Small Shifts, Big Faith: There Is Life In You Yet… (Part XIII)

Sermon Title: Small Shifts, Big Faith – There Is Life In You Yet…

Good News Statement: Jesus encourages his church to be alive

Summary: The church isn’t perfect but yet is willing to grow in faith, practice love, and be alive today and tomorrow.

Preached: Sunday, September 6^th, 2026 at Dogwood Prairie UMC & Seed Chapel UMC

Pastor Daniel G. Skelton, M.Div.

 

Scripture (NRSV): Acts 20:7-12 Today’s scripture reading comes from the Book of Acts. As Paul was traveling from town to town, he found himself in Troas. In Troas he preached for many hours even as Eutychus fell out of a window and died. Paul brought him back to life and told all those present “There is life in him yet.” May that be true for us today. Let’s read Acts Chapter Twenty, Verses Seven thru Twelve. May the hearing and reading of this scripture add understanding and meaning to your life.

 

Paul’s Farewell Visit to Troas

⁷ On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. ⁸ There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. ⁹ A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ But Paul went down and bending over him took him in his arms and said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” ¹¹ Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. ¹² Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.

 

The Word of God, for the People of God; And all God’s People said, “Thanks Be To God.”

 

 

Introduction:

The ministry of Jesus Christ has been shared. Healings have been performed. The blind were able to see and the lame able to walk. Those demon possessed were set free. The chains of the oppressed were broken. People began to believe and prayed to have their “unbelief turn into belief” (Mark 9:24). Some were even raised from the dead to breathe again. And some were welcomed home after being outcast to the dark, damp, tombs outside of the city walls.

Then, after riding into Jerusalem on a never before ridden donkey and being praised as the people laid their cloaks on the ground as shouts of “Hosannas” filled the air, Jesus is turned over to the religious leaders of the day. Jesus is questioned and tortured by the Roman soldiers—beaten nearly to death—prior to receiving a crown of thorns and a purple robe as a sign of earthly mockery. He was presented to the people in the presence of Pontius Pilate, who said, “But what crime has he committed? I cannot find anything he has done to deserve death! I will have him whipped and set him free” (Luke 23:22, GNT). To which the people responded, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (Luke 23:20, GNT). Luke 23:24 states, “So Pilate passed the sentence on Jesus that they were asking for.”

Jesus is marched from the palace to Calvary, bearing the weight of the cross—most likely the horizontal beam—as excruciating pain shot through his body with every step, as blood dripped from his head to the ground, soaking the dirty road beneath his feet, and as both cries and shouts surrounded him. On Calvary, he hung on the cross for six hours before taking his last breath and proclaiming “It is finished” (John 19:30). Then he was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Three days later he rose from the dead to prove that death does not have the last word, that a tomb sealed by a large stone could not withhold him, and that an instrument of death—the cross—is a promise of hope and salvation. And now, after 40 days of walking this earth in his resurrected form, he has ascended to heaven; but before leaving this earth, he gave his apostles and disciples a challenge: to keep the church alive.

This is where the Book of Acts comes into play. For those that are unaware, the Book of Acts (or sometimes called the Acts of the Apostles), written during the time of 33AD to 62AD, is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke was a physician back in the day and has been credited to write the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. The theme of Luke’s writing after the ascension of Jesus Christ is focused on how the Holy Spirit empowers believers to declare the gospel among both Jews and Gentiles. In doing so they establish the church, which is the fulfillment of God’s promises from the beginning of time. Jesus states in Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Luke’s purpose for writing the Book of Acts—the journey and testimony of Paul and the rise and growth of the early church—was to give an orderly account of the early church after Christ’s resurrection; and to highlight the notion that keeping the church alive was not, is not, and will not be easy. But keeping the church alive is necessary. So, for the next several weeks, we are going to explore certain themes sprinkled throughout the Book of Acts which I believe remind us of how important it is to keep the church alive today for tomorrow. And the question I propose to you is this: “What are we doing and could be doing to keep our church and the whole Church—the body of Christ—alive?”

 

Body:

“A pastor was 10-minutes into his sermon when he noticed his young son in the balcony with a pea-shooter. He was leaning over the balcony—aiming, and popping people in the head. As the pastor prepared to deliver a very public scolding of his boy, the 7-year old son hollered out, ‘You keep preaching Dad, and I’ll keep them awake!’”

Have you ever fallen asleep in class or in church? For instance, you have this posture like you are praying, the pastor is speaking low, the temperature in the church is perfect, and then you start to slide down in your pew. I know how it is. I can remember numerous times when I fell asleep in church as a child and even as a teenager. Sometimes, by the time Sunday morning comes around, you are tired and worn out from a busy week and for the first time—maybe the only time during the week—when you sit in the pew is when you finally get a moment to relax. You remember singing the opening hymn and then someone nudges you to stand for the closing hymn. It happens!

I not only fell asleep in church, but I will admit that I fell asleep during a few classes. The first time I fell asleep was in kindergarten. A typical day in kindergarten consisted of a nap time after lunch. It usually lasted about 20 minutes; and usually I didn’t fall asleep. But one day, I did. And I slept through gym class. Now, who wants to sleep through a class that doesn’t have homework and all you have to do is play games!? Let me tell you, I made sure not to let that happen again.

Then in high school, there were a few times I fell asleep during my last class of the day during freshmen year. My last class was health class. Most of the time my teacher, the wrestling coach, sat at his desk and just told us to open up our textbooks, read the chapter, and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. Now in my defense, the classroom was located upstairs next to where the furnaces were. In the winter, the room would get nice and warm and after a long day which began at 6:30 in the morning, it was very—I mean very difficult—to keep my eyes open. The bell would ring; I would wake up, and realize that I was still on the title page for the chapter.

Today, I am not one to take naps, which is the complete opposite of Emily. She loves a good two to four hour nap, especially on Sunday afternoons or even just a few hours after waking up in the morning. I share this with you because today we’re going to encounter a story that involves a long sermon shared late at night in the presence of someone who was extremely tired. I would like to call Paul’s message a “killer sermon”. While preaching, Paul stops what he is doing, tends to the person who fell asleep, and says something profound that I hope you hang on to today. He says, “There is life in him yet.” Church, there is life in us yet even when we feel tired.

 

Movement One: Introduction to the Scripture Text…

Let’s begin today’s message by first getting an overview of the text. Let’s read Acts 20:7-10: “On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and bending over him took him in his arms and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’”

Wow! You talk about a long-winded preacher! Are you up for a 12-hour sermon? I like to talk, but I don’t think I could talk that long. (And for those that are history buffs, if you think talking for 12 hours is long, well you might remember that in 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, in order to block the Civil Rights Act, spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes straight in the U.S. Senate…Oh wait, that’s not the longest speech. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey broke that record in April 2025 by speaking for 25 hours and 5 minutes straight while offering a filibuster to a piece of legislation… Twelve hours doesn’t seem that terrible now, does it?!) However, while Paul was preaching in Troas—founded before 300 B.C. and located about 10 miles south of the city of Troy, and later becoming a Roman colony by the emperor Augustus—we learn a few insights about the church. It has grown up a little bit since Acts Chapter Two. Some structure has taken place and developed over time. Christians, the church, are starting to break away from practicing like Jews to having some more uniqueness.

As a matter of fact, they set apart a day of the week for worship and particularly, this is one of the earliest references in Scripture that we see them having set apart Sunday as the day of worship—the first day of the week—and we continue to practice that today. And notice in verse seven, there are two things that they prioritized about coming together for worship. One, they prioritized coming together to partake of the Lord’s Supper. They did that because Jesus had commanded them to do it, and we also see that when they came together, they put a high priority and emphasis on the intentional preaching and teaching of Scripture, which even for us today is a high priority. The church is not only growing but it is becoming structural and establishing a firm foundation—creating traditions that will last a lifetime.

Let’s use our imagination if we can, and let’s recreate this scene in our minds. Those in Troas have chosen to meet in an upper room, probably similar to the upper room in which Jesus met with his disciples just hours before being crucified and where the 120 received the Holy Spirit in Acts Two. We’ll see in a little bit, it’s the third floor of a house that they have chosen to gather in, and I could only imagine, based upon examples throughout the New Testament of houses, that they gathered in probably a fairly large house with enough room for people to come together. They’ve opened up the windows, receiving a nice cool breeze coming from the Mediterranean Sea during what we would call the spring season. It’s a chilly night and the room is filled with heat as people are cramming in to hear Paul speak before he leaves town. And since it was getting late in the evening, many lamps were placed around the room. Do you see it?

Now, imagine you’re sitting in this upper room. It’s cold. You’re beginning to get warm because the room is getting packed and the heat from the lamps is radiating throughout the room. It’s getting late. Your mind is engaged. You’re interested in what’s going on. Paul is preaching with so much excitement that you want to stay awake. As you fight to stay awake though, you notice someone, who the town’s people call Eutychus, begin to fall into a deep sleep.[1] How dare he! How dare Eutychus falls asleep when Paul is preaching, right? Where’s the little boy with the pea-shooter?

But I’ll be honest with you; Eutychus gets a bad rap here. I can’t tell you the number of sermons that I have heard preached on this passage and the emphasis was on, “How dare Eutychus fall asleep while Paul is preaching!” And, “We need to wake up!” We could talk about that, but let’s give the guy a break. After all, his name does translate into fortunate which could be alluding to something yet to come. Therefore, I want to pay attention to Eutychus from a different perspective. Rather than him falling asleep, here is what I think is noteworthy. I want you to pay attention to the fact that even though he fell asleep, Eutychus showed up. Eutychus was present. Eutychus desired to learn. Eutychus wanted to grow. Eutychus had life in him yet.

 

Movement Two: God Will Use Your Weakness…

First, God will use your weakness. For Eutychus, his weakness was the fact that he was tired. We don’t exactly know why Eutychus was tired. Did he have a long day? Was his day challenging and difficult? Did he work an extra shift at his job? Was there an issue at his home that kept him awake longer than usual? Did his children not sleep well the night before? Was there something on his mind that kept him awake? Remember what I shared last week when reading Joshua T. Dickerson’s poem “Cause I Ain’t Got a Pencil,” we don’t know what someone has been through by the time God puts them in our life. For whatever reason, Eutychus was so tired that he fell asleep. His weakness won.

I think it’s relevant to say that Eutychus isn’t alone here. When Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray for the strength and faith to stand firm in the will of God, a few of his disciples fall asleep when he needs them to stay awake, when he needs them to stay alert. Three times he tells them to wake up; but they give into their weaknesses.[2] We see something similar, although not sleep related, with the story of the Rich Man, who Jesus complements for being so faithful to the Ten Commandments. Jesus wants the Rich Man to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor (Mark 10:21); but the Rich Man can’t do it. Mark 10:22 states, “At this the man’s face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” The Rich Man’s weakness was his greed: his human nature to hold onto everything that he had gained. How about this example: after several hours of battling a severe storm, a long way from land, and being beaten by the waves as the wind was against them, the disciples are terrified as they are stuck in the middle of the sea at its deepest point simply wanting to get to the other side. Then off in the distance, Jesus, who they thought was a ghost (Matthew 14:26), comes walking on the sea. Jesus said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27). At their weakest moment, in their terrorizing fear, Jesus arrived. And then when Peter is invited to walk on the water and begins to sink because he took his eyes off Jesus, crying out “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30), it is Jesus who saves him at his weakest moment.

The point is Eutychus isn’t along when it comes to being conquered by some sort of weakness. Many before him (and many after him) succumbed to a weak point in their life. What about you? What sort of weakness has conquered you? What are some weaknesses or trials in your life? What are some struggles in your life that you really wish you could have victory over, but you continue to fail and stumble in? Let me point you to 2 Corinthians 12:9 in which God spoke to Paul, “’My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

My weakness, your weakness, whatever that weakness may be, it’s an opportunity to experience the power of God. His strength is perfect in your weakness. But what the enemy loves to do is to take your weaknesses and magnify them and use that as an opportunity to tell you, “You’re not good enough. You’ll never make it. You’ll never matter. You’ll never amount to anything. If you did matter, you wouldn’t struggle with this sin. If you did matter, you wouldn’t have this habit or if you did matter, you would be more successful than you are. Go ahead and fall asleep. Don’t give to the poor. Continue to be afraid. Keep sinking.”[3] We internalize that, and it magnifies our weakness even more. And we begin to walk totally defeated, believing the lies from the enemy. We fall asleep when Jesus needs us to be awake.

But what we need to see in our weaknesses is how fortunate we are to be made new in Christ, that his power is made perfect in our weakness. In my weakness, I can find strength when I look at Him and I understand who He is and who He has created me to be. I find my identity not in what others say about me, but in who He is, what He has done and who He has created me to be. When I look to Him, I understand that He is risen, He is our rescuer, and He is our fortress. He is our deliverer and our hope. He is our confidence. He is our peace. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When I look to Him, see Him, and fix my eyes on Him like Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 commands us, I begin to see myself differently. When I find my identity in Him, rather than looking at my weaknesses, I begin to see that I am forgiven, chosen, accepted, free, called, rescued, and loved. Why? It’s not because of any goodness that I could bring to the table, but because of who He is and through the power of His death, burial and resurrection. And God continues to use our weakness to help us understand His power.

From his power, even in our weakness, we find that there is still life in us yet. What weakness are you struggling with today that you need God’s power to rescue you from? I’m not talking about your weakness related to certain foods, or bad habits, or anything external. Rather, I’m talking about those weaknesses that are pulling you away from Christ, that are causing you to fall asleep when he needs you to be awake.

 

Movement Three: God Turns Tragedy into Joy…

Here’s the second point that we see in this text: God turns tragedy into joy. He’s in the business of doing this over and over again. Here in this text, this is coming on the heels of Passover. Read the first few verses of chapter 20 where all of the people’s eyes were renewed and refreshed to see the resurrection of Christ. That was on everybody’s minds. In fact, I can’t help but think that because of being on the heels of Passover and Paul knowing that’s what everybody was thinking about anyway, it was highly probable that that was the main content of his sermon that went on for hours, and it even made it more beneficial and fortunate that God now drops this beautiful object lesson of Eutychus in his lap.

Upon falling asleep, Eutychus fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. Our Scripture text says, “But Paul went down and bending over him took him in his arms and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted” (Acts 20:10-12). Paul brings Eutychus back to life just like Jesus did with the widow’s son and Jarius’s daughter in the Gospel of Luke and Lazarus in the Gospel of John, and how Dorcas was resurrected at the voice of Peter in Acts Chapter Nine.

However, after raising Eutychus from the dead, Paul returns to talking and breaking bread as if nothing happened. The crow probably screamed in great shock and cried in terror knowing that someone died in their presence. Paul stops talking, non-chalantly walks down to the young man and brings him back to life and returns to what he was doing like what he just did was no problem, no issue, an everyday occurrence. “Okay Paul, don’t be too cool!” Paul just raised someone from the dead. Paul, by the power of Christ, turned a tragedy into a joy. If you think about it, that’s the ministry of Jesus Christ: helping those who find themselves in tragic moments to experience joy, a new life. In healing the sick, visiting the poor, returning sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, giving speech to the mute, allowing the paralyzed to walk again, to welcome the stranger, and to eat with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus was turning a tragic moment into a moment of joy.

When the disciple Nathanael was down-and-out, struggling and ready to give up, Jesus gave him joy. John 1:43-49 state, “The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see,’ said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.’” At Nathanael’s lowest moment, Jesus saw him. Nathanael didn’t think that he was seen as he sat under the fig tree. He thought he was all alone. But he was wrong. God was there listening, and Jesus was there seeing. What was a tragic moment became a moment of great joy as Nathanael chose to follow Jesus.

Looking at your life, where and when did you experience a tragic moment that lead to joy? When did Jesus see you and bring you joy? My brother Thomas hit a wall in his life: he got pretty low. He lost his job; his bank account was dwindling, he was afraid to ask for help. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. And the worst part was that he was eight hours from family in Brookings, South Dakota. He was under the fig tree feeling as if no one saw him. But even at his lowest moment, God saw him. God brought him back home. He has had a girlfriend for several years, has a house, has a job that allows him to travel, loves his dog, and is now a proud parent of two kittens. He is experiencing joy because God brought him back to life! In what ways is God bringing you joy in your life today?

 

Movement Four: There Is Life In You Yet…

The third and final point is this: there is life in you yet. To begin, let’s hear what Paul wrote to the people of Ephesus about being alive. He wrote in Ephesians 2:1-10, “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.”

Can you remember life before Jesus when you were dead in your trespass and sin? Do you remember a time when you felt dead inside and Jesus brought you back to life? You see, Eutychus is a great object lesson for us today. He fell out of this third story window, and he was dead. He had nothing in himself that could bring him back from that. He was dead. It took Paul outside of him to come and to use our God to bring him back to life. There is no goodness, no amount of giving, no amount of service, no amount of volunteerism, no amount of morality that could bring us out of that dead state. The only help we have is for someone else, Jesus, God in the flesh, incarnate, to come and bring us back to life. That’s the beauty of the Gospel. Jesus came to make dead people alive. Jesus came to raise us all from the dead! Amen.

In our Scripture, Paul says, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him” (Acts 20:10). The Message Bible puts it this way, “There is life in him yet.” This young man is brought back to life, given a second chance, and picked up off the ground by those around him. This young man had life inside of him. This young man had a breath that needed to breathe. This young man had a spirit that still wanted to take leaps of faith. We all have life inside of us. If you have ever seen the movie Rudy, produced in 1993, featuring a walk-on for the University of Notre Dame football team, then you have seen what it means to have life inside of you. The walk-on, Rudy, practice after practice, finally gets a chance to dress for a game and play. His life inside of him is what allowed him to never give up. If you have ever seen the movie Little Giants, produced in 1994, another football movie featuring a team of kids who shouldn’t have been playing football, you saw what it means to have life inside of you. This team of misfits ends up beating the best team in town because they believed in each other.

My point is, if you have ever gotten up after falling, you have life in you yet. If you have ever tried something new, you have life in you yet. If you have ever told yourself to keep going or “I can do this,” or “I think I can, I think I can” to quote the little engine that could, you have life in you yet. If you ever felt uncertain, experienced doubt, were overwhelmed and stressed, but remembered that joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5), then you have life in you yet. If you were ever given a second chance, like the bones in the dry valley did in Ezekiel 37, you have life in you yet. You have life in you yet. What Paul told the people about Eutychus is so true. We have a life inside of us too. And this life is no ordinary life. No way! It’s a life of hope, of forgiveness, of joy, of sorrow, of grace, of unconditional love, of second chances, and of eternal salvation. This life is Jesus Christ, and Jesus is in you, in me, and in everyone who believes. There is still life in you yet because Jesus is in your life.

Now church, I want you to know that there is life in you. I’m sure there have been times when you may have thought otherwise—seeing the attendance not where it used to be or the giving down or events not well attended— but today is not the day to think like that. Church we are alive! Just look around: see those that are here, think about those who should be here, consider the ministries we have, the organizations that we support, smile at the children that sit in the pews, listen to the laughter of the children as they play on the playground, cherish all the opportunities we have to gather together, be proud that we are considering structural improvements, and relish in the conversations in which talk about future projects and events. Church, there is life in us yet! And that makes me one proud pastor! If there wasn’t life in us, would our doors be open today? If there wasn’t life in us, would we be willing to make plans for the future? If there wasn’t life in us, would we want to help those in need? If there wasn’t life in us, would you even want to be here? There is life in the church because there is life in you. There is life in you because Jesus lives in you. And Jesus lives in you because he believes in you. Jesus believes in you because he sees a life that is waiting to be lived. You are the life, the breath, of this church! And Jesus will do whatever he can to bring us back to life if we want him to.

However, I must be honest with you; there will be times when we feel as if we have fallen out of the window—as if what we have done has failed. We will fail, we will make mistakes as a church, and we will try things that require us to take risks and to have tough conversations and to share our thoughts in respectful ways. Nevertheless, it’s in those moments that we find out that we are still alive, that God is not done with us yet. From behind this pulpit I not only see a church that is alive, but I see many people who have life in them yet!

 

 

Conclusion:

This strange story in the Book of Acts didn’t have to be included. As a matter of fact, Luke didn’t have to right about it. However, I’m glad he did because in this brief story involving a young man named Eutychus, we observe that even in our weaknesses, God is still working in our life; we are reminded that even in our tragic moments, God sees us and gives us joy; and we are encouraged to hold on to the fact that as individuals and as a church there is life in us yet.

The question I leave with you today is twofold. First, in thinking about your life, how are you letting God bring you back to life? and Second, in thinking about our church, what do we need to do or what can we do to make sure that when people here our name that they respond by saying, “That church has life in it yet”? You know, we all need a good nap once in a while; but, when God uses a pea-shooter to wake us up, we must realize that it’s time to get up because God needs us to come back life because there is life in us yet.

Let it be so…

 

Communion:

 

Closing Prayer:

Dear Jesus, bring us back to life. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Tell us each and every day that there is life in us yet. O Lord, see us when we are weak, hear us when we struggle, and guide us to be who you need us to be. In your mighty name we pray, Amen.

 

Benediction:

Church, what do we need to do to be alive for Christ? I hope and pray that this week the Lord reminds you every day that there is life in you yet. May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; and May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace (Numbers 6:24-26). In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, go forth knowing that there is life in us yet. And all God’s people said, Amen. Amen. Amen.

 

 

[1] But, falling asleep was a big deal here. In ancient Jewish culture, if you had fallen asleep during a synagogue experience, you could be kicked out for 30 days. I mean, in Jewish tradition at least, this is a significant thing to fall asleep in church. And here, he is just trying to be present, trying to be engaged, and it just overtakes him. He’s trying to be strong, but in his weakness, he just falls into this sleep.

[2] Luke 22:40–46; Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42

[3] And the enemy loves to cause us to begin to look at others and compare ourselves to their status or their achievement or their success.