And we are now at Romans chapter 13 and if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me, it’s a good reference point, Romans 13:11 and a little bit of verse 12 and the whole subject, it’s about waking up and in order to do that, I hope to wake you up if I can, with a little video clip and hope it would be relevant as we look at the subject, later on.

Video clip plays of Mr. Bean

(Laughter in the congregation)

Time stamp in audio 0:02:14.7.

How many of you feel like Mr. Bean, every morning when you wake up, can I see by a show of hands, how many of you, like me struggle to wake up in the morning, can I see by a show of hands? So shy, hey, don’t be like that lah, how many of you, are like Mr Bean, you struggle, you’re not a morning guy, you are a night guy, you love to stay up late and you really have a difficult time waking up in the morning, how many of you are like this, can I see, a lot of dishonest people in this church. (Laughter in the congregation).

Well, like Mr. Bean, I struggle to wake up early in the morning, it’s terrible, and you know you should wake up, but you just can’t wake up, the sun is shining bright and you wish you had the energy to, but you know, the bed is just so comfortable, it’s so cold, you want to snuggle up under your bed sheet, your blanket and it’s so comfortable, it’s hard to wake up. And one of the most irritating sounds in the whole world, is this (sounds of the alarm clock rings). I set my phone to be my alarm clock, how many of you use your phone to be your alarm clock as well, can I see? Wow, iPhone has taken over the world, I tell you, phones have taken over, yup, that’s the sound and when ever, you hear the sound, we wish it would just shut up, isn’t it. And I think, one of the great inventions, innovations of the handphone is something called the snooze, it rings, and you wish you could, you could sleep a little bit more, so, instead of switching it off totally, you switch it to the snooze mode, so that every five minutes later, it will wake you up again. Okay, alright, so we all reach for the alarm clock, to shut it up, because we want to sleep further.

Time stamp in audio 0:03:54.9.

And I know how my mind works and I therefore think, this is how your mind works. It’s time to wake up, you have an interview to go for, an exam to take, a wedding to go for, you know you have to turn up for work, but you want to sleep further. So, when we are sleepy, struggling to wake up, this is what goes through our minds, we think to ourselves, I can still make it. Correct?  Let me sleep five minutes more, because I think I can still make it. Or maybe, this is what you say to yourself, I think it’s okay to be a little bit late, not too late lah, a little late is okay. Or, we think to ourselves, just one time. Or, maybe we rationalize, other people are late also, why can’t I be late. And so, these are the clever excuses we spin for ourselves. Very hard to wake up in the morning, but the message today, it’s about waking up.

You say, Jason, you mean the Bible talks about sleeping and waking? Absolutely! Today we’re talking about waking up and the verses we are considering are in Romans 13. This is, this is familiar to us, Paul, the apostle, writes Romans 13, in a very familiar way, he uses the imagery of how we would struggle to wake up every single day and he says, as Christians, it’s time to wake from our sleep.

Time stamp in audio 0:05:17.3.

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand…..

(Rom 13:11-12a ESV)

Time to awake from sleep. I think, when we think about people, church people, Christian people sleeping, there are a few images, that come straight into our minds. First, we look like this, now, I give you permission, to look to the left and right, if anyone looks like this, you have the right to, to rib him and say please, hey, wake up, today’s sermon topic is about waking up, maybe you need to do that.

Let me ask you, how many of you have fallen asleep in church services before? Come on, come on, I don’t want a dishonest bunch of church people, how many of you have fallen asleep in church services before, shoot up your hands, see. Half ah, okay. How many of you have never fallen asleep, never dozed off, not sleep as in lying across the chairs, but never dozed off before, can I see? Never dozed off before. All you dishonest people (Laughter in the congregation), I don’t quite believe you. Now, we have dozed off in church before, some of us, but is that the dozing off we’re talking about here, not quite. But, that is the common idea people have about going to church, we sleep in church. In fact, there are jokes like this that goes, when the preacher goes up to speak, it is the cue for the people to sleep. True, you feel that you have worked from Monday to Saturday and Sunday, is a great opportunity for me to catch up with some sleep. After all, the preacher is boring, so let me just go to sleep.

Or, maybe you heard the story of how the Sunday school teacher, she came to a little girl and asks and told the girl, “Shhhhh!, You have got to keep quiet, little girl, do you know why you should be quiet in church?” The girl thought for a while and said, “Yah, because, people are sleeping.” (Laughter in the congregation).

So, we struggle with that kind of a sleep. But I think, that’s not the intent of what Paul is writing. He is obviously, writing to a people, who are reading, or hearing these words, they are not asleep, they are gathered to hear, gather to learn. Yet Paul says, you are guilty of sleeping.

Time stamp in audio 0:07:42.9.

You say how? I don’t sleep in church. Yah, I’m not talking about sleeping in church services. But, Paul is talking about sleeping spiritually, in our lives. How, we can come to church, how we can call ourselves Christians, but really, we are pretty much asleep. We don’t do very much more, than just coming to church, calling ourselves as Christians. We are asleep in a sense, we’re never connected to anything. We’re not plugged into ministries, we’re not involved in people’s lives, when we read the Bible, it is almost like going through a ritual, a routine, when we pray, it’s just a laundry list of things or maybe, we don’t even do that. Asleep! Oh!, Singaporeans are very alive to business and sports and entertainment. But when it comes to our spiritual lives, there’s very little going on. Maybe that’s a good part of all of us in this room today.

Time stamp in audio 0:08:45.0.

You would call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, you would say, I do attend church every Sunday services, every Sunday morning, but, if you look a little bit beyond it, maybe, we look more asleep than we are alive, because, very little goes on for God, with God in our spiritual lives. That’s another kind of sleeping, alright, minimal involvement. So, one kind is you sleep physically in church, another kind is, okay, you are not sleeping physically, you are trying to listen, but you are pretty much asleep, spiritually, there is nothing really going on. But there is a third kind of sleep, I think that describes someone who has a lot of things going on, but he is still asleep. There is a lot of activity, but, he’s not quite awake.

Time stamp in audio 0:09:34.9.

You say, what kind of thing is this. Have you heard of somnambulism? Wah, what is a chim (colloquial word for deep ) word that is, that’s not from the Bible, alright. Somnambulism simply means, sleepwalking. Anyone here, has sleepwalking problems? You all won’t dare to raise your hands. No one would dare to sleep beside, a lot of us, we talk in our sleep right. Some of us, how many of you have spouses, no, not about you, your spouse talks in his sleep. My wife, will raise her hands, sometimes I do, I say rubbish and she says, what are you talking about. And, sometimes in our sleep, we talk and sometimes, in our sleep, we walk and sometimes, in our sleep we can do a lot of things. I think, there is a kind of Christian sleep, that can take place, even in the midst of a lot of activities.

I learned about this YouTube sensation over sometime. This YouTube sensation, has millions of views on this, er I am not talking about Psy by the way, not about this guy. But the YouTube sensation that you will be surprised to see and let me show you what he looks like. Oh, sorry, I forgot this poem, this poem I want like to share with you, alright, this is a poem about people sleeping, it says:

Went to church on Sunday morning.
My husband by my side.
When the preacher started preaching;
My man got sleepy eyed.

His head it got real heavy like;
It nodded with a jerk.
But when I pinched him on the leg.
He sat there quite alert.

As soon as I thought all was well.
I saw he dripped some drool.
I pulled the hairs upon his arm.
He seemed to think me, cruel.

But it only cured His symptoms;
Just for a little bit.
I thought my life was over when;
His head fell with a hit.

I felt like sinkin’ in my chair.
When all eyes looked our way.
After that, my husband awoke;
To hear the preacher say.

It’s time to wake up Christian friend;
And listen to the Lord!
Don’t let Him find you sawing logs;
Or living like the world!

Too many Christians lulled asleep;
By devil’s lullabies.
Pray to the Lord and keep alert;
Beware of sleepy eyes.

Jesus left them in the garden.
He told them all to pray.
When He returned, they were asleep.
Will He find you that way?

Time stamp in audio 0:12:04.1.

I am talking today, not about you physically sleeping in church services, but, this reality, that we have somehow been lulled into a devil’s lullabies. Christian living is all about sleeping, just sleep our way to heaven, nothing really going on, nothing really about serving God, nothing really about connecting with life, nothing really matters. I just need to sleep, because I am in the devil’s lullabies.

Now, I skipped that, I miss that, so, I want to share with you again, there are kinds of sleeping, we can talk about, sleeping physically in church, sleeping, in a sense, we do the barest minimum and that is it a third kind of sleeping that is when you do a lot and this, YouTube sensation will tell you, what it means to do a lot and yet be still asleep.

Time stamp in audio 0:12:56.1.

YouTube sensation that shows a dog that sleeps but have a lot of activity going on.

Bizkit the sleepwalking dog.