From Slumber To Splendor Pt. 1

[Music] turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts the chapter number 20 Acts chapter 20 the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles and chapter number 20 and I want to read verses 7 through verse number 12 and upon the fresh day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread Paul preached under them ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight and there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together and there sat in a window a certain young man named eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep and as Paul was lying preaching i'ma try dead one of these days as Paul's Molly preaching he sucked down with sleep and fell down from the third loss and was taken up dead and Paul went down and fell on him many embracing him said trouble make yourselves for his life is in him when he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked the long while even till break of day so he departed and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted thank you you may be seated grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God shall stand forever Lord for a moment from this subject from slumber to spin there from slumber to spin there this week's ministry focus in our Purpose Driven Life campaign is ministry what it means to be involved in ministry come to church get involved actively in church that was a rather rather small ineffective Church in this little town and the church caught fire and members of the church heard about it and they came out in droves and did the best they could but they were unsuccessful in putting out the fire on that church and that was a man in that town who did not ever darken the church's door he was out there and one of the members of the church said what are you doing out here you've never come to this church what are you doing here tonight he said I'm out here because I've never seen the trees on fire somebody gonna get me on the way there at breakfast people would come here people would leave their houses if they ever saw the church on fire we are not going to change the world by criticism of it nor by conformity to it but by the combustion within it of lives set on fire by the holy spirit when was the last time you even invited somebody to come to church talk back to me if you can I know you come I know your husband comes I know you get in your car and put on your clothes and drive to your church but when was the last time you caught a fire about the goodness of God when was the last time you were burning with so much enthusiasm that somebody just had to come and see what gets you so excited on Monday morning I think the reason Paul preached so long in this passage is because Jeremiah says is like fire shut up in my bones and and when when was the last time beloved did the word burn in your soul like fire where is your enthusiasm where is your excitement how can you hear the name Christ and not open your mouth how can you be in the service of the Living God sit in the presence of the one who kept you and not even be emotionally moved let alone physically move someone ought to help me preacher this morning I want you to walk with me through this passage of Scripture because it'll help us to recognize that there marks of a devoted church a devoted church they met at an appointed time this is the earliest text that we have from which it may be inferred with reasonable certainty that the Christians regularly gathered on the first day of the week they met not on Saturday they were getting out of their Jewish mess they were coming into their own as Christians and this is the first text mentioned where they worshipped on Sunday they gathered at a particular place at a particular time I was I was down home yesterday and one of the members here at Lillie Grove who was from my home said that they're gonna stay down there for a couple of days and I said are you going to church she said no I'm gonna be at bedside Baptist and I never could quite find out what bedside Baptist mean that guess that mean you ain't going to church you're gonna be in the being but that ain't the church God's been too good to us for us to go to bedside Baptist God is open to minute doors for us to just think that we can watch church on television and call ourselves having had church or watch church being streamed online I think some people would take the Lord's Supper online if they could you're just to stay away from the fellowship you need the church you need to be in the place that is designated for God's worship because there's something that happens at God's house that don't happen at your house I need a witness here this morning that knows that that's something about being in the sanctuary it's something about being here early and getting in your seat and get this settled and ready to hear the devotion and ready to sing and ready to pray and ready to hear the gospel preach you can't get that anywhere but at God's house David said I was glad when they said unto me let us go to the house of the Lord he said my steps were almost gone my feet had well-nigh slipped when I saw how the wicked prosper then the righteous suffered but then I went in the sanctuary it's something about coming in the sanctuary to get your mind right that'll get your spirit right that are happy to see that trouble don't last always there's a brighter day ahead no matter what you're going through it you can make your way to God's house at the appointed hour God has a word tailored for your situation we met at an appointed hour and then it was eager attendants they didn't they didn't drag in like like they were on their way to the gas chamber they didn't drag in that Lord I mean let me get in here and try to try to pray I wonder what choir singing the day this is Rowan Anna's gonna be there today cuz I ain't put all this girdle and all this on and he ain't gonna be I lack rebel Washington but he never Evan Anderson you know how y'all talk you know you know how yeah but but when you want a wish of God you don't care what choir singing they don't have to be your data uh sure or to be a greeter that matter if Reverend Anderson is inappropriate or the Sunday school teacher is there I'm here not for a man I'm here for the Lord Jesus Christ I woke up this morning with my mind not stayed on the pasta but stayed on Jesus and if your man is staying on Jesus you can enjoy worship no matter what's going on his eager eager anticipation this intimately the Grove it's easy to get a crowd to come to church for feast for funeral or for fight but it's hard to feel this traitor for preaching because the day will come and it is already here when they will not endure sound doctrine they will heap for themselves teachers having itching ears and they will turn away from the truth and run after fables they want their ears tickled they want their emotions stirred but they don't want to know about it to tell them what to do I wish I had a believer yet but they don't want anything that has to do with sacrifice and denying yourself and and putting you all on the altar and and giving up your life for Jesus Christ and when it comes to that we are we are eager for feasts a funeral or fight will jam this church for musical but music as as much as I love it it won't save you it'll make you feel good but you feel good on the same music you hear at a concert that you hear at church you will be just as moved at a concert Beyonce you got your ticket already in your press right now you going tonight and you're gonna be just as excited about that shouting I mean they might have to fan you at the concert yes that's emotion that that don't do anything but make you feel good and then after you paid $300 for all of that and got to go to work in the morning and say what a fool I've been we honestly gone home rich and here I got to go to work in the mine that best feel and that's that's that that comes and goes but when you get the word in you somehow ought to help me here when you feast on the Word of God it'll last you till next week somebody here had a problem and look like you wouldn't be able to solve it and you came to church and heard the gospel preached and looked like the one preaching was in the house with you last week and they preached just what you needed to hear because God's Holy Spirit knows how to touch you right where your situation is and I don't think I could make it another week without the Word of God I can't make it another moment I can't make it another hour unless I feast on the Word of God that's power in the word there are solutions in the word their salvation in the word but you've got to come to the word and to the worship with eager attendants I want to know what God will have me to do let me say a word to some of us who are like me I want to know what's right even if I ain't gonna do it I want to know the right thing to do even if I'm not gonna do right at least I know what's right and I want somebody standing before me on Sunday morning telling me what's right and not what I want to hear because sometimes the gospel got to shake you up sometimes the word got to make you upset sometimes the truth has to turn you upside down so you can turn your right side up [Applause] those of us who preach and those of us who teach the Word of God need to be extremely careful that we watch the devil here because Satan will urge you to preach a gospel or teach a lesson that is reasonable but not powerful exciting but not authoritative a word that flatters but does not confront a word that scams the surface but doesn't plow underneath preachers watch this business of popularity teacher watch trying to be popular i far rather be powerful than to be popular because when the Lord comes again he's not gonna call me Bishop he's not gonna call me doctor he's not gonna call me Reverend he's not gonna call me pastor servant well done you've been faithful over a few things and a few things that God has called us to do we ought to be faithful over that and we ought to put our hands through it with eagerness let me say one more time if you're not gonna put your heart in it don't put your hands on it if you're not gonna put your heart in it don't even put your hands on it was an eager attendance among those people but then it was a closed fellowship Amos says in chapter 3 of Amos he says how can two walk together except they be agreed anything that disrupts unity in the body of Christ is not of God because the Spirit of God will not be anywhere where there is this unity not uniformity but unity unity of mind unity of heart unity of spirit and then in that gathering the Word of God was preeminent because Paul preached until daybreak and nobody left if I preached past 9:15 I wish I had two or three witnesses here if I go a little too long you started looking at you watch and and start fumbling around and getting you gathering your purse and getting all your stuff together because you want to be the first one out of here because he's preached too long Paul preached all night all night this happened I told you about this some years ago when I went to Haiti first time I went to Haiti I preached in Haiti and it was it was hundreds of people yeah but not I don't even want to call it a tent because it wasn't even good enough to be called a tent it was kind of like a little sheet or something that they had over them hundreds of them in this in this little gathering which sticks holding up this little sheet over them because it was hot out there and it was hundreds of them gathered some of them naked because they didn't have clothes not trying to be provocative with nothing like that they were just there because they wanted to hear the missionary from America they want to put their hands on the missionary from America I was the missionary from America and they were out there hundreds of them out there and it started pouring down raining and so I looked at my hosts and look at Reverend Vaughn and I'm thinking let's get our stuff and get out of here because it's pouring down raining not one of them moved every last one of them stayed in their seat that the wind took their little sheet out the way the rain was pouring on them and none of them got up and moved and so I asked the host like why is nobody leaving he said Reverend they would think that disrespectful they don't want to be disrespectful and so they're gonna sit until the rain stops and until you preach and I'm sitting to myself I'm getting wet now I can get wet leaving Church but I can't stand getting wet coming to church I halfway don't blame people who don't come to church when it's raining because I can't stand getting my church clothes wet but none of them moved none of them got out of the way so I stood there and preached in a driving rain when I got through preaching I said if I had been at Lilly group they would have stoned me then I set my house on fire put put sugar in my gas tank killed one of my brothers in the rain reven are you out your mind is raining out here but none of them moved because they thought it would have been disrespectful and so I walk around with I walked around with the host with the pastor there and I said Reverend how can you stand this ground grinding poverty and these people just going through this day in and day out day in and day out nothing to look forward to but all of this misery and hunger and pain and he said Reverend we can handle it because we know we're gonna be in heaven longer than we gonna be in hated that shouted me that warned my heart we're gonna be in heaven longer than we gonna be in Haiti if you can't stand a little pressure if you can't stand nobody talking about you if you can't stand a little heartbreak how you if you run with the footmen and they've wearied you how are you gonna continue with horses if you can't stand in the land where peace and prosperity abide what are you gonna do at the swelling of the Jordan if the little things get you off your game spiritually how you gonna handle it when the rug is pulled out from under you and life doesn't fit into your plans anymore Paul preached all and B what devoted enough to be eager in that fellowship and they stayed there because the word was preeminent and when the word is your first priority you come to church for the word good as this choir sings I didn't come here to hear the choir sing I came here because there's power there salvation that's resurrection in the word that's a devoted Church but I want you to see in verse 9 a dead church member you can have a devoted Church and still have some dead church members Dave de dee did no joy no peace they don't laugh they don't smile they don't shake anybody's hands they're not welcoming they are not warm they're cold cuz they're dead they're alive physically but then spiritually more abondoned decaying stinking rotting dead dead dead they look around that was a movie there was a movie some years ago starring a little boy named hailey Osmond and in that movie The Sixth Sense was the name of the movie and in that movie that little boy went around saying I see dead people and this morning [Applause] I see dead people no joy no peace no contentment no life no no laughter no animation dead what happened Paul is preaching and this boy Eutychus ends up in a dangerous position he's in the window seal up on the third level now that's probably not where he started out he was probably at the bottom listening but then the service went a little long and it was hot in there and he got up to the window to get some air but it's dangerous on the ledge because when you're on the ledge spiritually the danger is you can fall off somebody ought to help me preach it this morning brothers and sisters backsliding and that is a word that that is that there is something that can happen to you backsliding doesn't happen overnight you [Music] gradually backslide you eventually backslide by staying away from church and before you know it it's a week and then it's three weeks then it's two months then it's six months and before you know what you haven't been to church in a year and then after a while you're out of the fellowship altogether not because you intended to you just like a sheep nibbled away from the fold you just kept nibbling never never pick your head up never never stop eating you you just kept on nibbling then you said you said well you know you don't have to go to church every Sunday you start justifying not coming to church you don't have to be in church every Sunday be there every time the doors open you need to take care of yourself you work hard and your children are in a lot of extracurricular activities and God understands that no he doesn't and you notice you know it's not the right thing to do but the devil will always take you further than you intended to go and before you know it you are in a backslidden condition I read this the other day and this is apropos for this little sermon this morning that was this pilot who was flying the plane he was flying a plane a cargo plane nobody was in the plane but him and he heard this scratching sound behind him and no one else was in the plane but him so he knew it had to be a rat or mouse or something so he put on his oxygen mask and flew to a higher altitude and he flew to this high altitude and then he no longer heard that scratching noise and when he landed the plane took off his oxygen mask look behind him a rat had shooed the line almost in - but the high altitude killed a rat because it starved it of oxygen and so the pilot gives us a lesson this morning that sin can live at high spiritual altitude because if you stay down there a little thing can kill your face a little thing can destroy your joy a little thing can eat away at your happiness and your peace but if you take it véra sin can live in a high spiritual altitude and some of you have allowed little things to know and chew and bite away at your spiritual piece so that now you don't even read the Bible no more you're no longer have a morning devotion you hardly ever pray unless you're in trouble because you let some small thing eat away at your spiritual peace but bring that plane to a high altitude and watch God do some things above the clouds that'll never happen for you on the ground I need somebody here who's whose spiritual altitude is way up here that you don't let the noise that's down there disturb you this jarring that I have the world did he give it to me and the world can't take it away I can never sit in church and not be excited I was at the funeral at the Catholic Church the other week and that girl was singing and I was the only one in that saying sorry and everybody turned around and looked at me cuz you know in the Catholic Church you get on your knees and get up and then get back down on your knees and get up and then you know put your hands together and look real whole but that girl was blow in and I was getting happy in the Catholic Church and they turned around and looked at me like some of y'all look at folk who shout over here and they would perhaps thinking what's wrong with you ain't nothin wrong with me wherever I hear the name Jesus wherever God is being praised with power and enthusiasm if nobody enjoys it but me I'm a enjoyed by myself I enjoy music on the radio when they're talking about Jesus I wish I had a witness here I can die when I think about what he's done for me the doors he's open the ways he's me if I'm the only one of my few who's shouting I don't God's been good to me and I don't come to church for you I come to church to give God glory I come to church with eager anticipation God what are you gonna do next [Music] [Applause] that boy fell down because he went to sleep he was in church you just went to sleep you didn't charge but he got sleepy if you're not spiritual church or make you sleepy God stuff make you sleepy I'm glad I was raised the way I was raised by the folk who raised me cuz when we were children some of y'all my age can help me shout right here we didn't bring coloring books and and and sippy cups and and iPads with us where we'd have no iPad but we didn't bring anything the church to entertain us they said something I thought help me preach it if my momma was in the choir stand all she had to do was look at me and I knew to sit down [Music] somebody ought to help me here and then if I was in the choir my momma would say come in and we'd go outside and go to the bathroom and I'd come back and lead us all because they knew how to raise children they know how to make you be still and be quiet and hear what they said you're in God's house I wish I had somebody to help me here but now we have to entertain them and and make sure that we don't hurt their feelings and destroy their self-esteem but you need to tell your son and daughter like I tell my own daughter if you play around on the ledge you're more susceptible to fall stay in church stay with the Lord because if you fall while you're in church you don't have a long drop because some of us have fallen since we've been in church I wish I had one or two more honest believers in it some of us have made some decisions we wish we hadn't made since we've been in church I wish I had one or two more witnesses on this side some of us have lied since we've been in church some of us have done enough to be inhale since we've been a Christian but since you've been in church that's forgiveness if you say you have no sin you're a liar and the truth is not in you but if you confess your sin he is faithful yes he is he's faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness the Bible says if you cover your sins you can't prosper but if you forsake your sins God will have mercy he failed because he went to sleep and he fell down dead he was he was half in and half out that'll that'll make you fall half in half like some members I'm in the growth half in and half out you you just you just think you can pray with sin and it won't affect you like the Bible says you think you can pick up fire and you won't be burned you have in and half out you are you are almost persuaded you almost determine you're almost a strong church member well that's like being almost pregnant either your is yeah you got it no no you can't be halfway committed to God because Jesus is not halfway committed to you God is not halfway committed to God don't wake you up halfway somebody ought to help me preach it god never blesses you halfway everything you need God provides in over abundance he was half in and half and he failed dr. Luke says dad [Music] but Paul never stopped preaching Paul did two things for this young man that Jesus did for us and I'm gonna be through I really am I'm gonna be through and guess to me I have to conserve my energy today is my wedding anniversary I have I have some other business to attend to no I'm just going to dinner I'm just I'm just gonna y'all y'all mind way over there I'm just said I got some other business to attend to and y'all done figured it out oh no we con them we gone to dinner and a movie coming home and relaxing so I got to conserve my energy cuz uh I'm old and I have to be impressive so let me get to the end of this little message here he fell down dead and Paul did for him what Jesus did for us it's right here in verse number 10 through verse number 12 Paul went down fell on him embraced him now that ought to remind you of what Elijah did in first Kings I wish I had a Bible reading Elijah went to this widows house and the widow took care of him big him a cake and and provided us a room in the shelter for him and and the widow's son died and and she said to Elijah what have I done to you for you to come into my home and treat me this way my boy dies the Bible says Elijah took him up to the loft where he was laid him down prostrating himself on the boy into his nostrils and he came back to life again and then when you go to 2nd Kings Elisha did the same thing he and his servant Galatia was at this house and this boy died and Elisha took the bottle up to the loft laid him on the bed put his nose on his nose his mouth on his mouth his hands on his hands and blew seven turn sneeze on him seven times and the boy came back to life [Applause] Jesus was on his way somewhere and a lemon was on the way to bear is how long his son and Jesus put in hand on the casket and that bar came back to life again Lazarus had been dead for days jesus said show me where you buried him they rolled a stone on the way to say he's stinking now jesus said Lazarus come forth and Lazarus came out of the green and Paul does for this boy in the tax what Jesus did for you and I to things and I'm through he came down and embraced it that's it the sermon is over I'm through came down embraced it I'm gonna keep saying that till you get it came down embraced it I'm I said one more time he came down and embraced it i'ma say it till you get it came down embrace Jesus came down through forty-two generations I wish I had helped to close him born in Bethlehem reared in nazareth baptized in the Jordan perform miracles in a desert place wept over Jerusalem prayed in Gethsemane he did come down I'm glad he came down cuz my sins were so grievous I could never come up to where God was so God had to come down to where I am somebody ought to help me close him I'm so glad brothers and sisters that Jesus came down to see about me yes he did he came down thank God he came down I'm saying thank God he came down he came down to Eunice Louisiana he came down to your little town where you're from and then he came down on the street where you live and then he came down to the house you were raised then and he looked over some other people who are better in nature than you are in practice but he saved you you ought to be glad came down he would still be lost they tried to get him to come down hard they stretched him why he hung his head for me he died that's love that's not how [Music] I said he came down and he embrace Jesus came down and got embrace is God embracing us resurrection is God embracing us the Holy Spirit is God embracing us can't you see him embracing his word can't you feeling if you got your own testimony that what you grab somebody why don't you hurt somebody why don't you embrace your right youichi right your dream salvation ha [Music] one Friday to make me know how much he loved me Jesus died and the death of Jesus is the embrace of God but not only did he die he conquered death he rose from the grave and he seated on the right hand of God with power and whenever I needed him I can feel his embrace thank God he came down and he braced and then verse 12 says when Paul healed that boy the church was not a little comforted meaning that when they saw what Paul did they shouted they gave God praise and they were not a little comforted the word that is Barack allele from which we get the word Barack Lata's our Paraclete which means the holy spirit was there to encourage to comfort everytime we come to church God's Spirit is there to comfort us to encourage us to let us know you can make it you are more than a conqueror I'm persuaded and neither life nor death angels nor principalities things present nor things to come nothing can separate us from the love of God [Applause] [Music]

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Id: mbWZiMD_9Do

Length: 50min 0sec (3000 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 26 2019