, because it's time to wake up.
Speaker 1:If you're a parent in here, do you monitor how long your kids are actually doing this? If you're a wife in here, do you monitor how long your husband is doing this? Because apparently it's a big thing for husbands too. And I go. You're a grown man, I get it. You want to throw on some Mario and relive some memories for an hour or two, but do you know, the average grown man plays anywhere between eight and 14 hours of video games a day. Here's what you're doing. You're coming home from work and you're going. Oh, I'm so stressed. It was such a hard day. I'm just going to sit and veg out. And now, because you're a grown man, you can go to the liquor store too and go. I'm going to medicate this way too. And I go.
Speaker 1:And you know what God created you for? It's a four letter word. Anyone want to guess? Work? So you understand. Work was given to us before the fall, genesis 1,. God said go, make the earth look like this, take dominion and rule over it. That's Genesis 1.
Speaker 1:The fall doesn't come until Genesis 3. And I get it. You don't like your job, but you know what your job does Puts food on the table and keeps your lights on. Wake up, stop wasting your life, because that's what we're doing. We spend years, millions of years a month wasting our life, and the Bible is sitting here, going. Jesus is closer to coming back than he has ever been, so he uses these two things right Stress and success. And depending on the person, it looks different.
Speaker 1:Number one too many Christians have fallen victim to the devil putting them to sleep, because the devil knows if he can keep you sleeping, then he doesn't have to worry about you sharing the gospel. So here's what he does he puts problems in your life. He does this because he knows you are going to fixate on those problems. I'm going to tell you right now this is the biggest way he gets me because I have a tad bit of OCD going on. So, like yesterday, we're in this big family discussion and the carpet has a wrinkle in it, like it's an area rug, but it has this little wrinkle in it. I had to stop the entire discussion and make everyone get up off the couch so I could lift the couch, so we could smooth the wrinkle out and then we could get back to this discussion. That is a minor example of how this works.
Speaker 1:You can ask Debbie, though Sometimes it can be extremely overwhelming, and I get that. But see, the devil will put problems in our life because we will sit there and we will just fixate on them. So we'll have problems at work and we'll have problems financially and we'll have problems relationally, and it'll just be problem after problem after problem after problem. Why? Because I can keep you. Why? Because I can keep you distracted. I can put you to sleep, when all you're doing is having these problems. What you're gonna do is look for an escape, and that's where we get into things like substance abuse and we get into things like porn addiction and we get into things like all these other things that we know, like we know in our brains.
Speaker 1:This isn't good, but our cortisol levels are so high inside of our bodies that we're sitting here going. I have to do anything I can to bring these down. So you know what cortisol leads to. Cortisol, for those of you who may not know, is what you call your stress hormone. So like, the more stress you get, the more your body produces this, because it affects your adrenal system so that your adrenaline rises so that you can fight or run. But here's what it also leads to it damages your heart. It damages your liver. Here's what it also leads to. It damages your heart, it damages your liver.
Speaker 1:Both of these you need I don't know if you know this to live. It jacks up your sleep schedule, which then damages your brain. It also, if you're a man in here, leads to abdominal weight gain, I guess would be the nicest way to say it. You get that belly, which then leads me to what Escape I just got to get away from this. I need to run away from this. I need to escape to something else, and that is how most of us live our lives. We do the things we have to do so we can escape from the things we don't want to do things we have to do so we can escape from the things we don't want to do. And I get it.
Speaker 1:Everyone in here goes through that, myself included. But you know what? It doesn't have to be that way. No matter where they go, they're going to have a problem with that. Right, I go. I have problems with my boss all the time, and for those of you laughing thinking, debbie's my boss. She's not okay, it's Jesus I'm talking about. Like. Sometimes I read things that he wrote and I'm like, I don't like that. So some of us that's what he does. He just goes. I'm going to give you problem after problem after problem. Now here's what we're going to do, and this doesn't get preached on a lot.
Speaker 1:Let's look at the other side of that, because some of us it's all stress. The devil knows he can put you to sleep, he can make you want that escape because he's going to stress you out. Others of us, it's success. And it's funny because a couple of months ago I had someone come up to me after service and they were like hey, man, I hear what you're saying, but that's not stuff. I struggle with. My life's pretty good, like I'm pretty happy in life. And they even told me they were like look, I'm not saying I wouldn't have those issues if something were to happen in my life. But see, sometimes the devil knows that and he knows the only thing he has to do to keep you from struggling is give you what your heart wants. So as long as my vacations and my toys and my family are good, I'm good and you know what that's going to do. Keep you distracted from everything else.
Speaker 1:In this war that is going on, who wouldn't rather go to the Keys and do a week-long fishing trip. If anyone in here is like not me, because I knew it was going to happen in this area, it's because they've never caught fish. They don't understand the joy of reeling in a 40-inch tarpon. It's because they went one time. They had a bad experience. Okay, there are restaurants I won't go to because we went one time and had a bad experience.
Speaker 1:So I'm not like hating on it, but see, some of us it's sitting here going, hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? I'm good, I'm just gonna kind of skate through this thing called life. I have all the things I could want. What do I need to fight for? And again, forget at that point that there is a war that is still happening, whether we realize it or not. Like some of you in here, I'm sure, like you're addicted to the news and so you watch all of that crap. But you know what just dawned on me the other day? Russia and Ukraine are still at war. You know why it just dawned on me the other day? Because I'm not Russian or Ukrainian and it's on the other side of the world. So it's not something I think about every day, because it really doesn't affect my day-to-day at all, outside of some money being spent in places. I would rather not. But other than that, whatever it doesn't affect me.
Speaker 1:And that's how we look at life. When the devil uses success, right, because I don't have to worry about all of those things that these other people over here have to worry about. I've got a pretty good life. Some of us, we absolutely love our job, like there have been times I've looked at Debbie and I've been like I hate you so much right now because you get like so happy to go to work, but you know what she's doing, what she's built to do, and she loves it, see. So what do we do then? We don't have struggles, because let me ask you this how does your prayer life look when everything in your life is going great? You hitting your knees every night then? Nah, you're just doing that simple. Hey, hi, jesus, I'm going to bed. Thank you Taking those pictures, blessed and highly favored, because it's very easy for you to forget that there's a war going on, because it doesn't affect you.
Speaker 1:See, some of us, we need to stop reaching for the bottle or the smoke, or the computer or the phone or whatever it is, but, on the same hand, some of us, we need to start sitting here, going uh-oh. There is a war that goes on every day that I need to engage with. There are people out here that I need to preach to. There are people that need to hear what I have to say. So if I'm sitting here and I'm looking at both of these people and I'm sitting here going, hey, you're the one that is struggling with success and understand success can be just as much of a struggle as problem. In if you're that person, get in the fight, wake up. Not everybody has it as good as you do, so what are you doing to feed others? What are you doing to sit here and go?
Speaker 1:You know, know what God still told me? Understand when Adam and Eve were placed in the garden and God went hey, go, rule over the world, earth and have dominion over it. Were there things going wrong in their life? No, there weren't. It was perfect. There was nothing going wrong in their life. They were going to live forever and God walked with them every day in the cool of the day, and yet he still went. There's still something for you to go do. There is no concept of sitting here and going hey, like my life's good. So there's nothing for me to do. Because these are the ways that the devil goes, shh, just go to sleep. Because these are the ways that the devil goes, shh, just go to sleep. Just focus on all this other stuff. Stop trying to save a dead and dying world.
Speaker 1:And Paul ends with this. So he goes through all of that, and then he finishes by saying this put on Jesus Christ. That's a weird saying, isn't it? And literally in the Greek it means like to put clothes on to wrap yourself in. Remember last week when we were talking about love and I told you if you love Jesus, the more you love Jesus, the more you're going to want to do the things that Jesus puts in your life, just like, the more I have fallen in love with my wife, the more I'm going to want to do things for my wife. That is what this is talking about, see, because if I'm in love with Jesus, am I running to drunken orgies? No, and if you don't believe me, just read through 1 Corinthians.
Speaker 1:That's like half the book of what Paul is trying to get the church at Corinth to understand. This isn't worship. This isn't what you're supposed to be doing your church services and they were church services that this was happening at shouldn't look like a block party. That that's what the most of the book is about. But he sits here and he goes. You want to win this war, you want to win this fight, you want to overcome all of this stuff going on in your life. Put on Jesus, run to Jesus. Now, practically what does that mean? Because that sounds good. You know, put on Jesus, run to Jesus. But practically what does that mean? Because that sounds good, you know, put on Jesus, run to Jesus. But practically what's that mean? Well, if you're someone who is sitting in here and you're on the one side of the argument the problem side of the argument, right, the stress side of the argument here's what it means. Just like we looked at last week.
Speaker 1:What podcast do you listen to, like throughout your day? Because you're listening to podcasts. I mean, we can see data of that. In fact, we're spending millions of years doing this kind of stuff. What are you filling your head with? What books are you reading?
Speaker 1:And some of you in here are like oh, I hate reading. I get it. I'm not an ELA teacher. For a reason Hate books, but I still read. Why? Because I need to get the information from here to here, so that this can influence the heart area, so that I can be a different person. And if you're sitting here going, I don't like to read. Guess what they have now. And if you're sitting here going, I don't want to read. Guess what they have now. There's this new app, okay, where they have paid people to read a book and you get to just listen to them read the book you want, like when they're reading, you can hold it up and you can show yourself the pictures, just like we did in elementary school.
Speaker 1:So what books are you reading?
Speaker 1:What movies are you watching?
Speaker 1:What music are you listening to? When you're scrolling on social media, what are you putting in? What pages are you following? See, that's what it means to put on Christ. It means, in all these different areas of my life, I need to be bringing Jesus in. In the book of Matthew, jesus talks about how the eyes are the window to the soul, and if the eyes are full of light, then the spirit is good. But if the eyes are darkened, oh how it is dark. Because what I bring in matters, because I'm building myself up one way or another. And if you're sitting here going, oh, I'm not doing any of that, you don't listen to music, like think about this. You just are in silence your whole day, like some of you are like, oh well, you can't hear it over the machine. You have a four-hour ride, bro, in the truck. What are you putting in?
Speaker 1:Whether your life is stressful or successful, it really doesn't matter. Are you putting Christ in or are things just white noise in the background to just waste your life? Are your problems looming over you and are your problems bigger than Christ? When crap hits the fan, what's your first thing you do? Because I'm going to tell you right now in a stressful situation, you always fall back to your lowest level of training. You may have the best training in the world Some of you, I know how long you've been with us, so I know you know the Bible and I know you know what the Bible says. You got some good training but you don't go to your best level of training.
Speaker 1:In a stressful situation, you go to your lowest level of training. That's why, as a cop, you will sit there, because you have a three not a three level, a three lock holster. So, as you're sitting in your car, you will literally sit there and play with your firearm to make sure that you can pull your firearm out while you're sitting in your car. So when you're standing there and you're talking to people, you'll see them playing with their firearm, because they're literally just using muscle memory. In fact, now, even if I don't have a firearm on me and we're doing something, it will be the same motion.
Speaker 1:You will see me curl my thumb. You will see me lift my hand. You will see me go like this. You'll see me curl my thumb. You will see me lift my hand. You will see me go like this. You'll see me push my thumb down and you'll see me pull up like this every single time. Why? Because I've done this for thousands and thousands of hours.
Speaker 1:So it's just natural for me to do it like that, because you go back to your lowest level of training and for some of us we need to understand. Your lowest level of training isn't the Bible, isn't Jesus, it's the bottle, it's the porn, it's the video games, it's the TV shows, it's social media. Do you think any of that is going to build you up and put on Christ? See, some of us. What you need to do is pick up the phone and call a brother or sister and go hey, your lowest level of training is greater than my lowest level of training. So here's the problem I'm facing right now. What can I do? How can this work? See, honestly, this is why Jesus said it was so hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven Because too many of us put our trust in us. I don't care how swole your bank account is, 2008, and for some of you I know you weren't alive 2008 can show you how quickly your bank account can go from full to empty and you didn't even spend anything. So if my trust is in me and my abilities, how am I putting on Christ? How am I sitting here, going, hey, I'm going to wake up.
Speaker 1:So, as we close today, let me ask you are you sleeping? And I know right now your answer is no. I can see your eyes. What I do want you to know is that there are people that sleep with their eyes open. My brother did it and we shared a room all our life and it used to freak me out if I woke up in the middle of the night, because he'd be like At one point I was like is he dead? It was terrifying, hated it, but a lot of us. That's how we're walking through our life. You're sleeping with your eyes open. Christ has put this stuff in front of you and you're going. No, I'm going to go to this stuff. Instead, let me ask you, like I asked you last week, what is it in your heart that you love more than you love Jesus? Because that is the very definition of an idol.
Speaker 1:How are you putting on Christ? How are you diving deeper into who Jesus is? In fact, I had this conversation with someone last week where I told them the most important thing we can do in Scripture is know who Jesus is, because if you don't understand who Jesus is, genesis through Malachi mean nothing because they're talking about a coming Savior. Acts through Revelation mean nothing because that only makes sense if you know coming Savior. Acts through revelation mean nothing, because that only makes sense if you know this Savior. See, how are we putting on Christ? How are you diving deeper into that? Because that's not a just Sunday morning while I'm up here for 40 to 50 minutes, because this is all you get. This ain't enough. I'm telling you and it's not because I doubt my ability. On the contrary, I've been told I'm arrogant more than once in my lifetime. It's just not enough. It's got to have other things that go with it.
Speaker 1:Like I told someone last week, you know what I would rather do. I would rather you come in with a list of questions, because you spent your entire week trying to find out who Jesus is. I would much rather stand up here and just go okay, who has a question? If you don't believe me, ask Christy. Christy shows up on Wednesdays and is just like okay, I get you, we're talking about this, but I have a question about this, and I love that Because you know what that shows. It shows you're putting on Christ Engagement In education. We call it a flipped classroom model, where you go home and you learn all of this stuff. But then you come in here and I expect you to be prepared and ready to dive deep into what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Just look at AI. Right, you pull your phone out and you Google something. What's the little button at the bottom of the AI search result? Dive deeper. Ai is sitting here going. Hey, understand. This is just the surface level. I can go more.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you are you sleeping or are you sitting here right now, going? You know what I need to wake up. Jesus is putting some alarm clocks in my life and this message was one of them, and I need to sit here and go. Hey, you know what I need to wake up. I need to get out of bed Because, understand, you can't accomplish anything in your life while you are laying in your bed, regardless of how comfortable your bed may be. I don't even care if you work from home. What do you got to do? Get up and get the computer. So you got to get up, you got to wake up, and that's what we're seeing. So, if you're sitting here this morning and you're like you know what? Yes, I hear the alarm. I need to wake up. Wake up, oh sleeper. Put on Christ. You need to talk or you need to pray. I'm here after service. Today's going to be a little weird just because I have a meeting at 1045. Today is going to be a little weird just because I have a meeting at 1045. But I got some time and if you want to stick around until 1115, I'll stay up here until 10 o'clock tonight. If you want Tomorrow's Labor Day, we're good.
Speaker 1:So, father, I ask and I pray that, if there's anyone in here, father, that you're sitting here just nudging, just going time to wake up, father, I ask and I pray that in their spirit they come alive, that they open their eyes and that they understand that there's more to life than just our problems, there's more to life than just our success. Father, I ask and I pray that you just wake up their spirit. I ask, father, if it's hey, they know they need to be more engaged in volunteering and giving of their time, talent and treasure. That, father, you lay it on them. And, father, if it's someone in here who's sitting here going, hey, I can't do this, there's just too much other stuff, father.
Speaker 1:Father, I ask that they reach out for help. I ask that they cast their cares on you so that they can focus on you, because you're strong enough to carry it the same way you carried the cross. So, father, I ask and I pray that we as a church wake up, that we sit here and we stop being distracted and stop being asleep and, god, we enter into the conflict and the war so that we can push back into the darkness, so that more will come to know and believe in you. Father, father, I ask and I pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.