Wake Up

WAKE UP!

ROMANS 13:11-14

INTRODUCTION: It is amazing how time has changed through the years of my life. Someone wrote: What Happened to Time

 When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept.

 When as a youth I dreamed and talked, time walked.

 When I became a full-grown man, time ran.

 And later as I older grew, time flew.

 Soon I shall find while traveling on, time gone. – Source Unknown

So often we have dreams, aspirations, and things we are going-to-do and then we realize that time has slipped by so quickly and those things are left undone. Paul talking to the Roman Christians speaks about knowing the time and calls upon believers to wake up.

I. We are living at a time when many believers are spiritually asleep.

A. They are sleeping the slumber of indifference.

1. The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things. - Larry Crabb in Finding God. Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 3.

2. A great king had prepared a magnificent wedding celebration for his son. He sent out invitations. In Matthew 22:4 we are told that “he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.” Note the response in verse 5, “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:”

3. They ignored and paid no attention to the king’s calling and desires, just as many today are slumbering and paying no attention to what is going on in the world and the dedication and service that God wants from His people, especially in light of the soon return of His Son Jesus Christ and the fast approaching wedding of the Lamb of God.

4. Some people think the opposite of love is hate, but it really is indifference.

5. Love will find a way--indifference will find an excuse.

B. They are sleeping the slumber of complacency

1. Complacency – self-satisfaction accompanied by an unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.

2. Too many are satisfied with their progress in the Christian life willing to allow Christ to be Savior but unwilling to let Him be Lord of their lives.

3. 2 Kings 10:31a “But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart:”

4. If a man comes to a point where he is so content that he says, "I do not want to know any more, or do any more, or be any more," he is in a state in which he ought to be changed into a mummy. - Henry Ward Beecher. Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 3

5. It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are. – Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832).

6. Philippians 3:13 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,”

7. Ronald Meredith, in his book Hurryin’ Big For Little Reasons, describes one quiet night in early spring: Suddenly out of the night came the sound of wild geese flying. I ran to the house and breathlessly announced the excitement I felt. What is to compare with wild geese across the moon? It might have ended there except for the sight of our tame mallards on the pond. They heard the wild call they had once known. The honking out of the night sent little arrows of prompting deep into their wild yesterdays. Their wings fluttered a feeble response. The urge to fly--to take their place in the sky for which God made them-- was sounding in their feathered breasts, but they never raised from the water. The matter had been settled long ago. The corn of the barnyard was too tempting! Now their desire to fly only made them uncomfortable. - copied

C. They are sleeping the slumber of slothfulness

1. Jeremiah 48:10 “Cursed be he that does the work of the LORD deceitfully” (YLT) “Cursed is he who is doing the work of Jehovah slothfully…”

2. Too many are passing lazily through life with little if any commitment to serving Christ.

3. Proverbs 6:9-11 "How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travels, and thy want as an armed man."

4. Matthew 25:24-28 "Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed: [25] And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. [26] His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed: [27] Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. [28] Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents."