Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. God has made you for joy. It is. your design. It's what you run on.
We're made for joy.
So I'd like to bless you for joy today and in the coming days. A blessing isn't a prayer or teaching. It's an impartation, a positive vision spoken in faith, grounded in God's word. And when you receive blessing, it becomes part of you. It nourishes you.
and it empowers you. Today's blessing I take from Isaiah chapter 55. Though every life has mountaintops and valleys, though every soul has mountains. tastes victory and defeat. You're made for joy.
You're designed for rejoicing. By God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, May you go out in joy and be led forth in peace. And may the mountains and the hills before you break into sinking. And all the trees of the field clap their hands. God's good creation still sings a chorus of praise around you.
and somewhere, somehow, to day. Joy. can sneak into your heart. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. The more that you don't keep the law, the more burdened you are, the more you feel like you're failing at it, the more your heart grows weary.
And Jesus said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden. And I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come to grace.
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, No Worries, as presented at Ronalda 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. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. You can learn more about it. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org.
Or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. More on all of this later in the program. But now. Let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright.
Okay, are you ready for some good news? You aren't chicken little, the sky isn't falling, Christianity isn't failing, evil isn't winning, and the gospel is as powerful as it ever has been. We are in an anxious, anxious world. An anxious world. And God has called us the people of God.
to bring a good word. in the midst of such confusion and anxiety. This is Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 25. Just One verse for us that we focus on today. Proverbs 12, verse 25: Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down.
But a good word. makes him glad. We have answers for an anxious world. It just seems like the world's so full of bad news, even when there's good news, it gets overwhelmed by the bad news. Like one of those good news, bad news jokes, like the art dealer who called up the artist and said, I've got good news and bad news.
He said, The good news is that a customer came in here yesterday. and asked if after you die, will all your paintings be worth more? And when I told him that they most certainly would, he bought every single one of your paintings. The artist said, Well, that's great. What's the bad news?
Said, the bad news is he was your doctor. Another bad, one more bad news, good news. A lawyer wanted to be as positive as he could with his client, so he went to his client who was accused of murder. He said, I got bad news, and I got good news. He said, The bad news is that.
Turns out that through your blood, your DNA, that blood was all over the murder victim, the murder weapon, and the getaway car. And the murderer said, Well, what possibly could be the good news? He said, Well, good news is it looks like your cholesterol is down to about 140 now. It just feels like sometimes that even when we're trying to get forth some good news, it just comes across like bad news in the media. I ran across some real headlines that made me chuckle because I don't know, sometimes even the media is like, We're trying to get some good news, but it doesn't come across right.
Like this criminal's good news might not be very good news for the lawyer. Man accused of killing lawyer receives a new attorney. I don't know about that. I don't even know what to say about this next headline. Miracle cure kills fifth patient.
I don't even know what that even means. Good news in the economy. Have you ever seen this happen before? It's like some good news will come out in the economy and the stock market will go down. I don't even understand this, but here's one that real headline: cows lose their job as milk prices drop.
Somebody's always losing, no matter how good it seems to get. We can take the cutest, sweetest thing on all the earth and turn it into a culprit. Here you go. State population to double by 2040, babies to blame. Those darn babies.
They're always getting in the way. Ha ha ha ha ha. Even if the police are doing a good job, the headline doesn't always sound so good like this one. Police arrest everyone on February 22nd. Just arrest them all.
Just go out there, just cover all our bases. And just one more. Medical care is advancing, I think, but this headline will make you wonder. Hospitals resort to hiring doctors. Ah.
Mm.
So you see, that is you know, all these auto mechanics, it's just not working around here. What are we gonna do? I don't know. Maybe we should hire some doctors to come work at the hospital. The fact of the matter is that we're in a culture That is just saturated in bad news.
Day in, day out, 24-7. And what we as Christians have to say in the midst of this culture. is huge. The Proverbs make it clear, 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And Paul said it plainly in Ephesians.
He just can't say this with more clarity. about how God wants us to speak. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. But only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion. that it may give grace to those Who here?
Whatever negative talk is going on. We're not to be a part of that. We have a good word. for an anxious culture. Don't be confused.
I'm not saying that we need to have our head in the sand. Or that everything's cotton candy. No, there are real problems. and we need to know about the real problems. There are times where you do need to hear some bad news because there's something you need to do about it.
We had over the past year and a half a couple of times where water started coming into our basement. And both times I just felt so thankful to the Lord. that we've we saw it before it flooded the whole basement.
Sometimes there's bad news, water's coming in your house.
Well, you want to find it out because there's something you're supposed to do about it. But a big part of our problem is that we are covered up with 24 hours a day, seven days a week, bad news that we're not called to do anything about and can't do anything about. That's different. And what that does to the heart is described in Proverbs 12, 25. As a makes a person's heart heavy.
The actual Hebrew word here for heavy is to stoop over. It's a picture of if you have to carry weight and then more weight on your shoulders, and then you get stooped over with it. And until the weight comes off, you can't stand back up. And so, what the proverb says is, it's like when you get anxiety, it's like your heart is stooped over. But a good word A powerful word of blessing.
Can come and lift the burden in such a way that you're able to stand back up. in your own heart. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Not just how powerful it is to bless someone individually. But I want to speak to you also globally today.
About how it is that God entrusts us with a good word of blessing. Jesus was extremely frustrated. with really only one group of people. The religious Leaders, the Pharisees and scribes and teachers of the law. who had developed so many legalistic nuances.
surrounding the law of God. that the way they interacted with people was to put a burden on them that they could never ever carry. The fact of the matter is, beloved, By whatever standard You try to measure up. you'll fail. I once heard Tim Keller put it this way.
You don't have to take the Ten Commandments or the Old Testament law or statements of Jesus in the New Testament. Why don't you just think about this? If you put a tape recorder around your own neck that you wore for your whole life, and all it did was record the things that you said that other people ought to do and let that be your standard. None of us would live up. We can't live up to any standard.
We can't even live up to our own standard for other people. And what the Pharisees did was such a burden that Jesus said in Matthew 23, they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders. He's talking about telling people bad news. You're not good, you're failing, and unless you measure up, you can't really be accepted. It's a heavy burden, and they laid them on people's shoulders.
He said at Matthew 23:15, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, an image from the Greek playhouse where they would hold those little masks in front of their face in the play acting. That's what a hypocritase is. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte a convert, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Saying you go around and you finally convince somebody to convert, and then you lay so much burden of law on them that they could never live up to, that they're more burdened, they're more stooped in their heart than they were before you came to them. See, the more that you don't keep the law, the more burdened you are, the more you feel like you're failing at it, the more your heart grows weary.
And Jesus said, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. And I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come to grace.
Come and feel what it's like to go from being stooped under the heavy yoke of religious legalism. and worry and lift it. By letting me bear the burden for you. That's the message of Jesus. The power of a spoken word can be as simple as encouragement.
But it also can take on a power that is mystical in its in its glorious Purpose. and in some ways mysterious in how it works. But it's what the Bible calls blessing. It's on my mind 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because I'm writing a book on the subject. In the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve.
And we don't know what all he said in that blessing. But it was an impartation. of a positive vision filled with God's faith himself. about who they were. and what their destiny looked like.
And after he blessed them, he said, be fruitful and multiply. Blessing is the fuel for our productivity. That's Alan Wright. and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. The life-changing message of good news has been taught over radio from Allen Wright Ministries for quite some time now.
We have assembled the most powerful, best-loved messages from each year of the first 10 and put them together in one special album. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we want to give you Alan Wright's top 10 CD album or digital download. Are you ready for some good news? Make your gift today and discover God's grace afresh with Alan Wright's top 10 of the first decade. 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. or come to our website, pastorallen. org. Do you Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.
A good word. Spoken In a fitting in timely manner for someone. can make the difference. And not just whether their anxiety lifts. but whether they walk out the steps of their God-given destiny.
And blessing is so fascinating because the story of the patriarchs of Israel seems to revolve around this issue of the blessing. When Jacob and Esau, twin brothers, of twin brothers who are the son of Isaac. They're always wrestling with each other because Jacob was secondborn and he wanted to be firstborn and get all that attention. And a time came in the Hebrew boy's life where his father, near his death, would speak a very special blessing and impart to that son.
Something so so special that Jacob coveted it with all of his heart.
So much so that he came in and he pretended to be Esau, dressed up in Esau's clothes. Lied to his father and said, I'm Esau. And Isaac, who was blind by this time in his life, Was tricked, and he spoke a blessing upon the wrong son. And I'll never forget the first time I really studied this story, and my mind was completely overwhelmed with one part of the scene. When Isaac realized he'd blessed the wrong son, Instead of saying, oops, made a mistake, I undo that and now I bless the correct son, the text says he trembled violently.
He shuddered in horror at what had just happened. And when Esau came in and said, Can you not bless me also? Isaac said, I've blessed your brother, and indeed he will be blessed. And that was when I realized that God has given to us A mysterious Powerful way of speaking. and loving.
That The Bible simply calls blessing that has an irrevocable power. Have you ever had the feeling That You just love somebody so much, and you just wanted their well-being so much that you just wish you could just give it to them. I remember feeling this way when my children were just infants, and I would go in at night, most every night, to check on them before I would go to bed. And um taking care to try not to wake them up, which is a Terrible rookie mistake for any parent to wake up a sleeping child. But I would go in nonetheless and lay my hands gently on them.
And bless them. And I can remember a feeling, it's just very hard to describe. But it's the feeling of I want good for you so much I can taste it. And I wish I could just give it to you. But I can't I can't control the circumstances and situations that you'll face in life.
I won't always be there. I won't be able to fix every one of your problems. But there's something I have that I wish I could just impart to you. And the closest thing I know of that God gave us to make that impartation is blessing. It was the last thing Jesus did when he left the earth.
He was blessing the disciples as he ascended into heaven. To speak a good word. It is to say that we are called to bless individuals in the midst of their troubles. To bless individuals as we look towards their future, this is what love does. But I want to talk to you today not just about our capacity to bless the individual.
but to bless the world. God so loved the world. A lot of people have a wrong understanding and think That God is just so mad at the world, and God just hates the world, and He really would like to just snuff it all out. Nothing could be further from the truth because the gospel of Jesus Christ says simply, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to come and die in our place. Love is something where you just want it so bad you would do anything.
for the good of the one you love. And that's the nature of God.
So he loves this world. He loves this world and all of its anxiety and all of its sin. He loves the people that are farthest from him as much as he loves those that are closest to him. He loves you. And God came in the person of Jesus Christ to bless the world.
Listen, the gospel of Jesus Christ often comes across like this. It often comes across as if The message is: love God and serve God, give to God, obey God, and He'll really bless you. Let me tell you, that is not the gospel. The gospel is God has come to you in the person of Jesus Christ with the most magnificent blessing ever imaginable. He has blessed you with the gift of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, receive him, love him, serve him, obey him, and give your whole life to him. The order of events is everything. And I think that we're just called as Christians not to get caught up. and corrupting speech. But Walk in the light as Jesus is in the light.
You know, I've been experiencing something over the last two weeks of some of my studies that's almost.
Well, it's almost a paradigm shift in some of my thinking. Because sometimes even as a preacher, I'm a little bit a party to the To the bad news that we hear all the time. And we always say the world's getting worse, everything is terrible, everything perishing, you know. And it's almost as if we're just gonna wait around and then one day we just get raptured out of here and that'll be good. I think God's got a better plan than that, and I've always been optimistic, but I've been studying this a little bit.
Steven Pinker, who has been called one of the world's most influential intellectuals, taught in the Department of Brain Science at MIT until 2003 and since then been a psychology professor at Harvard. He did a TED Talk. He's written several books along this subject. If you get real interested in it, you could check out his 18-minute TED Talk that 4 million people have viewed. They're just talking about the fact that we always act like the world's getting worse, and it's not.
Let me give you some statistics. U.S. statistics. In 1988, the homicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000. The poverty rate in the U.S.
in 88, 30 years ago was 12%. And pollution, which was measured in how much of this particulate matter is being put into the atmosphere, was 35 million tons of particulate matter. Not sure what particulate matter is, but it's not good for us, evidently. Compared to 2018, 30 years later, this is just facts, okay? The homicide rate, 5.3 per 100,000, the poverty rate, 7%, and pollution, we're putting out 21 million tons of particulate matter.
Everything and those measures is better in the United States in the last 30 years. Alan Wright. Our good news message: burying your worry instead of your talent from the series, No Worries.
Well, don't worry, Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Please stay with us. The life The changing message of good news has been taught over radio from Allen Wright Ministries for quite some time now. We have assembled the most powerful, best-love messages from each year of the first 10 and put them together in one special album. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we want to give you Alan Wright's top 10 CD album or digital download.
Are you ready for some good news? Make your gift today and discover God's grace afresh with Alan Wright's top 10 of the first decade. 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. Back now here with Pastor Alan sitting and putting a recap, a closing thought on today's teaching, burying your worry instead of your talent. What's your closing thought, Pastor Alan? Daniel, I'm so glad that we're looking at this parable that's so often misunderstood, especially misunderstood regarding this third servant that the master calls wicked and lazy.
So often we read this parable and we just feel scared and Well, kind of worried that one day we're going to get to heaven and God's going to say, You didn't do enough with the talents that I gave you. That's not what this is about. This isn't a parable in the end that is about three Christians, and some of them work harder than others. This is about a third servant who misunderstands the master. He said, Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid.
This is a parable about fear and misunderstanding of the master. The master is generous and wealthy. The servant has rejected the master and has instead chosen a life of fear. This is about a person who, in the end, doesn't know the master at all. Yeah.
This is a powerful, powerful, powerful example of how sometimes we read scripture so moralistically that we miss the primary meaning. God our Father is a loving, benevolent, wealthy master. Who has entrusted so much to us? We need not live in fear. But enjoy at all that He's entrusted to us.
That's what makes us good stewards, Daniel. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries. I'm not sure if I can do it.
