Phil preached this weekend on 1 Thessalonians 5:1-12 and spoke about walking in the light. We also looked at Ephesians where Paul instructs us to "wake up!" It reminded me of this past Fall Retreat for the ABC Youth where they used the theme of "The Awakening". I just wanted to share with you quickly a couple of different places that inspired that theme for the retreat with Matt Orth and company:
1. The first is from Paul who wrote in Ephesians 5: "Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and the Messiah will shine on you." He's instructing the Ephesians to be imitators of God and to walk in the light and not in the darkness. Expose the works and the deeds of darkness by the light! (This is the one that Phil mentioned on Sunday)
2. The second came from a study done on dolphins and sleep. Check it out:
"On land, human beings and other mammals breathe involuntarily: If we don't make a decision to breathe or not to breathe, our body will take in air automatically. Because of their undersea environment, whales and dolphins must be conscious breathers. They have to actively decide when to breathe. Consequently, in order to breathe, they have to be conscious. This presents a problem, since mammalian brains need to enter an unconscious state from time to time in order to function correctly.
There's plenty of time for a dolphin to catch a catnap between trips to the ocean surface, of course, but this isn't a viable option. When you're a conscious breather, it's just not feasible to be completely unconscious -- what if you don't wake up in time? The solution for whales and dolphins is to let one half of the brain sleep at a time. In this way, the animal is never completely unconscious, but it still gets the rest it needs.
Scientists have studied this phenomenon in dolphins, using electroencephalography. In this process, electrodes hooked up to the head measure electricity levels in the brain. The resulting electroencephalograms of dolphin brains demonstrate that in the sleep cycle, half of the the dolphin's brain does indeed "shut down" while the other half is still active. Researchers have observed that dolphins are in this state for approximately eight hours a day.
We can't really know what this rest state feels like, but we can make a good guess. It is probably something like the semi-conscious state we experience as we begin to fall asleep. We're pretty close to unconsciousness, but are aware enough of our surroundings to wake up completely if we need to."
The point here is, as believers, we sometimes exist in this semi-conscious state and live our lives moving from moment to moment with no intentionality and urgency of the Gospel. We're just in "survival" mode and are doing nothing to help advance the Kingdom of God. We need an AWAKENING!
3. And the third place was from a quote from John Gillies (that we featured in The Awakening Promo Video). Here it is in its entirety:
"The world is still sleeping its 'sleep of death.' It has been a slumber of many generations--sometimes deeper, sometimes lighter--yet still a slumber like that of a tomb, as if destined to continue till the last trumpet sound; and then there shall be no more sleep. Yet God has not left it to sleep on unwarned. He has spoken in a voice that might reach the dullest ears and quicken the coldest heart. Ten thousand times has He spoken and still speaks. But the world refuses to hear. Its myriads slumber on, as if this sleep of death were the very blessedness of its being."
Let's wake up, ABC, and be a light that shines in the darkness! Let's walk in the light and see God do amazing some amazing things in our Church! The AWAKENING!
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