Awake Sleeper and Rise from the Dead
First B Jackson
2026-05-17

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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To verse 14. I'll start off with something from last week that I I flipped the slide up last week and when I saw it, it was blank and I said, I'll come back to that next week. So, I'm going to do that this morning but this is one of those sermons like last week that it's not hard to understand. I don't think that the terms are hard to understand but it's hard to do and so when I had that chance in seminary to preach to all those seminary professors mainly and I just chose something that I they couldn't argue the Greek on it. Right?

It's easy to understand but it's hard to do. And so many of y'all responded this week. A lot of folks before the second service had already texted. I leave my phone somewhere else usually but had already texted and said, hey, that was really good when I needed it three months ago. Because it had a lot to do with our words and the meditations of our heart and that sort of stuff is what comes out of our mouth.

This is another one of those. I'm just going to give you a fair warning. It's one of them that the more I wanted to hurry through it, the less God would allow me to hurry through it. So, it's a paragraph and this paragraph is one that I'm gonna just go, here you go, and sit it in your lap and let you deal with it. Okay?

Now I say that because all of us will be I think, all of us in the whole room will be convicted by this paragraph. If we're not, we're probably guilty of thinking, oh, I wish so and so was here to hear this. Right? Well, the reason we showed up this morning individually, the reason we got here is because we won't for God to speak to us individually and so I've been carrying this one around for about the last two or three weeks and praying through it and trying to work through it. One other report before I get going in the text.

Eric Anderson, who's a dear friend, and he's Danny Chervin's stepdad, and Diane Geek who worked here in the church offices for twenty two years. It's her brother-in-law. Tanya and Pascal and I went up. We are all good friends with Eric, and we love him dearly. And he is dying of ALS.

And I mentioned him several times from up here, but man, the wisdom that is coming out of this guy's mouth right now. Everything that he is saying is just absolutely beautiful, and God is processing through him a lot of truth. He's been sober for a long time. He's helped hundreds of people get sober, And I just wanna pray for him before we get rolling. Lord for Joanne and for Eric this morning I pray.

Lord as he is decreasing and you and him, Lord, you are increasing. And so I pray, Lord, that his pastor there and his counselors there and his friends who are showing up and his friends who are calling would be blessed by the purity of the words that you're processing through all of this pain. So the physical pain, Lord, and the spiritual clarity that he is living in right now, I pray that it would be a blessing that would continue with Joanne and with the family, with his with all of those of us who love him. And, Lord, I pray that you would impress upon us as we go forward to that you would teach us, Lord, to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom, and may we may apply that wisdom to this life and to the next generation. In Jesus' name, I ask your blessing on Eric Anderson and his family.

Amen. Amen. So the place I left off last week was that I said, I looked at a blank slide. It was that. I looked up there and I thought, oh, yeah, I meant to define that.

Corrupt speech according to the Bible. So, this is let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth but only that such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And then I flipped that, and I went, oh, I forgot to do that. So first of all, corrupting speech or corrupt speech, the word corrupt means rotten or putrid. And if you think rotten and you think putrid and then you think it comes out of your mouth, it's gross.

So according to the Bible hey, here's that slide again. I thought you would never see this one again. I used this a lot when we were going through the 12 steps. And when we get to the fourth step and we're doing a fearless and searching moral inventory of our own lives, like I said, this sermon is for each of us individually, not just for that guy. I wish so and so would hear this, but that I would hear this.

This is a list of the New Testament's vice lists. So all of the different vices that are listed in the New Testament. It's only in New Testament. There are, of course, analogies all over the Old Testament, and the list would be a whole lot longer if we took the list from the Old Testament. But here they are.

And this is kind of the fourth step if you if you're wondering when you're doing a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself and trying to see what the problem is that you can't do anything about, step one, and that there is a higher power who can restore me to sanity. Step two, I'm gonna turn my will and my way over to God as I understand him. Step three, and then it's the fearless in searching moral inventory. So you look at your life. And if you need a a cheat sheet for what are some of the vices that I might find looking fearlessly and searching my these are some of them.

When I was going through that series, Pascal said after about the seventh or eighth step, she said, are you really going to read that list one more time again? I said, I think they got the point. I don't think I have to read it again. But this is something that should ever be before us because we tend to look at ones that are not ours and we make the print this big on those. And then the ones that are ours are a little bit of you little bit.

Let's shrink the fine print down on that. If you're looking for corrupting speech in this list, that's how many of them hit corrupting speech. Dissensions, you could argue that that's not the case, but usually you don't know about dissensions until they come out of your mouth. Right? Slander, I mentioned last week, reviling.

Oh, the two thieves that were crucified on either side of Jesus. It says, and they were, both of them were reviling him. That's ugliness coming out of their mouths about Jesus. Now one of them had a change of heart. Lying, obviously, thou shalt not lie is Old Testament, New Testament.

Speak the truth and love has already come up in Ephesians a lot. Evil talking, slander, abusive language, being double tongued, speaking out of both sides of your mouth, quarrelsome, always intent on an argument, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, being insolent, boastful, being boasters, slander. They come up a lot. So that's the corrupting talk slide. And you can probably go with filled with a morbid craving for controversy, that one, or overtaken with stupid and senseless controversies, ruthlessness.

Yeah. That those those could probably be added in there too. Those are specific ones that have to do with that corrupting talk. Now we got up to this. I ended on first two verses of chapter five last week.

Therefore, be imitators, mimics of God, copies as best you can imitate God and do so as beloved children. And I said the reason the way that it's the easiest imitate somebody is you spend a lot of time with them. Spend a lot of time and you get their mannerisms down and you get their cadence down and you know when they're gonna say something and when they're not gonna say something. And so be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly beloved children and be walking in love. Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us.

So he loves you, you all, y'all, that's plural but it's also just as God through Christ loved y'all and he gave himself up for us. It brings us back to the collective. You know, it is you individually as a part of this group though. Christ did that for you and he gave himself up for all of us and we together, according to Ephesians two, are the way that God is gonna express his glory to the whole cosmos, all of the spiritual realm, all of the powers under his great and almighty power, All of the powers, all of the world, all the cosmos. Christ, an offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

So that's where we left off last week, and then it immediately says, however or but, and it kinda stomps the ground a little bit right there. It's emphatic. So Christ is this beautiful, blessed aroma that's completely selfless but sexual immorality, and it starts off now. I've told you several times before that if you don't get the first three chapters of Ephesians about what God has already made true in Christ, you are seated with him in the heavenlies. If you have believed in Christ, you are removed from the kingdom of darkness and you are placed in the kingdom of marvelous light, and it is by Christ's work and he is working on you.

Now, your walk may not immediately reflect that. It should, and this is instruction. It should begin to look more and more like Christ. These imitators of God, he is not immoral. He's not impure.

He is not greedy. This starts off, but sexual immorality. Since I just let the Bible define corrupting talk, let's let the Bible go for sexual immorality. Sexual immorality, it says so just like that. Sensuality, a preoccupation with the things of the body and its senses and its lusts.

Lust is in there. Orgies and things like these, sexual immorality. Adultery, homosexual activity, it's in the list. Fornication, inventing new ways of evil. Pornea is the word that comes up right there.

That's what sexual immorality in this verse. That's what it is. Pornea. And pornea goes everything. It runs the gamut from images, pornography, that's where we get the word, that are indulgent images for sensual pleasure all the way up to the act with another human being or more than one according to orgies and things like these.

So any kind of sexual activity that takes place outside of marriage is listed right there, and it's an abrupt shift. Right? It goes, be imitators of God, just as God loved you and Christ died for us. He's a fragrant Roma. But listen, sexual immorality, you gotta get out of there.

Get away from that. So there it is. Those are the places where it hits the list. You know that there were more places, just saying, more places about the way we use our speech than there are about this. And we're probably most of us are more likely to be guilty of the corrupting speech than we are all of this.

But we're all susceptible to all of these. Sexual immorality, oh, or any impurity. You thought you had somewhere to hide, didn't you? Well, that's not mine. Thank God.

Showed up today. That's not me. Any impurity. You wanna see the list on this one? Bam.

Any impurity. That's what it means. Anything that's not straight up godliness. Gosh. Or greed.

Oh, wait a second. Now you're going to meddling. Right? Stomping on toes now. We don't mention this one very often.

We should. Sexual morality, any impurity, or greed, covetousness, wanting to have more than you have is greed. And that hits the list pretty pretty regularly too. Idolatry is when you desire something more than you desire God. You worship things.

Idolatry is in there. Enmity, jealousy, rivalries, envy. He's got more than I've got. Why does he have more than I have, God? Idolatry, thievery, greed, despising the words of the prophets.

That one's in there too. That's one of those. We were in the prophets for a long time, probably too long, honestly. But switching back over to Ephesians and seeing the light of the New Testament, you can see a lot of the stuff that the prophets were talking about that the the state that God's people had gotten into is where they were not paying attention to the things of God. And sexual immorality definitely was present when the prophets were speaking.

And any impurity, yeah, obviously. But greed, When Amos says, hey. I'm not paying any attention to your religious assemblies. God says, I don't care about your songs. They don't mean anything.

You're worshiping with your lips, but then you're going after and you're gouging your neighbor to get what you want. Greed was the main thing I see in the minor prophets especially. Covetousness, envy filled, strive to seek, craftiness, craftiness. I had a friend who went to work for he was as a salesman. I won't go into what kind of salesman but he went there and they said, we're not really selling the product.

What we're selling is the financing on the product and you've really got to sell the financing. He said, but that's going to cost them three times as much. And they said, yeah. And we're the ones they're paying. If you're going to keep doing this, you've got to become more crafty.

And he said, I didn't really know what he meant by crafty. I went home and looked it up in my concordance. The only place I saw it was right here. It's on the list of vices. Craftiness.

It is like the evil scheming devil. I don't want to do this. He went back and quit the job. Haughty, boastful, ungrateful, lovers of money, ruthless, swollen with conceit. But sexual immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you as is proper among the saints.

When it says it must not even be mentioned, it's named among you. Like, there is someone among you who that is how they are known. Now that is how they used to be known is great. That's what we want. We want a room full of people that used to be known.

Right? But he's saying in this latter half of Ephesians is, hey, you were in the kingdom of darkness and now you're in the kingdom of light. You were on your own and did not have the power. Now you have the power of God and so these things should be things of the past. You should be letting go of em.

Because you're saints. And I've mentioned it several times since we got into Ephesians into these chapters. If you just kind of intently say, well, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. I'm just a sinner. I'm just a sinner.

I'm just a sinner. Sinner saved by grace. Yep. The definition of sinner saved by grace is saint, which means holy one. You have been called holy.

You have been baptized with the blood of Christ that makes clean. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. So walk in it.

Walk that way. There must be no filthiness. Filthiness. That's what it means. I looked it up in Greek.

Know what it means? Filthiness. It's the only time it's used actually in the New Testament. It's the only time this word is used. Or foolish talk, silly, just plain silliness.

This one is morologia, moronic language. It's great. Talk of fools, meaningless chatter, or vulgar joking. And vulgar joking or coarse jesting. There are a lot of different ways that people define this, and I've heard it from preachers in the past.

And basically, say when you say you're joking but you're not joking, you're saying it to intimate to somebody something that you want them to change, but you're just joking. Just joking. That's not really it. This is the turn of a phrase. This is quickly turning.

I'm going to say this once, probably should not even be mentioned among us, but I'm going to say this once because I think it lets you know what I'm talking about. The turn of a phrase, the quickness of the turn is the that's what she said jokes. It's where you're listening out and you're hearing something and your mind is always concentrating on something that's pretty base, common, dirty, filthy, foolish, whatever. And you sit there and you're just waiting for a moment when you could turn that phrase and say, that's what she's saying. Do you get that?

That's what that is. It's just kinda like, come on. I know that there's several members of our our congregation here who are part of the laugh staff who are constantly working to make people laugh. And I love that, and I think it's wonderful. And part of the job of the ones who are here with us is they're trying to keep it away from that common base easy joke.

Right? Because those are really easy. It takes a little bit more to work through that because if you hit the least common denominator, just go for the easy one, vulgar stuff, then, yeah, it's going be an uncomfortable laugh, but it's a guaranteed uncomfortable laugh. Right? Work a little harder for that.

Be smarter about it. So Paul is saying that and I've mentioned a couple weeks ago. First, be and then do. Right? Recognize that you are.

The first three chapters of Ephesians says you are this. You are a saint. You're a holy one. You've been called out. You've been given all the power of the Holy Spirit.

You have been given a task. You have been given a message. You are empowered to go with that message. And then over here, it's like, this is how you deliver that message. This is where you do.

Now between those two things, I think that being and doing is great. Thinking comes in the middle of that, and he's appealing right now to your intellect. Paul is. He's appealing to our intellect. He's saying, the things that you keep on saying are the things that you're gonna be doing.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Which are not fitting. So these things, filthiness, foolish talk, vulgar joking, they're just not fitting. Locker room talk doesn't really have a place here.

They're not fitting. And he had just said earlier, be ready to use your words to give grace as it fits the occasion, and it's just not something that usually or ever fits the occasion to be filthy or foolish or vulgar. But rather, he says the opposite of these things is giving thanks. A lot of comedy comes from a place of being discontented. A lot of this this kind of humor comes from a place of, oh, that's my luck.

Of course. That's the way it's gonna be. Yeah. And we're kinda griping with that. And God is saying, hey.

You got breath in your lungs. You can feel your muscles. You you have life left in you. Appreciate the life that God has given. You know?

Appreciating what you have is the opposite of the filthiness, foolish talk, and vulgar joke, and so but rather be giving thanks. For you know this with certainty, and this is another one of those where it kinda stomps its foot a bit. The emphasis here is you know this with certainty that no sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, and that is the same list as above. Right? You know this with certainty that these folks, which amount to be in an idolater, somebody who has put other things in front of God.

Now as a Christian, you've been removed from the darkness and brought into the light, and he's shown you the peril of your former way, and he's brought you miraculously into this new way. If you insist on spending your time and your effort walking backwards towards the darkness, you have to consider that he's not your lord. You have to at least consider that. Where do you identify? And I I know sinner saved by grace is saint.

I've said that over and over. Sinner saved by grace is saint. But sinner is sinner, and saint is saint. So if you insist on identifying with the sin, whatever it is from that long list, If you insist on no, but that's who I am. No matter which one it is, that's who I am.

Then, you're resisting going towards Christ. This says that no one who insists on this being who they are has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Christ is saying, come all come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, all of that stuff that does not satisfy that you're working on so hard. Come on to me all you who labor, and I will give you rest, and you'll have rest walking away from those things, the former things. See that no one deceives you with empty words.

It's another way. I guess this is another corrupting speech. Empty words, the the sales pitch. Oh, no. No.

No. No. That's not the way it is. This is not the way that's defined. You gotta look at it this way and consider all these different things.

See that no one deceives you with empty words for it is because of these things, and these things are those things, sexual immorality, impurity, greed, filthiness, foolish talk, vulgar joking, sexually immoral, impure, greedy person, corrupting talk from last week, all of that stuff, all the heavy stuff from last week too, all that stuff. It says, it's because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, don't become partners with them. Don't link up with them and and agree with them that it's okay. For you once were darkness, but now you're light in the Lord.

You once were darkness, and you didn't know. And last week it said you were ignorant of those things and because of your hardness of heart, you were resistant. But now you're light in the Lord. So either you're in sins or you're in Christ, that's your position. And yeah, you can say that's lost or found, lost or saved in darkness or in light.

But this is instruction for those who are. It's a letter to Christians in a Gentile context in Ephesus. It's a letter to Christians who have left the kingdom of darkness and come into the kingdom of light, but how do we walk that out? He says be walking, actually be walking, present tense, as children of light. For the fruit of light consists in all goodness.

Just like all impurity was up there, this is kind of a counterbalance to that. It's saying, the fruit of light consists in all goodness, in all righteousness, and in truth. Don't believe the lie and don't go for it. All goodness, righteousness, and truth, and walk towards Christ. Walk towards the light.

And this I love. It's such a great statement. As you try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, discernment is important. And there are some things that we need to discern, and we don't know whether they're right or they're wrong. And if it's if it's in our own life and the Holy Spirit is convicting us in our own heart, and he's saying, trust me with this.

Trust me with this. You talk too much. Right? I don't know what it is. But trust me with this.

You cheat. You you you count double your points in basketball and you minimize the other points. When they say, what's the score? You go, 20 to 19, when you know darn well it was tied. Whatever.

I don't know what it is for you. What is it in your heart of hearts as you try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord? As you try. I love that Paul gave us that because that says to me that there are things today that I think I know, and it leaves the possibility open that Christ can say, hey, that point that you pounded the pulpit on, this is true. This is right.

Now I'm trying my best to stick with exactly what it says and not go beyond what is written because I feel like really, really uncomfortable just telling my opinion. In fact, a lot of things that are my opinion go against what this says. I just have to say, I want my opinion to bend to what this says, and I don't want to bend this to what my opinion says. Does that make sense to y'all? Like, it makes sense to me.

It scares me to death to be up here to deliver a message that is, like, so in your face as you try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do you remember the section where Jesus is saying, listen, there's coming a time when people will kill you and think they're doing God a favor. They think that they're doing something that's pleasing to the Lord. The guys who stoned Stephen thought they were doing something pleasing to the Lord. As you try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

So, I'd say this sanctification slide I've used for years, the yielding to righteousness for your sanctification, humbling yourself before God and saying, Lord, rather than me bending what it says to my opinion, will you bend me and my will to what it says? I'm yielding to you. I'm turning over my will and my life to you as I understand you, recognizing that I might have a clearer picture down the road than I have right now. I'm trusting you with it, Lord. Would you show me the way I wanna walk in it?

Now the next verse, same paragraph. Do not participate in. Do not be partners with them, it says above, but do not participate in, what, the useless deeds of darkness. Don't do it. But instead, even expose them.

When somebody comes to a support group and says, I've never told anybody this ever before, but I'm so and so, and I'm an alcoholic, or I'm so and so, and I'm an addict. I'm so and so, and I struggle with this. They come to a counselor, they say, I am wrong in this way, and I don't know what to do about it. They're exposing it themselves. That's good.

I think a lot of us just want to root around and find somebody else's sin and expose that. But this, we have to start with ourselves. Don't participate in the useless deeds of darkness. When you see them, just expose them. Bring them to the light for it's disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.

But all things become visible when they're exposed by the light. If we're walking as children of light, which is what it's said to do, that's characterized in our life and our walk, and that in itself is gonna cast light on the things that are surrounding us. So all things become visible when they're exposed to light. For everything that becomes visible is light. Be walking in the light as John says.

And for this reason it says, this is an interesting one. This is a quote. For this reason it says usually when he says that we know exactly where it came from. In this case, says, for this reason it says, awake sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine up on you or upon you. And this one, where does it say that?

It doesn't. As far as I can tell, I can't find it anywhere in the in the Old Testament. And if you look it up on Bible Gateway or Bible Hub or anywhere else, they do all kinds of Olympics to make it somewhere, but it's not. It's like five different passages from Isaiah has a word each and they put them all together, but that's not the way we quote scripture. This could have been just a saying in that neighborhood.

It could have been something Maimonides said, you know, years before that. Could I don't know where it came from, But I will say this, all truth is God's truth. And if it's quoting Led Zeppelin, but it's still true, you know, okay. There are two paths you can go by. I'm with you so far.

Yeah. Yeah. But then it turns. Right? Awake sleeper and rise from the dead.

Do you all have any friends that say, oh, man, don't sleep on those bran muffins or don't sleep on whatever. Have you heard this phrase? We are living with a 28 year old right now, And she says things, and I'm like, don't sleep on it. We're insomniacs. We don't ever sleep anyway.

You know? It's don't sleep on the oh, don't sleep on such and such. Don't sleep on this band or don't sleep on this whatever. Oh, don't sleep on that. Oh, I was man, I was sleeping on that.

And that's being dulled to whatever is going on. Oh, you need to know about this brand muffin. You need to know about this band. You need to know what's going on. This is the the plain sense of what he's saying is awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead.

I got one quick story. When I was 19, 19 years old, I was elected to be the preacher at the Ocean Park RV Resort in Panama City, Florida. I had no business. When Ryan said we're not qualified, I had no business doing it. But they handed it to me, and I'm gonna try my best to deliver biblical sermon.

And I knew what I was saying was from the Bible because I was reading it from the Bible, and I was trying to keep it, you know, dead center of the plate. And at the end, I called on a guy to pray. He had a Southern Baptist haircut. He had on a three piece suit. We were at the beach.

I'm not joking. He had on a vest and everything. Tie, his hair said, Baptist preacher. And so I said, brother, would you stand and close us with prayer? And he stood up and he said, he had a big old Bible and he said, Lord, thank you for sending this young man to try to preach to us.

When it was over, he brought forward a King James Bible and he said, here's a King James Bible. Don't ever preach from anything else. And he gave me his business card which I carried for years. I still have it somewhere. I couldn't find it this morning.

But it said, Awake O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine upon you. And he was a traveling evangelist. That's what he did. And I I thought the guy was great. It was funny.

But this Awaco sleeper is not something politically right now. If you say, oh, stay woke. Woah. People run from the building. This is saying you've been exposed to the truth of God.

Don't go sleeping on it. Don't ignore it. Awake, sleeper. Arise from the dead. What if a couple weeks ago, what if the what if the baptism a week ago was buried with Christ?

You gotta be raised to walk in newness of life. Right? It's saying, don't just be buried with Christ and that's it. You're saved. Good go.

No. You're raised to walk in newness of life. If you will, let this sit in your heart and not argue with what it is that the Holy Spirit is saying and not argue your position but say, God, I want to walk out the position that I have in the kingdom of light. I want for the light that shines off of me that comes from you to expose the things and bring people into the kingdom. That's what this is talking about.

So it's better not where where does it say that? Why does it say that? It says that because we need to wake up to the things of God and recognize that he will shine on us if we wake up. That's it. Oh, I heard a well, I get the man back up here, and I wanna pray.

God help us. God help us. Revival begins where we surrender. So lord, I pray that you'd start the work in me. I thought I pray that you'd start the work in us, that you'd continue the work through your humble and obedient servants of leaning forward towards the light.

Lord, like a plant leans toward the sun, may we get more and more light and be able to reflect more and more light. In Jesus name, I pray that the truth of scripture that now sits in our laps, Lord, would get into our hearts and would motivate us to walk. Amen. Would you sing out? The altar is always open for prayer, and I'll be around this week.

Would you sing out?