← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Your Church Is a Kingdom Outpost
00:26:20
This episode is a reflection on what it means for the church to function as a “kingdom outpost” in the world. Drawing from Acts 2 and Acts 5, the speaker argues that the early church was marked not only by teaching, but by signs, wonders, healing, prayer, and a deep willingness to minister to people with humility and faith. The central message is that followers of Jesus are meant to live as apprentices who surrender to the Spirit, walk in love, and become available to bring God’s presence into ordinary moments of need. The episode also emphasizes that the church is not just a building, but any community of believers where heaven and earth overlap through compassionate action. In the conversation with JD, that idea is reinforced with the reminder that “where there is great love, miracles always happen.” The episode ends with a practical invitation: pray for your church, pray for your neighborhood, and ask God how you can help make your community known as a place where people encount...
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Foreign
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Good morning Sower Nation. Today is Tuesday, July 7th in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. It's Taco Tuesday today and that means we have our series within our series going on JD's and my tacit Taco Tuesday all the Things series. He's going to be joining me at the end of the entry today and you're not going to want to miss that. He's got some great, great insights he wants to share and he shares them, of course, in that unique way that only JD can. So I'm so grateful for that time. Make sure you stay tuned at the end as well. We are here in our last few days of the all the Things Everyday ministry in the Power of the Spirit series. It has been such a joy and continues to be to lead us through this discovery process. What does it mean to be people of the Kingdom, people of Pentecost? What does it mean to follow Jesus when He says, come, follow Me and to begin to live our lives in such a way that the Spirit who lives within us begins to continue the ministry of Jesus through us? We've talked about what it means to live in this kingdom, the dynamic rule and reign of God happening around us and then through us as we learn the art of surrender, of yielding, of being the apprentices of Jesus as we learn what it means to move in the way of love. 1 Corinthians 13 Love and then the fruits of the Spirit in our lives growing in abundance. Our own transformation, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Those dynamics happening within us, living in the way of love. I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. You know why I do what I'm doing. All that comes together in moments where we as the Beloved of Jesus learn increasingly how to overflow in that love to others and invite them into the kingdom of God through ways that are unique to our personality. But we can be equipped in certain ways. We can lead with our gifts in people's lives who love Jesus or who don't know him yet and don't know that they're about to experience his love. And at the same time we carry our kingdom question in us. May I pray for you? Or I'm wondering if it would be okay if I pray for you? May I pray for you right now? Can I pray for you as you go through this surgery? Can I pray for you as you carry this grief you're going through? Can I pray for you for a new Job, may I pray for you? As we begin to gather here and these Holy Spirit stories coming in for our meal, could we pray anything for you? That just happened the other day with me again with some others, I just love, loved that moment of someone saying yes and then feeling seen and known and loved by those around the table. Just such a beautiful way to express the kingdom. We have that prayer deep within us. Come, Holy Spirit and our kingdom Prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done. That seven word prayer is constantly running through our hearts. We wake up saying, jesus, Spirit, Father, I want to live in this Trinitarian beauty and love and union with you and Father, what are you doing? What are you doing? And perceiving, learning to discern that the Father's already doing something. And we want to lean into those moments, those things we're learning how to wait in prayer don't always need to, but sometimes it's good, especially if the moment affords it to just listen. Before we jump into praying. In the videos that are on the website seedbed.com allthethings I talk about ways of listening to God and praying. So those resources are there for you. But here we are, and we're joining in together, saying, yes, Jesus, to being your people in the world, your apprentices, walking with you, knowing that you have ministry you intend to do through us. And we say a humble, joyful yes, because the transformation in our lives and in the lives of others is waiting on the other side. Okay, wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration as we begin today's meeting with Jesus. 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.
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Amen.
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Well, our entry for today is titled, your church is a kingdom outpost. And our passages for Today are Acts 2:43 and Acts 5:12. Hear the word of the Lord. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. That's Acts 2:43 and Acts 5:12. The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's colonnade. The word of the Lord Consider this in his seedbed book Live Stream. Learning to Minister in the power of the Holy Spirit, Ivan Philby writes about a time of prayer in a service in Hong Kong. The service had been billed as a miracle service without him knowing about it and he was the main speaker and ministry leader. Feeling out of his depth, I know I would with the title of a conference called that he led with faith and had many words of knowledge for people and opportunities to pray for healing, receiving a word that the Lord wanted to help A woman with pain in her right hip. A woman limped up to the front and after a few times of praying she was miraculously delivered as her pain went from a 10 to to a 0 and I've referenced that book live stream. All of Ivan's books with us are so powerful in learning to hear God's voice. It's just such great work and he models everything that I've talked about in the series. So grateful for Ivan. So most days I'm not sure that I'm aware just how desperate the world is for people who will gently, humbly, compassionately pray for them with real faith that God will answer. I don't know about you, but when I'm suffering or facing an inner struggle, I want people to see me and to reach out the local church is intended to be a kingdom outpost in the world. The Body of Christ is designed to be a community of apprentices of Jesus who are the first to pray for you, the last to pray for you, the quickest to make sure you have what you need when trouble strikes. In Acts 2:43 and 5:12 we see that the apostles are performing signs and wonders just as their master Rabbi has taught them. He commissioned them, he empowered them, he launched them into the world as a spiritual force to be reckoned with. They, their disciples would go on and would do the same. We see that the early church and its next generations believed in and practiced laying hands on the sick, delivering the demonized, praying blessings on those who persecuted them, and more signs and wonders followed, those who believed in the name of Jesus. I don't know exactly what a signs and wonders church would look like, given that we have so many examples of churches who even put the word miracles on their billboard ads. I've seen this and make me want to stay away from such bold promises, but I do know this. God intends to do signs and wonders through his followers. He intends to heal. He intends to love people in his name through his church and a body of believers who have altogether taken up this mantle to be the hands and feet of Jesus is a kingdom outpost for their community. It's time for courage in the house of God, and I say that to myself as well as to all of us. There are stories waiting to happen in souls all around us. Stories where the plot line points to Jesus, to his love, to his kingship, to his transforming power to move in their lives. We are no longer in a generation where words are enough. Again, I keep saying absolutely. We need words. We need to preach and teach. The kingdom of God is what Jesus did. But there's another level to this where people are longing to see a demonstration of the Spirit's power. And I love to say after they've seen that demonstration of Jesus love, that's when the Spirit's power is just. It's this perfectly poised moment. We lead in the way of love. So let us be those who, with peace, with discernment, with expectation, and with great love, take Jesus at His word. You will do even greater things than these. John 14:12b. And JD's going to talk a bit about that. So here's our prayer for today. Let's pray it. Lord Jesus, what would it take for our community to become known as a kingdom outpost where we use our spiritual gifts so that people can receive compassionate prayer? Experience the nearness of God through all forms of gentle and humble ministry. Show me the part I am to play in encouraging this kind of awareness of our role as a community of apprentices of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And here are our journal prompts for today. Where in your life have you experienced a church acting like a true outpost of the Kingdom of God in their community journal about what characteristics made that church so remarkable? Maybe somewhere in your history you touched a moment. Maybe it was just a moment. We don't know what the whole life of the church was like. There's just a moment. And you said yes to that. Yes to that way they express the love of Jesus. Yes to that way that they move in humility into their community. So our activation for today is today, pray for your church community. We should always all be praying for our church communities, for our leaders, for those who are discerning who God has intended us to be in our communities. Pray for your church community to become known as a kingdom outpost for your town or city. Take a prayer walk in the main area of your community. There's our activation. Ask God for keys as to how he might want to use you to touch people there in his name.
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Amen.
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So today I'm actually going to be taking a walk in the community where our church has connected and in our community even locally here in our neighborh. And I'm just going to take a prayer walk and instead of it just being my exercise for the day, I'm going to continue to do what I love to do, especially when I'm alone on the walk. I just look at certain houses and sense the Lord speaking to me. Pray for the family there, pray for the person in that house. Pray for this situation you know about. I go with discernment. The Lord may give you gifts to show you, wow, this is where great love is needed. Lord, show them your great love through me or some others around you. And JD's I think, going to talk a little bit about that as well. All right, so I'm going to invite J.D. on now. We're going to have our Taco Tuesday moment and a bit of a wrap up from him on our series. And then we'll complete everything tomorrow. And then we're going to sing our song from our great Redeemer's praise. And I'll give you a hint, it is number 30, there is a redeemer. So here comes JD.
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Let me everybody listen, Dan, we're coming to the last week here.
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Yeah.
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And I'm just, I'm so thankful that we've got to have a series within the series. It's called the Taco Tuesday all the Things series. And it's so perfect that even in that first day, that first Tuesday, I believe you and I weeks ago opened up and we were talking about John 14.
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Yeah.
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Greater things, what you do than these. Because I go to the Father. And now you have walked us through in a really beautiful way. Both. It's just been like, it's not been the balance or the tension of theology and practice. It's been the union of them and it's been the unionization of love, which is like the wisdom of God and the activity of God together. And this is, you know, where we're ending this week. I love this entry today. Tell us, just give us the thumbnail on it.
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Yeah. Your church is extreme.
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You just said it.
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But yep, it's, it's, it's this idea that in the world, I mean, the way I think about it is someone. People are dying for someone to see them, lean toward them in love and then they don't know it yet sometimes. But just even have a place where they could receive compassionate prayer, where they could believe that someone would pay attention and believe God for them, with them. And Wall Street's not going to do it. The celebrities aren't going to do it. All the social influencers. You look out there. Who does that in every community. Well, the local Church does that. That is who we are, apprentices of Jesus, coming together, moved by love into the world. And Jesus is doing his ministry through us in our neighborhoods, in our communities.
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Yeah. You know, Dan, I remember I was up. I was serving at Asbury Seminary there as a pastor there in that community for the seminary, to the students. And I remember one time I was walking down Main street in Wilmore, and I looked up, and there's the little local bank, and I looked up on the marquee sign. Most. Mostly I'd quit reading the marquee sign because most of the time it said something like, you know, CD rates are, you know, going up or, get your IRA today. And this day, the sign said something that completely blew me away. And I've never forgotten it. It was so all out of character and right on time. It said, where there is great love, miracles always happen.
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Wow.
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On the bank sign.
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That's so good.
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And I'm like, where there is great love, miracles always happen. And I thought, you know what? That's the sign that needs to be over the church. The church is the bank of great love. Yeah. So good. And when we say the church, of course, we don't mean the building down on the corner. We mean your house, we mean your band, your family. That's the outpost of the kingdom of heaven.
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Yeah.
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It's like your church is. It's the circle that is overlapping the circle of the world and that space in between. That's kind of like the kingdom expanding and moving. And so that's what a temple is. A temple is the overlapping of two realms. Yeah. Heaven and earth.
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That's right.
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And where there is great love, love, miracles always happen. Sometimes they're like super supernatural miracles. Sometimes they're quite ordinary miracles. Yeah. You got time for one more? This is. This is my last Tuesday to be.
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Yeah.
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There was this art exhibit, installation, outdoor public art installation over in England some years ago, and there was this sign as a part of it. It was like this simple iron sign with block letters written across the thing. And they were lit up in kind of neon light, or maybe they were little light bulbs. It was. But you know what it said? It stunned me again. It said, there will be no miracles here.
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Wow.
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I'm like, are you kidding me? That's just, to me, like a Jesus magnet. Yeah. Like he's just gonna walk over there to that sign and he's going to cross out, knock all the bulbs out of the word no.
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Yeah.
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And then the sign's gonna say, you know what the sign over you who are with us this morning, says, I see it written over Dan right now. It's written over you. It's written over your home. It's written over your band. It says, there will be miracles here.
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Yeah.
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And how do we know? Because where there is great love, miracles always happen today. Yeah, I've already gone past our time, Dan.
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It's all good. Let's get to singing, everyone. And we've got a new series coming up here in not too long with you, John David.
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And we are going to be singing Bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves we will come rejoicing Bringing in the she. That's it, Dan. That's a good.
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All right, man. Blessings.
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All right, we'll see you on the field.
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All right, guys. Well, what a gift to have some of those words of insight kind of fall into our hearts today. I love that. It's. It's great love. And where there is great love, things happen. God moves in beautiful ways. Could we become. If I had to wrap up this whole series, I would say, could we become Jesus? People of great love, great belovedness, who then move in great love. People who are continually being transformed by love and then moving in, transforming love in the lives of those around us in such simple, normal ways, and yet expectant to see your spirit move, to hear your voice as we do. So we're going to sing, as I said, hymn number 30. It is a contemporary worship song. I'm going to use this one for that moment today, and it's called There is a Redeemer. And we're going to worship with all three verses together. And we're going to thank God for his spirit at work in his church. All right, let's worship.
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There is a redeemer Jesus, God's own son, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy one. Thank you, O my Father for giving us your son and leaving your spirit till the work on earth is done. Jesus, my Redeemer Name above all names Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, O forseen. Thank you, O my Father for giving us your Son and leaving your spirit till the work on earth is done. When I stand in glory I will see his face and there I'll serve my King forever in that holy place. Thank you, O my Father for giving us your Son and leaving your spirit till the work on earth is done.
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Let's sing that again. Thank you.
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Thank you, O my Father for giving us your son and leaving your spirit the work on earth is done.
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Amen. I remember reading something by Gordon Fee where he talks about the Holy Spirit being that, animating, activating life in the church of Jesus. And so as you and I go into the world, we are part of a local community of the Ecclesia, the Church of Jesus Christ. But we are part of a much larger family that is expressing the kingdom of God as kingdom outposts all over the world, on street corners, in cities, in small towns, in hidden places, in very visible places. And I'd encourage you, as you see a church building, turn your heart to pray for any body of believers that meets there, that they would become apprentices of Jesus, that they would experience true union with Jesus, that they would move in humility and love in the world and bless all that God is doing in his church through all denominations and all of its streams around the world. Let's be those kinds of people. All right, so let's get our seeds for those on the podcast. You can hear them here. Let's get our seeds. I'll see you on the field for the Awakening. I'm Dan Wilton.
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Sam.