← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Why the Bible Was Not Written for the World
00:22:14
Real Christianity is about belonging exclusively and entirely to Jesus—simply, totally, gloriously.
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Hey, good morning, Sower nation. It is time to wake up. It's Tuesday, April 7th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt, and this is your wake up call. It is the first Taco Tuesday of Easter week and we're here for going for tacos. Somebody sent me a mug the other day that said, nacho average Pastor. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm holding it up. Nacho average Pastor. You know, that's true for me. I'm probably below your average pastor, but I'm doing my best and I'm looking forward to today, to this meeting with Jesus. He's already been up. He's been waiting on us. We're here, we got our coffee, we got our Bible, and we're going to wake up together by his mercy. I love that text in the Bible that says, the steadfast love. It's in lamentations. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. And you just want to break out in song as it says, they are new every morning. New every morning. Great is your faithfulness, o God. Great is your faithfulness. Let's sing it again. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. New every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O Lord. Great is your faithfulness. I think that gives us our idea for the closing hymn today. We're going to sing Great Is Thy Faithfulness. There it is, Lord. Thank you. I ask them all the time, this, this wake up call, y'. All. It's, it's. It's manna, right? It comes to me as manna, and then it comes to you as manna, because you know why? It comes from the Lord. All right, well, let's dive into consecration. I know I've taken a little longer to get there today. As the normal. I did not make any announcements. We're straight in the meeting already. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. In case you're wondering, that's right out of Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 14. They were already saying it in the earliest days of the church because we're so prone to fall asleep. And that's the thing I say, you know, every single day of our life, by the mercy of God, we have had to wake up from sleep. We've had to get out of bed, we've had to put water on our face. Get dressed, get going. We. Well, equally. So we have to wake our soul up. Okay. I didn't know that for a long time. I was just going through the motions of doing devotions. And I'm like, I checked that box. But I've realized that, you know what? I slept walk a lot of those days. And now I'm like, no, we're starting with Jesus. Not the idea of Jesus, not the concept, not the sort of theology of Jesus, but the person, the man, the God, the human being. Who is God. We're actually meeting with him. He's here. He's with us. He's with you, he's with me, he's leading us, and he's waking us up. The word of God. Every morning we say it. Then we go into this prayer. Consecration prayer. 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. We come in through the door of consecration. We step into the gray cathedral of revelation, which is transformation. And. And then we're going to go out the door into the world for the demonstration of the gospel of the kingdom today in our world. So today's entry is entitled why the Bible Was Not Written for the World. A little provocative, maybe. Our text. Remember, we're going verse by verse. Where? Ephesians 1, verse 1B through verse 2. Hear now the word of the Lord. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. We know who the letter's from. Paul. And we know Paul is writing from God as he is being carried along by the Holy Spirit. So who is the letter to? We most often refer to Paul's letters according to whom they are written. In this case, the common parlance would be Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Well, that's exactly wrong. Paul was not writing to the Ephesians any more than he was writing to the Colossians, Thessalonians, Galatians, or Romans, or the Americans for that matter. Go back and check it for yourself in today's text. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. Paul is not writing an open letter to the citizens of Ephesus. This is not meant to be read in the town square. Or etched into the walls of City Hall. It's arguable that Paul is not even writing to Christians in the loose way we throw the term about today. Paul writes to a very particular and distinctive subset of people. He calls them God's holy people in Ephesus. These are the baptized ones, the ones who have come out and publicly identified themselves as Christians through their baptism. But wait, there's more. The circle gets smaller. He writes to God's holy people in Ephesus, and here's the kicker quote. Who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus? I may be pushing the text to shade here, but it strikes me that Paul writes to a circle within a circle within a circle. Live in Ephesus? Check. Part of the church in Ephesus? Check. Faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Hmm. If I'm honest, there were long seasons of my life when I could check the God's holy people in Arkansas box, but was not standing in the circle of those who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. You too? And then there was a significant season of my life wherein I would step into and out of the faithful followers circle. It depended on who I was with, how I wanted to be perceived, or the lifestyle I wanted to lead or not. I wanted to be a reasonable Christian. Then, by the mercy of God, I woke up to the grace of God. Finally, I began to actually know the one whom I had once only known about. There's a difference between following the followers of Jesus, which can look a lot like showing up for church, and doing church stuff, and actually following Jesus himself. The point of all this is to ask the hard question. Are you stuck in reasonable Christianity, which can be very faithful to the motions of it all? Or have you stepped over the line in a more definitive fashion into real Christianity and signed your life over to Jesus and the awakening movement of the gospel? Let's be clear. This is not about measuring one's commitment or religious activity, certainly not your religious resume. Real Christianity is about belonging exclusively and entirely to Jesus, simply, totally, gloriously bringing it full circle. This letter was not written for the Ephesians or the world for that matter, but so the followers of Jesus in Ephesus could become so irresistibly like Jesus that the world would follow him too. One important question to consider is how might the mystery and miracle of the death and resurrection of Jesus become more actualized in your everyday life? How does it become more than a point of doctrine? How does it become life itself? Let's pray. Abba Father, we thank you for your son Jesus, who is both patient with us and persistent allay our fears of surrendering everything to him. We want more of the real life. We know it will mean letting go of the old help us sort that we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Got a few journal prompts for us today. And again, these. These questions, they're not meant to be condemning, they're meant to be piercing. Yeah. I mean, remember Jesus asking Maxi Maxi's word to me.
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You.
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You will never grow beyond the depth of the questions you're willing to consistently ask yourself. So here's some good ones. Which circle are you standing in? The circle that we might label reasonable faith or the circle that we might label faithful follower? And maybe for you, those circles are overlapping at some point and you see yourself standing in the overlap, and that's fine. What's important is just to be honest and truthful to yourself. We're not grading you. Second question. What might it mean to deepen your surrender to Jesus? How would you signal that to him in a meaningful way? And then the third question. What scares you about going all in with Jesus? What scares you about that? Well, I know over the years, lots scared me about it. And at times, I mean less and less and less. I feel like I'm going all in with Jesus and. And. And yet there's more of me to give. That's one of the things I often say about awakening. The greatest impediment to my own awakening is the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm already awake. Guys, there's more. And Jesus is just simply. He's just like, scanning like, who wants more? That's where. Who wants more? Who wants me? That's where I'm going. All right, you ready to sing? Dad's walking in right now and we're about to sing together. All right, everybody, we have a Taco Tuesday treat for so our nation today. If maybe you're new to us, starting with unpuzzled, we have. I'm not going to call him a guest because he's one of our hosts. I want to introd you to my father, David John David Walt Sr. Hello there, friends.
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We're glad to be singing for you.
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He. We're not singing for him. We're singing with them. Okay, guys, listen. Dad comes in. He's a farmer. And you know, old farmers, they don't really retire. They just quit farming.
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They go broke.
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I know, bro. We need to be praying for farmers this year. You know what? We're so. We're in the sewing season. They're planting corn and growing rice and Soybeans.
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Today is April 1st.
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It's. Well, when we're recording this.
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Oh yeah, that's right.
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But this is coming up next week. Coming up after Easter.
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Oh, yeah.
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Full on planting season. What are those farmers thinking about as they're planting?
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We got to get them up. Yeah, they're. They're thinking about asking God to help them get a good stand. Because if you don't get a good stand, you're not going to have a good crop.
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That's right. And that's what we're trying to do every day on a wake up call, even from the morning. We're trying to get a good stand in Jesus.
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Amen.
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Because then we'll have a good day. No matter how hard it is or how bad it may go, it's going to be a good day because we're standing on the promises. Promises.
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That's what God, my Savior.
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Maybe we'll sing that one next time. But today. Dad, tell them what we're singing.
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We're singing Great Is Thy Faithfulness.
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And it is paper, page 44, number
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44 in the our Great Redeemer's Praise.
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Okay.
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Wonderful book.
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If you don't have one yet, we got one for you. Just look down in the notes. You'll find the link to order a hymnal. So we're going to sing all three verses of Great Is Thy Faithfulness. And you're going to sing with us. And it's not about singing. It's about worshiping God and making a joyful noise.
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Great is thy faithfulness O God, my Father There is no shadow of turning with thee Thou changest not thy compassions they fail not as Thou has been Thou forever will be Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercies I see All I have needed Thy hand hath provided Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me to me Summer and winter and springtime and harvest sun and stars and thy courses above Join with all nature in man that fell witness to Thy great faithfulness Mercy and love Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercies I see All I have needed Thy hand hath provided Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto thee Last verse Pardon for sin and a peace that endures Thy own dear presence Reach here and to guide Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow Blessings are mine within thousand beside Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning the mercies I see all that I have needed Thy hand has provided Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
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That's true, isn't it?
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Amen. I say amen to that, God.
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Has God been faithful to you?
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Amen.
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He has.
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And given me a wonderful family. He's given us good crops, and he's given us a lot of friends.
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Yep. And you know what? When this mortal life is through, he's given us eternity.
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Amen. That's the most important yet.
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Even though we die, we don't die. So who can beat that?
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Nobody.
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So, gang, that's good seed to sow today. That's coming out of you. Get your seeds together. We're going out today. Filled with his faithfulness for The Awakening. I'm J.D. wall.
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And I'm David Wall.
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We'll see you on the field.
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Amen.