Free Indeed [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Judgment Day.

Did you hear preachers talk about and threaten you with to get you to give more money and quit sinning so much? That day is going to be for every Christian your best day. It's incredible because now the very reality that you already have received into your life of having been justified, it is now announced and trumpeted for the whole cosmos to see and you are rewarded according to the merit of Jesus Christ. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Galatians as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. Today's message is the seventh made to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, you can go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.

Or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. When we experience something that triggers that, maybe we're belittled or we fail at something and it just brings it back, you know the feeling I'm talking about? It's like there's a wash that comes over you and it causes you either to become anxious or want to get away or just freeze up or whatever it does. And you may have reactions to other people, even people that you love. And you wonder, why do you react that way?

And why do you have such a hard time controlling that reaction? And what this research is showing is that when we live out of those old wounds, it is involuntary response in the sense that it's not a conscious thought process. It's just the way our soul is reacting to it. And what the Gospel invites us into is to be so born anew through the grace of God that we literally not only have in God a new Father, but we have a new identity in Christ. And there is a miraculous power of God who stands outside of time and who can, at every point in our lives, be at any point in our chronological lives wherein the power of the Gospel touches every part of my history.

This is what I believe. Is that God heals our memories. That God, in the Gospel of grace, establishes us with a new way of thinking. The invitation of the Gospel to you again today is for God not just to cover old wounds, but to heal them so that you have a new way of interacting with the world. This is a big part of what Paul is describing when he says we have freedom in Christ.

We are not bound by the old nature that was so infected by a lack of love and acceptance. But we are now made new in Christ knowing ourselves, accepted in the beloved, and the more you know yourself fully forgiven, you are set free from old patterns. You stand firm on the essence of the Gospel and freedom comes into your soul as a consequence. But if you spend all your energy just trying to get free from individual sins and fleshly temptations, you'll lose that battle.

In fact, when you try to live that way, you're actually putting yourself more and more under the law. Instead, what we need is more of the Gospel, more of the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. For the more that you know your identity in Christ as an heir and co-heir with Christ, the more your whole being is transformed and you live and respond to the world. You can act responsibly.

You can respond. You have the ability to respond not based on old trauma, but on new identity in Christ. What the Gospel is offering is a miracle.

Not a self-improvement plan, a miracle. It is a process of tyranny that comes when we come under the law. Imagine the law to be a tyrant.

Here I give you at least these six steps of the tyranny, the voices. The tyrant first says, if you're under the law, you must not make a mistake or else. Or else you're going to be punished. Or else you're going to be forgotten. Or else you're going to be left out. Or else you're going to be isolated. Or else you're not going to have approval. And the forms of bondage that can get associated with that lie are as simple as an anxious heart or as deep as a compulsive disorder or a debilitating fear. Secondly, that law tyrant says you have failed, and so you cannot be released to be blessed fully. In other words, because you failed, you're under condemnation.

If you think that your inability to keep the law has deemed you unfit and unlikely to ever be blessed, you will forever sabotage yourself from receiving the very blessing that is at hand. Approximately seven million girls and women suffer from an eating disorder. Up to 19% of college-age women are bulimic. Eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness amongst females. The latest surveys show very young girls are going on diets because they think they're fat and unattractive. In one American survey, 81% of 10-year-old girls had already dieted at least once. A survey found that the single largest group of high school students considering or attempting suicide are girls who feel that they are overweight. 25 years ago, top models and beauty queens weighed only 8% less than the average woman.

Now they weigh 23% less. The current media ideal for women is achievable by less than 5% of the female population. Among women over 18 looking at themselves in the mirror, research indicates that at least 80% are unhappy with what they see.

And most of them will not be seeing an accurate reflection. What I'm saying is that there's an enemy. And the tactics of warfare are going to put you under a law that says you need to be like this, you need to look like this, and you need to act like this, or else you are not acceptable. And if you try to win the battle on that level, you will lose.

What you need to do instead is say, wrong battleground, wrong system. Embrace the gospel of grace that says you are accepted in the beloved, not the way you look, not the way you act, and not your acts of righteousness, but Jesus Christ has died for you and made you acceptable. You are free, and you are forever His. No matter how you look, no matter how many times you fail, you are forever God's, and you can't change it.

And He delights over you, and He rejoices over you, and He hurts with you when you're hurt, and when you fall, He picks you back up. That's the gospel of grace. Reject the voice of the tyrant of the law. Reject it altogether.

Please reject it, and embrace the gospel. Third, the tyrant of the law says you've failed, and you're so ugly and unfit to look upon that now you must hide. So now the bondage has taken a new level. You're now in solitary confinement.

Got a thousand friends on Facebook and can't tell anybody what you really think and feel. Fourth, the law tyrant says you've failed at keeping the law so much that this now defines who you are. You might as well accept it. You are a sinner, and you cannot escape your sin. And this new level makes you a slave to the very sins you most want to overcome.

Fifthly, it grows to this. The law tyrant says you have so much sin that you cannot overcome, and you've done so much that now you are not fully redeemable. God cannot love or fully forgive you. So, if God cannot fully redeem you and bless you, then you must look elsewhere for your salvation and power for living. Thus it is that idols are erected in our lives, whether it be success, fame, approval, how we look, or any number of a million different idols. These things promise to empower us, but behind these idols lies our powers and principalities that feed on the very stronghold that they've created, and they will seek to destroy you. Stand firm in your freedom. Finally, the tyrant says the only way that you will feel better and get relief from this is to make somebody else feel the way you feel, and you become a slave to unkindness because shamed people shame people and hurt people hurt other people, and you can become a slave to your own lack of self-control or your own critical manner and find yourself hurting people in relationships.

There's so much at stake. Stand firm in your freedom of the gospel, Paul says. Then he offers this statement, which is gorgeous. Verse 5, For through the Spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. This is worthy of a life of contemplation on this one verse, that it's by the power of the Spirit received by faith that we eagerly await for the hope of righteousness.

He's making a link. Your freedom today and your capacity to stand firm in that freedom is massively linked to the hope of the gospel. That Christian hope, the certainty of future blessedness, the deposit of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our inheritance in the saints, that hope that we live in and that we live with and sets our way of thinking, that liberates us today. It liberates us from temptation. It liberates from the wrong thinking. It liberates us from the tempter snare. It is an incredible thought, the idea that hope is linked to my freedom.

How could it be? It's in this. Hope is not wishful thinking, Christians. Hope is the whole mindset and way of living that we have. The more that we are assured of heaven, the more we are assured that we're heirs, the more we are assured the best is yet to come, the more we know that, that we're moving towards that, the more we know it, not only do we live with expectancy and joy, but the allure and temptation of fleshly things loses its power. In other words, it's like kids that know that Christmas is coming.

That's what hope is. Christmas is coming and so it's December 15th and the kids are all giddy and looking excited to it and it's like my wife and I, we always laugh, said if it weren't for the hope of Christmas, there's no way you're going to get me up in the attic to bring those boxes down one more time. If I thought Christmas wasn't going to come, that it just might come, there is no way.

I barely am willing to get the boxes down as it is. But it's knowing that Christmas is coming that makes me be willing to get out the Christmas tree decorations and I know some of y'all have gotten so lazy that you've got your tree decorated down in the basement and you're just going to pull it up and pop it in the living room next year. But the kids, what they do because Christmas is coming is they set all their attention on the fact that Christmas is coming and it changes things. It changes a lot of things when you know Christmas is coming. Not only are you willing to do some work you wouldn't be willing to do otherwise, but also some of the things that bother you, if you know you're getting a wonderful array of presents in a couple days, you're not so petty to be nagging about the little things you don't have right now. You're so expecting about what's to come. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive, faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Hope frees us from today's snares because we are so sure of how blessed we are. One of the things touched me as much as maybe anything has touched me in a long time of a word of encouragement that came back after a message was a dear woman in our church after, I don't know, a year or two ago, I preached about five messages on heaven, just preaching on heaven, what it's like, what it's going to be like when we're there, what is a new heaven and a new earth, how are we going to have a new body, what is it going to be like just thinking about heaven? And afterwards this dear woman, she said, I just wanted you to know that for some reason after thinking about heaven, all these messages, she said, I've been able to lose weight and I haven't been able to in years. And I was thinking about that later. I celebrated with her and I was thinking about it later and I thought, why is that? I mean, it's kind of counterintuitive. You might think if you preach about heaven too much, everybody will go, well, we're going to get a new body, who cares about this one?

Bring out the Ben and Jerry's because heaven's coming. But it doesn't really work like that. Hope works like this. I'm so blessed because I know that even if I'm going through a difficult time right now, that something better than Christmas is coming.

And therefore it changes the way I feel about myself today. That's what hope is. And what Paul is saying here is that the hope of righteousness, he's made it clear all throughout Galatians, we're already justified which means we're declared righteous because of what Jesus has done for us and when we receive in faith Christ's saving work on the cross, we are justified, we are reckoned as righteous. So he's not saying that we hope that one day we'll be reckoned as righteous, but he's talking about our eschatological, our end times, our soon incoming King, our future hope on the return of Christ, on the blessed judgment day. What he's saying is that judgment day that you hear preachers talk about and threaten you with to get you to give more money and quit sinning so much, that day is going to be for every Christian your best day.

It's your Christmas day. It's incredible because now the very reality that you already have received into your life having been justified, it is now announced and trumpeted for the whole cosmos to see. And you are rewarded according to the merit of Jesus Christ. According to the hope of our righteousness, we are empowered to stand firm in our freedom today.

Stand firm in it. Whereas legalism binds us by announcing our condemnation, grace announces our new standing legally innocent because someone else took your punishment. Whereas legalism says you failed so you must hide, grace says you're loved no matter what you've done or looked like, so no need to hide ever.

You're already accepted. Legalism defines you as a sinner, but grace redefines you and gives you a new name. Instead of calling you a sinner bound to your sin, grace calls you a royal priesthood in a holy nation. And when you see yourself as one who is holy and set apart unto God, you want to be who you really are. Legalism defines you as irredeemable and invites you to idolatry, but grace announces your full freedom and redemption. And when you are aware of how fully you are redeemed, and that God has known everything that you've ever done that's wrong and everything that you ever will do that is wrong, and has still died for you and redeemed you, and that there is no mistake that you've made that is irredeemable, when you know this, it causes us to want to surrender to God's love. For we can trust a God like that.

And to see God as the One from whom all blessings flow. Legalism says you need to shift your shame by hurting someone else, but grace says share your grace. Those who are forgiven much, forgive much. Those who have received much, have much to give.

Share the grace. God is so good. I have just been enjoying watching Donnell's father again, his coach, celebrating and shouting, That's my boy.

Every time Donnell does anything at all good on the gymnastics floor. And I want to invite you today to see God just like that. When you accept Christ, God becomes your Father. And you, His child, He knows the hairs on your head. He knows every move you make.

But He's not the judge sitting there waiting to deduct points. He's the Father who delights in His sons and daughters. And rejoices over you and lavishes you with affection. And shouts to the whole cosmos, That's my boy. That's my girl.

This is my one. My child in whom I'm well pleased. This is the nature of God. He is the Father who upon the return of a prodigal, runs to meet and fall upon the shoulders and weep with delight and throw a party and invite everybody that they know.

And when there's an elder brother who won't come in, who says all I have is yours, please come in. For the Father's heart is to delight in His children and to walk with them to pick them up and to coach them along the way. There is almost nothing more remarkable I could say to you of the gospel than because of the gospel of grace, God is your Father. But there is one more remarkable thing I could say. And that is that for us Christians it means that our Father is also the judge of the event.

And I like thinking, what would it have been like if Yen Alvarez had been Donnell's judge? God sent Jesus Christ to die in your place so that when the score comes back, you get a gold medal. And that's the gospel. Allen Wright.

And today's teaching, Free Indeed. It's from our series on Galatians. And Allen Wright is back here in the studio in a moment with us for additional insight on how this applies to our lives and today's final words.

Stay with us. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Allen Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Allen Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAllen.org. Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything? Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive, faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month Allen Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. We're in this series in Galatians and I think we're finding some wonderful freedom, the truth of the gospel, maybe for some of us, Allen, in a way that we've never heard quite like this before. You know, it's like this, you know, great story from this gymnastics and the Father looking and leaping for joy. What if God is not like that judgmental, distant, you know, frowning deity? What if He really is your Father who only wants the best for you, who leaps for joy at every thought of every good thing for you? And what if your Father is also your judge? What this is saying to us, Daniel, is cause for peace, is cause for joy, and it is cause for aligning everything in our lives to be in relationship with a Father such as that. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.