Sermon Quotes: "Sleep"
August 17, 2016 by C.J. Mahaney
Category: Sunday Sermon Quotes | Sunday Sermon, Quotes, Sleep, Psalm 127
“I am convinced that we have drifted from the true focus of God’s activity in this world. It is not to be found in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary, the everyday.” Michael Horton
“Many Christians have an inadequate theology of ordinary life. God conceals Himself, often in things we would least expect--a crucified criminal, a book, water, bread, wine…There is another place God is hidden: in everyday life.” Gene Veith
“One of the most telling features of this short poem is that it singles out three of our most universal preoccupations--building, security, raising a family--and makes us ask what they all amount to, and to whom we owe them. Verse one sees only two possibilities; either it will be be the Lord’s doing or it will be pointless; there is no third option.” Derek Kidner
“In contrast to the frantic, self-absorbed, and self-sufficient work ethic described in v1-2, we have the quiet blessing of God beginning with the gift of sleep and extending to the family.” James Boice
“God can accomplish more good for those who trust him while they sleep than they can accomplish with anxious labor while awake.” John Piper
“We think we lay our heads upon our pillows, and compose our bodies in a peaceful posture, and that, therefore we naturally and necessarily sleep. But it is not so. Sleep is the gift of God; He bestows it; he rocks the cradle for us every night; he draws the curtain of darkness; and then he comes and says, 'Sleep, sleep, my child; I give thee sleep.' Oh my friends, how thankful should we be for sleep. Ye know not, my friends, how much you owe to God, that he gives you rest at night.” Charles Spurgeon
“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. ‘He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep’ (Psalm 121:4). But we will. For we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease, God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day. How humiliating to the self-made corporate executive that he has to give up all control and become as limp as a suckling infant every day. Sleep is a parable that God is God and we are mere men. God handles the world quite nicely while a hemisphere sleeps. Sleep is like a broken record that comes around with the same message every day: Man is not sovereign…Man is not sovereign…Man is not sovereign. Don’t let the lesson be lost on you. God wants to be trusted as the great worker who never tires and never sleeps. He is not nearly so impressed with our late nights and early mornings as he is with the peaceful trust that casts all anxieties on him and sleeps.” John Piper
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