WAKE UP
DR. JIM DIXON
REVELATION 3:1-6
SEPTEMBER 25, 1994
It was Washington Irving who told the story of Rip Van Winkle. Rip, of course, lived in the Catskills Mountains during the colonial period of American history. Rip did not get along with his wife very well. One day, after they had had an argument, he felt like he needed to take a walk. He went outside the house and began to hike. He hiked up a nearby mountain. When he was near the top of the mountain, he came across some very strange little men who offered him a drink from their keg of liquor. Rip accepted and soon fell asleep, right there on the mountain. He did not wake up for 20 years. When he woke up, he went back home and found that his wife had died, his children were grown, and the Revolutionary War had come and gone. Washington Irving took that story from the German legend of Peter Klaus. While it is just a story, it is true that a person in a coma can be unconscious for months and years.
But sleep is different from a coma. It is a physiological fact that people cannot sleep for great lengths of time. It would be difficult to sleep for 20 hours, let alone 20 years. But the Bible would have us understand that what is true in the physical world is not necessarily true in the spiritual world. The Bible informs us that there are many Christians who are spiritually asleep and have been asleep for years. Indeed, some Christians live virtually their entire earthly lives asleep. Therefore, in the scriptures we constantly have this admonition from God. “Wake up. Wake up.”
There are five different Greek words used in the Bible to address the church of Jesus Christ. Each means wake up. Gregorio is one of the Greek words that our Lord Jesus Christ used when addressing the church at Sardis. His message to the church at Sardis was simple. It was this: “Wake up.” I believe that the message of Jesus Christ to the Christian church in America as we approach the consummation of this century is the same message: “Wake up.” Why is that? It is because the Christian church in America at this time is afflicted with two different slumbering maladies. I am going to use a little alliteration, rhyme, and repetition to describe these maladies.
First of all, the Christian church at the close of the 20th century is becoming degenerate regenerates. Degenerate regenerates. Every Christian, the world over, is a regenerate generate. The word regeneration comes from the Latin word “genus.” The Latin word “genus” means “birth. “Regeneration” simply means “rebirth.” Christians the world over, if they are truly a Christian, have experienced rebirth. We were born once when we were born physically, and we were born a second time when we were born spiritually.
When we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, when we were born anew, we were reborn, regenerated. The Greek word, the biblical word is “anagennao” or “gennao anothen,” “to be born anew,” or “to be born from above.” Every Christian is a regenerate. The problem, however, is that in becoming children of God, sons and daughters of God, many Christians in our time are becoming degenerate regenerates. The word degenerate also comes from the Latin word “genus.” But the Latin word “genus” does not simply mean birth, it also means family, kin, or race. The word degenerate was used to describe a person who had become an embarrassment to the family, an embarrassment to kin, an embarrassment to the race. In the broadest scope, it was used of a person who had become an embarrassment to the human race. Degenerate.
Spiritually in the community of Christ, it is true that we can become an embarrassment to the family of God. As regenerates we have entered the family of God. We have become children of God, sons and daughters of God, but we can become an embarrassment to the family of God. How does that happen? How is that happening in our time? It is happening because the Christian community in America, particularly now near the close of the 20th century, is misunderstanding the concept of grace. Grace is such a precious promise in the scripture and such a great provision of God.
I want to tell you a little story. It is a true story about a woman named Beth. One day she was driving her car down the road. Actually, it was her husband Richard’s car. Beth was having a lot of fun because she rarely got to drive this car. It was a classic red MG, a convertible. She had the top down, and the wind was in her face. She felt the power of the car. The handling of the car was exceptional, and she was having a lot of fun. But she was also very nervous because this car was Richard’s pride and joy. Beth was kind of concerned as she did not want to have an accident. While driving in the midst of heavy traffic, she looked down for a moment. The car in front of her stopped, and she crashed into the back of the car. She panicked. She thought, what is Richard going to think? The police came and asked her for her registration and proof of insurance. She opened the glove compartment and found the registration. She noticed that attached to the registration was an envelope addressed to her. It said, “Beth” on the outside. She opened it up and find a letter from Richard. The letter read, “Dear Beth, If you are reading this, you have probably been in an accident. Do not worry. I pray that you are all right. Remember that it is you that I really love. Richard.”
That is touching. The Bible tells us that that is the way our Father in heaven feels about us. That is the way our Lord Jesus Christ feels about us. It is you that He loves. And He loves you more than He loves his commandments. He did not create you to serve His commandments; He created His commandments to serve you. It is you that He loves. When you break His commandments, when you smash His commandment, when you shatter a commandment, He comes to you and tells you that it is you that He loves. That is grace. Grace is wonderful. But the Bible warns us as the community of Christ and as the church of Christ that we can pervert grace. We can pervert grace to license and grace to licentiousness. The Apostle Paul asked, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2a).
If we smash the commandments of God repeatedly and casually and flippantly, we become an embarrassment to the family of God. Now, how are we shattering the commandments of God and the Christian community in our time? Is the real problem materialism? Is it hedonism? Is it ego? Is it ascensionism? Certainly all of these characterize the Christian church in America at the close of the 20th century. But I think the commandments of God that we are irresponsibly shattering are the greatest commandments of all.
In Matthew 22 a lawyer came to Christ and asked, “Lord, which is the first and the greatest commandments?” Jesus said, “Hear, oh Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. These are the great two commandments. Love God. Love your neighbor. All the other commandments of God are summed up in these” (Matthew 22:36-40). Love should characterize the Christian church. They will know we are Christians by our love. Jesus said, “By this, all men, the world over will know you are my disciples if you love one another” (John 13:35).
So how do we become an embarrassment to the name of Christ, to the community of Christ? I would ask you: Does this nation, does the world when it thinks of Christians, when it thinks of the church, does it think of love? Does it think of compassion?
Some of you have heard of Julian the Apostate. Julian ascended the throne of Rome in the year AD 360 and became Caesar. He became the ruler of the Roman Empire. He was called the apostate because he fought to eradicate Christianity from the earth. This was the fourth century AD. Constantine had lived and died. Constantine had liberated Christians. He had made Christianity legal and had brought to an end the persecution of the church of Jesus Christ. But then Julian came along in the year AD 360, and he wanted to re-embrace the old Roman religions. He wanted to persecute and kill Christians. He wanted to eradicate the Christian faith. This was his great quest. This was his great purpose. However, he failed. He failed miserably.
Julian died on June 26, 363 and was surrounded by his followers. It is a matter of historical record that his final two words were these, ” Vicisti, Galilaee.” “You have conquered, Galilean.” How did the Galilean conquer? How did the carpenter from Nazareth conquer? How did the church of Jesus Christ conquered? Julian tells us when he wrote these words in his personal records, which are kept in historical archives. “As children are drawn to candy, so the masses are drawn to the love and compassion of Christians. Julian knew why he could not kill the Christian church. He knew why the Galilean had conquered. He wrote it down. “As children are drawn to candy, so the masses are drawn to the love and compassion of Christians.” What a testimony. And in his century, Christianity swept the world.
Is it true today? Is the community of Jesus Christ potent or impotent today? Where is the power of Christ? The power of Christ will be released through men and women who love as He has loved, who manifest the compassion that He has shown. And so, Jesus Christ says to His church, “Wake up. Wake up and love that once again we might be known for our compassion and our love.”
We have a second admonition as the church of Christ at the close of this century. To use a little alliteration, we are becoming alienated aliens, degenerate regenerates, and alienated aliens. Time magazine had a funny little story recently about twelve United States senators who have been identified by one of the tabloids as space aliens. You might have read the story. These twelve senators have been targeted and identified by something called The Weekly World News to be space aliens. They include Orrin Hatch, John Glenn, Jay Rockefeller, and Alan Simpson. Reporters came to Senator Alan Simpson and said, “You have been identified by this tabloid as being a space alien. Do you have any comments?” Simpson replied, ” Klaatu barada nikto,” which I think is a quote from the science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
But it is crazy. It is crazy to think that there are space aliens in this world. My guess would be that there is not a single person in this sanctuary this morning who believes there are space aliens living on planet Earth. But the Bible does tell us that there are aliens on the earth. The Bible tells us there are aliens on this earth, and they are called Christians. The Bible says that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is an alien in this world (1 Peter 2:11). The Bible uses the word “allogenes” and the word “xenos” to identify us as strangers and exiles, aliens on the earth.
Jesus Christ in His high priestly prayer in John 17 (speaking of those of us who would believe) said, “Father, they are not of this world, even as I am not of this world.” When Jesus left this world, He said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:3). This world is not our home. And as I told the women’s Bible study this past Wednesday, we are living in enemy territory. The Bible says that Satan is the ruler of this world. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are living in enemy territory; and you have been given a very dangerous assignment. Jesus said, “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matthew 10:16). It is a dangerous assignment in the enemy territory. There are only two ways to get home, death or rapture, and only the final generation will see the rapture.
We are aliens on the earth. But that is not so bad. The problem is not that we are aliens. The problem is that we are alienated aliens. The community of Christ, the church of Christ, is meant to encourage, support, exhort, and comfort one another. Yet we have become alienated from one another. I have seen this nowhere more clearly than in my work with Denver Link. It has been an eye opener for me to work on the board of Denver Link and to see how difficult it is to bring Christians together. Christians really are alienated aliens. The whole purpose of Denver Link is for Christians who believe in the Denver community to come together in the name of Christ to exalt Christ and to reach out to the inner city with the love and compassion of Christ. We have tried to link Black and White; Hispanic and Asian; Catholic and Protestant; Pentecostal and Dispensationalist; urban and suburban; and rich and poor to come together to exalt Christ, to come in the name of Christ.
It has been hard. One group of Christians will say, “We’re not going to come if this group is coming. We’re not going to come if that group is coming.” It is a tragedy in our time. Christians cannot seem to get together. We are having Denver Link tonight. We do not know whether we are going to have 1,000 or 10,000 people. We hope that some of you will come. Some of the Black pastors on the Denver Link Board who minister in the inner city have told me that the suburban people will not come. The White suburban Christians will not come. I do not say that for the sake of guilt. It is just reality. Reality is that the inner city believes the suburbs do not care. That is what they believe. How great it would be if we could build some bridges and bring Christian brothers and sisters together to exalt Christ and to reach out with the love of Christ to the inner city.
When I see the alienation in the body of Christ, it reminds me of the story of Cadmus. If you are familiar with Greek mythology, you might know the story of Cadmus. One day Cadmus was on a journey looking for his sister who was lost. He came upon a dragon, fought the dragon, defeated the dragon, and killed it. He took the dragon’s teeth—large, massive, and sharp teeth— and buried them in a field. A few years later, he was taking another journey and came upon that field. He saw the teeth actually rise out of the ground and become armed giants.
What could he do? How could he cross the field? He hid behind a tree and thought, how in the world can I defeat these giants? He thought that maybe he could get the giants to defeat themselves. He took a stone and threw it at one of the giants, hitting the giant on the side of the face. He hoped the giant would think another giant had done it. Sure enough, that is what happened. That giant and another giant began to fight. Soon all the giants were fighting among themselves. Eventually, they defeated themselves as most of the giants were dead or wounded. Cadmus then walked freely across the field. It seems to me that is what Satan is doing to the church of Christ in our time. He is causing us to fight one with the other, and he delights in this.
Tolkien, in his epic trilogy Lord of the Rings, made a great statement. He wrote, “Indeed, in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.” Alienated aliens. That is the problem with the church of Christ in our time. For us as a congregation, for us as a church, the issue is not simply unity. The issue is community. As a church, we have not only been called to express unity with the church of Christ universal, but also we have been called as a church to come into community with one another so that we would not be alienated aliens here but that we would come into community.
That is why we have a congregational life department offering cell group ministry that we might learn to come into community. This is so critical for our church and for this time in our church to be a congregation coming into community. If you look at the front of your bulletin this Sunday or any Sunday, you see the five-fold purpose of Cherry Hills Community Church: “To exalt Jesus Christ. To bring people to Christ. To bond them in Christ. To build them in Christ. To send them out in Christ.” That is what we are all about. Having brought people to Christ, we want to see people bonded in Christ so that they will not be alienated alien, but that they would enter into community. That is what these cell groups are all about. How important this is to God. He has called us into community. The church of Jesus Christ is meant to be expressed in community.
You can go back to Eden when sin first entered the world, and you can see how alienation occurred, how Adam and Eve began to be alienated from God as they sought to hide themselves from Him. Then they began to alienate themselves from each other as they began to accuse each other. Through the centuries and millennia, as sin has permeated the race, this alienation is so great that, even for us as Christians, it is hard to take the time and energy to come back together. But that is what Christ has called us to do, and so we offer these cell groups. When we go to Highlands Ranch, we want to have sixty or seventy new cells ready to start, and we need cell leaders to do this. We need some of you for the sake of Christ and for the sake of community to say, “I’m willing to be a cell leader.”
Louie and Ginger and others in the congregational life department are going to be in the gymnasium after the service. If you are willing to be a cell leader and to be trained as a cell leader, you can talk with them after the service today. These cell groups are not just for the sake of community and bonding but also for building. Curriculum is used in the cells that provide biblical adult education to help us grow in our knowledge of the Lord. Cell groups are also for sending people into ministry because each cell group, having come together into community and then growing in the word, is called to enter together into ministry.
Jim Reitsema, one of our elders, is a cell group leader. His cell group has taken charge of the visitor cards that are filled out each week in the pew. We are a church with a big front door, but tragically we have also had a big back door. It is easy for people to come, and it is easy for people to leave. How wonderful it is that a cell group is taking on the responsibility of making sure that no one comes here and leaves without having been talked with and cared for. Our hope and prayer is that all the service ministries of the church would ultimately be placed into the hands of the cell groups that we might be the body of Christ—we would not be alienated aliens, but a Christian community.
With this, we will close. In May of 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and his sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, scaled the summit of Mount Everest. They were the first human beings to ascend that mountain, which is 29,000 feet high. As they were coming down the mountain, Sir Edmund Hillary fell. He fell and would have died except that his sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, dug his ice pick into the earth, braced the rope, and caught Hillary. Hillary announced to the world that Norgay had saved his life. Norgay became an instant hero, but he never understood. He said he did not understand what that was all about. He said that he only did what mountain climbers do. “We take care of one another. Why do you think we’re tied together?”
If you are a Christian, it is a dangerous world. The Holy Spirit of God has come to tie us together that we might learn to take care of one another. That is what our cell groups are all about, being joined to another group of Christians to care for one another. It is a commitment. Sometimes it is a discipline. Oftentimes it is a great joy. Most of all, it is the will of God, the command of God for the church of Christ in this century and in every century.
The message of Christ to the church of Christ at the close of the 20th century in America is this: “Wake up. Wake up. Don’t be degenerate regenerates but obey My commandments. And above all else, love as I have loved you. Show the compassion I have shown you to the world. Do not be alienated aliens. Let the world see you come together as family, as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.” Let us look to the Lord with the word of prayer.