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I have to say the opening songs to this message are very moving. The female praise leader really brings her best!! As a guest speaker to Newspring, http://www.newspring.cc/225499.ihtml, the well known Ed Young opens with a story about Eutychus in Acts 20:7-9. Was this the first guy to fall asleep in church? Ed jokes that Eutychus set the stage for a long list of successors. The text in Acts is interesting because it kind of tells us what was happening in the early church. Paul was preaching to a collective group of believers and it began to resemble the modern day church. Sometimes when he preaches, Ed will watch people falling asleep. He kids that he'll talk more quietly to lull them to sleep and then he'll speak in a booming voice to wake them up! Anyway, Paul is speaking in Troas and only has a few days left there. He's speaking on the third story of a mansion. It was packed, hot and humid. Lamps were in the room, "many lights", so that all could see what was happening. Back in his time, there were no clocks for sermons. Paul preached until midnight, which is when Eutychus fell asleep and rolled out the window three stories up! "You'd a 'cussed too (Eutychus) if you'd a fallen three stories and hit the pavement," Ed points out. Paul went down to the first floor, brought the guy back from the dead, went back upstairs and continued preaching until morning!! Many of us are not sleeping physically, but many of us are certainly asleep spiritually. 1) Some of us are asleep to Knowing. If we are asleep, we are missing out on what God wishes to do in our lives. Unfortunately, many of us will continue to sleep until the alarm goes off: 514!! 514!! 514!! We should hear the 514 alarm. This is Ephesians 5:14; "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." This is a beautiful passage which follows and it addresses us living wisely and following God's will. How many times have we seen someone involved in church and then we find out how they are in the cesspool of sin? How can this happen? It happens because these people are asleep!! They are spiritual sleepwalkers in church! Many peformance oriented people focus on what they can do to earn their way into heaven, but we can't do it on our own. We sin, and the wages of sin is death. Jesus has already done the work. We either receive it or we don't. Are we asleep to knowing Jesus Christ? Are we walking with the Lord or are we asleep? "Satan loves to sing lullabies...and he especially likes to sing to Christians..." Ed imitates Satan, " ....Rock a bye Believer, In the treetop, Snoozing will cause your growth to stop, Ignore the alarm and stay in bed, You'll never reach you potential, You sleepy head." His solo draws applause. GOD HAS AN AMAZING PLAN FOR US. Satan wants us to be comfortable. God wants us to live the adventure! 2) Some of us are asleep to Sowing. The Bible talks to us about the law of the harvest. Whatever we sow, we reap. We have time to do great stuff for God. If we just give a day, like Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, in Hebrews it says he will bless the rest. Give God our first of everything and he will bless the rest!! Sow for God. Ed was highly encouraged when he realized that, over the last 10 weeks, 8,500 children attended his church, Fellowship Church. But then, he was messed up because he found that only 161 attended EVERY week. What's more, only 30% have attended every other week. He calls parents to WAKE UP and teach children to give their time and resources to God first. We are all creative geniuses because we are made in the image of our Creator, God. We should give the first of our finances to God. If we don't, God says our finances will be cursed in Malachi. 3) Some of us are asleep to Growing. What does it mean to mature in Jesus? The big thing is application. How do we mature? We mature by SERVING. We aren't members if we don't serve. Martin Luther once had a dream about Hell. Satan was in charge and demons would report to him. Each demon would say they had attacked the Christians physically in different ways like wind storms and floods, but Satan would get angry and say, "Don't you get it? I'm not after their bodies, I'm after their souls!" Then a wise demon came before Satan and said he had caused a Christian to fall asleep. Upon hearing this, all of Hell gave him a standing ovation. Great message, Ed.