← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
The Secret to Reading Really, Really Well
00:21:43
Our chief calling and highest ambition is to apply ourselves to understanding and appropriating and creatively enacting the meaning of these five words: "As I have loved you."
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Hey, good morning. Wake up. It's me again. You feel me? Kind of just kind of lightly pushing on you like. It's time to wake up. It's time to greet the day. It's time to meet with Jesus and get ready to have one of the best days we've ever had before. It is is Friday, January 23rd, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt, and this is your wake up call. Right. I just kind of feel like singing it. You want to join me? Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory Rise and shine and give God glorious the glory, glory Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory Children of the Lord. That's an oldie but goodie. Well, let's jump 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. You know, we're not going to strive our way through this day. We're going to receive the day. We're going to receive the Lord in this day. I love how much Jesus actually talks about today. I got a text just this week from our friend Chris Tomlin, who loves the wake up calls. Been out here with us. He said, talk to me about that text. What is that text where you talk about consecration and transformation and demonstration. I said, oh, that's our theme text. That's Ephesians 5:14, which says Wake up, sleep deeper. Okay? That's consecration. Jesus, I'm waking up. I belong to you. I'm not even my own anymore. I'm yours. I'm your project. Okay? That leads to transformation, rise from the dead. We can't rise from the dead. He has to raise us from the dead. That's what he does. And he brings all of his resurrection life into us. That's transformation. We're not trying to make ourselves better. We're to trying. We're receiving his very presence in us. It's totally leveling up because he's doing it. We're participating. And Christ will shine on you. That's a demonstration. Consecration, transformation, demonstration. It's like wake up, grow up, light up. And the beautiful thing, Jesus does the demonstrating. Yeah, we're, we're playing. We're playing. We're, we're with, we're, we're with him. But he's the secret. He's the secret. He's demonstrating his goodness, his glory, his love, his power. We're the vessels. We're party to it. We're enjoying it. We're not making it happen. And that's why you go from light up to lighten up. You know what? If it feels too hard, it's a sign you're doing it wrong. How's that for relief? Well, I've already gone way over time, and we haven't even gotten our entry today, so let's jump in. Today's entry is entitled the Secret to Reading really, really well. Our text is Proverbs 23. Today we're going to focus on verse 12. Hear now the word of the Lord. Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. Several years back, I watched a television documentary on the life of the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida is a Frenchman. He's famous for his postmodern philosophical approach known as deconstructionism. I've attempted to read one of his books, and after 45 minutes of being on the same page, I decided to throw in the towel. Derrida is to my academic skill as LeBron is to my basketball prowess. At one point in the documentary, Derrida led the interviewer through a tour of his library. About the size of a gymnasium, the room rose up on all sides, covered in books, toward a cavernous ceiling. Awed at the sheer magnitude of the size of the collection, the interviewer asked the obligatory question at such a moment. So have you read all these books? Derrida Riley replied, no, but I have read two of them really, really well. I love that. After all, a philosopher is simply one who. Philo. Philo loves Sophia. Wisdom Philosophia, lover of wisdom. We live in an age where mastery of informational knowledge is prized. Overall. More is better, faster is smarter. Information is power. Who knows the most is the smartest. Today's text Read through the lens of today's information ethic will yield a completely different meaning than the wisdom writer intends. Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. We're almost done with January, and I've already seen a number of friends and colleagues reporting out metrics on their New Year's resolutions to read so many books a month. I've engaged in that quote, my pile is bigger than your pile approach to reading before, and it can feel pretty satisfying. There's something seductive about people referring to you as being a quote well read person, I think I like Derrida's approach better. So have you read all these books? And he says no, but I have read two of them really, really well. That's how I want to be with Scripture. Reading the Bible in 90 days or 20 minutes or one year. It's fine, it's good. I'm just not sure it's the best way to apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. We've talked about that. I, I kind of, I'm on board. I've read the Bible through and I tried it in a year. It took me two years. Okay. And I'm still working on the seedbed wake up call three year Bible reading plan. And of course I love Tara Leigh Cobble and what she's doing with the one year Bible, the Bible recap, it's brilliant. And I love the idea of just keeping that big story. It's almost like a soundtrack that's just playing, always in the background. The big sweeping story of scripture just always kind of be walking through it. It's good. But what I'm really interested in the most is a slowly paced abiding with the text, a long and lingering relationship with the words, a growing relationship with the author, and a revisiting it, the same text, day after day after day, for long seasons at a time. Letting a text see, we read the text, but it we've got to get to the place where the text is reading us. That takes time. As an example, Jesus said, my command is this. Love each other. And as I have loved you, that's John 15:12. What might it be worth to apply my heart comprehensively to this tiny bit of instruction, to open my ears fully to this word of knowledge? What if I decided I would give myself until next year to read the Gospel of John really, really well? And what if I started by writing these eight words at the top of every page of the book? From John 15. Love each Other as I have loved you. You know, the entire scope and summation of the meaning of life can be brought down even further to five of these eight words of Jesus singular command. As I have loved you. Our chief calling and highest ambition is to apply ourselves to understanding, to receiving, to appropriating, and then creatively enacting the meaning of these five words. As I have loved you. Imagine one day Jesus asking you this question, so, my friend, have you read every word of the entire book of the Bible? And what if you replied, no, but I have read one verse really really? Well, I think that would delight him. Maybe. Let's pray. Father, I do want to apply my heart to instruction and my ears to words of knowledge. I confess I am both distracted and well intentioned. I need a new way, one empowered by your spirit. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Our journal prompts today. What do you think of this approach to reading? Perhaps fewer things. Really, really. Well, what have been your Bible reading habits and practices over the course of, say last year? Have you ever read a book of the Bible? Really, really well. And what was the impact? Will you give it a try? You know, I, I remember, I Bet it's been 25 years ago now. I just started reading John, chapter 15, verses 1 through 17. I'm the true vine, my father's the farmer, and all that follows after it. I think that's probably where this whole way of reading started for me was that text. And I just started going over it every day. That's where I started learning that whole reading and ruminating and remember izing and researching and rehearsing and just, just realizing that there's so, there's so this is like nuclear uranium. There's so much here and I've just sort of skated over the surface of so much so many times and I just started abiding with it like that.
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And.
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Y', all, I'm still on it. John, chapter 15, verses 1 through 17. Philippians, chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. Maybe it is Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 to 20 something. There's so many texts that they become. I just think about like, like their homes. Like I got a home in John 15. I got a home in Philippians too. They're like, yo, I got, I got a lot. I've got, I'm rich. I've got multiple homes in the Bible. And you can too. A lot of you do I just ask him to lead you to one of those. Psalm 23, that's a home, that's a cathedral. But, but you just go there, you just keep going there. Spending time hanging out, looking around, asking the spirit to interpret it to you. Let the text read you. We kind of built a home in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Well, that wasn't, that wasn't a home building. We did a big hot air balloon flyover for 89 days, didn't we, last fall of those gospels? And we're kind of doing the Proverbs flyover right now. Those are good. But let's. It's almost like you're, you're looking at real Estate. And you're like, man, I want to buy that home. I want to buy that text, that psalm. That's what we're doing with the new year. New word. It's kind of like a tent. It's a mobile. I'm buying a mobile home. I'm a mobile home. I love mobile homes. But I like, like nice RVs, better campers. Maybe I'm buying a camper that I'm gonna go with this whole year. It's gonna be a verse, two verses. I hope you're asking the Lord to give you that. We still got some time left. I want you to send it in. I'm going to put the link in the PS today where you can tell me what your new word for the new year is. 20, 26. And when I say new word, guys, I'm not meaning just like one word. I'm meaning like a verse, a verse from scripture. And we'll be working with that as time goes on. So I think I'm going to hand over here and we're going to sing today. But it's been good to be with you today. It's been good to be with you this month. And we're going to finish strong in January. We're going to win the year winning January. All right, who's ready to sing? Dad, are you ready?
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I'm ready to sing this. Blessed assurance Jesus is mine Yes, I am blessed let's.
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Let's see.
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Can we take your hat off?
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We can't really see your face. The people like to see you, dad. They don't so much like to see me, but they do like to see you. We're going to sing. What's the number?
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570.
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And this is blessed assurance. Three verses. It's quite famous hymn by the great, the late, great Fanny Crosby. And we're going to sing all three verses together. You've been having a good day today.
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I have. Not doing a lot, Susan. I been riding around some, just not doing much of anything.
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Well, we're about to do the main thing.
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I'm ready.
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Okay.
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Blessed assurance Jesus is mine oh, what a foretaste of glory divine era Salvation purchase of gone on earth his spirit washed in his blood this is my story this is my song Praising my savior all the day long this is my story this is my song Praising my savior all the day long Number two. Perfect submission Perfect delight Visions of rapture now burst on my sight angel descending blame from above Echoes of mercy Whispers of love this is my story this is my song Praising My Savior all the day long this is my story this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long Last verse, Perfect submission all is at rest I in my Savior am happy and blessed Watching and waiting Looking above Filled with his goodness Lost in his love this is my story this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long this is my story this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long.
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Amen.
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Well, that's a good one. That's a classic. Blessed assurance. You feeling that?
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I've got that. I've got it.
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That's good. That's all you need in the end.
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That's right.
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If you don't have anything else and you've got that, you got everything.
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You got it.
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But you know what? If you got everything else and you.
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Don'T have that, you ain't got nothing.
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You got nothing. It might feel like something, but it'll turn out to be nothing.
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It won't do any good. Any good at all.
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Well, dad, thanks for.
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For being here today and joining us in this singing. And we got to let the folks get out on the fields today.
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It's my pleasure to be here. And we just. We want to bless every person that's got their radio on.
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The radio. That's what we need to get on the radio.
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Well, thanks for joining us 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.
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Amen.
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Sam.