‘Waking up’ by Chris Simmonds - 7 September 2025
What does it mean to become spiritually awake? Chris Simmonds shares his experiences of moving between times of feeling that life is comfortable within his own plans and times where reality delivers a wake up call. Sometimes this is challenging, but awakening to who God is and what he does can often be described as simply good, wonderful or awesome. How can we experience this kind of awakening ourselves, and what difference does it make to how we see ourselves, others and the world?
Today I want to explore the topic “Waking up.” What I’d love for us each to do is to just still our hearts, and be listening out for something God might want to say to us this morning. Is that OK?
I’m going to start with a story, it will involve a little audience participation — you’ll know what to do when the time comes!
So, there was this bloke. He was pretty sweet on this girl — so sweet in fact that he thought: She’s the one. I need to make this permanent! So, he came up with a plan.
He whisked her off to the Isle of Wight for the weekend, lined up walks with beautiful views, dinner in a fine restaurant, a cosy camping spot in the fields — countless perfect opportunities to pop the question. But no. This man — [everyone] “had a plan.”
It had to be a west-facing cliff-top at sunset. So Saturday evening came. His plan required a disposable BBQ, meat, wine, crockery, cutlery, lighter, blankets… you name it. Everything had to be lugged across fields before the sun went down — because the man “had a plan.”
So his poor unsuspecting girlfriend found herself frog-marched across fields, laden with bags. But it was OK, because the man “had a plan.”
They arrived, only for him to face a new challenge: trying to cook enough meat to feed a netball team on a BBQ designed to warm about 1.5 burgers. And have you ever tried lighting tea lights on a cliff-top? Still, it was OK, because the man “had a plan.”
Eventually, the food was eaten, the sun dipped low, and he judged the time was right. Stumbling across rocks and tea-lights, he half-fell to one of the most awkward bended knees you’ve ever seen and asked: “Will you marry me?”
Silence.
No response.
He repeated the question, thinking the wind had carried it off. Still nothing.
At last she managed to whisper: “I’m not sure…”
He was floored. and all he can think is - that’s not the plan!!? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong but marriage proposals are supposed to be more of a binary — yes or no right!
So he sat down next to his would-be intended, regrouped. As they looked out to sea, inspiration struck — possibly for the first time that weekend.
“All it means is that I’ll be there to wake you up with a cup of tea, each morning, for the rest of your life.”
Now, this may sound simple, but two things made it genius:
She loved tea. Her email address literally began with “emmaneedstea…” She even had tables named after tea brands at their wedding.
She was not a morning person. Permanently night-shift material. The daily dilemma: desperately wanting tea, but not wanting to get up to make it.
So the promise of tea-in-bed every morning was the most romantic thing he could have said. And yes — she said “yes.”and still gets a daily cup of tea
That story nicely opens our theme today: waking up. Firstly we’ll explore waking up to God — and then to the need for healing both within and around us.
Let’s pray.
Spirit, lead us deeper into the wonder and mystery of Christ this morning. Wake us from shallow living. Wake us to the beauty and wonder of Your Kingdom and presence. Amen.
I actually spoke on this same topic in my very first sermon, during a Discipleship school with Youth With a Mission. Funnily enough it was exactly half a lifetime ago – 22 years. And this same message seems to be tugging at my heart. Just as I was very much preaching to myself then, so I will be this morning.
In fact, I want to let you in on my life-long struggle to wake up.
Waking up to the wonder and beauty of God
Firstly – waking up to the wonder and beauty of God.
This has been my personal struggle: becoming more spiritually awake. If I’m honest, I often feel caught between sleep and wakefulness — comfortable, settled, but aware there’s something more compelling I need to rise into. Spiritually groggy, I need to fling open the window, fill my lungs with the fresh air of God, and come alive.
None of us want to sleepwalk through life, dull to the splendour around us — the magnificence that brought this complex world into being, holds it together, and breathed into us saying “it is good.” We are wonderfully made by a wonderful God. I want to be awake and alive to the One behind it all, attuned to His patterns, in harmony with His loving activity? Don’t you?
Some people think faith is all about the strength of your mental certitude that something is true. You might picture a street preacher willing to endure the scorn of passing crowds due to the strength of their conviction. Or indeed we might think of it as trust – like a sky-diver who has absolute faith in their parachute.
For me, trust hits closer to the mark, but you wouldn’t trust a parachute someone just told you was there. You’d want to have seen, and handled it yourself right, feel its weight on your back?
My reading of the Way of Jesus leads me primarily to this being the foundation of our faith, the essence of it. He wants us to encounter him, experience him, lean into him.
The bible says Taste and see that the Lord is good.
God wants us to be in actual living, experiential relationship with him.
This inner awareness will often come in moments of profound encounter – which brings me on to another story.
A Boy’s Story
So, there was this kid. He didn’t know how good he had it — loving family, good church, loyal friends. But he compared himself constantly, convinced he wasn’t big enough, smart enough, popular enough.
At 9, he quietly prayed a prayer before bed during his daily devotional, giving his life to Jesus. Simple words, easily prayed. But he meant them.
Soon after, at a Christian festival, he found himself in a big tent of kids his age. Free from the watching eyes of those in his normal church, he closed his eyes, raised his hands, and felt the liquid love of God flood his soul. Tears streamed down as he sang:
Father God, I wonder how I managed to exist
without the knowledge of your parenthood
and your loving care.
But now I am your child,
I am adopted in your family
and I can never be alone,
for, Father God, you’re there beside me.
In that moment, his identity shifted. The truth he’d always heard — that he was unconditionally loved and accepted — became real. He knew God was with him, and always would be.
Some here may never have had such an encounter. Or perhaps not for a long time. But this is what waking up to God feels like: suddenly aware that the Source of love is at the centre of everything, and that all beauty flows from our Abba, our Father.
Jesus says:
“I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)
I just want to pray that in before we move on:
Let’s pray:
Father, open our ears to hear Your knock. Help us invite You in - all the way in. Come sit with us, speak to us, as we take the humble posture of children, saying ‘yes’ again. And for any who haven’t experienced that inner assurance of your presence, we simply ask they would, even now. Amen.
“As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied in Your presence.” (Psalm 17:15)
Isn’t that beautiful? Satisfied. God’s fullness can fill us as good food fills a hungry stomach. I’ve experienced that on so many occasions – in those moments everything else just pales into insignificance.
I know for myself though, I too often snack on lesser things that are fun, exciting, stimulating in different ways but ultimately leaving me feeling un-enriched, disconnected. Spiritual McDonalds, if you like.
And then there’s the constant tide of things which fill our mind and awareness.
“But make sure you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-to-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing!” (Romans 13:11 (The Message))
In his parable of the sower Jesus warned of seeds which fell on rocky and thorny ground – they couldn’t put down the roots they needed or get access to the sun and air they needed to flourish. I’ve often felt like my roots are too shallow, or like I’m just too busy - choking on the attractions and distractions all around me.
Kyle reminded us: the Christian journey isn’t so much about us getting into heaven, as heaven getting into us — so how do we do that? How do we stay aware of God — not just in occasional encounters, however wonderful they are, but on Monday morning cycling into the office or Thursday afternoon on the school run?
Voices of Wisdom
Let’s look briefly at three Christian heroes who have ploughed deeply in this area. You could call them mystics, passionate about cultivating this awareness of God.
Richard Rohr writes a lot about spiritual awakening involving discovering and living from our True Selves, that deeper, innermost part of ourselves that the bible says is made in God’s image. As we increasingly live from this inner child who knows themselves to be loved, held and protected, we can shake off the external, shallow false selves, calm our needy grasping egos, and stop projecting who we feel we want people to see, or who we feel they want us to be, and just be. Gladly and unapologetically, be.
Henri Nouwen says Awakening is less an event than a discipline. We grow, not by a sudden wholesale rewiring, but gradually, like a plant growing in good soil. By observing our thoughts and offering them to God, we slowly hear His gentle inner voice and trust His love more deeply.
Brother Lawrence advocated a regular integrated form of prayer which he called practicing the presence of God. It is to cultivate and hand over one’s awareness to God regularly in whatever we are doing. Brother Lawrence recommends using a simple phrase, such as “‘My God, I am all yours,’ or ‘Love, create in me a new heart”.
I’m gonna try that this week. While I’m washing up or clearing up after the puppies.
(I remember reading that Charles and John Wesley’s mum used to sit and put her apron over her head when she was praying and didn’t want any of her many kids to interrupt her.)
Now, truth be told, I’m not great at meditation — again - I struggle with it!
But one resource I recommend is the Lectio 365 app from Pete Greig’s 24/7 movement. It offers guided morning and evening prayers: scripture reflection in the morning, examen reflection at night.
Alternatively you might want to try this but with a whole section of scripture. Before the summer Kyle shared about the Sermon on the Mount - you could do a lot worse than spending a season meditating on Matthew 5–7.
Or maybe you’re more active and tend to connect with God outside - Claire in a recent talk before the summer discussed going for contemplative walks and I know Karen Green has been leading a group pressing into this called ‘Made for Relationship’. They meet once a month to spend chunks of time having fun together in nature....beaches, rivers, forests, and spending a couple of hours just being in God's presence in nature, learning to be still and listen, and then sharing some of those thoughts or experiences with each other round a camp fire with a meal.
Sounds awesome doesn’t it.
The point is: there isn’t just one way of meditating – let’s be intentional and creative!
Meditation isn’t the only tool we have though. There are a whole bunch of rhythms and practices we can explore that have served Jesus followers down the centuries.
A few years ago Mal Calladine did a series called “Life Giving Habits”. Does anyone here remember those talks? So good. The series went through a whole range of rhythms we can establish in our lives including – Bible feeding, Prayer, Service, Thanksgiving, Reflection, and so on.. These talks are all still available online if you want to have a look.
We’re also not supposed to do this alone. We’re in this together. This year, Severn has been encouraging us to sign up to group retreats. I’m off on one next weekend and excited to press in deeper together with others from Severn. Retreats help us step aside, tune out the noise, and tune in to God.
Another practice I recommend is being in a triplet — simply three or it can be four friends meeting regularly to each share in turn, honestly and openly, then being coached to positive steps they can explore to allow more of God’s goodness and wisdom into our lives. When I did this with Greg and Dan, it was so life-giving. Such a well spent hour every couple of weeks. My experience was that God also loves to meet with us through one another.
Waking up from (or to?) our Brokenness — and the Brokenness around us
Ok, so much for waking up to God.
In the 2nd part of this talk I’d like to explore waking up from (or too?) our Brokenness — and the Brokenness Around Us.
Not all sleep is pleasant, of course. Sometimes life feels like a nightmare and we can find ourselves in places emotionally and spiritually that we would very much want to wake up from but feel powerless to do so. This prison can be constructed from the brokenness within us, or result from the wounds of others.
The word sin carries baggage — religious shaming, and condemnation. So part of me recoils from the word. But I can’t ignore its presence in my life: in my thoughts, behaviours, character flaws. I get so frustrated that I can’t flick a switch and be the person I dream of being.
The most helpful biblical metaphor I’ve comes across for sin though is that it’s like sickness. It’s not our identity but rather it’s something foreign to us, attacking us from within. I find this helpful because it frames sin as something distinct from ourselves, something we can therefore fight back against as we would with any infection we’ve picked up, without worrying about slipping into shame and condemnation.
Peter writes, quoting Isaiah 53:
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” (1 Peter 2:24)
Hear that friends – by his wounds you have been healed. The fullness of what happened on the cross is probably the richest most profound mystery in history – but it released, like a nuclear shock wave, a redemptive, restorative, healing power that has absorbed and transformed countless millions of lives since and can change each of ours again this morning. This is the gospel. This is the good news of Jesus. He wants and is able to heal and restore us, to bring us back into living relationship with the lover of our souls, day by day by day.
A Conversation About Shame
I do just want to zero in on shame for a few moments before we move on, which leads me to my final story.
So, there was this bloke. He went for dinner with some old friends who admitted they hadn’t been to church in a long time. Why? Because church put them in a place of shame.
That hit hard. The very opposite of what the church is meant to do. Jesus is so beautiful — and so opposed to shame, how do we get it so wrong?
We’re talking about waking up spiritually but that night this guy literally woke at 3am and wept for a full hour, grieving for those trapped in shame.
“I slept, but my heart was awake, when I heard my lover knocking and calling.” (Song of Songs 5:2)
That night, I think God was calling, opening my heart just a fraction more to a world riddled with pain and heartache.
I pray we will each have moments like that — divine interruptions, divine disturbances — awakening us to the need within and around us, and receiving God’s immense love and compassion for those who are suffering.
“But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6–8, Msg)
Family, we live under wide open skies — but shame and its demonic offspring keeps millions, and so often ourselves, imprisoned in a living nightmare. We can numb it, deny it, distract ourselves, but only the power of the cross is strong enough to break its death grip on our hearts. Jesus died to take away our sin and shame. End of.
I remember Mal Calladine once preaching that we can walk 1000 steps away from God, but it only ever takes one step to return to him, because he never left us.
In the story of the prodigal son, Jesus says (Luke 15:17) the boy “came to his senses.” He woke up to the emptiness of life away from the Father. And what did he find when he returned? Open arms. Unquestioning, unconditional - love, forgiveness, acceptance.
So it is for us. As we come to our senses, we can yield our hurting hearts again and again and again to Jesus. And He will receive us again and again and again — with love and grace. He reminds us: the sickness we carry is not who we are and he longs to get rid, he long to heal us, because He loves us.
Friends, we must not live in shame. Jesus has done it all. It is finished. Our sin and shame are nailed to the cross.
A couple of final scriptures if I may as we come in to dock:
“The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners…” (Isaiah 61:1, Msg)
This was Jesus’ mandate. And so it must be ours.
As we become more awake to God’s goodness, and more aware of ours and the world’s need for His healing, we must remember: the way of Jesus is always missional.
The love of Jesus compels us to freely share what we have freely received. And there is so much joy in doing this! Who doesn’t enjoy dishing out presents?
Claire said before the summer: we are invited into the Divine dance — joining in with what God is already doing. We’re simply planting ourselves into his activity and allowing it to spread out through us – kind of like a watering can.
As we read earlier - The night is nearly over. Dawn is about to break. Let’s be awake to what God is doing.
Our time is gone so I can’t expand on this as I would like to but Shane Claiborne, in his book The Irresistible Revolution, suggests this: get yourself regularly into personal contact with someone in greater need than you.
For some, this happens naturally through work — healthcare, social work, education. For others, it will mean intentionally stepping into places of need: volunteering at a food bank, joining a CAP centre or soup run, befriending someone through bridges for communities or perhaps your neighbour three doors down who barely leaves the house.
Whatever it looks like, make it a rhythm you can’t get out of. Give God space to channel His love through you. And as we do, remember: Jesus said when we visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, clothe the naked — we are serving Him, we are doing it for and with him.
I’ll finish with a prayer written by William Booth:
“Disturb me, Lord, when I am too well pleased with myself, When my dreams have come true because I have dreamed too little, When I arrived safely because I sailed too close to the shore… Disturb me, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; Where in losing sight of land, I shall find the stars. Amen”
Closing Ministry Time
Kyle has kindly agreed to come up and play a song over us.
Some of you may need to slip out to collect children, but for the rest of us, we’ll spend a few moments doing business with God.
Let’s bow our heads - did you hear him whisper anything to you this morning? Did you sense his voice speaking through my faltering words? Put his finger on something in your soul. Come on. Wake up. I’ve made you a cuppa. It’s time to get out of bed.
Bring it to Him, share it with him. Turn it over together.
Pray with someone if you’d prefer, or simply sit quietly with God.
After a few minutes Kyle or Karen will come and close the service.
“The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! … Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!” (Romans 13:11–14, Msg)
“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14)