This series, we have been talking about the fact that we live limited lives. But how many of you know we serve a limitless God? I am so glad we do, because He will actually help us live limitless lives. Of course, we need boundaries. There are healthy things we do need, and I am not talking about those. I am talking about having more spiritual freedom and really experiencing the limitless power that can only come from God.
Our theme verse for this whole series comes from Ephesians 3.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)
So the big idea is this: God made you for more, and He has the power to actually get you there.
I have been thinking a lot about love. My dad and I recently co-officiated a wedding for my sister, Jenn. Some of you know her story. Five years ago she lost her husband. They had been married sixteen years, and he was an amazing man of God. She went through all the grief that comes with that, and she has lived these last five years as a widow. But a couple of years ago, a man named Ray came into her life, and he is a great man of God. What is interesting is that Ray and Jenn knew each other as children. They went to school together in Birmingham, Alabama. And forty years later, they are married. I just think that is amazing. We are glad to welcome Ray into the family as a brother.
My sister is very detailed. She had a checklist of checklists. Somehow I think I got through every item on it, and we had a beautiful celebration. It was so cool to be up there with my dad. But it got me thinking about love, and it reminded me of when Missy and I first started dating.
I dated a few girls before I dated Missy, and I thought I knew love. Then I met this girl and fell in love, and I thought, "Oh, this is what love is." This was way more than warm and fuzzies. I had all that. It was more than a crush. I had that too. But this was something very different.
As our relationship grew, there was a moment I will never forget. I realized I wanted to live my life so that her life would be better. I did not want to live for me anymore. I wanted to live for her. I would still have goals, but I wanted to see her goals, her visions, and her dreams come true too. And I really knew it was time to ask her to marry me when I realized I would die so that she could live. That is true love. The best husbands I know would all say the same thing: we would give our lives for our wives.
And of course, we have Someone who loved us first in that same way. That is who I want to talk to you about.
You can see somebody who is in love. You can kind of witness it. But you have no idea what it is until you experience it. When I found my first love, I felt like I had just woken up. My life before was nothing, and my life since has been everything. I was wide awake to all that life had for us.
I think some of you might never have experienced that with God. Maybe there is a little spiritual slumber going on, and you have never woken up to the things of God. Or maybe at one time you were awake. You knew God. But you dozed off, some things crept into your life, and somewhere along the way you fell asleep.
Dead Asleep
Aren’t you glad God invented sleep? And naps? Naps are heaven sent. All kinds of things happen when we sleep. Your brain recharges. While you sleep, your brain takes the memories of your day and files them away. Your body gets refreshed. And I think there is a spiritual reset that takes place too. When you wake up, you have nothing on your mind yet. It is the best time to spend with God. I love my mornings with the Lord, because God’s Word says His mercies are new every morning.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV)
We wake up to new mercy from God every single day. It is a cycle God has given us.
But there are some strange things about sleep too. One of the strangest is sleepwalking. About one in twenty children sleepwalk. When someone is sleepwalking, they are asleep, but their eyes are open. They can get up, move around, and even talk. There have been a few cases of people driving a car in their sleep.
I read about a chef in Scotland named Robert Wood. His wife reported that he got up in the middle of the night, sound asleep, and made an entire meal of spaghetti bolognese. When the newspaper interviewed her, they asked if she ate it. She did not. Now that I have told Missy this story, she is hoping I start sleepwalking. If she could get breakfast in bed every morning, she would work that out. And she would not want me to wake up after breakfast, because the honey-do list is long.
The Bible actually has a lot to say about sleep. It talks about rest and the good reasons we need sleep. But it also talks about why spiritual sleep is a bad thing. Our bodies need physical sleep, but we cannot afford to fall asleep spiritually, because some of us can find ourselves dead asleep in God and not even know it.
I think of our kids when they were little, riding down the road, fighting sleep. They resist and resist, and then they finally give in. None of us want to fall asleep spiritually. We just do, and we do not know we have fallen asleep to the things God is trying to do. You might be dealing with it and not even know it. Here are three ways you might be sleepwalking spiritually.
Going through the motions. If you ever feel like you are just going through the motions with God, ask yourself, "Am I spiritually asleep?" You might believe in Jesus but have doubts about what He is able or willing to do for you. Maybe you go to church when it is convenient, and you only really pray when there is an emergency. What is actually happening is that you are forgetting who you are.
Living for what you want. This can happen to any of us on any given day. You can wake up and choose to make the day all about you instead of about God. A sleepwalker is in their own world. They do not really know what is going on around them. Your schedule, your stress, and all your stuff can surround you so much that you are only living in your own world. The problem is that you are walking right past people God is trying to give you a divine appointment with.
Leading yourself. Instead of letting God lead your life, you know what God has said, and you choose to go your own way anyway. You make the call first, and then after you have decided, you pray and ask God to bless it. And God is like, "I wasn’t even around for the first part of this story." You are leading you.
Paul describes life without God this way:
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Ephesians 4:18 (NIV)
The people Paul is describing were far from God. They had never woken up in Him. But Paul is talking about the danger of that distance that can happen between us and God. And that is the worst part about sleepwalking: you do not know you are doing it. Somebody has to wake you up.
That is my hope for you. And if that is you, it is not the end of the story. Paul does this same thing for the church at Ephesus. He quotes a song that was probably one of the early hymns of the church.
This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Ephesians 5:14 (NIV)
If I cannot wake you up, and for some reason Paul cannot wake you up, here is the beauty of it: the best person to wake you up is Jesus Himself. He is here to tell you personally, "Wake up." Let Him shine on you today.
Wide Awake
I want to help us get out of any spiritual slumber we might be in, and I think this will also protect us from any spiritual slumber that might come our way in the future.
Wake up to who you are
We cannot be caught in a place where we do not know our identity in Christ. When you are sleepwalking, you do not know who you are. You do not know where you are. You are disconnected from reality, and we have to come back to what God says about who we are.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) Ephesians 5:8-9 (NIV)
Paul is saying you were in the dark. You were darkness, quite literally. But in Jesus, you are now light. You are the opposite of what you were.
But knowing who you are is where it starts. It is not where it stops. You have to keep growing into who God wants you to be. I sensed the Holy Spirit strongly encouraging me this week that this had to be said. There are people who started in God but have not kept growing in God. This is not a judgmental statement at all. But I have met Christians who are three or four years into their journey with Jesus and they are still on a day one diet, a day one discipline, a day one understanding of who God is and who they are in Him. We were never meant to start and then stop. So can we grow this week? I am planning to grow in God this week. I hope you will join me.
Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2 (NIV)
Jesus loved us first. He came to us first. I told you that one of the great moments in my relationship with Missy was understanding that I would be willing to lay down my life for her, and now for my children too. That is not something I just say. I know I would do it in a split second. But Jesus did not just say He would love us. He did not just commit to loving us. He did something. He came and died on that cross, a brutal death. He gave up a perfect life for us. And praise God, He was raised to life three days later, and He is Lord and Savior for all who call on Him.
At the wedding, my dad and I were co-officiating, and I do not think I had ever done that before. We are a ministry family, and it was fun, like we were teeing off each other. At the end, during the recessional, a fun song was playing and the little flower girls were dancing, and it got me moving. Unbeknownst to me, my dad was moving too. I found out afterward that my dad and I have the same dance moves. And people kept coming up and saying, "You look so much like your dad." I told them, "Well, he’s so handsome, so I’m glad you said that."
As we grow up, we tend to look more and more like our parents. You can walk into a room and know who belongs to who. People walk up to me and say, "You’re Grady’s son." Yep, always have been.
Here is the thing. If we are growing in God, we should look more like God. If Jesus is at the center of our lives, and everything we are motivated by points to Him, we should look a whole lot more like Him every day. I love that I look like my earthly father. I love even more that I am looking more and more like my heavenly Father every day. I am so far from perfect, but that is not what it is about anyway. It is about growing and taking steps in Him.
The best thing you can do is find out what He loves and love that too. Isn’t that the best way to be a friend to somebody? Find out what they love and love it too. It is the same with your family and your spouse. And it is the same with God.
But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. Ephesians 5:13 (NIV)
When God’s light gets on you, it does not stop there. You become a reflection of God’s love, a light yourself. And that light has a purpose for somebody else.
Wake up to who needs you
If you are sleepwalking, you can walk right past anybody and not know they are there. And if we are not careful spiritually, we can go a whole week the same way. We are busy, we are on autopilot, we are just doing the thing, and we walk right past the people God wants us to bless, to talk to, to have a conversation with. He put them in our path for a reason.
The night before He went to the cross, Jesus asked His closest friends for help, and they fell asleep. These disciples had seen Him perform miracles before their eyes, and all He asked was for them to pray for Him.
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he said to Peter, "are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Mark 14:37 (NIV)
Jesus needed them, and they slept through it. There is somebody in your life who needs you to be awake spiritually right now. It is not just about you and your own relationship with God. It is also about what God wants to do in you and through you for somebody else. So look around for an opportunity to make a difference in somebody else’s life.
This is the heartbeat of our Dream Team. It is why they serve week after week. They know there is an opportunity every Sunday, and all throughout the week in small groups, to make a difference in people’s lives. Every day, we should be looking for an opportunity to pour into somebody else’s life and reflect Jesus to them.
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16 (NIV)
It is not about how smart you are. It is about paying attention. It has nothing to do with your knowledge and everything to do with your focus, your eyes being open to what is going on around you.
And most of these opportunities have to do with people. The coworker sitting next to you. The neighbor you find it hard to talk to, who maybe even frustrates you. How about one more shot? One more conversation? Your own kids at the dinner table, or family members where conversations about faith have been a struggle for a long time.
Some of us think our purpose is for someday. The reality is, it is today. You have purpose right now. This afternoon, God can use you in an incredible way. So ask God one thing this week: "Lord, who is that person today?" I pray that almost every day. "Lord, who is it? Where is that divine appointment?" I want to slow down when the time is right. We have work to do, but it is not so important that I walk past somebody God wants me to pour into.
Wake up to Who leads you
I capitalized "Who" so you know exactly who I am talking about. Wake up to the fact that God is leading you. He wants to give you direction for your life. Have you ever put an address in your phone and ended up somewhere you did not intend? You look around and think, "Where am I?" We need direction. A person who is sleepwalking might be moving, but they do not have any direction. There is an aimlessness to it.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Ephesians 5:17 (NIV)
God’s will is not a secret He is keeping from you. It is not a mystery He knows while He expects you to guess. We can actually know it. Paul says it can be understood.
In fact, God’s will is already written down. Even in this one chapter, He gives it to us. His will is for us to walk in love, to live as children of light, to make the most of every opportunity, and to always give thanks. You are looking for God’s will? There is direction right there.
And here is the rest of the sentence from verse 8:
and find out what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:10 (NIV)
As we walk with Him, we discover the things God loves. We will not only discover what God’s will is, we will discover who is really leading us. So here is the question for the week: does this please the Lord? How I am living, what I am about, the conversations I am having, the people I call my friends, the way I invest, the way I give, the way I serve. Does this please the Lord?
Remember Your First Love
Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, and it has been a blessing ever since. But a generation later, Jesus gave a revelation to John, and in it Jesus had a letter of His own for that very same church. I believe these letters are still prophetic for the church today, and we have to take them to heart personally.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. Revelation 2:4-5 (NIV)
You forgot your first love. It sounds like a rebuke, and it is. But God never rebukes you and leaves you with no way out. There is always a path forward. Jesus says, repent and do the things you did at first. Remember when you first fell in love with Him, all the things you did when you were radically in love with Him, and get back to that place. Fall in love with Him all over again.
If the warning sounds harsh, I think it is rightfully so. If we have experienced the love of God, we should never forget it. It should never be in our hearts to drift off into spiritual slumber. But if it happens, wake up. It is morning. There is a new day for you here. There is even a new day for the person who has never known God at all.
Your first love is Jesus. For what He did for you, the least we can do is love Him in return. So ask yourself two questions this week. Do I love God so much that I will live for Him? And do I love God so much that I would be willing to give up my life for Him, so that somebody else might know Him and see His light in my life? I know it is a heavy thought, but I think we should know the answer to those questions deep in our hearts. And if the answer to either one is no, please pray. Ask God to give you the power to say yes. He promises it:
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:18-20 (NIV)
If your life looks like that, I promise you the answer to those questions is yes.
Jesus gave His life for you, and because He did, being willing is the least we can do. Let’s remember our first love. Some of you may know Him as your first love for the first time today. It is not about being perfect before you come to God. You could never pay for your own sin, and you would not want to, because that price is death. But the Bible makes it simple.
If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Romans 10:9-10 (NIV)
If you are ready to wake up new, pray this: Lord Jesus, thank You for this moment. Thank You that You loved me first, and I return that love to You. Thank You, Jesus, that You saved me, that You died for me, that You were raised to life and are seated at the right hand of God. May my life be Yours forever. I willingly give it to You, in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, write down this date. This was the day you gave your life to the One who gave His life for you. We would love to help you take your next step at rise.church.
