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Welcome to the Bridge Church VB Podcast, your weekly source for uplifting and transformative Sunday messages! Each episode features insightful, practical teachings rooted in Scripture, designed to inspire and guide you on your spiritual journey. Led by our passionate Lead Pastors, Archie and Tangie Callahan, we strive to create a welcoming environment that encourages individuals from all walks of life to connect with the person, power, and purpose of Jesus Christ.
In this podcast, we delve into relevant themes and timeless biblical truths that speak to the challenges and joys of everyday living. Whether you’re commuting, exercising, or simply seeking encouragement, our messages aim to empower you to grow in faith and discover your unique purpose.
Join our vibrant community of believers as we explore how to apply God’s Word in practical ways, fostering a deeper connection with Him and one another. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enrich your life through these dynamic teachings. Connect with us and find out more at www.bridgechurch.tv!
Good morning, Bridge.
Take out your Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter 5.
We're going to look at verses 14 through 16 here in a few minutes.
Maybe some of you are like me.
I set a couple alarms on my phone if I have an early morning meeting just to be safe.
We like playing it safe.
But if my alarm clock goes off and I don't hit it, my wife becomes my alarm clock.
And she tells me to turn it off, please.
And I want to ask you this question.
Don't you hear the alarm clock?
Are you not awake?
Is it possible for a person to be alive, successful, moral, and still be spiritually asleep?
A Great Awakening, the movie, shows us it's very possible.
The two main characters in the movie are George Whitfield and Benjamin Franklin.
George Whitefield was an English preacher whom God used during the first great awakening in America.
He preached to massive crowds and fields and city streets, calling people out of dead religion and into a living relationship with Jesus.
He was far from perfect though, but he believed that the gospel still had power to wake up spiritually dead people.
And God used that conviction to impact a generation.
On the other hand, Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant printer, inventor, a leader who believed deeply in virtue, discipline, and doing good for others.
In the movie, he is fascinated by George Whitefield's preaching and becomes one of his closest friends and great promoters.
But Franklin struggled.
is the same struggle people have today.
He respected Jesus, admired the impact of faith, and believed in living a more life.
He actually respected the church, but he had to wrestle with whether, he wrestled with whether he would personally surrender his life to Christ.
You see, he was a moralist.
He believed his morality would save him.
Today we're going to look at the movie through the lens of Ephesians chapter 5.
And we're going to look at verses 14 through 16.
And this is what God's word says.
God's word is powerful.
It's living.
It's active.
It says this.
This is why it is said, wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.
Be careful then.
Be careful how you live, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
Why does Paul tell people to wake up?
He says this because it's possible to think that you are awake, but you're totally asleep.
In the movie, George Whitfield is the one who is awake, and he creates this friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who is asleep.
He's a moralist.
He's a deist.
He's moral, but he's asleep.
He's successful, but he's asleep.
He's physically alive, but he is asleep.
George spends the entire movie preaching to awake people out of their slumber and pours into his relationship with Ben to awaken him.
However, Benjamin doesn't see the need to be awakened.
But we all have a deep need to be awakened in Christ, folks.
We have a deep need to wake up out of our slumber and come into a relationship with God.
And that's what this sermon is about today.
It's about leaving religion and being revived by the power of Christ.
Today, you can leave cold, dark religion and come into a vibrant relationship with
With Jesus Christ.
I have watched this movie about six times.
And every time I watch it, I'm inspired.
At this point in the movie, Ben Franklin is talking to his grandson, Benny.
They're going through documents from Ben's past when he printed a newspaper that went into 13 colonies around 1739.
They stumble across some old newspaper clippings of George Whitefield's sermons and advertisement for his preaching.
George Whitefield started preaching in England first.
He was an Anglican evangelist who focused in on the message of new birth.
This new birth could not be received through being a good moral person, but it was a free gift given to us by the grace of God.
His preaching was marked by charisma and power.
He was a great orator and his voice echoed with authority.
He first came to America preaching in May of 1738.
He creates a friendship with Ben Franklin.
Ben Franklin said George Whitefield's voice was so strong that he could be heard by 30,000 people at one time.
without amplification from a sound system.
That's a powerful, thunderous voice.
I believe God gifted George Whitefield with that kind of voice for the day that he was living in.
In a letter to Benjamin Franklin dated November 26, 1740, Whitefield reported that in just 73 days, he had traveled more than 800 miles and preached 117 times.
800 miles, not in a Tesla, not in a Chevrolet truck, not in a Toyota Tacoma, but on horseback.
And he preached 117 times.
He preached outdoors because many churches refused their pulpits.
And Franklin recalled that Whitefield was forced into fields to preach the gospel because clergy opposed him.
The clergy opposed him because they were spiritually asleep.
They had dead religion.
They were clouds without rain, people.
I'm telling you, they were smoke without fire.
What does it mean for us today?
to be spiritually asleep.
It means that we have become complacent, apathetic.
We lack zeal.
We lack the fire and the passion of the Holy Spirit.
We have become lukewarm.
Jesus said, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit
He did not say this to an unregenerate people.
He said this to Christians, to a church.
He was actually talking to a church in Laodicea in the book of Revelation.
Paul's speaking to the church in Rome said, and now knowing to the time that it is high time to wake up out of sleep for our salvation is nearer than we first believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
So let us cast off every work of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Paul's speaking in Romans chapter 13, verses 11 and 12.
He says, it's high time to awake up out of sleep.
I believe folks,
that it's high time for us to wake up out of sleep.
Sleep here is a Greek word, hypnos.
It comes from the root word that we get hypnosis or hypnotic.
It literally means to be physically asleep.
However, in Romans chapter 13, Paul is using it as a metaphor to be spiritually asleep.
Paul is describing a believer who is physically alive, but dulled, sluggish, unresponsive to spiritual realities, almost trance-like, conformed to the patterns of this world rather than alert and awakened to what God wants them to be awakened to.
Paul's telling the Roman church to snap out of the spiritual complacency and moral drowsiness, given the urgency of the hour, not to be literally distracted
not literally getting more rest, but we need to get up out of this and become spiritually alive to Christ.
We have been dulled by the world's hypnotic pull over our lives.
We have become dull and complacent.
This hypnotic pull comes from media, comfort, and distraction.
Church, it's time to hear the alarm clock and wake up out of our slumber today.
Wake up, church.
At this point in the movie, George Whitfield is young and just starting his public ministry.
He is more religious and more rigid than really understanding the true depth of salvation.
He is doing prison ministry and he begins to read John 3.
The reading of the scripture awakens him to his own need for Christ.
The word of God is living and active and able to awaken the spiritually dead.
What we see in this clip is the practice word and the preached word.
They're not opposed to each other.
They actually go hand in hand together.
But sometimes we forget about the preached word and we become a church that is more concerned about social activism than
to change society than the preached word of God.
The practice word has become the social gospel that has led to moralism.
Social activism should never replace the proclamation of God's word.
The word of God is the foundation to all Christian endeavor.
However,
The drift towards social gospel and activism and moralism is apparent in our modern culture and church.
Moralism is the substitute for being born again by the Spirit.
Moralism believes that my good behavior, my good virtues, and my good work will merit me salvation.
Moralism is trying to be good enough for God instead of trusting that Jesus was good enough for us.
Moralism says, I obey, therefore I'm accepted.
The gospel says, I'm accepted, therefore I obey.
Moralism turns faith into a scoreboard.
It's the guy who checks his own performance the way he checks his fitness tracker.
Did I hit my numbers today?
Did I read enough?
Did I pray enough?
Did I go to church enough?
Did I avoid enough sin?
Do I do good enough?
If the score is good, he feels entitled and superior and righteous.
If the score is bad, he feels crushed and worthless and
We are not saved by our activity, folks.
We're saved by grace.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are God's workmanship, his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good work.
You see, our good works do not produce salvation.
Our salvation produces good works.
Before George Whitfield came to America, he began his ministry in England, preaching in prisons, preaching outside in fields, and even going to coal mine towns.
He's preaching the gospel outside of the walls because the religious structure of his day would not let him preach the true gospel.
After his conversion, George Whitefield became an instrument of awakening.
God used his mighty voice to preach, you must be born again.
He didn't wait for the people to come to him.
He went to where the people were.
He loved them.
He preached the gospel to the marginalized.
And the gospel, as demonstrated in the movie, so well that the power was able to awaken those that were dead spiritually, those that were asleep, and it transformed their lives.
Awake sleeper, arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.
Whitfield's central message was the necessity of the new birth.
People could not be saved by themselves through their morality, through religious activity, through good works or social standing.
They needed to repent, to repent, trust Christ and be born again.
His preaching consistently called people from empty religion to personal salvation in Jesus Christ.
That is why his message aligns so naturally with Ephesians 5.14.
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Whitefield's burden was to see spiritually dead people awakened by the gospel.
Whitefield did not travel all those miles simply telling people to become better people.
He preached that no amount of morality can replace the miracle of being born again.
Today, again, today, we must realize like never before that our good works will never save us.
It was the good work of Christ on the cross and our acceptance of that free gift of salvation that saves us today.
Again, wake up, oh sleeper.
Rise from the dead.
Christ will shine on you.
Be careful how you live today.
Not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
God wants us, church, to maximize the moment in which we live in.
He wants us to awake up out of sleep.
This is our day for an awakening, not only here at Bridge Church, but in our community, in our region, and in our community.
country and in the world.
We must awaken, but we must become agents of the awakening.
God wants us to take the gospel out of the buildings to where we live, where we work, where we shop, where we do business.
You are an agent of an awakening.
You have to do your part.
Can I ask you the same question that George Whitfield asked Benjamin Franklin?
What is your source?
Is God your source or is he your resource?
If he's just your resource, you will use him as a genie in a bottle.
But if he is your source, you begin to understand everything flows from him.
Solomon said every good gift comes from him and he is the provider of all our provision.
And over in James chapter one, James says he is the giver of every good and perfect gift.
And it comes down from the father of lights.
So God is not our resource.
He is our source through which all resources come to us.
John chapter 3, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a part of the ruling Sanhedrin of his day, came to Jesus.
He was curious about salvation.
And Jesus tells him, Nicodemus, you must be born again.
Nicodemus was kind of confused and confounded at the sayings of Jesus.
And he says, how can I be born again?
Can I go back into my mother's womb a second time?
And Jesus said, no, I'm not talking about being born of the flesh.
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but my spirit gives birth to spirit.
You must be born of water again.
And the spirit you Nicodemus must be born again.
See Whitfield loved Benjamin Franklin enough to stay his friend.
But he loved Jesus too much to stay silent about Ben's need for him.
Ben Franklin was a great moralist who loved his virtue.
He thought that it was the ticket to salvation.
Here's the sad thing about this story.
See, we don't know if Ben Franklin ever came to faith in Christ.
It's not documented.
No one knew.
He was a deist.
He respected George Whitefield and the church, but never came to faith in Christ.
See, a deist believes that God is real but distant.
A creator who built the world, the universe, then stepped back and let it run on its own.
It's like the proverbial song.
God is watching us from a distance.
The classic image is the one that preaches so well is God is a divine watchmaker.
God wound up the universe like a watch, set it ticking according to fixed natural laws, and then walked away.
He doesn't intervene.
He doesn't answer prayer.
Doesn't get personally involved.
As one writer put it, it's a God who respects your personal space.
One you can't keep at arm's length.
Ben Franklin held on to his virtues, good works as a source of salvation.
What are you holding on to today as the source of your salvation?
I'm personally holding on to Jesus and he's holding me
See, Christian, if you're asleep, it's time to awaken.
Sinner, if you're dead in your sin and trespasses, come to Jesus and be made alive in him.
Come out of your dark caverns of sin and hear the voice of salvation today.
Jesus is calling you to himself.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
Would you please bow your head with me and let's pray together.
Dear Lord, we just thank you for this great movie, A Great Awakening.
I just pray that you have used it to awaken the sleeping Christian and to bring about a need in the life of people who do not know you walking and living in sin.
Amen.
for a new birth that can only come through Christ.
I pray, Lord, that we would be agents of change, agents of an awakening in our nation, in this region and around the world.
I pray that your grace would abound today, that you would convict the sinner and that you would awaken the sleeping Christian.
In Jesus' name, amen.