{"id":33721,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-i-should-wake-before-i-die\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"if-i-should-wake-before-i-die","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-i-should-wake-before-i-die\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Should Wake Before I Die"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18959.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <em>Illustration: <\/em>In graduate school, I took a course in\nChinese philosophy. The Buddhist monk who taught the course said to me, &#8220;As a\nChristian, you teach your children to pray all wrong. You teach them to pray,\n&#8216;If I should die before I wake.&#8217; It would be better if you taught them to pray\n&#8216;If I should wake before I die.&#8217; &#8220;<\/p>\n    <p>The monk went on to point out that most of the people he\nknew were half awake when they ought to be asleep. But even worse, when they\nwere asleep, they were half awake. No one seemed to be totally alive. Nobody\nseemed to be turned on to what was going on around them.<\/p>\n    <p>I remember teaching a course at the University of Pennsylvania\nwhere I picked a student on the front row and said, &#8220;Young man, how long have\nyou lived?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;What do you mean?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I said, &#8220;How long have you lived?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;T years.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I said, &#8220;No, no, no. That&#8217;s how long your heart has been\npumping blood. That&#8217;s not how long you have lived.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I told the class about the time I went to the top of the\nEmpire State Building in New York City. I was 9 years old at the time, and as\nwe ran around at the top of the building, I suddenly caught myself and said,\n&#8220;Tony, you are on top of the Empire State Building!&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>In one mystical, magical moment I took in the city. I lived\nthat moment with such intensity and focused on what was before me with such\nspiritual energy, that if I live a million years, that moment will still be\npart of my consciousness, because I was fully alive when I lived it.<\/p>\n    <p>I looked at the student and said, &#8220;Now, let me ask you the\nquestion again. How long have you lived?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I remember the student looking back at me and saying,\n&#8220;Doctor, when you say it that way, maybe an hour; maybe a minute; maybe two\nminutes. Most of my life has been the meaningless passage of time between all\ntoo few moments when I was genuinely alive.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>What an interesting commentary. Most of us do not live life\nas we should. We let it slip away from us. I don&#8217;t know where my life has gone.\nIt seems to me that just as soon as my pimples cleared up my hair fell out.\nLife slips by. It&#8217;s gone. It&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n    <p>We need to ask whether we have lived life. The only people I\nsee living life with any degree of joyful spontaneity are children. That&#8217;s why\nJesus said that unless you become as little children, you will in no wise enter\nthe kingdom of heaven. Children are so intense. They cry with agony. They laugh\nwith joy. They are turned on to what life is all about.<\/p>\n    <p>Jesus said, &#8220;Unless you change and become like little\nchildren, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven&#8221; (Matthew 18:3). Unless\nyou can approach life with their kind of enthusiasm, you can&#8217;t be part of what\nI&#8217;m about.<\/p>\n    <p>What did Jesus see in children?<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>1) Children\nhave no doubts about their real importance<\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>First of all, I think he saw kids who had no doubts about\ntheir real importance. People who are worried about their , their\nworth, their value usually go through life being overly concerned about\nthemselves.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>Illustration: <\/em>My friend has a 5 daughter.\nOne day during a thunderstormlightning flashing, thunder roaringhe went to\ncheck on her. He found his little girl standing on the window sill leaning spread\neagle against the glass.<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;Jennifer, what are you doing?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>She said, &#8220;I think God&#8217;s trying to take my picture.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>Here&#8217;s a little girl who knows who she is; she knows her\nvalue; she knows her worth.<\/p>\n    <p>If you&#8217;re going to live life fully, you have to feel good\nabout yourself. Most people I know are down on themselves. That&#8217;s one of the\nreasons Jesus came. Jesus came into the world to do something that would enable\nyou to feel differently about yourself. Most people I know can name the things\nin their lives that are wrong. They beat their chests and say, &#8220;There&#8217;s so much\nwrong with me.&#8221; Of course, there&#8217;s a lot wrong with you. There&#8217;s a lot wrong\nwith me, too. But here&#8217;s the good news of the gospel: Jesus himself came into\nthe world not only to die for our sins but to absorb everything that is dirty\nand ugly and negative and to free us from all of that. Jesus not only cleanses\nyou from the dark side of your personality and removes those things that ought\nnot to be, but he imputes to you his righteousness.<\/p>\n    <p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but I can&#8217;t wait to get to heaven.\nYou can walk in; I&#8217;m going to strut. I&#8217;m going to yell at the angels, &#8220;Out of\nmy way, angels!&#8221; Well, they&#8217;re only messengers. &#8220;You there, get me a hamburger!\n&#8220;<\/p>\n    <p>I&#8217;m going to go before the seat of Christ; I&#8217;m going look at\nGod, and just stand there. I&#8217;m not going to say anything. I don&#8217;t have to\nbecause Jesus will be there. He will say, &#8220;Father, I would like you to meet my\nfriend Tony, the perfect one.&#8221; I hope my wife is there.<\/p>\n    <p>You say, &#8220;How can you get off with that?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>The Scripture says your sins are blotted out. They are\nburied in the deepest sea. They are remembered no more. Jesus will present you\nbefore his Father spotless, without blemish. All the things about yourself that\nyou don&#8217;t like, Jesus says, &#8220;Let me take them upon myself and make them my\nown.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>If you were to have psychotherapy, after a brief while you\nwould feel terrific because everything that&#8217;s negative about you gets\ntransferred over to the therapist. At the end of a session, a good\npsychotherapist is feeling terrible, and the patient is feeling great because\nthrough the process of discussion, everything negative about you has been moved\nover to the psychiatrist.<\/p>\n    <p>Jesus is the ultimate counselor, the ultimate\npsychotherapist who takes upon himself everything that&#8217;s dirty, ugly, or\nrotteneverything that has you down on yourself. He takes it upon himself. He\nmakes it his own. That&#8217;s the good news of the gospel. You can have the childlike\nfreedom that comes with deliverance from all that is negative and dark. You are\nable to live life passionately, intensely, and with great excitement.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>2) Children\nhave a quality of spontaneous joy<\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>There&#8217;s another important thing: children have a quality of\nspontaneous joy.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>Illustration: <\/em>I took my son to Disneyland when he was\njust a little tyke. As we were leaving, he said, &#8220;I want another ride on Space\nMountain.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I said, &#8220;Wait a minute. I&#8217;m out of money, and I&#8217;m out of\ntime.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;Jesus wants me to go.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not reading you.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;When you were in church, you said whatever we feel\nJesus feels it. When we cry, he cries. You said Jesus feels every emotion we\nhave.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>I said, &#8220;That&#8217;s right.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>He said, &#8220;If he feels every emotion I have, then when I&#8217;m\nlaughing on Magic Mountain, he&#8217;s having a good time too. I think he would enjoy\nit if I had another ride on Space Mountain.&#8221; Not bad theology.<\/p>\n    <p>We have a God who wants us to be freed from the burdens that\nkeep us from enjoying life and living it intensely. He wants to fill us with an\nexcitement, a childlike joy that enables us to live life with incredible,\nspontaneous enthusiasm and joy.<\/p>\n    <p>Do you have that in your life? That&#8217;s what Christianity is\nabout. That&#8217;s what spirituality is about. It&#8217;s not about heaven. It&#8217;s about a\nJesus who can invade your life and create in you a spontaneous excitement about\nliving. That&#8217;s why you need to surrender to the Lord.<\/p>\n    <p>G. K. Chesterton said, &#8220;I think God is the only child left\nin the universe, and all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of\nsin.&#8221; What a good line!<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>Illustration: <\/em>How did God create daisies? I say,\n&#8220;Like a child.&#8221; You throw a child up in the air or bounce him off your knee.\nWhen you sit him on the floor, the first thing the kid says is, &#8220;Do it again!&#8221;\nThrow him in the air; catch him; bounce him off your knee; set him on the\nfloor. The kid&#8217;s going to yell, &#8220;Do it again!&#8221; Do it fifty times. The fiftieth\ntime, the kid is yelling hysterically, &#8220;Do it again! Do it again!&#8221; The\nexcitement of a little child.<\/p>\n    <p>That&#8217;s how God created daisies. He created one daisy. I&#8217;m\nsure of this. In the childlike heart of God, he clapped and said; &#8220;Do it\nagain!&#8221; He created daisy number two. Something within God said, &#8220;Do it again!&#8221;\nHe created daisy number three and four and five. Fifty billion, trillion\ndaisies later, the great God of the universe is still creating with childlike\nexcitement and joy and yelling, &#8220;Do it again!&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>Remember when you were a kid so full of life, and vital and\ndynamic? It&#8217;s kind of grown dull and slow and boring. No wonder Jesus said,\n&#8220;Look, why don&#8217;t you come to me and be born again? Why don&#8217;t you become like a\nlittle child once again? Let me do my thing in you. Surrender to me. Allow me into\nyour life. I am resurrected from the grave. I will take possession of you, and\nI will change you, and I will give you a sense of worth so you&#8217;ll be freed from\nthe burdens of negativism. I will fill you with my excitement so you&#8217;ll know\njoy like you&#8217;ve never known it before.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>That&#8217;s why the gospel is called Good News.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>3) Children\nhave absolute confidence in the future<\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>There&#8217;s a third  quality that comes to all of\nthose who are fully alive in the Lord: it&#8217;s absolute confidence in the future.<\/p>\n    <p>I work with  kids, and the society hasn&#8217;t beaten\nthem down yet. I deal with AAmerican kids and Latino kids on the streets\nof Philadelphia. Society hasn&#8217;t beaten them down yet. They still believe in the\nfuture.<\/p>\n    <p>Ask them, &#8220;What are you going to do? What are you going to\nbe?&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>They say, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be an astronaut&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be\na surgeon.&#8221; They say, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be a musician&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be a pro\nbasketball player.&#8221; They believe in the future.<\/p>\n    <p>As they grow older, ugly realism sets in. Did you see the\nmovie <em>The Autobiography of Malcolm X<\/em>?\nIn one of the most painful scenes Malcolm X realizes the system will not allow\nhim to be a lawyer, and his dream is shattered. Here&#8217;s the good news of the\ngospel: we have a Jesus who creates dreams and visions for us.<\/p>\n    <p>To paraphrase Scripture, &#8220;When the young no longer dream\ndreams and the old no longer have visions, people perish.&#8221;<\/p>\n    <p>Children believe that they can do something incredible with\nthemselves; there are no limits; they can be anything. I say to you that the\nJesus who imparts spontaneous joy and glorious visions of the future to\nchildren can impart it to you.<\/p>\n    <p>So often people don&#8217;t have much of a future. I always say a\nperson is old when his dreams are more precious than his visions of the future.\nYou&#8217;re cynical when, in fact, you don&#8217;t believe in tomorrow. I want to tell you\nabout the God who wants to make you believe in the future even when you&#8217;re old.\nAbraham was 94 years old when God gave him a vision. You&#8217;re never too old and\nnever too young to surrender to a God who will not only make you believe in\nyourself but believe that the future will be better than the past.<\/p>\n    <p>If there&#8217;s any argument that I have with modern sociology\nand psychology, it&#8217;s that they&#8217;re too oriented to the past. They say if you\nwant to understand a person, you must understand where he&#8217;s come from, his\nbackground. What is more important than your past and how you were reared is\nyour vision of the future. A person is more controlled by his vision of\ntomorrow than his dreams of yesterday.<\/p>\n    <p>The gospel makes people fully alive and makes us into little\nchildren. The gospel makes us believe in ourselves, makes us spontaneously\njoyful, and makes us believe in the future. Be fully alive! Let Jesus have his\nway with you.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>Tony Campolo is founder and president of the Evangelical\nAssociation for the Promotion of Education (EAPE), an organization that\npromotes educational, medical, and economic development in Third World\ncountries and urban America. His many books include <\/em>Wake Up America!<em> and\n<\/em>The Kingdom of God Is a Party.<\/p>\n    <p>(c) Tony Campolo<\/p>\n    <p>Preaching Today Tape\n#124<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>A resource of\nChristianity Today International<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[307],"tax_ctp_authors":[3222],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3568,3569,3592,4303,4541],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33721","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-tony-campolo","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-childlikeness","tax_ctp_tags-children","tax_ctp_tags-christian-life","tax_ctp_tags-joy","tax_ctp_tags-new-life"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If I Should Wake Before I Die - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-i-should-wake-before-i-die\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If I Should Wake Before I Die - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Illustration: In graduate school, I took a course in Chinese philosophy. 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