Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: a Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. for your life. I bless the favor of God on your life. When you live according to the law, you get only what you can earn. But you, adopted child of God, are no longer under the law, Romans 6, 14.
You are under the right hand of grace. And as such, The best things in your life are and always will be unearned. unmerited, free. unexpected. better than you could acquire by human effort.
It means, beloved, in Christ you are fully qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints. That's Colossians 1.12. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. It's been perfected. Love to the uttermost, love to the end, love to the full.
The kind of love, and the only kind of love that can cast out our fear is the kind that doesn't have a 1% of law, 1% of shame, 1% of unconditionality to it. It's love that's full, it's love that's perfect, it's love that's teleos. It's just, you can't explain it, but it's just there is no diminishing it because this love is generated from within the heart of God, and you can't change it. 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, The Untroubled Heart, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If 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 to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's teaching, today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastoralen.org. That's pastoralen.org. or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on this later in the program. But right now. Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. There are two different words in the Greek to know.
is to Know that that is the nature of God. But to believe is more like the word trust. It is to put your life in the full weight of your life into the arms of that loving Father. And so I want us to to be able to recognize what God's love really is. And I want to help you to want that love to relish it.
and to receive it, to recognize, to relish, and receive the love of God. To recognize the love of God starts with this, to know that it is a perfect love, and therefore it is different than any sort of earthly love. This is the nature of God. It will be the nature of heaven. And anyone who experiences God experiences this otherworldly love, it is a perfect love.
If you were to go back through the text, that's a good way to study your Bible, and you could take a passage, and the first thing you do is let what are the words that keep Keep being repeated or jumping out at me. And if you go back to the text we read, look at all of the mention of either the word love or the word perfect or perfected. Back at verse 17, just looking at this. Let us love one another. Verse 7, for love is from God.
Whoever loves has been born of God. Verse 8, who does not love does not know God because God is love. Verse 16, to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.
This is love perfected. There's that word, perfected with us, that we may have confidence. Verse 18, there's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. And verse 19, we love.
So over and over, these words, these two words, love and perfect or perfected. And the word, as we've spoken of often, for God's kind of covenant love is agape. There are four words in the Greek language for love. We only have one word, love.
So we're always having to figure out what you mean by the context of when you say, I love it. I love a Gear Delhi Hot Fudge Sunday. I love Carolina basketball, not so much this year. I love, you know, that means something different than when I say, I love my wife or I love God. But we have to understand the context.
But in Greek, these words have nuances. Storge is, I'm just oversimplifying, it's like affection. Philos is like the kind of love between friends, eros romantic love, and agape is the word that John keeps repeating here. And it is often translated just love, or sometimes its counterpart in the Old Testament, chesid, is steadfast love. I don't know, it's covenantal love.
C.S. Lewis says that the meaning of this is understood when you think of gift love. There's a kind of love that is gift. It is like what a parent would feel to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family. And that well-being that would happen even after, say, a father's death.
There's a kind of love like that, C.S. Lewis says, a gift love. This is the nature of God's love. Interestingly, in the Greek world, Eros was highly elevated as the concept of love. And it wasn't just because it was such a sex-soaked culture, which it was.
But it was because of the philosophy behind it that Eros is a kind of love that's seen more about impulse than it is the will. And so agape stands in complete contrast to that because agape is about choice. It's about connection. It's about covenant. And so God's love is seated in a kind of adopting.
Choice for you. It is, in some scholars' mind, a concept that was new to the Bible. Agape love, although it has been found in ancient times. But it is something that uniquely describes the nature of God's kind of love for you. It is not just to say it's unconditional.
is to say that the love of God Is forming you. Martin Luther, the great reformer, said, the love of God does not find, but creates that which is pleasing to it. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore, I love this. Sinners are attractive because they're loved.
They're not loved because they are attractive. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.
You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, The incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright 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 eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. This is the nature of covenantal love.
This is the nature of agape love. You don't love your kids. Because They are better or more attractive than everybody. You love them because they're yours. And therefore they're very attractive to you.
He begins our section of scripture we read today by verse 7 saying, Beloved, Let's love one another. For love is from God. one part of one verse But look at look at that beloved Let us have agape for one another, for agape is from God. And do you see what he calls them? And it's what Paul loves to call the saints, and John calls the saints over and over, beloved.
ones who are loved. It's a beautiful word in Greek. It's agape toi. Agapitos in the singular. a recipient of agape love.
That's who you are. That's your identity. You're the Agapitoi. You're the ones who have received The Pure Permanent Agape love. of God.
There's no greater definition of who you are. To be a Christian, therefore, is to be defined not by Really, your love for God, but to be defined by the love of God for you. And the word for perfected is so important to understand. Teleo, teleo. It is.
A verb that means to finish entirely. Or Taleos means Complete. utterly whole. Totally mature. It's hard to describe.
this uh kind of love. because we tend to think of how much we love someone, as if it is a quantity. or how much we love something. We were with the grandbaby Mia in the Disney store and she tried on this adorable little Minnie Mouse raincoat. And uh I never believed how much my cheap Frugal heart would change by having a granddaughter.
And you just buy her everything. These things, I look at them and go, I can't even believe how much they're asking for this tiny raincoat. But it was cute as could be. And she put it on and looked in the mirror and we said, Mia, do you love it? And she said, I like it.
But I don't love it. And we whipped that thing off of her. And She put on these mini mouse crocs. Just rubber shoes. I didn't know crocs cost that much.
I see people wearing them. They're glorified. Flip-flops, I mean. They were mini-mouse crocs. The price was staggering.
And when it was, we were goners when she put them on and stepped and they lit up when you walk. All children's shoes light up, I think, now, and she saw them lighting up. She said, And we said, do you love them? She said, I love them. And so she loves them.
She loves her Minnie Mouse Crocs, you know. How much do you love something? When Abby was little, we had a game One night, as I was putting her to bed, as was our custom, if at all possible, I always put the kids to bed. And it had been Christmas, a wonderful Christmas. I can't remember how old she was.
She was little. We were remembering the day. The big, beautiful Christmas breakfast and the Wonderful presence and time with family and all of the day, and going to bed. I said, Abby, I love you. It's been a wonderful day.
I love Christmas, don't you? Yes, I do. And I said, but I love you way more than Christmas. I said, in fact, I love you more than a million Christmas mornings. And it became a custom that every kind of special occasion might come along, I would just randomly announce, you're going to get a new I love you tonight.
And it might be that it was, you know, something really special had happened, and I'd give her a new I love you. And they included things like, I love you more than a million rounds of golf. And I love you more than a million Ghirardelli hot fudge Sundays. It was all stuff that she knew I loved a lot. And I'd say I love you more than a million of that.
And what happened was we got about 40 of them. and her job was to remember to fill in the blank.
So I would say, I love you more than a million Christmas, and she'd say, mornings. I love you more than a million, Gear Daly, and she's a hot fudge Sundays. And we had this memorized, about 40 of them. Because they're trying to find a way to say, I love you a lot. We don't really have a good way to say, I love you.
Perfectly. But that's what this word Teleos means. It means Completely. There's not one percent that's not there. It means whole.
It's been brought to its completion.
Sometimes In ancient Greek it would mean full grown. Plato talked about the The teleos type of man, the perfect man. It was a philosophical idea.
So when this idea of John gets mentioned, teleos people would understand. That you're talking about that which is full and complete. Paul used it to talk about finishing his work in Acts chapter 20 when he said, I do not account my life of any value or precious to myself, if only I may finish. That's teleos. The law cannot make us complete or perfect.
The writer of Hebrews. Chapter 10, verse 1 said, The law is but a shadow. It can never by the same sacrifices continue offered this year, make perfect those who draw near. It's incomplete. It does part of it, but it's incomplete.
And when Jesus was... Hanging on the cross and breathing his last in John chapter 19. And the text at verse 30 says, Jesus received sour wine and he said, It is finished. The word he spoke there was to tell a sty. Uh a form of Tel A.
Complete. It's been perfected. Love to the uttermost. Love to the end. Love to the full.
The kind of love and the only kind of love that can cast out our fear is the kind that doesn't have a 1% of law, 1% of shame, 1% of unconditionality to it. It's love that's full. It's love that's perfect. It's love that's teleos. It's just, you can't explain it, but it's just, there is no diminishing it because this love is generated from within the heart of God and you can't change it.
You might as well receive it. And once you even get a taste of this kind of love, They're so otherworldly. A love that we would love to have from the people around us, but it doesn't exist in the world. We experience it in moments and we have wonderful covenantal relationships. But this kind of love you receive from God.
Perfect love. And once you've even tasted of it, you just want it. You just relish it. You can become like David in Psalm 63: O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you. As in a dry and weary land where there is no water, so I've looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you.
I think you can come to that place where you realize his love. That perfect love. is better than life itself. You can have life and not have love, and you've got nothing. And you've got.
Love. And everything that we call life is missing, you would still have everything. You'll have the love of God forever. Love is better than anything that you could ever find in this world. If you have love.
from God. then you have no fear and you have security instead. With love, then you have peace. With love, you have something to give to others. You become set free from self-absorption.
This is What John says about the encounter, the experience of such love, he says at verse 16, so we've come to know. And to believe the love that God has for us. We abide in this love. It is an inseparable connection and attachment that he's talking about. to know and to believe.
It means to know experientially and trust fully. That's the nature of the love of God. You can know his love. And you can trust and his love. and to really relish His love is to want to put the full balance of your life.
with all that is good and all that's messed up. And Put yourself fully into the loving arms of God with 100% trust in that love. It's like I heard many years ago someone say, it's like a tightrope walker who stretches a wire between two downtown buildings five stories up. A crowd gathers beneath. He is a A loudspeaker, and he says, How many of you believe I can walk across to the other side?
They say, Yeah, we believe, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They cheer, and he walks across to the other side. And over on the other building rooftop, he has a wheelbarrow, and he shouts down. He says, How many of you believe I can push the wheelbarrow across the other side? They said, Yeah, go for it, we believe you.
And so he takes the wheelbarrow and he pushes it on that tight rope across. to the other side. And then for his finale, he takes his microphone and he says, How many of you believe I could actually take a person, put them in the wheelbarrow, and push it across to the other side? And they said, yeah, yeah, we believe it. He said, okay, one of you believers, come get in the wheelbarrow.
The crowd, you know, disperses. A lot of times we say, we believe. But it is a different thing, isn't it, to put the full balance of your life into a trusting relationship. That's when you know you believe. To believe.
to know and to believe. God loves you. This is the desire of God. In real sense, Christian maturity. is just growing in the knowledge and trust.
and the love of God. Pastor Alan Wright, and today's good news message. Perfect love casts out fear. It's in our greater series called The Untroubled Heart, and I encourage you to stay around. Pastor Alan is back with us here in the studio, sharing a parting good news thought for the day.
Just for you. 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 to click away at pastoralen.org.
God's love. You've heard about it with your ears. You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
for any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, The incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. 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 eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, Pastor Alan.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan in the studio and today's teaching, Perfect Love Casts Out Fear.
Some may ask, why so much emphasis on grace and teaching on grace? Why does it matter?
Well, a message like this, I think, really demonstrates where the Rubber meets the road and can help the grace, the perfect love of Christ.
Well, and I think so, yeah, when people say, well, you know. We need grace, but also we need to be held to account and all that.
Well, the message of grace and the message of the love of God. Is not a message that says, well, okay, God's fine with you, staying the way you are. This is his means of transformation. Right. Right.
And I think I think most of our listeners could agree that It really is our insecurity, which is another word for anxiety. are insecurity that causes most of our Besetting sin. Uh-huh. I think that if you just start going through the list of even the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not covet.
Well, if I feel utterly secure. And what I have been given, and I feel blessed. What is there to covet? I mean, on the list goes. But when we're insecure, we we we Have all manner of temptation that comes along with it.
So, God's very interested. In loving us and showing us his love simply because he's a father who loves. But there is also this other side of it, and this is the thing that changes us. The more we're secure, the more that we can live a bold, joyful, courageous And Holy life. A lot's writing on this, the love of God.
Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-578-1. 544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free.
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