← The Wake-Up Call
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- [00:04]
A
Hey, good morning. Dear friends of Jesus and friends of mine, do you know that we're friends with each other because we're the friends of Jesus. We wouldn't even know each other if it weren't for Him. And I'm so thankful for you. And I'm thankful for him, to him, for you. So what a joy to be together, waking up to Jesus every single day together. Golly, can you believe it? I just want you to know that I know what a, what an honored, trusted place it is for me to sit in this place with you every day. I know you feel like you know me. Well, guess what? I feel like I know you. I hear from people a lot and I hear all kinds of things. I hear good words and challenging words and I love them all. Somebody wrote me the other day, they said you need to get to the point quicker to start the thing. Cut the announcements. Okay. I hear it. They said, you know, I shared this with, I share this with people, I share this with young people. And sometimes it can take you three minutes to get to the consecration prayer. But I'm like noted, I appreciate it and I know some of you like you know me to go on a little bit in the morning. So don't write me back and say that's okay. You keep doing that. Just what I'm trying to say is if you see things that you think will make the wake up call better, that will level it up, that will help it be more accessible, tell me, I'm open. Just fire away. Reply to the email, make a comment. I mean, you know, I know you're going to be kind, but you can tell me the truth. You can speak the truth in love. That's how we grow. I the Lord knows I do it with you all, all the time. Well let's jump in today. Okay. Two minutes in. Getting better. 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. And 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. If you watch this on YouTube sometime you see me maybe just sort of waving or something off to the side. I There's a massive, beautiful. I'm just going to show it to you here if you're watching. There's a beautiful storefront windows. This, this is an old hundred year old building. Used to be a hardware Store. Before that, it was an International Harvard Implements Equipment place this in Gillette, Arkansas, right on Main Street. People walk by them in here doing this and they wave. And I like to just let them know I'm in the zone here, you see, I got my own air sign on. But I like to know that's just a little sewing. Right. I see you. Okay. Today's entry is entitled. Okay, brace for it.
- [03:48]
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Transformational Question Number two. It's taking us all the way to the eve of Holy Week to get
- [03:59]
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to the second of the three questions our text today. Second Peter, chapter one, verses three and four. Hear now the Word of the Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires the Word of the Lord. Now consider this. He held up two fingers. The day had finally come. I was not graduating from Transformational Question one, but I would finally learn Transformational Question two. My mentor, Maxie, sat across the table from me with two fingers raised. We rehearsed the first question. Am I growing? He reminded me that the second that the question was not addressed from him to me, as in, are you growing? John David Rather, he said, you must come to the place where you are willing to genuinely and persistently ask the question of yourself. Am I growing? We remembered also that our growing does not come as a product of our efforts, but as a result. Result of God's initiative, Christ in you, bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come. And then he shared this scripture text to emphasize his point. His divine nature has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
- [06:37]
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And then, with all the seasoned drama
- [06:40]
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of a desert Father, he offered the second question, Do I really want to change? Again, it is me asking myself, not someone else asking me. Two, nay, three key words here. Notice the word really. It leads us past the water table of interest and into the deep well of intention. Notice the second keyword, want. I may think I need to change. In fact, I may know I need to change. But thinking and knowing and needing are not part of the question at all. Do I really want to change? The third keyword, change. It brings us back to where we started, the Mount of Transfiguration. Remember the watch word, the original word behind the English word Transfiguration. Say it with me. Metamorpho O. It means transformation or transcendent formation, which is the very presence of God entering into the form of a human being, the temple of the human body and bringing the change. In perhaps one of the most stunning texts in all of scripture, Peter writes about the story of, of transformation, of metamorpho o, and yes, of change. You see, Peter was there on the mount. He beheld the vision. Years later, he's writing through these. He has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. Did you get that? Participate in the divine nature. This is earth shattering. Now back to that day with Maxi. Rather than launch into my answer to transformational question number two, I asked him another question. So, Maxie, what is the change you are talking about? With the slightest tone of irritation, he replied, stick with the question. Do I really want to change foreign. Let's pray for our Father. How we thank you for your son Jesus and Lord Jesus. You are the change. We are weary of trying harder to change our nature. We want to participate in your nature. Come Holy Spirit, and bring us the change who is Jesus. And we're praying in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well.
- [10:52]
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Wow.
- [10:55]
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Journal prompts. What do you think it means to participate in the divine nature? What do you think that means? I mean, I want you just to, to roll those words around in your soul. Participate in the divine nature. Now, second question. What scares you about change? What scares you about it? Okay, I just, I still can't. I remember the first time I read that phrase and it was like, what really? Participate in the divine nature. That's exactly what the Bible says. He's given us the, the promises, the word of God. He's given us his word so that through them we may participate in the divine nature. That's saying the very nature of God wants to come into our inmost being and transform us from the inside out. Jesus in us bringing with him all the glorious things. I'm in. Are you? And remember, the measure is love. The measure is not perfect behavior that produces legalism. The measure is love. And that's what he's bringing. And we're just learning to assess, to observe, to be given over to him and to watch, to behold how he, you know, that's the prayer of transformation that we, we've done so often on the wake up call. And I gotta find a way to bring it back more regularly, but it's, It's Jesus. I receive your righteousness. I release my sinfulness. I receive your wholeness. I release my brokenness. I receive your fullness. I release my emptiness. I receive your peace. I release my anxiety. I receive your joy. I release my despair. I receive your love. I release my self interestedness. I receive your holiness. I release my scatteredness to everything under the sun, my distractedness. I mean, that prayer can go on and on and on. I bet you we've probably written already a hundred of those entries, those, those sentences. I wonder how you would write that sentence today. What do you see? What do you behold in him? What do you want to receive from him? And then how does what you receive from him in his very presence begin to displace the broken thing in us? It displaces it. It pushes it out. And this is how he works. And our world follows our words, our prayer. This is how prayer changes the environment, the atmosphere, the temple. This is. Anyway, you get it. You get it. It's Friday.
- [15:26]
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This is good stuff.
- [15:28]
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But back to that word of participate in the divine nature Christ in you. I. I just feel epiphanies. I feel light bulbs. Just. I see them over your heads. Some of you. I see the mind blown emoji. You're like, I see it. I. I'm starting to get it. Me too.
- [15:51]
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Okay.
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Okay. We're gonna. We're going back to our medley today, the one we're writing together. We're going to start on 502. Come ye sinners, poor and needy. We're going to sing verse three and four. We're going to sing verse three. Then we're going to go back to oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus and sing verse three again. And then we might sing our little chorus. I love you, Lord, with it. You ready? 502. Our other hymn is 121, if you want to poll the page. One hundred and twenty one. 502.
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Come ye weary heavy laden Lost and ruined by the fall. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms. In the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are 10,000 charms. O the deep breath, Deep love of Jesus Love of every love the best. Tis an ocean vast of blessing. Tis a haven sweet of rest. O the deep deep love of Jesus. Tis a heaven of heavens to me and it lifts me up to glory. For it lifts me up to the and I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are 10,000 charms and I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you. O my soul, rejoice. Take joy, my king, in what you hear, and may it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.
- [19:26]
A
Amen. If you're watching this on the YouTube, you saw me just kind of lift my hands. You know why we lift our hands in worship? Because heaven has gravity. It literally, heaven is pulling us upward and outward and through the veil into the presence of God. And it's just like you're putting your hands up. It's just like you're putting your hands up to be embraced, to be picked up, to be lifted up. I wonder if you'd try that at home sometime. A lot of people, that kind of weirds them out, seeing people raise their hands in church. And I'm like, you know, I get it. I used. I. I went through the. Everybody goes through that. But what's happening is people are responding to, by faith, to something that. That other people that you can't see. You just know it. You feel it, you're in it. It's gravity. And it's fine to be, like, leery of it, but I wonder if you'd just try at home now. Don't try it if you're driving a car. I was thinking, I hope people aren't taking their hands off the steering wheel and saying, jes. Will. All right, we gotta go. Y'. All. People ask me, like, what happens? Those seeds. Who's. Who's picking. Those are. Where are they going? They're going all over the floor in there. My. My son David, who works now with us at Seabed, he's. He. He runs the social media for Seed Bed. I hope you'll check that out on Instagram and our Facebook and. And Tick Tock. We even have a Tick Tock channel now. We're trying to get that going. And. And David knows how to speak TikTok. I don't, but he's. He's kind of our artist in residence here in Gillette. And he came to me, he's like, dad, I'm not the seed sweeper here. And I said, david, that's exactly what you are. You're the seed sweeper. You just got a new title. So he sweeps up the seeds and brings them back and puts them into my little seed bin. All right, gang, I got my seeds for the awakening. I'm J.D.
- [21:45]
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walt, and I'll see you on the field.