For Everyone Everywhere [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

When David's descendant finally was enthroned in Israel, everyone believed things would be better, a king from David's line ruling again. 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 Unlimited as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Because of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is available for everyone, everywhere, to everyone, to everywhere. We are in a new series.

I call it Unlimited. It is a study of the book of Acts. It's about the unlimited influence that is possible because the Holy Spirit has come to indwell the people of God. It's about the church and about the miracles Jesus continues to do.

Really, it is a sequel. The book of Acts is a sequel to the gospel of Luke. It's about what Jesus is continuing to do through the church. And we come today in Acts chapter 2 to the very first Christian sermon. The Pentecost has arrived. Believers are all filled with the Holy Spirit, and some of the onlookers think they're drunk.

And Peter stands up to correct them. In Acts chapter 2, we pick up reading at verse 14. But Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.

For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions. Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy, and I'll show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor and smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

And it shall come to the name of the Lord shall be saved. There once was a little boy who was always getting in trouble at his private Christian school. He made many trips to the principal's office. And one day after the boy had been acting up again, the principal had him in his office, and the principal thought he would try to bring a little more theological perspective to the child to get him to think about the omnipresence of God. And so he said to the little boy, he said, son, he said, where do you think God is? The little boy said, what? And the principal said more sternly, where is God? The little boy all of a sudden jumped out of the chair, went running out of the principal's office, started sprinting down the hallway. His friend said, where are you going? The little boy hollered out.

He said, I got to get out of here. He said, evidently God is missing, and they think I took him. Where is God?

Where is God? For centuries and centuries, the Jewish people felt that they had a very good answer to that question. God is transcendent and holy, and he is in the holy place of heaven. And he intersected with the people of God at the temple through the priests who mediate it, who move between God and humanity and through the sacrifices that were offered. So to the Jewish people, God was like a holy burning fire, so holy that no one could get too near to him.

Because if you come in your sinful presence before a holy, holy God, then there would be a consuming nature to the holiness of God. So God was in heaven. We're on earth, and we intersect through the priests and through sacrifice at the temple. The temple, New Testament scholar Bishop N.T. Wright said, could in that sense be thought of as like the fireplace, a place where there was warmth and illumination, and yet people were safe to get near to God. That's what was believed for all of those centuries. But at Pentecost, something changed, and the people of God are all gathered, and suddenly there is this mighty rushing wind, and the place is shaking, and the fire is, so to speak, out of the fireplace and has come to rest like tongues of fire on all of the believers. They had been praying what Jesus had taught them. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It's a prayer of ultimate importance, asking for this mysterious merging of heaven and earth. So to see the kingdom come on earth is to say that there is some connection that had not been before, and Israel had prophesied and dreamt of the day that God would come and rule again. What would it look like for God to be in charge instead of Pharaoh or Caesar or Herod, the rule of God on earth? You see, when you've been as persecuted as the Jewish people, enslaved in Egypt, afflicted by the Philistines, run over by the Assyrians, exiled by the Babylonians, and marginalized by the Romans, when you have been persecuted like that, the thought of God's rule coming to earth is a wonderful dream, a passionate hope. And then the Jewish mindset, when it comes to pass that God's kingdom comes to earth, there would be at least two Old Testament forecasts that would come true.

The first is that there would be a judgment of wickedness. Judgment day would come, that an overthrow of evil and an exaltation of God and the people of God flourishing. This wonderful, terrible judgment day was known as the day of the Lord. And the day of the Lord was anticipated through the prophets, as we'll look at in a few moments. But there was another Old Testament forecast that had to come to pass if this rule of God had come to earth, and that is that as God had promised David, there would be a descendant of David, King David, the beloved King of Israel, who would be upon the throne of Israel once again. When David's descendant finally was enthroned in Israel, everyone believed things would be better, a king from David's line ruling again.

So to the Jewish believer before Christ to say thy kingdom come was to say let the day of the Lord come so that evil can be judged and overthrown and God exalted and the promise also of David's descendant on the throne. So here's what happened at Pentecost. Peter, under the unction of the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, he saw it.

He understood it. It was unveiled before him. He had a thousand questions answered in his heart that Pentecost day. Everything that he'd ever, ever thought about or dreamt of along with his Jewish brothers and sisters, it was coming to pass, but in a bigger and better way than he could ever have imagined.

Have you ever had a dream that was fulfilled in a bigger or better way than you had ever dreamt, ever found a destination maybe to be more wonderful than you had thought it would be, or maybe discovered a treasure that proved to be more expansive than you had imagined for it to be? One of my favorite adventure movies is National Treasure. Nicholas Cage, who plays Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian, an amateur cryptologist. He's searching for a lost treasure that had been accumulated by the Knights Templar and hidden by America's founding fathers. And he's on this amazing treasure hunt, a coded map on the back of the Declaration of Independence will point to the location. And he's noble, so he wants to preserve that treasure. He wants to preserve the treasure for the museums of the nation. But there's a competitor.

There's a wicked competitor who wants to steal it all for himself. And so you could see the drama that develops this fun adventure. It includes Ben Gates having to steal the Declaration of Independence, one of the most highly guarded documents that we have. And then they have to discover clues on the back of it, an Ottendorf cipher written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. And that takes them to Philadelphia and they interpret a clue about the treasure at Independence Hall where the Liberty Bell once resided.

And that leads them to go find a hidden pair of multicolored spectacles that have been invented by Benjamin Franklin. And they are led to a church in New York City. And it comes to this scene where they seems like that they're trapped to die under the church. But they discover finally a small treasure room, but it's been looted. It's been pillaged and there's nothing there.

So at first there's great disappointment. And then they remember the key that they had found on the on the ship Charlotte from the Revolutionary War times that had been hidden deep in the ice. And they used this secret key and it opens up a new room. And in this room there is treasure. It's a small looking room, but there's treasure there. And then Ben Gates realizes that there's a trough that has some sort of ignitable fuel. And when he lights it, this amazing scene, it's hard, it's hard to capture the image here, but it's an amazing scene where all of the treasure in this huge cavernous room is suddenly exposed. And not only have they found the treasure, but it is better than they had ever imagined.

No one could have dreamt of such a massive room full of so much treasure. Something like that is what happened to Peter. He had believed Jesus, but not enough to stand by Christ.

He had denied Jesus at the time of Christ's suffering. After the resurrection, Peter knew Jesus was real. He knew he was real, that heaven had come to earth. But it was like he just stepped into the anteroom.

He stepped into the smaller treasure room. But it was at Pentecost where it all was illuminated. It Pentecost is where he saw the vastness of the treasure that was ours in Christ. It was there he saw the spiritual inheritance. And he was saying, essentially, the day of the Lord has come and David's descendant is on the throne, but it's just far better than any of us had ever imagined.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. book, The Power to Bless, which releases February 2nd and is available from Amazon for pre-order now. Blessing is a biblically-based faith vision over your life.

God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply. Blessing isn't the reward for your productivity, it's the fuel for it. The 2021 Blessing Wall Calendar gives you space to write down all your important appointments and make plans for a wonderful new year. And most importantly, each time you see the beautiful image for the month, your heart will be strengthened by the empowering blessing statement from Pastor Alan. This year, don't just organize your life, bless your life with the 2021 Blessing Calendar. It is our gift to you when you make a donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. Contact us today and start your year out right by the power of blessing. 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. New Testament scholar G.K. Beale offered an analogy. He said, imagine that there was a father at the turn of the 20th century, around 1900, who had promised his son that when he grew up and got married, he said, Son, I'm going to get you for your wedding present the best horse and buggy that money could buy. But in the meantime, a man named Henry Ford came along and an automobile was invented. And by the time that the boy had grown up and was married, instead of buying his son a horse and buggy, the father bought his son a car. You wouldn't say that the father didn't fulfill his promise. You would just say that the father fulfilled the promise in a bigger and better way than what he could have described to the son 20 or 25 years earlier. That's the way it is with God. We had prophecies and forecasts and shadows that were pointing to what God was going to do, but we had no other language or way to envision it. So here we are at the very first Christian sermon.

And and it's important to pay attention to firsts. I don't know why I was thinking about this, but when when I first came to it has been coming up on twenty four years ago, I realized I love my predecessor, Pastor Little. He's in heaven now. And I so appreciated everything about it. But we had different styles and he wore a robe and he preached from the high pulpit at the at what we call the Village Worship Center.

It's up high and and it's it's beautiful and majestic. But I just wasn't my style. I grew up in young life and trying to talk to squirming kids.

And I just like to be closer to people. And and I wouldn't plan on wearing a robe. So I remember I asked the I asked the search committee, I said, do I have to wear a robe and preach from that high pulpit?

And I'll never forget one of the one of the search committee members, an elder named Harry Tiller. He said, No, you don't. He said, But whatever you are going to do, be sure and do it the very first Sunday. That was good wisdom.

So I appreciated that. Pay attention to the first time something appears. It plants something in your mind, doesn't it? Well, there's a there's a principle of biblical interpretation that is referenced as the principle of first mention. Pay attention to the first time something's mentioned, the first words of God. Let there be light.

Who was that? Tell you a whole lot about what the whole rest of the Bible is going to be about. The revelation of God, about God speaking into darkness. Right.

Pay attention. Where was the first sacrifice of an animal? Well, it was when God saw that Adam and Eve were ashamed. And so he he killed an animal to give them better clothing. Skins of leather and garments that would cover their shame. So it tells you something about what sacrifice is going to be all about. The covering of our sin and shame.

Or where's the first mention of the blood of the lamb in the Passover story? What's going to tell you a whole lot about? Well, so pay attention to first. And so here we are. And it's the very first Christian sermon. And there's some things to notice, just preliminary observation about this. And the first thing that I think is interesting is the first Christian sermon was provoked by actually a bit of mockery from the public.

Look at this Acts chapter two, verse 12. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking and said they are filled with new wine.

They were saying they were drunk. You know, I can't have ever told you this story, but when we were in our first church, we were serving in Durham. One time my wife was at home alone and our newborn baby Bennett was upstairs. And the police came to the front door with a man who was a relatively new parishioner in our church.

I'll call him John. And John was clearly inebriated, quite drunk. And we still can't figure out to this day, but the police said, well, he said he knows you all. And you know, pastor, they were just looking for someplace to bring this man and left him there with my wife and the baby upstairs. And my wife's like, I don't know what to do.

I've got a drunk man here. She started calling me, started calling people. I said, well, we'll come over there. Well, in the meantime, John was just being loud and the baby's upstairs sleeping, John. And so my wife said, said, John, now the baby's sleeping. And so when I got to the house and I'd called another elder to come help me deal with the situation. I got to the house.

I'll never forget it. John, who's barely able to stand up. And I go in and I said, now, John, what's going on? He goes, the baby's sleeping.

So that became a common phrase in our house. The baby's sleeping people when they're drunk, they just, they're just different. They're right. They're just the end. They, they, they're silly. They don't look right.

They don't act right. Last year, sometime my wife and I had a chance to have an afternoon. We are out of town at a resort pool and we had one afternoon.

We were going to read some books, just have a quiet afternoon by the pool. And unfortunately there are about eight guys look like they were college age guys. I don't know if they own some kind of spring break or something. And they were just, they're just all drunk and they're so loud and they're throwing the football around, they're splashing and the football almost hits my wife a couple of times. And, and, and they're just loud and boisterous. And one of them finally came over to me and, and the less, the more sober of them. And he said, we're not bothering you.

Are we by any chance? And I just had it. I looked at him. I said, in what universe would you not be bothering us? He said, Oh, so drunk people there, they don't act like other people there. They might be louder. They might be maybe sleeping. They're like acting silly.

And so literally there was something happening at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that made some people go with these people are drunk. And Peter say, no, it's the morning. It's not, it's not, it's, it's, we just barely, barely getting going in the day. And it's not, it's not that. So the disciples seemed to be too carefree for anything looking like normal.

Maybe they're laughing or stumbling or even hanging on to each other. But it was at that moment that Peter in response, think about this. The first Christian sermon was in response to people saying in a mocking tone, these people are drunk, but in Acts 2 14, no, we read Peter standing with the 11 lifted up his voice and addressed to them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words for these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.

So the first sermon was an announcement of truth that was clarifying what was really going on. Allen Wright, today's good news teaching for everyone everywhere. It's from the series unlimited, and we've got Pastor Alan back in the studio here in just a few moments with a parting good news thought for today.

Just a moment. If ever we've been ready for a new year, this is the year as you start planning and dreaming for a great new year. We want to help Allen Wright ministries has produced a beautiful, inspiring wall calendar with you in mind each month, not only depicts the month and a heart stirring image, but also includes a specially crafted blessing for the month from Pastor Alan, as Pastor Alan explains in his new book, the power to bless, which releases February 2nd and is available from Amazon for pre-order. Now blessing is a biblically based faith vision over your life. God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply blessing. Isn't the reward for your productivity.

It's the fuel for it. The 2021 blessing wall calendar gives you space to write down all your important appointments and make plans for a wonderful new year. And most importantly, each time you see the beautiful image for the month, your heart will be strengthened by the empowering blessing statement from Pastor Alan this year. Don't just organize your life, bless your life with the 2021 blessing calendar. It is our gift to you. When you make a donation this month to Allen Wright ministries, contact us today and start your year out right by the power of blessing.

Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back now with Pastor Alan in the studio and our good news thought for today as we place a bookmark here for everyone everywhere. What's our takeaway? Well, just think about this is the first Christian sermon.

And as I mentioned in the broadcast, pay attention to firsts. When something appears as a first in the Bible, it has a lot of significance because it says a lot about what is continued. And what Peter did in this very first sermon was he looked back at the prophet Joel and he gave an interpretation that what had been forecast and prophesied to happen was now happening, which meant, and here's the good news and the takeaway for today, it means that though there is a final day of the Lord in which Jesus will come back, that the decisive day of the Lord that Joel prophesied about has already taken place in the coming of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection, that in the real sense, that tremendous prophetic expectation has been met in Jesus. So don't postpone everything off into the future. There will be another day of the Lord, but the decisive day of the Lord has happened. And that's what Peter is saying. This is that which Joel prophesied of. So it means the kingdom is at hand. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.