[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 a.m. If you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, find
[email protected] be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Have you ever fallen asleep during the middle of a Bible class or a worship service?
If you have, number one, don't elbow the person beside you. But number two, I also want you to know that you are not alone. Now, I'm not proud of what I'm sharing with you, but it is a little bit to break the ice. When I was in the youth group at University church, similar to what our youth group does here when they're not at their retreat, we all sat on the front. And I think that was something when Brandon was our youth minister that he started. And so they still do that to this day. And I don't know why. I was tired. I didn't really have a lot going on in high school, but I remember sitting there and I was fighting sleep. And maybe some of you have been there before, and I know we have people that work all night sometimes, and it's amazing that they're able to be here knowing what they just came from. I remember sitting there and have you ever done a thing where, like, you try to, like, position your elbows and your cheeks in a way to where, you know, if you do get a little tired, you don't have an intention to sleep, but that'll hold you up. And so I remember sitting there, and I remember being overtaken by sleep, and I don't even remember this happening. And that's what happens with sleep. A lot of times we didn't know that we actually fell asleep. I put my hands there, and the next thing I remember is hearing, and because it was so close by, feeling a thud as my head hit the hardwood pew in front of me.
And so Randy Medlin is the preacher at university still there? I remember in the middle of his lesson, I hit my head, and I look up and he's doing this at me.
And Randy's awesome. He wasn't trying to call me out. He wasn't trying to put me on the spot in his silent humor. That's all that needed to be said. And of course, then the youth group all is looking at me, and I didn't even have to look behind me. Y'all know that feeling when you know people are looking at you behind and knowing that they're staring? In fact, I was nervous that my dad was gonna, like, WHOOP me after that whole experience. And then he told my mom, he said, I think the embarrassment was enough in and of itself. So that happened. And you would have thought that I've learned my lesson. But when I was at Faulkner my freshman year, I had a guy named Don Myers. Some of you know Don. He was my advisor. And when I first got to Faulkner, I was a Bible major. So he was somebody that I wanted to make proud, you know, he is somebody that I really loved and looked up to and admired. And the class that I took when I was at Faulkner at first was called life of Christ. It was a required course, not just for the Bible majors, but any freshman coming into Faulkner. And so the classroom is packed. It was an 830 in the morning Bible class. And I remember kind of my routine before that class is we had soccer workouts at six in the morning. And so right after that, my usual routine was to go to the Faulkner cafeteria, get a to go box, and fill it with biscuits and gravy and bacon. So I would close that lid, go into my class, and I would scarf it down right before class was getting ready to start. And so you can already see probably where this is going. I woke up early.
I went to this class, and I have a full belly. And even though what he said was so awesome, I didn't know that I fell asleep. And so, in this room of 80 people, I remember waking up very abruptly, just like I did at that pew, to hearing this sound. Brother Andrew and I look up, he said, what do you think?
And I was like, you know, I don't know what was being talked about. So I was like, brother Don, what do you think? You know, in that situation, I was caught off guard because I didn't know that I had fallen asleep. And I'll go ahead and say this too. Being up here and speaking at different times and different places, you do come across some very interesting sleep that you see. And I told the earlier crowd, I've classified this group as the Hollywood dozers. And what I mean by that is you've got the one that might have their bible open in their lap. To appear that they are asleep. But then what kind of gives it away is the bottom lip is really out a lot. The other one is what I call the whiplash dozer. That's the one that they do this. And it's like they woke up from a bad dream and jumped back. But the best one I've ever had was I was asked to speak on Joseph and his brother's relationship. And there was this man in the audience, and this is on me, not on him. He was snoring. Okay. And it started out as a light snore to where, like, you could tell in the room, all eyes were kind of not trying, but kept going over in his direction. And there got to a point you've probably been there where you've snored to wake yourself up.
He.
Amen. Is what he did to try to cover up the loud snore.
The odd part about that is I was talking about Joseph's brothers throwing him into a pit when Snorman Norman decided to make that loud noise in the middle of my lesson. But I would dare to say, if you asked him, he did not remember probably falling asleep. The reason why I mentioned that this morning, we're looking at a young man named Uticus that fell asleep. And I would dare to say, and we don't know. But if we asked this young man, I would dare to say that he probably thought, hey, I didn't even know this happened. Like, it happens so quickly. In fact, the present tense verb that's in this text to describe this young man falling out the window actually describes that he was fighting sleep.
And maybe you've been there spiritually, that you found yourself at a time in the middle of a spiritual slumber, and you didn't even realize that you had gotten into that point.
But what I want to highlight this morning is not necessarily that you've fallen asleep. Because, let's be real. Every one of us in this room, it might look different, it might act different and walk different, but we have all fallen asleep at one time or another spiritually. And the greatest danger is just not that we've fallen asleep, but where we have chosen to fall asleep. It's not so much about the sleep as it is the seat. Because what we're going to see in this text, that if we fall asleep, and sometimes even in our own discouragement, our own doubt, if we surround ourselves, the right people, the right place, the right attitude, it gives us a place to build from. And so the thing we're gonna come back to today is this and my encouragement to you is to not fight sleep being in a window seat. So let's get into the text this morning. I wanna give you a little bit of context. Acts, chapter 19. Right before this, Paul avoids a great persecution. There's a great crowd that's after him, and it's kinda one of those situations. You can see the first few words of the text after the uproar had ceased. It was one of those, he's like, whoo. All right. Made it through that. And then you can even tell that he goes through a time of encouragement and then guess what happens? You see it highlighted here? There was a plot made against him. It was one of those yeah, yeah moments. That's what he's experiencing. That's what he's living out. But notice in this text, because I made it bold, it said that God sent him to a place named Troas. Now, if you're like me and you like to, like, write notes in your Bible or highlight them, I want you over the word troas, the name Troas, to write in your bibles. Transition.
Transition.
Because when you go through the book of acts, what you're going to find, the city of Troas was incredibly important for two reasons. Number one, it was known by them as a city of transition. It was the place that if you were like, to go to a subway station and know where to need to go next, that's where you went.
But the next thing, if you go back just a few chapters before. Do y'all remember when God and Paul comes before God, he's like, hey, listen, we have this idea. We see how the gospel's spreading. We want to take this great message and bring it in and take it to Asia. I mean, that's where a lot of people are. That's a big stage. And God said, you think big stage. Sometimes I think coffee shop. I think those one on ones. Instead of going to Asia, I actually want you to go to a riverside because I have an appointment for you with this lady named Lydia. He meets Lydia, her and her entire household are baptized, and she helps start a church in an area where there was no church. It's incredible. Where all did this begin to happen? Troas. And the reason I mentioned that we're going to see in the text today a moment that we think of as a distraction, a detour.
But again, I want us to see that sometimes those moments that are detours are assignments from God. Those things that feel confusing are actually God navigating something and sending us in a direction we never even considered, because that's what's about to happen here. And look at what is framing this whole amazing narrative.
It's communion.
It says on the first day of the week they were coming together to break bread.
I want to go ahead and say, I am so grateful that we do that here every Sunday. I'm grateful, yes, because God commands it. But I'm even also grateful, too, because there is no better way to start my week than breaking bread with God's people and thinking about what he did for me. That never tires, that never wears out, that never gets old. And I'm so grateful we do that. But I also want to highlight this, and this is not the main direction of the lesson today, but I think it's important to mention how big of a deal it was for them to now commit their Sunday to this.
See, remember, before this, they had dedicated their what, Saturday to the Lord.
We talk a lot about some of the greatest proofs of the resurrection. The empty grave, which we should. The clothes left behind, which we should. The fact that there is historical evidence of people talking about seeing a risen savior, all of those things are great. But I also want to point out the fact that they changed their entire schedule to devote to him.
I mean, for them, giving up their first day was huge because that was their most important day of work for them. They were saying, no, this has to take part. This is the first day of their week. And even when we think about us, when we put on Christ and we took part in the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it's not just a physical change, it's a spiritual change. That the change in us is one of the greatest signs and pictures that you and I really do believe in. The power of Jesus raising from the dead.
There is proof in this because of the change that was in these people.
But notice what happens next. Paul was talking with them, it says, and he was intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where he was gathered. So it's kind of like the last night of camp. Everyone's tired, everybody's worn out. Paul knows he's about to leave. He's going to use this opportunity. And I never noticed this detail, but two different commentaries pointed it out, that there were many lamps in a room, usually during this time, you didn't do that. And especially for Paul, because one thing we know about Paul, he was kind of trying to hide a little bit because he had more to share more to do. And there was a plot against him. So any light in that room would kind of give away the fact that he's there.
But also on the other end, oil, something that may not be that important to us, was incredibly expensive and important for them. And so they're bringing their own lamps, is what I'm saying. Bringing their own oil, lighting it. Why? Because they are expecting something to happen.
See, the lamps burning in that room shows us that there was a proof in that room of expectation.
Now, I know this might be an odd question to ask, but I do think we need to ask. It is whenever we come together, are you walking into this assembly with expectation, anticipation?
Let's just think about. Kind of go back a little bit about what happen to make today happen.
All right. Number one, Jesus Christ.
Number two, think about all the organizational things that took place. We have people that prepared communion, getting everything ready out there. We have security that's working now and is working before and working after. We have people manning the nurseries and kids corner.
We have people in the sound booth up there.
I don't know if you've ever led in worship. You've seen what Brandon's put together.
It doesn't just get thrown together. I mean, he very details every week, all these different ways to make worship flow and go in one direction. What I'm saying is, none of this happens by accident.
But when we come together, just like they were making prep, what prep do we have? Are we coming into this room expecting God to teach us something, expecting to learn, expecting to grow? There was an expectation in that room. There needs to be always an expectation in this room, too. And so it says that there was this young man named Eutychus. We don't know a lot about him, but at the end of the message, I'm going to share with you some amazing, non canonized history of this young man. But what we do know is his name means fortunate and lucky, which is kind of funny and ironic when we find out what we're going to find out. But the other thing we know, based on the greek word young man, that more than likely he was a teenager.
So he was young. So we got a young man showing up in this room, and then this is what it says as Paul was talking a little longer. Some of your translations this morning, you'll look down and you'll see this. Paul was talking on and on. I find that funny that that is how it's worded. And maybe you feel that way sometimes, and I'm sorry, but being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
Now, I know for me when I was growing up, and even now, if we see someone struggling to stay awake, you know, we'll jokingly talk about Eutychus. And I do think part of the reason this is in the Bible is to make us smile.
But at the same time, if you really put yourself in their shoes, think. Think about how traumatic that would have been in the middle of this lesson that was really long to experience that. Imagine the feeling and the vibe in that room. Like, I don't know how tall it is up there, but we got our sound booth guys. And imagine Andrew Hunt, not that he would, but he falls asleep during the middle of my lesson and comes down here like it would, you know, send an energy in the room, right. You know, we would notice. Right. If that happened.
But what I love about this is that in the middle of that, Paul is not like, what in the world?
Like, I was preaching and this happened.
And by the way, this is about an eight to twelve hour sermon. We have no clue what Paul said, but we do have a clue as to what Paul did.
It goes on to say that he went down and bent down over this young man. Now, I want to stop here for a second.
What caused this young man to fall asleep?
There's a lot of theories, and by the way, this is all conjecture, because there's a lot we do know about this. There's a lot we don't know. One thing that historical records said is that there is a young man named Eutychus that was a slave.
So if he was a slave, he would have worked, gotten up at the crack of dawn, worked all day.
And then he gets there, worn out, tired, and he goes into an upper room. And it's one thing to be in upper room, but if the lamps are in there, it's dark, they're flickering.
The smoke from the lamps fills the room, and he's sitting by a window. You know, it's creating, trying to create a situation here. Like, lights are off, people brought their diffusers. Peace and calming. You know, it's filling the room. And then all of a sudden, you're just like. So you could see maybe for someone like Kim, why this might happen. The other theory, and again, this is just a theory, is if you look at the dating of when this took place and what time of year this was, a lot of people believe it was around April, which is interesting because we're in the month of April right now, just like we experience allergies here. They experienced allergies there. And so one of the thoughts is they had to put on them this kind of ointment to help them deal with their allergies. And part of that ointment that was in the thing that helped them deal with their allergies actually made them sleepy. That's a thought. But here's another thought. He wasn't a slave and he got plenty of sleep and he just chose to go to sleep.
These are all different scenarios, but that's not what we're going to get wrapped up in. Again, I want us to get wrapped up into Paul's response. It says that Paul went down and bent down over him.
Now, if you've been noticing anything about this series, does that sound familiar?
He bent down over him, he took him in his arms and he said, do not be alarmed. There is still life in him.
I'm not the best at all with distractions. Number one, I get distracted very easily.
Number two, sometimes distractions, full transparency annoy me.
They upset me.
But I love the fact that in the middle of his lesson that he's preaching, which, you know, it was awesome. He loved to preach Christ and Christ crucified right in the middle of that lesson. He falls, he does. He's like, what in the world?
He doesn't say young people these days.
He goes down to where he is.
I look at distractions as an annoyance, but what I want to suggest to you this morning is maybe the distraction was the main thing. Again, it's about an eight to a twelve hour sermon. We have no clue about the material he covered, but we do have a clue as to what he did.
He left the upper room and went down and saw this young man. This is what the Samaritan parable's about, right?
We call him good. Jesus doesn't call him good because he's saying, that's just what you do.
There was this man that was half dead on the side of the road. You got the Levite that goes by and, y'all, he is on his way somewhere, very important.
But he sees this man and he sees also he has got to do something important.
So he leaves him there.
Well, maybe the distraction was the main thing.
And then there's a priest, and let me tell you, he really had to get to where he was because if he also stopped and touched this guy, he was ceremonially unclean and that would take a few days. And so the distraction couldn't happen. So he moves on. But again, maybe the distraction was the main thing. Why did jesus tell that parable? Because he's saying sometimes the distraction, the annoyance, is actually the main thing. Again, we don't know a lot about the sermon, but we know a lot about the reaction.
Why is this in here? Well, we're gonna come back to the end of the text in just a second. These are just a few thoughts as we get to this part in our message.
I think one of those is the dangers of us falling asleep spiritually.
Like I said, we've all been there. Spiritual slumber happens to everybody.
And I bet we don't know this, but don't you think if you went down and asked Eutychus, hey, dude, what happened? I think he's like, I don't even remember falling asleep. I know I didn't.
And maybe you've kind of been there, too. Like, it happened so quickly.
Well, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us when we are in a spiritual slumber, before we even get to that point that we have to be people that are also spiritually alert. I love these two texts. It says in one, peter five eight, be of sober spirit. And what? Be on alert. Yes, it's important that we don't fall asleep, but he's saying it's really important that you be alert. The next one, first, corinthians 1613, be on alert. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong.
And when I was thinking about this this week, I couldn't help but think about us and our importance right now at Madison about being on alert. And the reason is God is blessing us in so many ways. He's blessing us with families and new opportunities, bible studies, times of prayer and growth.
I mean, it is so awesome.
But I also think it would be very wise and humble of us to always make sure that we are still alert, to not let the devil creep in. And here's why I say that fighting sleep is a battle between flesh and spirit.
And one thing that I know about Satan, Satan hates spiritual growth. Satan hates you and your families. Satan hates opportunities of outreach and evangelism. Satan hates to see spiritual progress.
So I think it's important for us to not just fight sleep, but actually be on alert as well.
Well, how can I know if I've fallen asleep and we don't have time to get through all of these? But maybe for you, you don't have much of a desire to pray. That's kind of like the check engine light on your car.
Prayerlessness is the check engine light that your heart maybe is proud. I got this.
Maybe it's a loss of appetite for God's word.
You don't have that hunger. Maybe for some of you, it's a desire to only be served, not to serve. I read an article this week by Kinnaman and Barnes Barnard research, and one of the things that they talked about in that article is the greatest challenge for the church today is the consumer mindset, which is the idea that it's all about me meeting my needs and giving me what I need. God did not design us just to be spiritual consumers, but to be spiritual contributors to pour into the lives of other people. The other thing is, maybe you've avoided accountability.
Maybe you've compared yourself to other people instead of Jesus Christ. Maybe you've isolated yourself from a community of believers. We could mention much more, but maybe these are some ideas. Here's the other thing I noticed is to be careful where you sleep.
Where was he sleeping?
On a window.
Yes, it's important that we don't fall asleep, but it's also important to focus on deceit.
We all go through moments where we are spiritually asleep, but it's important to make sure we know where we will land.
Are you close and connected with God's people? Are you close with him? Are you close with his word?
Where you sleep is important.
A few years ago, y'all might remember this. There's a lot of frustration with the Super bowl because no one can afford to go because it's so expensive. Tickets are in the thousands. And in that they did this big social media post that we have a big announcement about cheaper tickets for the Super bowl. People are getting excited. They post about it, and they said, all right, here's what it is. You can get a ticket to the Super bowl for the low price of dollar 200.
People are like, wow, that's great. He said, here's the catch. You gotta sit outside.
You can watch it on big screen tv, but you just can't go inside.
My kids experienced this when we went to Atlanta a few years ago. We were doing some sightseeing around there, and I took them to the battery, which is the downtown area right outside of the stadium, and we sat out on that grass, made a picnic. We were watching the game on that big screen tv, and of course, it's like one of the greatest braves games ever that's happening on the inside. We're watching it, we're hearing all the great things, but dad's too cheap to get us in there, so we're going to sit on the grass and we're going to watch it. The reason I mentioned that in those Super bowl tickets is sometimes you can be in the room, but you're on the edge of the room.
You can have 1ft outside and 1ft inside, and the danger of that, when you fall asleep, you may not know where you're going to land.
Are you on the edge?
I mean, do you want to pay for a window seat?
But the other thing that I think about with this whole thing is this is when you look at Eutychus situation. I'm going to come back to this in just a second, but where were the older, wiser people that came up to uticus to say, hey, buddy, I remember a time when I was young and I was in the window.
I remember a time in my life where I was on the edge.
Come here. Come sit by me. Like, don't go over there. Come sit by me.
Or do you have to wonder if there might have been people in that room that are like, man, young people these days?
Like, why would they do something like that? Or a crowd getting together in the corner? I can't believe that I heard that Jane also fell asleep. Like, you know, if there was that in that room.
But the other thing I think about is for Eutychus to kind of put a positive side on this, too, because we don't know the whole backstory.
So we also have to think about the fact that he did show up, and maybe you've been there before, that it takes all you have to show up, and you are tired. You're worn out. Not because of a lack of effort, because you have given effort. Sometimes you are tired because you've tried.
And that's important, I think, to remember, too, because our goal as christians is to crawl. Not walk, crawl across the finish line, giving all we've had to pour into our families, our church, and our community.
So the goal of church is not let's not be tired, but the goal is to be tired for the right reasons, to be tired doing the Lord's work, to be tired pouring into people.
What I also think about Eutychus, though, at the end of the day, kind of like us, we get in that room, and intentions do that for us, but it's our true attention to the ones on the windowsill, but to ourselves that have put us on the windowsill to stay in that room. The other thing I think about here is the importance of him as a young man doing this.
I appreciate so much that we give our young people opportunities here to serve and to be a part of everything. I also, think about what Solomon said in ecclesiastes twelve one when he said, to remember the Lord in the days of your youth.
And as a young person, sometimes it can be discouraging because you think, man, I want to be there. It's like that quote, you know, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step. Those decisions you make as a young person, they matter. Well, getting back to the text, let's go back to Paul's response. It says, paul went down and he bent down over him and took him into his arms. So let's stop for just a second and notice that this was Paul's inclination, his impulse response. I want you to ask yourself, what would have been your impulse response in this situation? Paul didn't get mad that we know of. He didn't get frustrated.
But what we do know is he went down and bent over the young man and took him into his arms. That is amazing to me that that in that moment was his impulse. I do think a lot of times our impulse says a lot about where our heart is.
How do you view the eutychus, those that have fallen around us?
That's the other thing I think we can learn about this, is to make sure that we, too, take a lesson from Paul and to fall on the fall. And when I was first going through this, I was like, man, I need to be more like Paul. You know, to. When there are people that have fallen, when there are people that have gone through a difficult time, when there are people that are frustrated, I need to be better at being the one that brings in the fallen. I need to be like Paul. Then I was like, no, it's. Paul's not doing this to be like Paul. Paul's doing this to be like Jesus.
We've talked about the past few weeks noticing that Jesus touched people no one else would touch. He touched open caskets. What you don't do, Elijah, Elisha, put themselves on top of the people. You see what's happening, that he's not doing what he would do. He's doing what Jesus would do. I love what Tim Smith said when he shared a message with us a few years ago, that one day, Jesus is not going to stand before Paul. Paul's going to stand before Jesus.
He's just modeling what he sees from his savior.
But it also reminds me, and this is, I think, an important reminder of the amount of time it takes to walk alongside people who have 1ft in the room, 1ft out.
In fact, we kind of had a conversation about this a few weeks ago when Lynn Turner taught our men's class on Wednesday nights about evangelism.
And if you were in that class that night, one of the things that we highlighted and talked about was the amount of time it takes consistently to pour into people around us.
In fact, we brought up how sometimes the question can be, well, you did this well. How many baptisms did you have from that? Wrong question, because that's not a definition of discipleship that we even looked at the list of people here that have put on Christ and are actively involved. Still here. They all have one thing in common, and it took time.
It took consistency. It took time. It took effort. I can't tell y'all this morning how many people from the early service said, five years here, seven years here, six years here.
Like, I am so glad that there weren't people in my mom's story that after she went to that VBS, they said, how many baptisms did you have at that VBS?
Well, none. Well, we'll scrap that. It took her six years of ebss.
It takes time. Think long game.
Not because Paul's doing that, because Jesus does that. If you were with us for the funeral service of Sandra misseldine this past week, it was an amazing service.
And Ronnie got up here, and he shared Sandra's conversion story, which, brother, that was amazing that you did that, and I don't know how you did it. That was brave and awesome.
And one of the things that stuck out to me about what Ronnie said was, you know, Sandra didn't grow up in the church, but her parents allowed her every Sunday night and Wednesday night to be picked up by Ronnie's family. And in the car, her dad, Sandra's. I mean, Ronnie's dad would share scripture.
He never, like, forced anything at her. He just, little by little, just talked scripture.
And after a year of doing that, every Sunday night and Wednesday night, he finally talked to her about baptism. And she said, at first she didn't want to do this. Now she wants to. She said, hey, I want to put on Christ in baptism. And Ronnie made a quote up here that I wrote down that I want to share with you, and it's this.
Ronnie's dad loved me into the church.
It took time.
So I want to come back to this. How are we as a church handling the eutychus that are among us?
What's our response?
I think one of those things is this. There is a time to talk, and there's a time to be silent.
There's a time to share truth, and there is a time to let the truth speak for itself.
I was thinking about this morning. I have been really bad at this one because I know for me I get worked up over, like, if I could just tell them something better or explain it better, or man. And yes, there always needs to be self examination of how to do things better. But at the end of the day, when I think about that, who's the focus?
Me.
Like that's insulting and dangerous to God to think I'm the answer to someone else's problem.
There is power in apollos, sharing and trusting that God's going to do something. The truth is powerful.
Share it. The second thing is this, to embrace those that have fallen. I'm not saying embracing the sin, but I'm talking about the sinner.
You think what Paul did here is exactly what Jesus did, exactly what Elijah and Elisha did? When I think about different people that have been in this exact situation, I think of Galatians six.
Those of you who are spiritual, restore them in a spirit of what gentleness.
You know, there are people here, there are other people in my life that I've noticed. There's a common thread that when they have fallen, it's a man, it's a woman at the congregation, someone that's brought them in, had them for breakfast, had them for a time of prayer. But the other thing is this, and we've hit this a lot this year. It's so important to hit our knees, to fall on our faces before God's throne on that person's behalf.
You know, if you notice what Paul did in the middle of that situation, he was preaching a sermon, but he came down from that upper room.
Aren't you glad he did?
You know, I also think about too, that he's not the only one to come down from an upper room. If you remember, Jesus was with his disciples, sharing that meal.
And I'm so glad he instituted what we get to do today. But aren't you glad he didn't stay there?
He came down from that upper room. He died on a cross, and he rose from the dead. Why am I mentioning that? Yes, to celebrate it, but also to remind us that's what ministry really is. It's you and I as the church, coming down from our upper rooms. And I'll give you an example. Here's what history says. This is non canonized about what happened with Eutychus.
History records that there was a young slave man named Eutychus, that they were trying to get him to denounce Jesus Christ. One time they said, hey, we're gonna throw him in the fire just so we can record him saying, I denounce him.
He wouldn't. So they pulled him out of that fire. They threw him into a thing of lions, and they said, all right, when we throw him into lions, he's gonna denounce Jesus Christ. So that way we can have it on record. Eutychus denounced Jesus. He wouldn't.
You know what also happened with him? They pulled him out from that. He goes on and he finds several pagan places of worship with idols and renovates and changes them into places of worship.
Why is this in the Bible? I think one of the great reasons is because God saw value in Eutychus life.
Aren't you glad that Paul came down off his upper room?
Aren't we glad that Jesus Christ came down from the upper room?
Are we going to come down off our upper room to see people the way that Jesus sees them?
We started the message with this today. I don't know where you're at. Maybe you're here this morning. You got 1ft in, 1ft out, and you're trying to fight sleep. That is not the place to fight sleep.
If you're here today, we want you to come to the center of this room, maybe go to one of the exits to find one of our shepherds. We would love to pray for you. Not because we have it all together, because, boy, we do not. But we want to encourage you. We with the same message that we've all been encouraged with. Jesus died. He rose from the dead. He loves me. And it means something for you and me.
Maybe you're here this morning and you want to see people different.
That maybe you realize, you know, I need to come down from my upper room more and to pour into the lives of those around me. Whatever it is that you have a need of today, please come while we stand and we sing the song.
