← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Why We Settle for Gold-Plated Instead of Solid Gold
00:20:00
The meaning of life is learning to love like God loves, with creative power. The process is refinement.
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- [00:04]
A
Hey, good morning. Wake up. It's time to get going today. This is your wake up call. I just kind of sometimes want to vary what I say, how I start this morning with you. And, you know, it does have the feel for me of waking up together and just kind of getting the day going. Putting the log on the fire, putting the coffee on. I've been cooking breakfast for you today and I think you're going to like it. So it is January 17th, Saturday in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walton. This is your wake up call. Now, even before we get started today, I just want to. I've had so many things on my mind and trying to think about Lent and getting ready for our walk to the cross this year, I feel like I've neglected our first word, last word, God's word play and assignment. And I'm going to put in the PS today and hopefully a lot of the next days to come, the invitation for you to share your new word for the new year. And so look in the PS today, there's going to be that little link there. It'll take you every bit of two minutes to get this done. If you got your word yet, I want you to be praying about that word. I've got mine. It's James 3, verse 17. I'm slowly starting to learn it. Basically, it's the wisdom, but the wisdom that comes from heaven is, is first of all pure and peace, loving, sincere, full of mercy and good fruit. I don't know a lot of different things it says about it. Like I said, I'm just getting started. We got all year, but that's the word. And I want you to ask God to highlight a word from scripture for your year and I want you to share it. So watch for that in the ps. It's time for consecration. Let's get our bearings. You can obviously see that's what I'm trying to do. So 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. We're here, we're consecrated. We're ready to step through the door into the great cathedral of transformation where we're seeking revelation. And then we're going to respond to that with our whole lives. We're reading Proverbs 17 today and our entry is entitled why We Settle for Gold Plated instead of Solid Gold. Our focus text is Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 3. Hear now the word of the Lord. The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold. But the Lord tests the heart. The Word of the Lord. Now consider this. How good do you want to be? Let me ask it another way. How much corruption are you willing to tolerate within yourself? Do you want solid unadulterated gold or will you settle for gold plating? I know this is tough for Saturday. It's a fair question. If you want to settle for less than the best, it's okay. You just need to be honest about it. The worst case scenario is self deception. Because self deceived people deceive others. Right? It's being gold plated and acting like you're solid gold. Right? There's another word for that hypocrisy. Self deception, though by its very nature is hidden from the one who is deceived. It's kind of like cancer. A lot of the time you don't know it when you've got it. And often by the time you find out, it's too late. Today's text offers good news for all of us. There's a treatment plan that will not only eradicate the self deception we may not be aware of, but over time it will make us into the kind of people we most want to become. The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold. But the Lord tests the heart. The treatment plan is called refining. Like gold and silver are heated up in a crucible so the impurities can rise to the top and be removed. God refines human beings, restoring in them the image of the original glory, of the goodness of God. The truth of today's text runs like a thread throughout the Bible. Take a look at this Excerpt from Psalm 139. You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Wow. Bottom line, God knows. I've grown to deeply appreciate what the Anglicans call the collect for purity from their Book of Common Prayer. I would definitely include a prayer like this in the treatment plan. Here it is. Almighty God, to you. All hearts are open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. We want this. You see, the meaning of life is not being polypure. It's learning to love like God loves, with creative power. The process is refinement. Those last few verses of Psalm 139 begin. They end like this. Search me God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. That's verses 23 and 24. You see this press for refining the crucible for silver and the furnace for gold. But the Lord tests the heart. So here's the kind of chemotherapy I'm prescribing and taking. I commend it to you. Learn that collect for purity. Just start saying it every morning until you have it rememberized.
- [09:22]
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And then live with Psalm 139 for.
- [09:24]
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The next few weeks or months. Just read it slowly and meditate on it. Always end with the prayer at the end. The whole thing is remarkable. Psalm 139 I remember I did a few years ago with my old friend Brent Parker. We, we just, we just gutted our way through it. And back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Texting, talking, praying. It's worth it, guys. It's a move. This is a guaranteed cure. God's word. All we have to do is show up for treatment. The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold. But the Lord tests the heart. Let's pray. Abba. Father, you are the refiner and you are the fire. Thank you. That you tell us. You tell me I'm the gold and the silver. So test me and know me. Purify my heart. Perfect me not in my own notion of perfection, which is far more about flawlessness, but perfect me in your notion of perfection, which is about fullness. It's in the image of your love. Come, Holy Spirit, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Our journal prompts today. So about self deception. How on earth would you know if you were self deceived? And then what keeps you from praying prayers like the collect for purity or Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24, that whole Psalm. How might you incorporate this way and kind of praying into your daily life? Those are good journal prompts today. You know, oftentimes guys, and I think for a long time in my own life. I just put a lot of stock in my own sincerity. Like the fact that I was just being real and honest and sincere and that that was just enough. Just, just kind of wanting to be refined. But I think about, like, if I go to the doctor and the doctor finds out I got, you know, I probably told you the story before, about the time when I had a strep throat. I was young and he gave me a prescription. And I think, well, what if I just sort of was thankful for that prescription and I was like, you know, just believed it would heal me. I just needed to be sincere about believing that and just kind of been to the doctor, everything's going to be fine, move on, and I didn't take the medicine. Would that have done me any good? You see, this is, this is what I'm saying about the word of God and the spirit of God. It's the medicine. Our sincerity isn't going to get it done. We got to have the source, the sources. This is Jesus. He's like, I didn't come all this way just to give you the medicine. You got to take it. You've got to take it. I remember that time I went to that doctor and, you know, sure enough, he, he said, take it. And the prescription said, take it all. You know what I did? I took it for a little while and I started feeling better. And I committed the cardinal sin of medicine taking. I did not finish the prescription. I just set it to the side like I got it from here. You know what happened?
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I came down with a good old.
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Fashioned case of rheumatic fever. The strep came back with a vengeance and it was attacking my heart at that point. Guys, that's so often how we just deal with sin. Sin is serious. It's not moral failure. It's system failure. It's complete failure. This is not about shame and pride. This is about life, life and death. This is about failure and flourishing. You got to take the whole prescription, finish the prescription, take all the medicine. That's why Psalm 139 is not, you know, in and out burgers, it's all the way medicine. That's so much of scripture. That's why we're learning it. That's why we're doing the first word, last word, God's word. He wants to lead us to a text that'll be like medicine for the whole year. We just want to keep exposing ourself to the source, right? Just kind of good intentions and sincere hearts. We'll get it done. We gotta have the medicine. I think you get my point. I stopped preaching this Saturday. We're going to be singing. We're going to sing song, not in our hymnal. A couple songs I'd like to sing. I think about that song, Refiner's Fire. You remember that one?
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Refiners Fires, opens up. Purify my heart, let me be as gold and precious silver. Purify my heart, let me be as gold, pure gold. And the chorus, refiners fire. My heart's one desire is to be holy set apart for you, Lord. I choose to be holy set apart for you, my master, ready to do your will.
- [16:16]
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And then I think about this song from Psalm 51. Keith Green.
- [16:21]
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Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, O Lord. Take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of my salvation and renew a right spirit within me.
- [17:21]
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Those are two good songs of refinement. You know, as I've been doing this, I know it may be frustrating. It's kind of frustrated me, this light situation. If you're watching it on YouTube, it's like half of my face is being illuminated by the sun and the other half's in the shade. The light's just piercing through the front window of the seed house here in Gillette. And it's just like the Lord's wanting to get me fully into the light, right? He's. He's. I'm living in the shadows. We all are at some level. And he's wanting to get us into the purely, the purity of light, the fullness of light. His face that's refining. This is what the word of God and the spirit of God are doing at the. And Jesus is like, he's sitting over the refiner's fire. He's the one who's pulling away the. The dross. Right. And, and, and the. Do you know when the refiner knows that the. That the gold, the precious metal is refined? He's pulling the dross. The dross is heated up. It's coming to the surface. He's pulling it off. He knows it's ready when he can. Reflected from the gold. Isn't that beautiful? That's what we're doing here. Beautiful thing is we're not doing it. He's doing it. We're participating. We're leaning in. We're giving over. It's powerful. Well, it's time to hit the fields for this Saturday it's going to be a good day out there. And that's. That's the amazing thing, what happens in this process. Other people, as they begin to look into our face, they get glimpses of him, and they know that he's seeing them through us. That's what we're doing today. I'm glad to be doing it with you. Hope you're encouraged. Makes me want to go deeper. Makes me want to go take the medicine. Okay. Makes me want to go sit in the. Sit in the refiner's fire. Turn it up. Let's go. Jesus. You know best. And it's all for good. It's gonna be. For what? For your glory? For others gain. For our good. All right. For The Awakening. I'm J.D. walt. I'll see you on the field.