Faster Pastor and Heirs of Grace [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The proclamation of the Gospel, Paul says, is an announcement that your salvation and your sanctification had nothing to do with you yourself being good enough and has everything to do with God at work in you.

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.

You're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program. I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month 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 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. I think the majority of scholarship and the point of agreement that I would say is more of a consensus on this is what Paul is referring to here is something more dramatic than that because he's talking about enslavement. If you're enslaved to something, he's talking about a power. And so that it's best to interpret this as what Paul is speaking of as elementary spirits of the world and by this he means demonic powers, which raises the stakes of what he's talking about because he's saying we were enslaved if you were under the law and living under a system of law. He is saying that there is a form of this that is like an enslaved condition to demonic persecution in your life.

Now this is very important to get this straight. Paul has already told us in Galatians that the law is good and the law was given by God. So he's not saying now in Galatians 4 that the law is bad and that the law was given by demons. Instead, what he's saying is that the good gift of the law, why was it good? It's a revelation of God's holiness. It points us to our need of Jesus Christ. The law, he said, was added because of transgressions.

It pointed out to us how futile it is to try to save ourselves and how much we needed grace and prepared us to receive the gospel of grace. The law is good and Christ didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it and usher in a new covenant of grace. So he's not saying that the law is evil or that the law was given by evil entities.

So what is he saying? The law that was meant to draw us to Jesus, if we stay under it as a system for our lives, that law instead will become the weaponry of the principalities of hell. And this is something that you can chronicle pretty well throughout the whole metanarrative of the Bible is that Satan himself is a legalist and one of the greatest points of spiritual persecution you'll ever encounter in your life is going to be surrounding the matter of your inability to keep the law. So what happens is that Satan, whose name means accuser, and all of the principalities of hell operate occurring this basic principle to seek to convince you that you do not have an inheritance because of your sin, your failure, and your folly.

He's an accuser because what is the accusation? The accusation always will be in one form or another you didn't keep the law and therefore you don't deserve to be blessed. And what so many people do in their attempts to have inward peace is that they attempt to just live a better life.

I'll do better next time, I'll be a better person, I'll quit being impatient, I'll quit losing my temper, I'll quit lusting, whatever it is, in order to feel better about themselves. Not realizing that when you do that and when you talk that way that I'm gonna feel better about myself because I'm gonna try to keep the law that you have actually placed yourself, what Paul says, under the law. And that's the position, that's the place where the tempter's snare comes. The weaponry, the tools of the elementary spirits that Paul is speaking of are essentially this. The legalistic, the law giving, accusatory, condemning voice is essentially to say you have not kept the law and therefore you are disqualified. And what the gospel does is absolutely strip all such temptation of all of its power. It's like when you come up under grace, the enemy's gun has no bullets.

All the ammunition is stripped away from an accuser if there's nothing to accuse you of. The answer, the answer for the peace, the serenity, the passion of your soul for God is not to hear the accuser's voice say you haven't done enough for God and you ought to be ashamed of yourself and therefore you stand condemned and unblessed. The answer instead is the proclamation of the gospel, which Paul says is an announcement that your salvation and your sanctification had nothing to do with you yourself being good enough and has everything to do with God at work in you. That it is God through Jesus Christ who saved you and it is his grace that is sanctifying you. That in other words, what you've been invited into, beloved, is not another system of law that's just called new covenant. You're called into a new covenant of grace wherein you live by a new reality. That you have been reckoned by God through the shed blood of Jesus to be the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So that when the enemy's tempter's voice comes to you and accuses you and says you have no inheritance, you can't draw near to God, you can't claim his promises, you can't live victoriously because look at all your failures, you have to turn back to that voice and say it can't be taken away from me because it didn't come by me. It came by God and so only God can take it away. It's a great gospel. There's so much at stake.

And so the heir is not subject to the accuser's voice in the same way that the orphan is. And this is why we grow up. It's why we need each other.

It's why we keep reminding each other. Some years ago we had an outreach event down at Rupert Bell Park and one of the things that we were doing was we were giving away bikes to little kids. And it was just, that's just one of the most fun things you can ever do is just find some kids that maybe never had a bike and don't have much chance to get in one.

And we were able to, some people worked hard, there were some also some wonderful gifts came in. So they were not old shabby bikes, they were new bikes. They'd gone to the store, gotten these bikes and I just remember this picture of this one, this one little boy. He could, if he was maybe four, at most five. And we had some system where you got a number and then you get a bike.

Praise God, it worked out. There were enough bikes for all the kids. But this, he was one of the first ones that he came up and they called the number, he came up, brought his number and he got to pick out his bike. And he went and got one that just fit him, head training wheels, shiny little bike.

I know it's his first bike. Look at that little boy's face as he was wheeling that thing over towards his mom. It's just priceless. And that moment of bliss, that moment in which some seed was planted in the soil of a little boy's heart. That maybe this world is a place where something could happen in your life that was just an act of grace. Maybe sometimes God just blesses you because he wants to bless you.

Maybe you're not doomed to just be stuck in the same path. Just a little seed like that. And it lasted for no more than about a minute and a half because a man came walking over and I'm just guessing that he was the mother's boyfriend, the way he acted. And when the little boy looked up and saw the man, the little boy's face, his countenance melted. And he had a look that was a look of fear and displeasure at looking at this man's face.

It was just his natural response, whatever relationship had been there. And the man said to him, why are you looking at me like that? I hate it when you look at me like that. You better wipe that look off your face because I'd take that bike away from you.

Give me that bike. And I just grieved, just grieved and prayed for the little boy. But realize that this is the spiritual battle that's at hand.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Imagine for 99 days in a row, someone tells you, I love you. I'll never forsake you when you feel cherished. But what would happen if on the 100th day that same person said, I'm not sure you're good enough for me. If you don't measure up, I don't think I'll love you anymore.

Wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days? Wouldn't 1% of conditional love poison the other 99%? Well, just 1% of law is enough to spoil grace. The tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear. What if I don't measure up?

When might I be rejected? When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church, the apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law. Alan Wright's 12 message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace. It's called Galatians and that's the gospel. Discover the purity and power of the grace of God. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastoralan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Every moment of grace is challenged by an accuser's voice who wants to tell you all that grace can just be taken right away from you. It's a spiritual battle and Paul's saying this is about more than just acting like a child and feeling like a slave.

This is about breaking out of subjection to the tyranny of your accuser. Break forth by the power of the gospel. So he links this image to spiritual warfare and then he moves on to speak of the gift of God. When the fullness of time, verse 4, had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. All of the language in verse 4 has its subject God. God sent, God redeems, and God adopts. When you hear me talk and speak so much about the emphasis of the gospel on what God has done for you rather than always talking about what you can do for God, it is not to say that what we do doesn't matter. It matters very much, but it is to say that the order of events is essential because only when you see that God initiated your salvation and that God sent His Son in the fullness of time and that God redeemed you and that God adopted you, until you get that image in your mind, you'll always feel as though it's you holding on to God, but the image of the Scripture is of God holding on to you.

And what Paul is trying to convince the Galatians of here, he wants to convince us of, is that we are secure in God's grace. It changes the way we live and feel and pillow our head at night. It changes our expectation. It builds our hope.

And our lives count on this. The power of the gospel is at stake. God is the subject. He is the initiator.

He is the actor. And we are the recipients. And receiving changes everything in our lives and makes us a people who are totally sold out, totally devoted, totally longing to follow Him in every part, but only because of what He has done for us. So now Paul changes the image from a child who hasn't really had access to his inheritance, and he changes the image now to join with this the whole picture of adoption. And the act of adoption was a magnificent legal transaction in Paul's day. Sometimes a wealthy man had no heir, and sometimes he would actually select one of his own slaves and adopt as a son. The reason for the adoption was so that the inheritance could be released. So when you're adopted, this image conveys, it means that you now have this intimate access to this man who previously you would not have had. You may have even been a slave, but now you're like a son, and you have access to an inheritance. You were adopted because you were loved, because you're wanted, because you have a destiny, and you're adopted because you have a rich Father in heaven who wants to pour out a spiritual inheritance into your life and leave a legacy for others and touch the world through you.

That's the image that Paul is using here. And I'd like to pause and just make a brief kind of parenthetical comment about the language that you see here in the ESV, as in many of the translations, that says adoption as sons, because we've learned in recent years that there is something that is important about being sensitive in our language about gender so that we do not reinforce any of the things that we say about gender so that we do not reinforce any idea of male superiority, because we have just read that in Christ there's no male or female. And so we have sought to change language to be inclusive, and we say sons and daughters or children. But here the language remains sons, and I think there's an important purpose for this, and it's because in the context Paul was writing, the firstborn son was the delight not only the family but was the honor of society. The firstborn son would receive a double portion of inheritance and a special blessing from his father. And what Paul is saying here is inclusive to men and women that you, because you're adopted, you're adopted like sons. Because the inheritance flowed in that day, inheritance flowed through the firstborn son.

What he's saying, whether male or female, understand that this is about your position. It's like we are all the firstborn son. You're adopted for that purpose. Wouldn't that change everything? If that could go deep inside of you, wouldn't that change everything about how you view life? You're like God's firstborn son, adopted so that He could put inheritance into you.

The plan of God has always been to make us heirs, to give us an inheritance, a territory, a realm of spiritual influence. And this intimacy that we have with God is conveyed through the expression that our heart cries out Abba. We don't really have a good way to translate this. Probably it would be dada.

It would be like daddy, but not in the sense of just how casual it might seem, but in how intimate it is and how bold it is. And this is the way in which you can know that you're sons. Because your sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. And so the Spirit, Paul says elsewhere, is bearing witness to our spirit that we are sons. So verse seven, so you are no longer a slave but a son, like a firstborn son, and if a son, then an heir through God. The plan of God has always been since sin entered the world to find a way to convince us that we are heirs of God.

There has been a progressive revelation and many hints and shadows and prophetic visions and words that all pointed to the coming of Christ. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were given an assignment and they were blessed and they were told that they had dominion in the earth. They were told that they were to have a form of rulership under God in the earth and they were to be fruitful and multiply. In other words, that they were to have a place of governance and be of great blessing to the whole earth.

And this was God's plan for humanity and has never changed. But when sin came into the world and Adam and Eve forfeited their paradise, God didn't thwart his plan but he began to unveil a redemptive plan with the question at hand, will I ever be able to convince my people who belong to me that they are also my heirs or will they, since sin is in the world, forever doubt that, have no assurance of it and therefore live more like orphans? So he comes to Abraham and he makes Abraham an incredible promise and he says that you will have a territory, you'll have a land, you'll have governance and he says and you're going to be fruitful and you're going to be a blessing that you're going to have a son. The same promise, in other words, that was spoken to Adam and Eve is reinforced now through a covenant that is made with Abraham. But the question that continues is will I really be a blessing?

Am I really an heir? Even Abraham and Sarah, even Abraham, the man of faith, they question it, they bring in Hagar, they wind up with Ishmael. But Isaac is born and so it is that God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob continues to try to assure his people. This is the image of Jacob. Jacob was the second born and he didn't think that he would be an heir and so he stole and connived and deceived and lied his way into trying to grab an inheritance, not knowing he'd already been predestined to be true to God. Predestined to be treated as though he were a first born. The pattern just continues that the people of God, when they fall into slavery, God hears the cry of the poor and he delivers them and you very soon realize that the story is about more than a Red Sea parting and swallowing up the enemy, that the story is also about how will these people live with their freedom?

Will they be able to embrace their freedom or will they act like children, like orphans and therefore no different than slaves? For when they send people into the promised land to inspect it and spy out the land, those spies come back with a bad report and essentially they say we can't take it. You know what they're saying is that we're not heirs after all.

If they had believed it was theirs, they would have taken it. Alan Wright and today's teaching is Faster Pastor and Heirs of Grace from our series on Galatians. And Alan will be back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at pastoralan.org. Imagine for 99 days in a row, someone tells you, I love you, I'll never forsake you. Wouldn't you feel cherished? But what would happen if on the hundredth day that same person said, I'm not sure you're good enough for me. If you don't measure up, I don't think I'll love you anymore.

Wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days? Wouldn't 1% of conditional love poison the other 99%? Well, just 1% of law is enough to spoil grace. The tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear. What if I don't measure up?

When might I be rejected? When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church, the apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law. Alan Wright's 12 message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace. It's called Galatians and that's the gospel.

Discover the purity and power of the grace of God. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Now, we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, you feel a lot of, especially those who've grown up in the church, we know how to, we can sing the songs, we can pray the prayers, and sometimes if we're really honest, we have to pinch ourselves and say, do I really, really believe this? That I'm really an heir of grace? That God is that good? Well, you know, it's often said that once the slaves came out of Egypt, the big question was, could Egypt come out of the slaves?

Could they believe themselves heirs of a promised land? And I think that's the right shadow, the right picture for us as Christians as well. I think sometimes it's easier to believe, well, we're forgiven, we're saved, we'll go to heaven one day. But to really start understanding that we who once were far from God are not only forgiven, but we are adopted and made heirs, but it's essential that we know that. Until we do, I don't think we can live out the destiny that God has for us. And that's why Paul really wants to make this really important point. We are heirs of the grace of life together. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.