← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
How Do I "Be Transformed"?
00:19:54
Transformation is not a good person becoming a better person. It’s a dead person becoming a truly alive person.
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Hey, good morning, friends of Jesus and friends of mine. And I really mean that. I feel like we're friends. It is Thursday, March 5th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt, and this is your wake up call. Are you ready to get this day going? Jesus is, he's saying, ready or not, here I, he didn't say here I come. He says here I am. And you know, that's really the essence of consecration, isn't it? It's when Jesus says, here am I. Or maybe he says, here I am. And we see him and we say here I am. It's, it's the meeting up of his presence and our presence and, and really it becomes the exchange of our sinfulness for his righteousness, right? It moves into that our brokenness for his wholeness, our emptiness for his fullness. He's like, listen, you just let come in, let me take the wheel, let me right the ship and run the ship today, and you'll be amazed at what happens. So let's go straight into consecration this morning. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let our lives now follow those words. Consecration is the opening of the door into what I call the cathedral of transformation. A place vast with the revelation of God's word and inviting our response. So today's entry is entitled how do I be transformed? And our text is Romans 12th chapter, verse 2. Hear now the word of the Lord. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. All right? You remember our watchword for the week, don't you? We learned it on the top of Transfiguration mountain. It's actually the word for transfiguration comes from this Greek word, metamorpho O. Will you say it with me? Metamorpho O. Now, as I said earlier, I've always thought the transfiguration was a one off, one of its kind event that was just for Jesus and consequently had no personal or practical application as related to us. Boy, was I wrong. I've done a little digging and I looked up our watchword Metamorpho O in the Bible. In addition to its appearance in the Gospel accounts of the transfiguration, it appears in two other verses. And did I mention that those two other verses are what I would call power texts? I'll share the first one today and the next one tomorrow. The first one is from Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. Let's hear it again. See if you can spot the word. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. And there it is, hiding like an Easter egg under the words be transformed, metamorpho O. Now notice how the verse begins with do not. And yet it doesn't go on to give us something we can do for ourselves. That's hard for people like us who like to have a to do list. Transformation is not something we do. Is. Is not a set of activities or duties or disciplines or responsibilities we take on. Transformation is someone we become. And notice the root word of that word, become. It is be. Now put it together. The meaning of our watchword Metamorpho O is be transformed. Transformation is not a good person becoming a better person. It is a dead person becoming a truly alive person. So transformation is not something we do to ourselves. Does that mean it is something that happens to us? Because that still sounds like we have to do something to make it happen. But what if transformation is not something, but someone that happens to us even more so in us? Well, that would change everything, wouldn't it? And isn't that exactly the point of Metamorpho O changing everything? So maybe instead of asking, what do I need to do? We should be asking, how might I, or how can I be transformed? Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your son Jesus and Lord Jesus. We ask you, how can we be transformed? How can I be transformed? And we, since you're saying, follow me, belong to me, behold me. This is the way, Jesus. We belong to you. Come, Holy Spirit, and lead us in this way of transformation. We're praying in your name, Jesus. Amen. Our journal prompts today. Are you willing to let go of your need to change yourself? Are you ready to abandon the program of self improvement? Are you ready for Jesus to take the wheel for real transformation? Something tells me you are. Gosh, you know, it's. It's taken me a long time to get clarity on all this. I'm a doer. You Tell me what the project is. I'm gonna figure out what I need to do, you know, show me whatever the high grade is, I'm gonna figure out what I need to do to get it, how high the bar is. I'm gonna figure out what I gotta do to jump over it. And Jesus, he's like, that's not my program. That's not what we're doing here. You know, that. That whole thing there, maybe that got you here. It won't get you there. What got you here won't get you there. That's a good little lesson a lot of us need to hear. He's bringing something completely different, and it's going to require some unlearning on our part. It's like he. He wants to get us back to a sense of a beginner's mind, I think. And so that's what we're going for here. That's called humbling yourself in the sight of the Lord. So let's let go of all of our penchant for activity. Let's not let the pendulum swing back to passivity. No, we're going for receptivity. This is where we're getting to the questions. It's going to take us a few more days. We're going to get there. Hang in there, guys. We're on a journey. Jesus is speaking to us. He's revealing things to us we do not know. Let's sing today. You ready? We got a good song coming. All right, everybody, it's time to sing. And today we're going to sing one of the great anthems of Charles Wesley. It's one of the great anthems of Methodism. It's a hymn that really captures the full scope of salvation. And tell them what we're singing so they can start looking it up.
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Love divine all love Loves excelling what's the number? It's 88 in this book.
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It's 88 in our great Redeemers. What is it? Call it out.
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Our Great Redeemer's Praise 88, large print
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edition if you need it. We even have a leather edition if you want it. But we got the. Everything in between too, so we'd love for you to have one of these hymnals, but you can also just look the words up on the Internet if you want to. The main thing is that we want you singing with us. We want you singing hymns with us. We're going to be. Be bringing in some. Some. Some. Some of our other worship leaders that we love are going to lead us in some of the newer songs in the coming days, but we're going to keep coming back to the old songs, too. But as I was saying, you know, today's entry is all about how do I be transformed? And this is the beautiful vision of Methodism, is that salvation isn't just like, I'm going to go to heaven when I die. Yes, that's it. That's big. That's huge. But there's. There's more. You see, the. The full Bible view of. Of salvation is not just going to heaven when you die. It's getting heaven into you while you're still alive.
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Amen.
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It's becoming a person who's filled with the life and love and goodness of Jesus that causes for others to want to know God. That's what transformation looks like. It's just his presence coming into our life, causing us to become like that burning bush on fire, but not consumed. And other people are like, wait, did I just see what I think I saw? I thought I saw the presence of God in the world through that person, but that's a person. That's just how it was with Jesus. They're like, this is something different here. This hymn's got four verses, as I said, Charles Wesley, and as we sing it, I want you to hear the movement of Amazing Grace as we go through these verses, all the way from first receiving the grace of God to being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. All right, dad, you ready? We're gonna sing all four verses.
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Love divine all love's excelling Joy of heaven to earth Come down Fix in us thy humble dwelling all thy hateful mercies crown Jesus Thou art all compassion Pure unbounded love thou art Visit us with Thy salvation Enter every trembling heart Breathe, O breathe thy loving spirit into every troubled breast Let us all indeed let us find that sucked breast Take away our bed to sinning Alpha and omega B End of faith as its beginning Set our hearts at liberty Come Almighty to deliver Let us all thy life receive Suddenly return and never never ever Thy temple leave Take, build the great always blessings serve thee as thy house above Ray and praise thee without ceasing Glory in Thy perfect love Finish then thy new creation Pure and spotless Let us be Let us see thy great salvation Perfectly instort in thee Changed from glory into glory Till in heaven we take our place Till we cast our crowns before thee Lost in wonder Love and praise that's good, isn't it? Amen. That moves on.
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That moves on on that's the vision of the Grace of God. It's not just, lord, I don't want to go to hell. Would you get me into heaven? It is that, but that's just barely salvation. Salvation is when the grace and the love of God become unleashed in a human life.
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Salvation is a way of life.
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It's a way of life. Way of life. It's when a person catches on fire with love. And you can't put that fire out. That fire keeps burning. It's not burning you up. It's giving light. It's giving warmth. It's. It's a miracle.
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It is.
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And you know it when you see it. And you know, dad, that's one thing I would say about you. All my life I've known you, you've been a burning bush. You've been that kind of person.
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Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
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You've lived that kind of life, and it causes other people to want to know what you know and to want to have what you have and to want to become like you have become. And you know what you do? You say, oh, that's not me. Who is it?
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Jesus Christ.
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It's Jesus. And he can do the same thing in you. Every single one of us. That's the. That's. Study this hymn. This is this hymn. We could do a whole Wake Up Call series on this hymn alone. It's so much there changed from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place. You see, heaven's the end of it. It's not the beginning. The promise is the beginning. The journey is the beauty of it. And. And then in the end, there we cast our crowns before thee, Lost in wonder, love and praise. Well, dad, it's time to let everybody get out on the fields today. We got a full day of sowing for awakening ahead of us. And you know, when you're following Jesus. So when's this happening? It's just happening. And we hope you're encouraged and ready to go. You're full of the Holy Spirit. You're loved, you're secure. And that way you can love and extend that kind of security to others. You know, there's a way that when people are with you, they feel strangely like they've been with God.
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It's a different feeling.
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And they have, and they have, because he's in you. All right, well, for The Awakening, I'm J.D. walt.
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And I'm David Walt.
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And we'll see you on the field.