← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Will the Real Me Please Come Forth?
00:21:45
To be created in the image of God means many things, but perhaps the most surprising thing it means is to be vulnerable.
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Foreign. Sowers. Good morning, friends. Is Saturday. It's May the second. We're into the fifth month of the 26th, year of the second. No, this is the third millennium. Okay, 2026, year of our Lord, you are here. Better news than that. Than that. Jesus is here and we're here together to meet with him today. So let's dive straight in. I'm John David Walt, and this is your wake up call. I kind of botched all that, didn't I? But we got it done. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. It's the word of God. 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, Would the real Me Please Come Forth. Our text we're in Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 25 through 28. Hear now the Word of the Lord. So then, putting away all falsehood, let us, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing. Rather, let them labor and work honestly with their own hands so as to have something to share with the needy. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. There's a person in there, a self buried in the heart of you. It's your true self, the deepest essence of who you most truly are. When everything else is stripped away, the everything else is. Is the other self buried in the heart of you. Actually, it is usually not so buried, but lives much closer to the surface. That's the false self, and that's what is wrong with us. The false self is the person of our own making, whom we constructed because we didn't believe our true self was enough. Adam and Eve became convinced through an act of deception that they were not enough. They believed bearing the image of God was inferior to becoming equal with God. And in an effort to achieve godlike status, they stole from God. They took what had been forbidden to take. And the truth is, when we try to steal from God, we only rob ourselves. The new self, which is the true self, I call it our real life, is the image of God within us. Our previous text, verse 24, describes the new self as created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Now, to be created in the image of God means many things, but perhaps the most surprising thing it means is to be vulnerable. It means to be susceptible to wounding. In Eden, our forebears were completely vulnerable and totally secure. Naked and unashamed is the way the Bible puts it. You can see Genesis 2:25 for that. Now watch what happened in Eden following the rebellion. I'm quoting Genesis 3, 7, 8. Then. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So first they covered themselves, then they hid from God. Now consider Ephesians 4:25. We read it in this context. Here it again. So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Remember how Paul expressed this to the colossians in chapter 3, verse 9 and 10. He says, do not not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. First we cover ourselves. We hide from each other, we lie to our neighbor, then we hide from God. In fact, this covering we construct for ourselves. The false self keeps us hidden from God. When the security of the vulnerability of our true self before God becomes compromised, the first thing to go is honesty in our relationships with each other. From high flying achievement to low lying addiction, we will do just about anything to avoid the insecurity brought on by the pain of shame. From the shape of our bodies to the sanctity of our souls, the obsession to appear better than we are fuels the slavery of the old false self. Instead of being renewed and restored in the image of God, we become masters of image management. We manage our own image, isolated in self deception and stuck in the sickness of sin and shame. Now here's the gospel truth. Jesus the invincible one made himself vulnerable, stripped and beaten. With nothing to cover his shame. He covered our shame with his nakedness. The one who embodied the sinlessness of holy love took our sins upon his body, atoning for them with his death. By his wounds we are healed. By his blood we are cleansing, cleansed by his death we are forgiven. By his resurrection we are set free. Go back and read that today. What will it take to stop lying to one another, to put away falsehood and to speak the truth in love? I wonder what could happen if in our vulnerability we could Lean in to the security of one another. What if we set our feet on a path leading toward gut level honesty instead of the superficial hiding behind the surface of a false image? What if the brokenness brought on by our rebellion could lead us to confession instead of concealment? We will see together when we learn to echo to one another the Edenic. Edenic. That's Eden. The Edenic cry of God to Adam, where are you? That's Genesis 3:9. This is the long, winding and glorious road to living lives. And I quote the text worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Ephesians 4:1. This is the long, winding and glorious road to being quote filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. That's 3:19. This is the long, winding and glorious road to growing up, and I quote in every way into him who is the head into Christ. That's 4:15. To understanding the incomparably great power of God for us who believe. That's 1:19. And to living from that place of fiery faith in him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to his power that is at work within us. That's 3:20. You see how all of this, what, what's. What's happening here is that that the Lord is trying to bring us forward into who he called us to be by bringing us back into who he actually created us to be, stripping away all that fakeness that we thought we needed. Indeed to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. That's 3:21. You see that puzzle just kind of come together. The various puzzle pieces, they just sort of started fitting and you're like, oh, that piece goes there and that piece goes there and that piece goes there. That's what I'm trying to get at and what I just was saying, boy, that was a lot. Let's pray. Abba. Father, we thank you for your son Jesus, who has done it all and continues to do it all. Awaken us to him in ways we never dreamt possible, in ways it never occurred to us to imagine, and bring us into this kind of fellowship with others. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right. Journal prompts. What do you make? I asked about five of them in the actual entry, but here's some more you got. It's Saturday. Maybe there's a little more time today to journal. What do you make of this way of understanding the true or new self, the real life and the False self or the old self? What do you make of that way of understanding? Number two, where are you in that journey? Where are your tendencies to hide? To manage your image like, right, trying to appear better than we are, to make yourself seem better than you actually are. We all do it. And number three, what would it be like to break free from the old false self and into a more powerful renewal of the image of God being restored in you? That is a lot. I'm going to just call it that's a lot. But this is the stuff, guys. This is why we came. I don't know, I'm a little bit speechless here. Surprise. I think that we, we. This is, this is why, in fact, Jesus says whoever wants to save their life will lose it. Okay, that's, that's the old false self life. You try to hang on to that you. You lost. But whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. He's like, that's the, that's the real life. That's the true self. And the fact is, guys, we're betting on either the old self or we're betting on the true self, the real life. There's only two choices. And so it's really not a choice. But the problem is the old life, the old self, the false self, has got gravity, it's got gravitas. We've invested in it, we've built it, we've. We got the pristine resume to show for it. And it's a slavery now because we're just sort of bound to it. But at any moment you can just say, I'm the real me. That's the title today, right? Would the real me please come forth? Jesus can take you right now. And it's not that all that's gone in the past is lost and done and no good and rotten and terrible. It's not that. No. It's just. There's something a whole lot better. And Jesus is like, I'll take you right now, just like you are. And I'll. We'll work. I can work with that. And this is the whole thing, right? We have to die to that old self. And, and, and, and that's not like lethal injection. That's kind of. It's interesting. The death pattern of the cross is crucifixion. It's just, it's a bit slow, takes time. It's not easy. But the beautiful thing is Jesus has done it. And really, this, this is a process, not an agonizing process of, of dying on a cross. No, it's receiving the gift of his death and his resurrection. It's learning to receive that at the core of who we are. That's our reality. Self. Running out of time here. I've said too much today. Saturday. I think I'm just going to lead us in a simple song today. Let's just. Let's just go to that. That. You are my strength when I am weak. You are the treasure that I seek. You are my all in all. Seeking you as a precious jewel. Lord, to give up, I'd be a fool. You are my all in all. Sing. Jesus. Jesus, lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. This next verse seems very apt. Taking my sin, my cross, my shame rising again. I bless your name. You are my all in all. When I fall down, you pick me up. When I am dry, you fill my cup. You, you are my all in all. And Jesus, lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, lamb of God, worthy is your name. I encourage you just to linger with that song a minute more today. This is it. You know, we don't have to figure out all of how to change ourselves. We can't change ourselves. We can receive Jesus right at the deeper place and let him. Right. Remember, it's being re. Nude. Nude. Being made new. He is the one. All we have to do. And it is something. It's not nothing to stay receptive, to open ourselves up and. And this is where, you know, we need to invite some others in. That's. But the first step is just begin to say, Jesus, I want this. I want you. I want to receive. I'm tired of striving. I'm tired of trying harder to do more, to be better. That's just self improvement with a little Jesus dust sprinkled over the top of it. That is broken. I'm just going to be emphatic about it. That's what has to go. That's. That's what Thomas Merton would call the false self on religion. And that's a real thing too. We want the real you. The real me. And that's. Jesus is the secret to that. He's like, that's me and you. That's me bringing you forth. And that's where I shine the best, is you being the real you. Okay, we gotta go. It's Saturday. Get your seeds. It's time to go out and be that person in the world today. I'll see you on the field for The Awakening. I'm J.D. walt. Sam.