"Falling Asleep In Church" Acts 20:1-16

It seems like some of you are pretty sure I can’t see you when I’m up here.
I know that by the time you finally get to church—after a long night of sleeping in a bed scientifically engineered for maximum comfort and rest—you’re just exhausted. I get it. It’s time for a little nappy. I understand. Go ahead. We’ll still be here when you get back. We’ll watch over your things and let you know if the snoring gets too loud. We also have ushers ready with drool cloths.

Every preacher’s nightmare—and maybe every churchgoer’s fear, too—or secret fantasy—literally falling asleep in a room full of people during the sermon. I already know a few of you who will. Night night! See you in a little while. Lullaby…

At least I’m in good company. Because it also happened to the Apostle Paul.
The difference is—when that guy fell asleep, he died.
And Paul brought him back to life.
Now that’s a sermon illustration. I’m willing to try it if you are. Ha

We’ve been going through the Book of Acts line by line, today we start chapter 20… 

“After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.” Acts 20:1-3

After the riot in Ephesus, Paul knew it was time to move on. But before he left, he did what he always did—he encouraged the disciples. That’s a theme that runs through his ministry: wherever he went, he built people up in the faith. The Greek word for “encouraged,” parakaleō means to come alongside and strengthen. It’s where we get the word Paraclete, which is what Jesus calls the Holy Spirit—our helper and comforter.

This is discipleship—coming beside people, reminding them that Christ is faithful even when life is not. It’s a job God expects all of us to be doing for each other.

Paul’s travel itinerary shows his commitment to the unity of the church. These weren’t just quick stops; he was revisiting churches he had planted, strengthening relationships, and collecting funds to bring relief to the struggling believers in Jerusalem.

Even though plots against him were just a day in the life, Paul stayed the course. He was a man on a mission—and that mission was always to encourage his friends in the churches.

“Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.” Acts 20:4

I love this name: Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus—he doesn’t sound like someone you want to mess with. Like Conan the Barbarian. These guys are Paul’s dudes. I picture them in black leather riding camels with cool names like “Harley Son of David.”

Following Jesus is never a solo mission. Luke lists seven companions—all from Gentile churches—just like the author, Luke himself. 

“These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.” Acts 20:5-6

Notice he shifts to “we” again—welcome back Luke! He had probably been hanging in Philippi since Acts 16.

The “days of Unleavened Bread” is the week following Passover—which is also the anniversary of Jesus’ death and resurrection. So while the Jews celebrated the old deliverance from Egypt, Paul and the early church, made up of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Jesus, celebrated the new deliverance through Christ’s resurrection.

They spent seven days in Troas, resting, worshiping, and preparing to travel toward Jerusalem.

Notice how organized Paul’s ministry was. It wasn’t chaos or just winging it. There were routes, representatives, collections, schedules—all led by the Holy Spirit.
Faith and planning go hand in hand.

“On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” Acts 20:7

This is the earliest record we have of Christians meeting for worship on Sunday, “the first day of the week—the Lord’s Day.” That’s why we still do—it’s the day Jesus rose from the dead. Every Sunday is a little Easter. If you’ve ever wondered why Christians usually have church on Sunday instead of on the 7th day as God commanded in the OT—this is why. They called Sunday the 8th day—a new day—the first and the last day of the week.

“Breaking bread” almost certainly refers to the Lord’s Supper. Their worship centered around Word and Sacrament, just like ours. They also ate together as part of their worship—something we really embrace at NewChurch. 

And since it was Paul’s last night with them, he had a lot to say. Luke says he “prolonged his speech until midnight.” Which is Greek for “The sermon went on forever.”

Apparently, Paul didn’t have a countdown timer or anyone holding him to 30 minutes or less. He had one night left with this church, and he wanted to tell them everything he knew. 

What could go wrong?

“There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.” Acts 20:8-9

Luke describes the scene so we can feel it:
An upper room. Flickering oil lamps. Can you smell the burning wicks? The oil? The warm, stuffy air. The combination of a really long sermon and a tired young man named Eutychus—which, by the way, his name means “Fortunate.” Literally “Mr Lucky.”

 He’s being all cool, sitting in the open window trying to get some air.
And somewhere around Point 136 of Paul’s sermon—he slips into dreamland.

You know how it is, the struggle is real—your eyes get heavy, you start doing the head bob, get another cup of coffee, open your eyes wide and think, “I can stay awake—I’m good," and then boom—you’re gone. Ever heard of “Exploding Head Syndrome?” When you fall asleep and then there’s like an explosion and you wake back up? Mr Lucky didn’t wake back up.

When he fell asleep, he literally fell… asleep—out the window.
From the third floor. This was a very rude falling dream. Exploding head and all.

Luke, a physician, adds the very grim note: “He was taken up dead.”
Luke knew death when he saw it. I’m sure someone screamed. They ran downstairs and picked up his body but the boy was gone. That’s not what you want. It’s not what people mean when they tell the preacher to “knock em dead!” Killer sermon dude. 

“But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.” Acts 20:10

Paul runs downstairs, picks up the boy, and holds him—just like Elijah and Elisha had done when they raised the dead in 1st Kings 17:21, and 2 Kings 4:34.

The same God who worked through His prophets is now working through His apostle.
Eutychus is raised back to life.

That’s a pretty freakin’ big moment. What does Paul do next? You’d think he’d call it a night after this. No…  He goes back upstairs, serves Communion, and keeps talking until sunrise!

I don’t want to hear any comments about how long my sermons are.

Luke ends that section with his favorite phrase: “They were not a little comforted.” Translation: They were completely amazed. The boy was alive, and so was their faith. Plus, Paul got to finish his sermon before he left.

It’s an awesome story—kind of funny but also a strong picture of what tends to happen to us too often. Not just falling asleep in church now and then, but in our faith. We might not fall out of a window but we doze off, lose focus—just kind of drift along aimlessly. 

Not Paul and the boys, though, they got places to go… 

“But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.” Acts 20:13-16

Paul’s journey continues. He’s in a hurry to get to Jerusalem for Pentecost, but he refuses to rush past people or skip the ministry happening right in front of him.

That’s what faithful mission looks like: urgent but not frantic, structured but Spirit-led. Keep moving but pay attention to the people God puts in front of you.

Every pastor who reads the story of Eutychus probably thinks of someone. I always think of Glen.

Some of you might remember Jim Greene’s grandfather—old dude in a wheelchair who always wore a retired Army hat—back in the Aristoi and Kilpatrick days?
Doc and Joanne would bring him to NewChurch every week—we always had the best conversations.
At the end of his life, I visited him a few times at home and in the hospital.
On my last visit, I read the 23rd Psalm and talked about how Jesus is the Great Shepherd who looks after us and takes care of us, that He promises we’ll be with Him forever.

Glen said, “That reminds me of a Scripture…”
Then he fell asleep—for a few minutes.
I was a little worried he was going to fall out of his chair.
When he woke back up, Joanne said, “Dad, you said that reminded you of a Scripture. What Scripture did it remind you of?”
And Glen thought deeply and very seriously said, “I have no idea.”

He died later that day.

At his memorial service, I read this story of Eutychus.
So, I can’t read it without thinking of him.
Pretty sure God gave us this story to remind us that death isn’t the end.
Glen fell asleep—he appeared to be dead—just like Eutychus.
But just like Eutychus, he is very much alive now.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Jesus died and rose from the dead—and promises that all who believe are connected to His resurrection and will also live again.

Even though all of us are eventually going to fall asleep in this life, it’s not the end.
That’s our hope. That’s our promise.
We will all be raised just as He was.

What happened to Eutychus is going to happen to us. But only once. We only physically die once and it won’t be a bad thing for us—death is not what we should be afraid of.

We should be more concerned about what tends to happen to all of us spiritually—over and over in this life.

We fall asleep.

Not just during sermons—but in our prayers, our calling to live out our faith. We fall asleep to applying what God has told us in His word in our actual life.

We get tired. Distracted. Comfortable.
The world sings us a lullaby, and we drift.
We think we’re pretty cool sitting in the window—half in, half out—until we fall.

I wonder if Paul was thinking of Eutychus when he wrote in Romans 13:11

“The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

Or in Ephesians 5:14 when he wrote

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

I don’t know how he couldn’t have been thinking of that night. I certainly would have never forgotten about the time I preached so long that someone died and God had me raise them from the dead. That would tend to stick.

It’s not just Paul who uses falling asleep as a metaphor for spiritual neglect—Jesus said in Mark 13:37

“What I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

Jesus said this at the end of one of His sermons on the end times. He’s not talking about physical sleep but spiritual awareness. Living as though our Lord and Master could return at any moment—so we should be about the work He left us here to do.

And then in the book that’s all about the end times, Jesus is quoted in…

Revelation 3:2 warning the church in Sardis

“Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die.”

That’s chilling. Jesus says, "Wake up and stay awake! Strengthen what remains—before it dies!” because faith has a way of dozing off quietly in this dark world. Most of us will never formally renounce God; we’ll just be tempted to get too comfortable—to lose our edge, our expectancy, our urgency. 

From Paul, to Jesus, to Revelation, the Spirit says the same thing, “Wake up. Live awake.”

It’s not sin that gets us first — it’s sleepiness—that we’ll fall asleep in our faith.
That we’ll stop caring about the things that matter.
That we’ll forget we were called to live with purpose.
Once the devil has us asleep, we’ll sin like we’re lucid dreaming in the neverending adventures of the worst version of ourselves—which always ends up being a nightmare. 

But when we fall, God doesn’t leave us there.
He comes down to us, picks us up, and wakes us up.
Just like Paul did for Eutychus.

Only Jesus took it a lot further when He came down—He died in our place, so that when we die, He raises us too.
He didn’t just look down from the safety of heaven and shout, “Wake up!” He entered our darkness, our death, our sleep—and gave us His life. So we could be truly alive. Red pill alive. Like Neo in the Matrix. We all keep reaching for the blue pill to be lulled back to sleep—Jesus slaps that blue pill out of our hand and says, “No! Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead—we’ve got a revolution to fight!”

Welcome to the kingdom of God!

You don’t have to know anything about The Matrix to get what I’m saying—Jesus wakes us up from illusion, delusion, to reality, from death to life, and tells us it’s time to get moving! Be awake. Be alive.

[Alarm sound] Hey… sorry. Hope you had nice nappy. Time to wake up.

I didn’t want you to miss this last part so I set an alarm.

If your prayers are kind of empty, if your passion for following Jesus has faded a bit, if your heart’s gotten a little cold. Maybe you’ve kind of been spiritually asleep for a while. A little groggy. 

Time to wake up, my friend. Your life is still in you. You may have dozed off, you may have even died a little, Colossians 3:3 (ESV):

“For you have died…

but your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Paul said about Eutychus, ‘His life is in him,’ it’s true of us, too. Even when we look dead, burned out, or spiritually asleep, even when our life seems to be a mess. Christ holds our true life where nothing can reach it—and when He appears, we’ll be right there with Him in glory.

But we don’t have to wait until then. Jesus actually commands us to stay awake, stay alert, He has work for us to do now. There are people you need to encourage, people who need you to love them, people who need to hear that there really is such a thing as life before death. Life before death.

This world makes us spiritually drowsy. Not necessarily faithless, just distracted, numb, and half-asleep in who God has called us to be. 

I want you to picture Jesus running down the stairs and picking you up and saying, “Hey, your life is still in you! Even when you can’t see it. I got you!”

And then wake up, get back in the game. Splash some water on your face. Remember your baptism. Re-engage with prayer, read your freakin’ Bible, and spend your most productive time with your band of brothers and sisters encouraging each other to live out this kingdom mission He’s given us. Picking each other up when we fall. Waking each other up when we doze off. Maybe helping them to not be so comfortable on the ledge of a third floor window.

Most of us think “staying awake” means trying harder. More caffeine, more noise, more effort.

But in the kingdom of God, waking up isn’t something you do — it’s something that happens to you when Jesus picks you up.

Eutychus didn’t raise himself.
He fell. He died. And the life in him came back when he was held by one who carried resurrection power.

That’s what Christ does for you. He doesn’t just forgive you — He wakes you up. Makes you alive.

And it isn’t a one-time event. It’s a way of life. A steady awareness that you now live in God’s presence, His kingdom, and His Spirit is at work even when you’re tired, bored, distracted, or discouraged.

So as you go from here today, walk slow enough to stay awake to His presence in the ordinary moments—in conversations, in work, in meals—paying attention to people around you who need your attention.

You’ve already been raised with Christ.
Now, learn to live awake.

Falling asleep in faith is inevitable; but being raised by Christ is certain.

Amen.