Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Jesus wants you full. Joy. In the English Standard Version of the Bible, the words joy, rejoice, or joyful appear a total of 430 times. It's God's will for us to be joyful, especially during such hard times as these.
The Lord wants us to live with joy.
So open your heart for today's blessing. It's taken from Jesus' promise in John chapter 15. Life's stuffed with unfinished business. Every day's crammed with incomplete tasks. And it's okay.
Life is a process. Destiny is a journey. Not everything is meant to be finished and full. Accept at least this one gift, this one virtue. Joy.
These things I have spoken to you, Jesus promised. that my joy may be in you. and your joy may be full.
So I bless you. to know the fullness of Jesus' joy. In this half-empty world, may your joy cup be brimming full, ready to spill over and splash on everybody all the time. Jesus promises his joy in you to the full. And that's the gospel.
Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. God looks at your life. And he sees what you think. Might be useless and says, What is that in your hand? You go, I don't see anything.
Well, just stick. I said, great, we could use that. And you look at your life and you say, well, there's just ways that I just think I'm exactly the wrong one for this. And God might be saying, you're exactly the right one. And the things that you use to disqualify yourself might be the very things that God's saying, that's what I see as qualifying 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, 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 877-544-444. 4860. More on all of this later in the program. But now.
Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Pharaoh is going to look like he is The greatest poison imaginable, and you would think you should just run from his power, but I'm gonna show you a greater power. And it's going to be marvelous because it's going to surprise everyone. That's what I think is going on.
Take the ordinary. You see, God has a habit. of recruiting those who look wrong for the job. but exactly right for the job. You can just go through the whole of the Bible and you see the story over and over and over.
Obviously, God's trying to get this across to us. He takes a man named Abram out of the Ur of the Chaldees. A man of whom we know nothing of his history. And we really basically know this, that the mark of his wife, along with his wife Sarah, is that they're very old and they never had any children. And so they're way beyond any possibility of.
rearing children. And God picks him out to be the father of a nation.
So, on the one hand, he is the least likely person on the face of the earth to be the one who becomes known as the father of the people of God. And yet, we realize he's the perfect person. Because not only had they had a lifetime of longing for a child. But they would be the ones who would believe God. And they would be ones who, when they had a child, it would be evident it was a child born not in the ordinary way, but by the promise of God.
Yeah, yeah. He took a man named David. who was so unlikely to be the next king That when Samuel the prophet came and said, The Lord has shown me. That one of Jesse's sons is going to be the new king. And so he goes to Jesse and he says, Let me see your sons, because the Lord's going to show me.
Jesse doesn't even bring David out of the field. David's just too young, and he's a shepherd, and no one would consider that he didn't look like a king. They didn't think anybody would, he didn't even bring them. And Samuel said, was none of these? He said, do you not have any other sons?
And he says, well, there's David. And he brings David out. David looked like he was exactly the wrong one to be king in the same way he looked like he was exactly the wrong one to fight Goliath. Goliath was a huge Philistine. Probably seven feet tall.
Lots of description of how heavy and huge his armor was, his shield, the spear that he carried. And the Israeli soldiers would not fight him. They'd been challenged to a one-on-one fight with Goliath. And no one would do it. including King Saul.
When David came and brought some food to his brothers at the battle line, He said, Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the army of the living God? He said, I'll fight him. He goes in and puts in Saul's armor on. David says, I don't want to wear this armor. I'm not used to this.
This doesn't feel good. And you're sitting here looking at this going, You're going to stake the future of Israel on whether David this Scrawny young shepherd can go out here and defeat This huge giant of a warrior. He looks like exactly the wrong person. Interestingly, Malcolm Gladwell has written a best-selling book called David and Goliath. in which he talks about this from more of a historical point of view and what Historians of war have to say about this scene.
And I know God was involved in something supernatural anointing David because the battle belongs to the Lord, and so that's we trust all that. Just historians of war have said What actually happened here? was that David surprised Goliath with a whole different type of battle. There were three types of warriors in ancient times. There were the infantrymen.
the ones that put on armor, walked on foot, and fought hand to hand. That's what Goliath was expecting to have happen with David. And there were also cavalry, those that rode horses and they could move fast and fight battles. But there was a third category that were the projectile warriors. They were the archers and the slingers.
And the archers and the slingers They had a unique place in ancient warfare. It was one of those things where between cavalry and infantrymen and archers and slingers, it was kind of like rock, paper, scissors, you know. One could beat the other, another could beat the other, but they couldn't all beat anybody. And so Goliath thought he was going to have a battle with David that was going to be infantry style, foot to foot, hand to hand. But David was never going to fight that way.
That's why he didn't put the armor on. It's like, I'm not going to go fight him like that. David knew what he was good at. And that was what he'd been practicing for years as a shepherd. A sling was long with ropes and a leather pouch at the end.
And they would put that in with wider and wider concentric circles of slinging it around when they let go of one side of the rope and let it sling. They said that in ancient times, they could have some real accuracy and real force even up to 200 yards away. They're ancient pictures of slingers hitting birds mid-flight. In fact, one scholar said a really, really skilled slinger can send a stone at about 35 kilometers a second. In other words, When David went to battle, he killed Goliath within a second.
It's an interesting story because David was running towards Goliath. Goliath has got all this huge armor on, and he's clunky and he's big, and he can't move fast. He was a sitting duck. David broke the rules. And he just, nobody, there was no rule that said you can't throw a rock at him, so that's what David did.
That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we want to give you Allen Wright's top ten C D 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 Ten of the First Decade. 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 Allan 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. They were like, I'm small, I'm young, but I have killed lions and bears that have tried to come after my sheep.
I have protected sheep for a long time, and they're harder to hit than this guy is. This guy's just a big old giant of a target out there. And he ran to the battle, put the stone in there, and the first one, he just nailed him right in the forehead and killed the giant.
So, in other words, David looked like he was exactly the wrong person for it. But he was exactly the right person. Moses looked like he's exactly the wrong person for this job. Because He was a man, on the one hand, you could say, of no people. He was in exile.
He was no longer in Egyptian royalty. He wasn't amongst the Hebrews. Who liked Moses? But the fact of the matter is that because he was raised in the Egyptian court. He had an entryway.
Hey, hey. End of it. It was like he could just walk back in, though he was hated and despised and was considered a fugitive. He knew all the people. It's like Pharaoh's son was his brother.
And He went right in a new had an entryway to speak to Pharaoh when no one else would have. And yet he was there as a Hebrew.
So he was A Hebrew Egyptian. And all of this is pointing to the most unlikely hero in the history of the world. No one would have expected that the king of kings would be born as a. baby in Bethlehem to a peasant mother. or grow up the son of a carpenter in a little rural town called Nazareth.
He was, Jesus was. Considered a rabbi, but he sure wasn't like any of the other teachers. He he was He was hated by the religious aristocracy, loved by the sinners. And yet was a religious leader, this didn't make sense to anybody. But the ultimate thing that made Jesus, of course, perfect.
For your salvation and mine. is that he was the new Moses. Moses was uniquely positioned to be a mediator because he was both Egyptian and Hebrew. And Jesus was both God and man. And we have been saved through one mediator, Jesus Christ.
He is our true Moses. The only saying is that God God looks at your life. And he sees what You think Might be useless and says, What is that in your hand? You go, I don't know, I don't see anything. What is a stick?
Said, great, we could use that. And you look at your life and you say, well, there's just ways that I just think I'm exactly the wrong one for this. And God might be saying, you're exactly the right one. The things that you use to disqualify yourself might be the very things that God's saying, that's what I see as qualifying you. Paul put it this way, 2 Corinthians.
Chapter 12, verse 7: Keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of revelations. A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. Everywhere Paul went, evidently he just had this demonic persecution. He's facing this spiritual battle. He wished he didn't have to do it.
He said, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But the Lord said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. He just learned this brilliant, brilliant man, Saul of Tarsus. who was, on the one hand, the least likely candidate to become the writer of most of the New Testament and the proclaimer of grace.
Because he was a Pharisee, a legalist who hated and persecuted Christians. But what he realized in his ministry Is it? God had taken his grace and poured it into Paul's life in such a way that really it was not all of his superior intelligence that was reaching people for Christ, although it gave him entryway amongst the Greek philosophers in other times of his ministry. It wasn't all of his ear to eye education. What he realized is the weaknesses in my life.
God ends up using these things that I never would have expected. In other words, God has taken the least likely most imperfect and made it the perfect candidate. for the job. Wow. Story after story.
I think it's my story. I bet if you think about it, it's your story. The lady named Hilda in Alabama Who I came to know Because Pastor Bobby Hill and his church. Led a Bible study in the local Prison, a women's prison. Using a resource I'd written called Shame Off You.
And the local sheriff Said that he was delighted for them to continue doing the Bible study because it was helping people so much and it was fine, even though it was Christian material. And Hilda Who I later learned of her testimony had grown up in an abusive alcoholic home and then lived with an abusive alcoholic grandfather. And she had become violent. And She was a repeat offender. And by her own words, she was The meanest Women incarcerated in that facility.
Regularly fighting. She learned her. Beat up women if they disagreed, always had a scowl on her face. She'd had some exposure to Christianity, but it was More of a Harsh variety that never meant anything to her, she stayed away from all of that. And then this group came in and they're doing this shame off you group.
And they kept inviting Hilda to come and Sit in on it. And finally, she said she came and she sat around the outside edge of it, and she started listening. And this little church group had so much love. She said there was something that. began to attract her.
And then she started sitting with the group. And she said that after, these are her words that she wrote down, after the group one night had done a chapter. called for the want of a mom or dad, it happened. She said, I spent all night crying. I decided I would try talking to God.
I would like to say that I prayed a loving, tender, heartfelt prayer, but I didn't. I was mad and had been mad at God for quite some time. I told him I didn't know if he was for me or not. I was sick of him messing with me. And if he wanted a relationship with me, it had to be different than in the past.
But if I could have with those people They were leading the Bible study, had than I was willing to try. If not, I wanted him to leave me alone. She said she woke up the next morning. And a lady looked at her and said, What has changed about you? She said what?
She said, you're smiling. They had never seen her smile. And she said, I looked in the mirror and realized I looked different. Hilda came to faith in Christ. And she not only started participating in that shame off you group.
But She became a leader. of the future groups that would meet for years in that facility. She was probably the best leader of that shame-off material we ever had. She was such a delightful help. in every way that they started letting her have work release.
and she experienced much favor with local authorities where she worked. And one December, I was speaking in Chaco Springs Conference Center in Talladega, Alabama. And the sheriff said that he would allow her to come for the weekend. and to meet me. And we met.
and became friends. And she and that church kept leading for years. Groups there, listen to what she wrote later in reflection on this. God's grace brought me to the jail. God's Grace gave me favor with officers.
Favor with the Secretary of the Chef Sheriff's Office. allowed me to go to work release. God's grace kept me in work release. God's grace brought me in a church group to do shame off you. God's grace let me claim the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross for my sins.
God's grace brought me a whole church full of His divine intervention to help me really know my Lord and Savior. And eight months later, it was God's grace that kept me in work release after receiving a 21-year sentence. It was God's grace that brought my family back one by one, my brother, nephew, niece, sister. My daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter. The following year, they closed down the female work release, and everybody but me had to.
stop or they went to prison. And God's grace kept me again, and I was moved to the jail side with other ladies in jail. Except they let me keep going to church. He said, Now I have the honor of sharing the love of God to a group of broken-hurting ladies, and I can say, Look, I was there, I know. But I also know he can fix you better than you were ever broken.
It's really my privilege to take shame off you to those ladies and tell them all the wondrous things he's done in my life and how it started.
Some of them already knew the old me. You can imagine the shock when I walked in there, a new creature in Christ. I would sit there and watch them watch me. They were sure I was a fake or I was trying to get out, but Just like that with the church group. If you put the love of Jesus in a room full of pain and heartache.
It's like a moth to a flame. No matter what they thought they knew about me. They couldn't deny. that there was something drawing them. To me.
We got a letter a few years ago from her and uh She'd been released. She was free. And she just wrote and she said, I just want you to know. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. But then she said PS He set me free long before I was free.
God takes What seems like The worst candidate for the job It says you're the perfect candidate. I I don't think that Missions is Just this thing we do, like we go across the world and we do mission. I think it's instead much more like God saying, What's in your hand today, right here? Right now. I can use that.
It's the simple blessings that we speak to a neighbor and the smallest act of kindness. It's just being used by God, right? where you are. And if you're Like me or Moses or any other human being that's ever lived, there probably gonna be a part of you that says, Who am I? And God's going to turn your attention around and say, well, Let's don't talk about that question.
Let's talk about the question Who is the Lord Almighty? He's the one who can take a staff, turn it to a snake. and back into a staff. that maybe one day he's going to have held up.
so that a Red Sea can part. Just whatever you have. Whoever you are. Know this. It's more than enough.
for an almighty God to use. to change the world. And that's gospel. Alan Wright in our teaching, No More Worries, Moses, from the series No Worries. Alan is back in the studio with a parting good news thought for our day here in just a moment.
Stay with us. The life-changing message of good news has been taught over radio from Alan Wright Ministries for quite some time now, and God has used every one of those messages. But some broadcasts have really hit home in special ways. In gratitude of more than a decade of radio, 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. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastorallen.org.
Alan, as we're back in the studio, and we are coming down towards the home stretch of this series, No Worries, or putting the conclusion to this teaching, No More Worries, Moses. It's amazing to me. that what Moses thought made him disqualified, God turned around to prove that he was qualified. Yeah, so I say to our listeners, what do you think disqualifies you? Maybe it's your greatest failure or maybe it's a disadvantage or disability or challenge you have in your life.
Maybe you feel like your best years are over. Whatever it is that's in your hand right now, you think, well, this is just not valuable. Like Moses had a stick, a staff is all he had. God said, throw it down.
Well release that. Let me use that. And open up your eyes because God might be going to use. The weakest part of your life. that you thought could never be used.
he might take the most ordinary. Or even even the very thing that you feel like disqualifies you and turn it around and use it. For Kingdom Empact. That's good news. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
