Awakening the Church

What if the church embraced the vigilance of New York, the city that never sleeps? We explore how the spiritual community can remain active and responsive amidst the turmoil of today's world, reflecting on the unsettling predictions of 2 Timothy, chapter 3. Join us in a frank discussion about today's rising violence, the breakdown of family structures, and the insidious threats emerging via social media. We argue for a spiritually awake and proactive church that combats negativity and fosters genuine connections within the community, even if physical doors can't remain open 24/7.

Our episode challenges listeners to wake up from spiritual complacency and reignite their passion for faith. By examining parallels with the church of Sardis, we emphasize the necessity of returning to fundamental practices of prayer and obedience, urging everyone to evaluate their spiritual commitments and daily choices. Ask yourself who you surround yourself with and what influences you allow into your life. This is a call to action for a vibrant, awake church ready to tackle today's pressing challenges with renewed fervor. Join the conversation on our social media platforms and share your insights with us!

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Chapters

• 0:29 The Church That Never Sleeps
• 12:54 Awakening the Sleeping Church
• 20:02 Waking Up the Church

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Thank you, Welcome back to the All Purpose Pod for an all-purpose life. Wherever you are today and however you're listening to the Call Me Mr U the podcast, I thank you once again for making us a part of your morning, your day and your week. We're your weekly mirror check before you go change the world. You can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and, of course, on our YouTube channel at TheyCallMeMrU. Thank you again for joining our show. We appreciate you supporting us liking, sharing and subscribing and doing all that you do and asking the crazy questions and offering the comments that you do. We really appreciate your support of us. We know that we're doing something impactful because we're seeing it and hearing messages from all across the country about what the world is going forth on Tuesday and Thursday is doing for our listeners, so we're grateful for it. We know it's not where we want to be, but we know that we're a lot better off than where we started, so we're grateful for the progression and for your being a part of the Call Me Mr you the podcast. Thank you once again.

Speaker 1: 1:30

I want to share a few things that just been on my heart recently, and I know that we are if you look at your news channel or however you get your media or your information or your data, you can kind of see that our world is undergoing some very strange changes, Areas where we're seeing wars and rumors of wars. You're seeing about what seemed to be an overwhelming sense of dread in some cases. You're seeing some lifestyle choices and ungodliness spreading out throughout the world. You're seeing people basically good with destroying each other, tearing each other down with innuendo and drama and gossip and just all the things that we've seen before. We're kind of seeing all that stuff at a heightened level, things that we've seen before. But we're kind of seeing all that stuff at a heightened level and it brings me to a study that I was doing recently in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, where it describes some behaviors that are indicative of the changes that are taking place in our world. If you take a look at it, you'll see a lot of important things there to watch out for when it comes to certain attitudes and demeanors and behaviors. But also you see right in the very beginning that the Bible says that perilous times shall come. What does that mean? That means that we're going to be in times of danger, times of uncertainty. This is not a dread message. I just want to encourage you guys with what we actually can see, what we know and what we can believe to come. Perilous time shall come, and we're in those times.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Right now You're seeing a great attack on the family, on children. You're seeing pedophiles get into places that we never thought they would be able to get into our school systems, our churches, and they're taking advantage of our children, especially over the internet. Certain social media platforms haven't done a great job with keeping that kind of entity out and away from our children's reach. Some parents could do a better job in that regard as well. But we're seeing a lot of things that don't look like people really care about one another. We become prone to walk all over each other, and that's pretty scary to watch that happen. We're showing ourselves to be inhuman and unloving and not showing natural affection, which is what 2 Timothy, chapter 3, prophesied about, and those kind of characters are going to be even more prevalent than they ever were before, where we see things that are outside of the scope of what we think is natural, normal behavior One of the things that I've been realizing. I want to start with this. I know what I titled this episode today the Church that Never Sleeps. This episode today the Church that Never Sleeps. I thought it was cute in the initial part of it, but it reminds me of my hometown.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Most people have a misconception of what New York is and how it is. Some people that go to New York to visit from other places. Some don't like it because it's too big, it's too fast moving, there's too much going on, it's too busy and it makes people uncomfortable when they're used to being in a place where it's a little bit slower, calmer, less drama, etc. Some folks come from the same places and they love it and they end up moving there because they want that kind of fast-paced life. They love to be in a place where it's called a city that never sleeps. Why do they call it that? Mainly because there's always something going on, all hours of the night, even until the next day. There's usually something going on. A lot of businesses or restaurants open 24 hours or into the wee hours of the morning. Two, three o'clock in the morning. There's always something going on on Broadway and Times Square. It's never all blacked out. There's always something happening. There's always some kind of activity. There's always businesses still selling even into the wee hours of the morning to the clothing, jewelry, et cetera. So that's why they call it the city never sleeps, because it's always something to do, regardless of what hours you're out and about.

Speaker 1: 5:46

I brought up the church that never sleeps because that's where I believe we should be, but unfortunately that's not where we are. I'm not saying your church should be opened up 24 hours a day, because people can't accommodate that kind of situation. They can't have the electric and the lights on for 24 hours a day, every day. They probably don't have enough personnel to man the church for that amount of time. Well, we're coming to a place where the church seems to be asleep. That's not a good situation. I know that you need sleep, we need sleep. Most of us advocate getting at least eight hours sleep. Some of us are living with five and six, some even less than that, but the bottom line is that the church should never be asleep.

Speaker 1: 6:30

There are people out there that are among us that are not components of any kind of organized religion, because the church has been asleep for so long that they've missed opportunities to show who God wants us to see him as, opportunities to show who God wants us to see him as, or the things that, or sort of kind of the principles and example that God wants us to show. But we failed to do so because we were asleep and people were hurt as a result, and now they find themselves hard pressed to even think about coming to God or coming to a place of faith because they've been hurt by a church that's been asleep, or even, in a sense, being asleep at the wheel. I think that's a challenge that we have. If anybody calls themselves a Christian, calls themselves a believer. We have a challenge ahead of us because the times don't seem to be getting better around us and a lot of times in times don't seem to be getting better around us, and a lot of times in times in most recent years, in the past five years, there have been opportunities for the church to open their mouths, use their influential voices and speak to some issues that are going on in our world, and without pointing fingers at any kind of particular church, just as a whole. We've dropped the ball in doing so. We've neglected the responsibility of doing that, and that's on us as a whole, not me, you and they, but it's on us as a whole. We have an opportunity there, in our neighborhoods, even in our own family, in our own household. We have an opportunity. In our own businesses, in our school systems, in our workplaces, in our community, in our neighborhoods, at our supermarkets. We have opportunity to showcase the light of Jesus Christ and for some reason, we declined to do so.

Speaker 1: 8:13

I read in scripture I believe that it's I want to give you the right address, but this scripture teaches us that no, they are a kind of person that has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof. The Bible says from those kind of people. We should turn away from them. It's going to be hard for some of us, because we're so comfortable with people who we've been friends with for a long period of time we don't realize that they have a form of godliness and they're not actually walking in the power and the authority that God gave us through Jesus Christ. What does that mean? It just essentially means that we have potential and we're not walking it out.

Speaker 1: 8:53

We're kind of doing things on a fringe, praying blanket prayers, not really doing the fullness of what we're called to do. Being who we're supposed to be in is fullness, and we're content with being a portion or a bit of who we're supposed to be, rather than being able to say we're walking in the fullness who God called us to be. And that refers to those who profess to be Christians and appear to be religious, but God's power is not manifested in them. They're not. They tolerate immorality in and outside of the church. They're okay with it because they're not fully committed to who God is and what he said through his word. It's not to be preaching, just saying that we got a big responsibility and we're not taking advantage of it. As a church, we seem to have fallen asleep Major issues around our world. We should be speaking to what we've fallen asleep. We're trying to avoid tense situations and trying to avoid issues that are controversial, issues that are controversial. We fall asleep and that's a problem.

Speaker 1: 10:04

A form of godliness is a resemblance or an established standard or expectation based on past experience. We look kind of like what the original thing should be. It's kind of a form how we should act traditionally, religiously, how we should act. It's basically a known ability to perform. That's what it means to have a form of guidance. We know how to do the right things, say the right things, pray in tongues at the right time, lay hands in the right situations, lift our hands and pray in the right moment, but all we're doing is rehearsing and learning things by experience, but not really by relationship. We know how to shout when a certain kind of music plays maybe an organ, perhaps we know how to dance and appear to be caught up in the spirit when we hear drums playing. It's a form of godliness. We've got to protect our heart from that behavior, because it's not godly. It's not something he approves of. He wants the heart. He wants the thing that we're withholding.

Speaker 1: 11:11

By walking in this partial version of who we're supposed to be as believers, we're denying the power. There, we're refusing something that's been offered to us, that's been sacrificed and given to us by blood, by blood and flesh. We're denying the power, we're rejecting the offer that's been made to us, and that's not people who don't believe in Jesus Christ, that's people who believe in him that have done that. We know the sacrifice has been made. We've heard it, We've seen it over and over again for years and years, but we don't want to accept. We don't want to accept what's actually happened. We don't want to actually accept what's been given to us.

Speaker 1: 11:54

I ran into a sermon from Revelation, chapter 1, which I thought was pretty awesome, and what it talked about is a great city who had a great military position, called Sardis, and they were known for their superior military position Because of where they were placed when the city was located on a hill they had superior position where they could see the enemy before he even showed up. Nobody could catch them by surprise because of where they were strategically located. They were known for that. They were a prominent and powerful city, but they made one mistake. I think it's a mistake that we all make and Jesus called them out on it in the book of Revelation, chapter one. He called them out on it because they were living in the book of Revelation, chapter one. You call them out on it because they were living in the prosperity of years past but currently not doing changing, advancing, progressing and growing. They were living off their past history, living off what they used to do back in the day and how things used to be.

Speaker 1: 12:54

I think that's part of the sleeping church. That's part of the reason why we are asleep and we need to be. I think that's part of the sleeping church. That's part of the reason why we are asleep and we need to be awakened so that we can see what the enemy is doing and rally against that and begin to stand up for what's right, stand up for what's God, stand up for what his word is saying to us and for us and about us. But we are asleep because we're resting on our former laws. Back in my day this is what we used to do.

Speaker 1: 13:20

People who are quite normally here say that they're usually wallflowers Standing at the back of the church, perhaps not doing anything, Perhaps not really actively involved. Maybe they're still sitting in their car while service is going on. Maybe they're in a lobby. Maybe they're spending extra time in the bathroom. Maybe they're sitting in the pews looking at their phones, Maybe it's for some reason. They can't get excited about worship. They can't get excited about praising the Lord. They can't get excited about being around fellow brothers and sisters who have accomplished some great things, seen some miracles in their life. They can't get excited about it. It's just kind of meh. Maybe they don't even come to church at all. They stay home because they've gotten to the place where the things that they used to have and used to experience are more valuable to them than what they're experiencing right now. Like the church in Sardis. They live off the prosperity of previous years as opposed to growing and progressing into the right now and into the future. They're living off of what used to be.

Speaker 1: 14:25

I know a lot of people who have been in church for a long time, at least five or 10 years. I'm positive you've seen this before. We see somebody who's tried to relive a dramatic time in their church's history. They tried to relive a feeling, tried to reinvent an experience or a moment that was a good time in their life in their spiritual walk. They're not building toward what God is saying and doing now, but they're trying to recreate that moment.

Speaker 1: 14:57

People who have deep psychosis and people who have serious mental issues almost like what you would do with a computer. They try to go back to the time when things were the best. And people who I've seen that even in my own family, people who have serious mental issues and disorders they default back to the best time that they had the most happiest time, the most pleasurable time they had, and they end up staying there. And if this was a computer? If it was a computer, what would happen is a computer expert or a technician or somebody in tech support would go back to the point where your computer worked the best and delete everything that happened since then that might have injected a virus or some kind of abnormality since then that might have injected a virus or some kind of abnormality. It would go back to the last point where your computer was working the way it was supposed to, updating properly and functioning and processing properly. It would take you back. The technician would take you back to your computer, back to that place where your computer worked the best. And a lot of times that's what we've done. We've gone back to the place where we've been at our highest point and we try to recreate it.

Speaker 1: 16:09

I want to challenge you to do something different this time. It's cool. Go back to where you were obedient to God. Go back to that place where you were serving him and listening for his voice. Go back to the time where you were praying with consistency. Go back to the time where you were fasting without having to be told to fast or forced into a fast. Go back to the time where you were so excited about the Lord and so on fire for God that you did what he said, no matter how strange it was, no matter how awkward it sounded in your ears and in your mind you did what he said. Default back to that point and start from there. Go back to the place where you were obedient. Perhaps you're in a place right now where you've added some things to your life, some people into your life, and you're not where you were. You didn't even realize that. You know what? I missed something. I kind of got off here. Go back to the place where you were first obedient to the Lord. Go back to that place. Go back to where you listened to what he told you to do and you honored him with your life and you fasted and prayed before him and you were submissive and you cared about what he said and you cared about what mattered to him. Your heart was aligned with his heart. That's one time. Going back it's not a bad thing.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Right now, the church is asleep. We're ignoring things that we should be paying attention to and our voices are. Our lack of voices, I should say, is one of the reasons why the earth is experiencing what this experience is trembling, the way it's being shaken, the way it's being shaken because we won't speak, because we won't stand up, because we won't be who God called us to be. That's one of the sins that we are committing by being asleep and staying in slumber. We resemble a church that's dead Rather than a church that's actually alive. We have a reputation for being alive, but we're not alive, and that was Jesus' condemnation to the church of Sardis.

Speaker 1: 18:12

I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you're actually dead. You were once powerful, but you're living off of the fruitfulness of ages that have already gone by. You're living off of old fruit when God wants to renew you day after day, every day. The inside man is starting to perish, but the outer man is starting to perish, but the inside, the spiritual man, is growing and desiring to grow even more and progress even more, and we're suffocating that man with the way that we live, our refusal to wake up and take care of our specific responsibilities. We can blame the church as a whole and say it's all their fault, but at the end of the, what's really an accurate situation is that we are not fooling anybody by our outward appearance. We have a responsibility and we're not taking advantage of that. We have to. It's time for us to take advantage of the opportunity we have, because, as long as you're breathing today, as long as you live, move, breathe and have your being in God.

Speaker 1: 19:21

You got a chance to turn the corner and make some changes. There's some areas of your life that ain't lining up. There's some ways you treat your fellow brothers and sisters. It's not of God. He's not good with you playing mean girls and start exclusive clubs and cutting your brothers and sisters off. He's not good with that. He's not good with you seeing immorality in your house and in your lifestyle and you come to church, pretend like nobody can see that because they're not at your house, but God still sees it. How do you spend your money? Are you generous or are you stingy and selfish? God is seeing this. These are all indicative of a church that's asleep.

Speaker 1: 20:02

It's time for us to wake up. How do you entertain yourself? What do you watch? What do you listen to? Who do you hang around? What's your friendship circle look like? Is it all religious folks or is it folks on fire for God that can't do anything but love God and praise God and live for God? Are we going to be the church that's asleep or are we going to wake up? I encourage you to open your eyes, See what's actually going on and wake up. Hope this is a blessing to you. Please drop your comments on our YouTube channel and, of course, on Twitter and Facebook when you see our post drop. Thank you again for your time and for supporting our show. Have a great day, Coach out.