← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Until the Pattern Is a Person, It Remains a Puzzle
00:22:18
As image-bearers of the triune God, we are meant to live this graced pattern of life together for the sake of each other and the world.
Loading summary
Transcript54 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:05]
B
Sower Nation it is Wednesday, May 6th, in the year of our Lord 2026, here in Savannah, Georgia this week. Had to do these recordings a little bit ahead of time down here in the Seat house in Gillette. Love getting out on the road and seeing sowers and singing songs together, telling stories, reading scripture. This is, this is what we're here for. And I love meeting with you every morning. So thank you. Thank you for being here with me, with Jesus and with so many others all over the world. We're doing this, gang. Wake up, sleepers. 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 until the Pattern is a Person, it remains a puzzle. And our text is Ephesians, chapter five, breaking into the fifth chapter today. Five of six, verses one and two. Hear now the word of the Lord. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, the word of the Lord. Now consider this. There's a pattern we see in the New Testament. It's not an ethic or a way of life or a set of principles for living. The pattern is a person. I bet you can guess his name. Yep, Jesus. We have talked about the pattern of descent and ascent we see in Jesus. Today's text alludes to this new pattern, but only gives us one component of it. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. The pattern consists of three movements. The middle movement, the linchpin of the three, is imitation. It's our favorite. Why? Because it's practical. It seems doable. You know, wwjd what would Jesus do? It's the essence of ethics, right? And it's a good theory until we seriously try it. Imitating the ways of Jesus without the power of Jesus leads in one of two directions. One, the deception of self righteous pride or two, the despair of self condemning shame humiliation. It is holiness without the Holy Spirit, which is another way of saying dead legalism. If we can keep our imitation out of these ditches of deception and despair, we will find that imitation is the essence of true discipleship. It brings us to the first part of the pattern, the threefold pattern. Inspiration, True discipleship. Is built on the foundation of inspiration. I don't mean inspiration as in chicken soup for the soul inspiration. I mean inspiration as in filled by the Holy Spirit inspiration. Inspiration. Inspiration means to be filled with breath. Many of you are making the leap backward to Genesis where God breathed into Adam the breath of life. As E. Stanley Jones said, and I'm fond of quoting, unless the Holy Spirit fills, the human spirit fails. Inspiration is the foundation. A powerful scene of inspiration in the life of Jesus occurred at his baptism. At that moment, Matthew writes, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, this is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased. That's Matthew 3. Because of Charismania, which is an overdeveloped and exaggerated emphasis on the Holy Spirit, many Christians today have spiritual phobia. Where we find fanaticism, we also find fear mongering. What we need is a profoundly human, robustly supernatural, thoroughgoing trinitarian theology of the Holy Spirit. I call that awakening DNA. That's a lot right there. It brings us to the third part of the pattern impartation. To impart something means to give it to another. Impartation is all about mission. Paul said to the Romans, I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong. Chapter 111. Remember that scene after the resurrection at the end of John's Gospel when Jesus burned breathed on his disciples and said, receive the Holy Spirit. John 20:22. That was impartation. If inspiration is breathing in, impartation is breathing out. We see this movement of impartation all over the book of Acts. I love the time when Peter and John were going into the temple courts that day and they encountered a beggar who was lame from birth in their path. Remember what Peter said to the man? Silver or gold, I do not have, but what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Walk. That's Acts 3:6. The more you attune yourself to this pattern, the more you will see it throughout the Bible. As image bearers of the triune God. We are meant to live this graced pattern of life together for the sake of each other and the world. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. The key to imitation, of course, comes in verse 2. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Imitating God means following Jesus. Following Jesus means walking in love. Walking in love means giving ourselves up to God for others sake. We can spend years in the ditches of deception and despair, but when we awaken to the way of holy love, it brings us to the end of ourselves and into the gift of our desperate need for the Holy Spirit. Now, despite all of this biblical and theological reflection, I know it maybe has felt laborious today. Until the pattern becomes a person, it will only be a puzzle. The same is true of us. Until the pattern becomes real in a person, the watching world will remain puzzled. Inspiration, breathing in imitation, living out impartation, breathing out its foundation. It's discipleship, it's mission, guys. But let's just keep it simple. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. You know, I've. I've just reworked my whole way of talking about awakening. I had a very cumbersome definition. It was theological, it was academic, it was biblical, it was scholarly, it was ERU died. It felt important, but nobody really understood it, nobody really could grasp it. It was probably 300 words and it just came to me the other day. Awakening is the journey of love from Jesus to a person through a person, to a person through a person to a person through. And you get the point. It's a journey. It's always love, it's always Jesus and it's always a person. It was you at one point. It was. It was to you and now it's coming through you to someone else. It's Jesus. That's what awakening is. That's what we're sowing every single day. Let's pray. Abba Father, we do thank you for your son Jesus who shows us this way of inspiration and imitation and impartation. Would you teach us this holy way in a very human way that we might live it out in a simple and yet supernatural way? Lord, we want to walk in love as you have loved us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Journal prompts today. Number one, considering these three, that these three elements of the pattern can't be separated and isolated, which of the three most challenges you at this time? Inspiration, imitation or impartation? Number two, do you struggle or have you with a way of imitating Jesus that is born of self righteous pride or striving? Or is it born of self shaming condemnation? Have you struggled with self shaming condemnation? What's that like? And how would you help someone escape these pitfalls? And number three, do you aspire to move more and more into the realm of impartation? Why? And what could help you on that front? I love how Jesus at another point, he's telling his disciples, he says to them, he's sending them out. He says, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. I think that's what we're going to sing today, dad and I. And. And again. Impartation. What I have, I give you. But you can't give what you don't have. So that's the need for inspiration and imitation. Well, that's enough for today. It's time for us to sing. And do we have a good song to sing? Yes. Here it comes. Okay, it's time to sing. You know, today, dad, on the wake up call, we talked about the way that we got to breathe in. What do you got to do before you breathe out?
- [15:04]
A
Breathe in.
- [15:04]
B
You got to breathe in. Like you can't give breath if you don't have breath.
- [15:11]
A
Right.
- [15:12]
B
And you can't give love if you don't have love. And that's why every day we want to start with Jesus.
- [15:21]
A
Amen.
- [15:21]
B
If you want to win the day, you got to win the morning. And if you want to win the morning, you got to meet with Jesus. Because what he gives us, then we can give freely. We've received it freely, we can give it. And so I thought it might be good for us to sing a song about winning the morning. And that's. Tell us what it is.
- [15:42]
A
In the Garden.
- [15:43]
B
What's the number?
- [15:44]
A
342.
- [15:46]
B
It's kind of a classic hymn.
- [15:48]
A
Oh, this old? Yeah, this goes back to. Well, it says 1912.
- [15:54]
B
That's over 100 years ago. Yeah, and that's before World War I.
- [15:59]
A
This one is well known.
- [16:02]
B
Well known.
- [16:03]
A
It's done at a lot of funerals. It's just, it's.
- [16:08]
B
You've sung that at funerals. You sang it at Ms. Pickens funeral. We talked about this recently.
- [16:16]
A
Yeah.
- [16:17]
B
And you had to sing it acapella because it was graveside. That's pressure's on right there.
- [16:22]
A
And brother, you talk about somebody scared. I was scared to death.
- [16:28]
B
Yeah, well.
- [16:29]
A
But you don't turn R.A. pickens down, sir.
- [16:33]
B
You don't.
- [16:33]
A
And I didn't want to.
- [16:34]
B
No.
- [16:35]
A
But I would kind of like to known it a few days earlier, but.
- [16:40]
B
Well, we're going to sing it all three verses. You ready?
- [16:45]
A
Yeah.
- [16:45]
C
I come to the garden alone While the dew is still on the roses and the voice I hear falling on my ear the son of God discloses and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known he speaks and the sound of his voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing and the melody that he gave to me within my heart is ringing and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joys we share as we tarry there none other has ever known Last verse. I stay in the garden with him Though the night around me is falling but it hits me gold Though the grace of woe is not he is reign and he walks with me and he talks with me and. And he tells me I am his own and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known
- [19:07]
B
well, that's a classic.
- [19:09]
A
That's a good one. Yeah.
- [19:10]
B
And I could hear. I could. I could swear I heard people singing with us. Do you know, Dad, a lot of people are singing with us every day.
- [19:17]
A
Is that right? That's good.
- [19:19]
B
A lot of people. I got this letter the other day from Julie, okay? She writes me. She talks about how she finds herself humming the hymn of the day throughout the day. Like. Like this hymn gets in there, and she sings it all day. But then she says, I've got to admit, two years ago, when I started listening, I thought the singing wasn't for me. Like, okay, I get it. We're not professionals. We're just like you. We're used to having performances in worship, and that's not bad. But this is better, I think. Just ordinary people, just plain old us. Plain old us singing these songs. She says, but now. And I've had a lot of people tell me that they're like, hang on, this guy's out there singing with his dad. That just. I don't get it. She says, I thought the singing wasn't for me, but now I look forward to it.
- [20:25]
A
Amen.
- [20:26]
B
And then this. It's especially nice when your father is able to join you.
- [20:32]
A
Amen.
- [20:32]
B
So they actually. Maybe it's me that they don't.
- [20:37]
C
It's the same.
- [20:39]
A
It is a blessing. It is a blessing for us both.
- [20:44]
B
That's true. Well, thank you all. And you know what? We understand. And you can always just kind of turn off the radio when we finish the talking. And you don't have to sing with us, but we'd love for you to. We're not singing for you. We're not singing to you. You know what? We're singing with you to God. That's what this is about, right? We're singing to the Lord. And we want as many people to join us as well.
- [21:18]
A
We want you to sing with us.
- [21:20]
B
I'll admit this is different.
- [21:21]
A
You just. You get your hymn book and. And these songs are in every hymn book.
- [21:27]
B
I never imagined I would be singing hymns on the radio every day with you and. But we're going to keep doing it.
- [21:35]
A
Amen.
- [21:36]
B
As long as we can. So we want to thank you for bearing with us and being a part of it and just singing with us and leaning in, even though you think, man, this is. This.
- [21:48]
A
This is.
- [21:49]
B
This is different. This doesn't feel like me. This is the church.
- [21:53]
A
Yeah.
- [21:54]
B
And it takes all kinds of songs and all kinds of people. Well, it's time to hit the fields today for The Awakening. I'm J.D. walt.
- [22:03]
A
And I'm David Walt.
- [22:04]
B
We'll see you on the fields.