The Power Of An Uncomfortable Pew

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon's captions — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

A young man who got too comfortable

The evangelist opens with worship and thanks — "somebody didn't wake up this morning, but you woke up. You owe him praise on today" — notes the lost hour of sleep ("I know you're missing that hour of sleep today"), and honors the house: "Give honor to your wonderful pastor... you've got the better end of the deal here." Then the text, Acts chapter 20 and verse 7, read aloud: "And upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the tomorrow and continued his speech until midnight. That's a long time. Verse number eight says, 'There were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. There sat in a window a certain young man named Udicus being fallen into a deep sleep.' Everybody say a deep sleep. I know a lot of us wish that's what we were doing. Missing that hour of sleep today." He reads on through the fall from the third loft, Paul embracing the young man — "Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him" — and the company bringing "the young man alive and were not a little comforted." Then the point: "Wasn't it something old Uticus got so comfortable in a place where he was hearing from God sitting there listening to the Apostle Paul and somehow he fell asleep. I worry this morning that somehow the devil has manipulated and tricked us into thinking that church is supposed to be the most comfortable place we come all week. We get in our box. Well, this is what we do this service." The title, announced plainly: "I want to preach to you for just a little while on this subject. The power of an uncomfortable pew."

Scriptures: Acts 20:7-12

Church is not a pat on the back

"Modern American Christianity... has convinced people that when they come to church all they should be looking for is a pat on the back and an attaboy and just keep doing what you're doing and that there should be no confrontation when they come to church. That's why a lot of churches today... they'll be sitting there in the sanctuary and they serve them donuts and they serve them coffee and they sit back to enjoy a performance from some singers and a motivational speaker that's going to get up and affirm everything that they are doing. But when I look at the model in scripture of what the church looks like... I don't find that in the word of God." The flesh wants to relax, "but I'm telling you, I come to church to be challenged by the word of the Lord." The test is change: "If what we are doing was working, we would not feel the way that we feel. If the experience that I had with God was really everything that it should have been, I should not be dealing with depression every day of my life. I should not be dealing with suicidal thoughts and anxiety every single day of my life... You didn't have the encounter with God to the level that God was wanting to take you. I tell you one thing I've never heard anybody say in all the years of being around the church. I've never seen somebody get a real genuine drink of the Holy Ghost and say, 'Well, I thought there was more to it than that.' I've never seen somebody get baptized in Jesus' name and say, 'I didn't feel nothing.' No. Why? Because when you get a real experience with God, it ought to change you." He confesses his own seasons of sitting in church "as comfortable as if I was sitting at Waffle House... I was even more thankful if the music took over the service. I didn't want anybody to move me and stir me and shake me. That's not what God intended for our services."

Leave different — and set the atmosphere for somebody else

"God intended for you to leave different. Everybody say different. Once again, if you are perfect this morning, why did you come? Church has never been for the perfect. It's always been for the people that are trying to get to that level." He has come distracted and "spiritually asleep and I did not even know it." Against the darkening world: "The darker it gets out there, the brighter it gets in here... Where sin doth abound, grace did much more abound." The church must actually live it: his boyhood friends were shocked "that we actually lived what we preached and that we didn't preach one thing Sunday and Wednesday and then go out to the club on Saturday night... 'Man, my old pastor did.'... Aren't you thankful you're in an atmosphere today where we actually do what we preach?" Deliverance requires liberty in the preacher too: "You can't say, 'Hey, God can deliver you' and you're bound yourself." And feeling matters most: "One of the highest compliments a church could ever get is, 'I feel something here that I've never felt before.'" He tells of a revival Bible study where a young lady in her early 20s stepped in at the back about 9:00: "'I don't really know why I'm here. I was just driving down the road and I just felt something speak to me and say, you need to pull in there and see what's going on.' I'm telling you, that's what revival is all about." Then the congregation's own job: "I have sinned if the only time I'm willing to worship and praise and pray is when I'm the one that has a need... If you come to this house and need deliverance, you're in a church where if you step out, somebody's going to step out behind you. If you come to this front and lift up your hands, I promise you, you will not be praying by yourself." Thank God for people who say, "I love you too much for you to not get a breakthrough today." Seasons differ because response differs: "When we set the thermostat as high as we can possibly get it, and we make our flesh say, 'It may be Sunday morning and I don't feel like it, but I'm going to get in the Holy Ghost anyway'... we are setting the tone for somebody to come in and repent of their sins and a minute later be speaking in tongues."

Like it is the last service

He returns to the text: "We read that church became so laidback and so comfortable that a young man was able to sit up on a window seal and fall asleep... Paul was preaching and he preached a long time... I believe he understood this is probably my last opportunity to ever preach to these people." Except for the miracle, "that would have been the last service Udicus would have ever been a part of. What a tragedy to leave these doors and to step into eternity and the very last service you were ever a part of, you were spiritually asleep... There will be a Sunday morning that it's my last Sunday morning. There will be a message that it's going to be my last message to preach. There is going to be a message, it's going to be my last message to hear. And I'm telling you, I've made up my mind. Every service that I'm in, I want to get something out of it like it's the last time." Response should cost little: "It ought to take like two broke legs to get you to not stand." The culture he is after: "You know when everybody is responding and everybody's worshiping, you're the only one not doing it. You feel uncomfortable, don't you? But when everybody's sitting back and everybody's relaxing and you're the only one worshiping — I want people to feel comfortable worshiping, not not worshiping. I want people to feel comfortable dancing, not sitting in their pew." He quotes the Lord's own diagnosis without a citation — "How be it? He did not many mighty works there because of their" unbelief — and prays "that God will do it because we are doing it," then steps the appeal out of the pews: "If you don't have the Holy Ghost this morning, you ought to come to this front... Come on, if you lift up your hands, lift up your voice, and you repent, I'm telling you, God can fill you with the Holy Ghost." The segment closes inside that altar appeal, the congregation praying together.