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The Wake-Up Call
The Two Groups Down at the Church
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A martyr, in the New Testament sense, is not someone who is going to die for Jesus but someone who has already died with him—and been raised from the dead!
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Hey, Good morning Sower Nation. It's Thursday, April 30th, last day of the month in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt and this is your wake up call. It's time to do today again. Is today again. So let's jump in with consecration today. You ready? Jesus is here. 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. Well, today's entry is entitled the Two Groups down at the Church and our text is Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 17 through 21. Hear now the Word of the Lord. Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord. You must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ. For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him as truth is in Jesus, the Word of the Lord. Now consider this. Something I've rarely considered is what it must have been like for Paul to write these letters. We know he was in prison at the time, but I have never thought much beyond. He likely dictated his letters to an assistant who wrote down his words. Yet I don't think this quite captures it. Paul is not trying to pack himself into his words as much as he is trying to unleash the Word of God through his words. Remember, these letters are not coming from Paul, they are coming through him. Preachers will grasp exactly what I am talking about here because we all struggle at this point so often I want to get my words right rather than simply allowing the Word to dwell richly in and through me. Paul is not so much writing here as he is preaching. He is bearing witness to a word that is coming to him and allowing it to pass through him. The way our text begins signals this. Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord. I picture Paul rising to his feet and moving about the cell in the way a preacher moves, not for effect, but because the preacher is being moved. The Greek word behind insist is martyr, O my it means to witness. You already recognize the root of the word martyr, which is the same word we see in Acts 1:8 where Jesus said these words to his disciples. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses. Martyr witnesses this notion of witness as martyr captures the whole essence of faith and discipleship. A martyr in the New Testament sense is not someone who is going to die for Jesus, but someone who has already died with him and been raised from the dead. I feel myself starting to preach, which is precisely the point I'm trying to make. Maybe someday the Lord will let me say more about this in an appropriate venue. The text beckons us onward. Now you must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their minds. From the little church in Ephesus. To insert your own church in town here, I'll just say the Gillette Methodist Church in Gillette, Arkansas. There are two groups of people in every congregation. One group consists of the church in the world, while the other is the world in the church. Paul here speaks to the latter. Those who have joined the church without letting go of the world. Note I didn't say leaving the world, but letting go of the world and all its ways. The failure to understand and sort this is the downfall of many, resulting in a double minded life that is neither hot nor cold. Rather than a life of joyful awakening discipled around the indwelling spirit of God, the world subtly yet forcefully divides our desires and affections along paths of sensual delight, ultimately leading to spiritual sleep. The culture of indulgence all around us quietly becomes the crisis of indifference within us. It's why so far this year I've put more money on my Starbucks card than in the offering plate. Come on. And what does this have to do with coffee, you ask? Well, nothing and everything. The problem is not the coffee. It's the $8 double venti, six shot, no water, extra hot chai tea latte, extra hot. Did I say with an extra shot? I want you to feel the force of the text. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Remember when Paul talked about speaking the truth in love? Well, this is that. Remember why this matters so much? Because as the text says, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. The problem is not the world around us that alienates us from the life of God. It's the world within us. Jesus interest is not in taking us out of the world, but taking the world out of us. Jesus wants us to be his witnesses, fully alive in him, smack dab in the middle of the world. Let's pray. Abba. Father, we thank you for your son Jesus, whose vision for us is so much brighter and richer and more powerful than the mirage offered by the world around us. Awaken us. Awaken me to a new delight in you. Rescue me from my indifference and fill me with the life of God. I want to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Yes, in Jesus name, amen. I just have a sense that a lot of you are praying that just like I just said it, I want to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Do you know that that's what God wants for you and for me and for us together? You know, when you have that going on, you live in a kind of flow state in your life, in the world. You're not tossed to and fro by every wave. You're not distracted by every shiny thing that comes along. You're, you're actually set free from all of the sensual indulgence that the world is constantly throwing our way. You see those things, they're a waste of time and they're a waste of our life. Jesus wants us to flow with him today. He wants to move in us and with us and through us all day long. You see, this is not about being more religious. It's certainly not about being more self righteous. This is about being more real. I was, was just to my church in Gillette last Sunday. I was saying, guys, when Jesus says I've come that you may have life and have it more abundantly, he's like, that means I've come to put you in flow with me. I've come to put you in the zone on earth as it is in heaven zone. That's where everywhere I go, that's where that is. That's what I'm doing. And Paul is trying to help us. He's trying to help us see that vision and step into it. But you've got to want it, okay, you know you need it. But that's not the question. We all know we need it. The question is, do we want this? The real question is, do we want Jesus? That's what he's, he's looking for, those hands, those raised hands to say, Jesus, I want you. Because I mean you have magnetic pull on Jesus. The minute you really say and mean that I Want you, Jesus. Because you know what he's saying to you right now? You who you're listening to me. He's saying your name. I want you. And when that meets up, it starts blowing up in the best of ways. All right, what are we going to sing today?
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Well, I think
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we're going to sing a. Here is love. It's number 91 in our hymnal, seed bed, our great redeemer's praise. 91. Here is love. I'll sing verse one and four.
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Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood. When the Prince of life our ransom shed for us his precious blood, who his love will not remember, who can cease to sing his praise, he can never be forgotten throughout heaven's eternal days.
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Last verse.
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In your truth, you still direct me by your spirit, through your word and your grace, my need is meeting as I trust in you, my Lord, of your fullness, you are pouring your great love and power on me without measureful and boundless, drawing out my heart to thee.
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Can we sing that last verse again?
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That was so amazing. In your truth, you still direct me by your spirit, through your word and your grace, my need is meeting as I trust in you, my Lord, of your fullness, you are pouring your great love and power on me without measureful and boundless, drawing out my heart to the. That's.
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That's.
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We could have just sang that today and not said anything else.
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Of your fullness, you are pouring. That's what he's doing.
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He's just looking, guys. He's just looking for the vessels that are opened up for the poor. It's nothing you gotta do to get him to do that. He's doing that. That's what his holy spirit is being
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poured out right now.
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Who's got the cup open saying, fill
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my cup, My cup is open. Lord of your fullness, you are pouring your great love and power on me without measure. That's all the fullness of God right there. Full and boundless. And what happens when that poor starts pouring out on and in you? Your heart gets drawn out to him and you're in the. You're in the flow. You're in the go of Jesus, guys. All you gotta do is just move with it. You can't make it happen, but you can move with it happening. And that's where it really begins to happen more. All right, everybody, couple of closing thoughts today. So you maybe have seen some emails and maybe have seen a video here and there. We're in sewing season on the Wake up call. And what we're doing right now is we're asking, we're, we're saying, does anybody want to sponsor a day of the wake up call? You know, we don't charge for this. We don't charge subscriptions. We're never going to do that. I hate to say it's free. It is. It's very costly, though. It's, it's quite expensive to do this. And we're giving it away. And when you give to sponsor a day, it helps us give it more. We've got a lot of territory, a lot of acres that we want to get in cultivation. And when you say, I want to put my hand to the plow with you, I want to sponsor a day, I want to sponsor a week, I want to sponsor. You know, a few years ago, somebody came in and said, I'll match the whole year. Do you know what that did? It just blasted the wake up call out way beyond what we could even ask or even think. This is the kind of stuff God does. He just lays it on people's hearts and say, just go all in. So, you know, there's going to be links in today's email psychology where you can see, you know, you can sponsor the YouTube or the Apple podcast and the Spotify podcasts or the whole day. It's, there's various levels of giving you can do. You can give anything you, you want. It doesn't have to match one of our amounts. And we also are doing this thing, we're asking if you want to sponsor a new person to get a book. You know, we do all these, buy one book and we'll send another one to your friend. We want to send you two for one so you can sow one. Listen, CBED is not about making money. We're about sowing for awakening. But it does take money. And a couple of times a year, we're not always talking about money, but a couple times a year, we just kind of say, here it is. A lot of you ask, how can I be involved. This is it sponsorship. So check those emails, check the P.S. maybe check the show notes and YouTube or Apple podcast. I would love if you would pray about it. Right? I only want you to do it if the Lord says do it. We're just telling you about the opportunity and let the Lord invite you to actually cross over the line. Well, it's time to hit the field today. We're gonna have a good day out there. Jesus is, he's saying, come on, let's go. We're ready and that's where I'll be looking for you today. I'll see you on the field for The Awakening. I'm J.D. wall.