Pastor Alan is on the road and you're invited. Check out pastorallen.org for more information. But if you live in the Carolinas, you're invited to a men's event in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on February 27th. And if you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, join us at the Epic Conference open to all in late February. Plus, catch Pastor Alan preaching at Sojourn Church in Carrollton, Texas on March 1st.
All the details at pastorallen.org. Yeah. Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing: a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. If the path of life feels crooked, convoluted, confusing, Take heart. He will make your path straight.
That's Proverbs 3:6. If you feel like you have to be smarter, faster, or stronger, The Lord offers you the deal of a lifetime. Lean not on your own understanding. He'll make your path straight. I bless you not to be able to figure it all out.
but to lean on the one who has figured it all out before you were born. May the Lord make the crooked ways straight. and the confusing way is clear. is your trust. in him today.
Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Christian life is not about you trying to just get something from God. Even salvation itself, though, that we receive. And we receive so much from God. And it's not about you doing something for God, although He has important purposes for you in this world.
The Christian life, which is on display in John 14 through 17, is this. It's being with God. He said, I don't even call you servants, I call you friends. 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, Abide, taken from John 14 through 17, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. At any point, contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here. is Alan Wright. He's saying, I'm preparing this place for you, and I'm going to come and take you to be with me.
Where I am. I often think of this image that I think Peter Marshall was the first to use this illustration, but I think of it so often at gravesides and tell it. But I know that it was true of me when I was a child. We would every Sunday night go to my grandparents' house for dinner, and she would fix good stuff that we didn't normally eat, like lamb chops and roast beef. Like, you know, we didn't eat pork chops at her, you know, it was special.
And we'd eat a big meal, and it was wonderful. And she had some most delicious desserts, and then after getting loaded up with all that, we'd watch the wonderful world of Disney. And by the end of it, as a little boy, I'd start getting sleepy, and we'd get in the car and drive home. It wasn't really that far of a drive, but it doesn't take very long for a little one to fall asleep in the car on the way home. And so many times I would fall asleep on the one in the car.
And more than once, I would find myself. just waking up the next day in my own bed. 'Cause my dad had picked me up out of the car, carried me in, and I'm just out, you know, and put me in my bed. And when the daylight comes, I wake up and I'm in my own home. and my own bad.
This is an apt picture of what Jesus is describing. That I will come to take you to be with me where I am. That he's been readying a place. And I think in many ways, death, if you wonder what it's like, it's like a falling asleep. and then being scooped up in the very strong arms of our Heavenly Father and brought into the place that's been prepared for you that is really, really your ultimate home and you wake up there in the light.
It means that heaven Will be on the one hand so different than anything you've ever seen that you'll just walk around going, wow, wow, wow, that's just wow. But it also means that when you wake up and open your spiritual eyes in heaven and see it for the first time. That there's going to be a deep part of your heart that's going to go. I'm finally home. If you could think of wherever it is that most feels like home to you.
Like that place where you could remember when you were most connected, most loved, and most safe, and you feel that. If you can imagine that for a moment. And then let your imagination stretch to the perfection of that feeling. That's what heaven's gonna feel like. I think for Jesus to say, I'm preparing this place for you, is to say, This is perfectly home for you.
And you're going to feel that. You're never going to be in heaven and go, oh, I feel like I'm separated from home. I'm going to feel like I'm finally really in the place that I was always meant to be. It means that God has living in his heart. the spirit of welcome.
That God is by his nature ultimate hospitality. I live with a woman who has a gift of hospitality. It's quite wonderful and frustrating because If you're coming to our house, she's thinking about you for a long time before you come. If it's just me. You just show up when you show up, we'll order a pizza.
You know, I just, but not so with her. And so I've been living with her for 40 years, and I've just finally accepted this is the way it is. We can't change it.
So we had some guests last Saturday night. Kenny and Russell, some friends who are on a music tour from Texas, they did a little concert here on Saturday night. They stayed with us on Saturday night and said, Ann, how about Kenny and Russell stay with us? She said, Sure, sure. I said, Okay, y'all stay with us.
All right, great. And then a couple days later, this is a couple weeks ahead of time. She said, Now tell me what time do they arrive? I don't know.
So you said, well how how long are they? I don't know.
How many meals are we going to have together? I don't know.
I know they're doing this show over here at the chapel on Saturday night. What do you know? That's all I know. I said, be fine. She said, Well, which room do you think we should put Kenny in and which room do you think we should put Russell?
I said, I don't even know. I don't even, they don't even care. I don't care. No, no, I think we should put, I think we should put Kenny upstairs and put Russell downstairs.
Okay, that's fine. All right. And I mean, so days in advance, she's got towels out for them. She's got everything. And then we're out shopping.
This is the kind of thing. They're out shopping one day for some other things. And she says, Oh, look at this. Isn't this cute? I'm like, Yeah, it's a little soap, little soap, little tiny thing of soap.
Like you use it about three times and it's gone. And it was like $10. And she says, I want to get these because it was wrapped in this beautiful paper and it said Winston-Salem on it. And she said, Won't that just be nice? It'll make them feel really welcome.
I'm like, Okay, all right. It's is a staggering thought. But the Son of God is thinking about your arrival. It's thinking about you. Preparing.
And he said at verse 3: If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again. And I'll take you to myself. If you can believe that Jesus is preparing a place for you. then you could also believe That he's coming back for you. Because he's not going to put that much preparation in place only to have you.
Not make it there. The big difference between offering someone a place to stay and say, Drop in wherever you want, you can visit, it's quite another to say, I'm going to come get you myself. When Bennett was at college at Baylor, he'd fly back and forth during the semester for different occasions. But at the end of each school year, when it was time for him to come home, I'd fly out to Waco. Load up everything with them and getting that old Ford Explorer.
And hope it'd make it all the way back home. because I'm bringing him home. When we're talking about being home, not just visiting, we're talking about come home. I'm going to come get you. I'm going to come get you, Jesus.
Mm. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Are you ready for some good news? In a world filled with confusion and false advertising, Jesus knew exactly who He was and exactly what His work would accomplish.
He did not leave us guessing. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What if the Christian life is not about striving harder? but about abiding. Living with God, not just under Him or for Him.
But in him. Living as secure, spirit-filled children of God, not as spiritual orphans. Living with the Holy Spirit as our live-in teacher, helper, reminder, and guide, so we do not have to rely only on our own voice. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is Abide, Experiencing Jesus in John 14 through 17, a powerful digital audio series that explores Jesus' most intimate words to his disciples. Through teaching from these chapters in John, you will discover the freedom and confidence that come from living in Christ's finished work.
As our thanks when you give today, you will receive digital access to Abide, Experiencing Jesus in John 14 through 17. 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. That day's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.
The promise of coming again It's probably understood at least several levels that Verse 19, yet a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me. I think here he's talking about his death and his resurrection.
So you're not going to see me, but I'm going to come again in the resurrection. You'll see me on Easter Day. But also he's saying at verse 25, and he's going to talk much about the Holy Spirit in these chapters. I think he's also talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament is called the Spirit of Jesus.
He's called the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He is Jesus in spirit. If you want to understand who the Holy Spirit is. And he said to verse 25, these things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you.
So I'm with you in the flesh. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he'll teach you all things and bring you to marriage.
So I'm coming again in the Holy Spirit.
So that's another way he's coming. Again, he's saying to them. But he's also referring to the way he comes, as I was describing, to each believer at death, because we're immediately transported into the presence of the Lord. And he's talking about his second coming, or what we might call the final coming of Jesus, when he consummates the age, and we have a new heaven and a new earth, and we reign with him forever and forever.
So he's coming. He's going in, but he's coming. I will come again. And take you to myself. And now we get to what is the heart of this text and the heart of these chapters at verse 3.
I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And now you've come into the very heart of the Son of God. This is a deep And visceral longing of Jesus Christ is to be with His beloved disciples. We're treading into mystery here, but it's the nature of God's heart to say it is what he desires, it's what he feels, it's what he wants, it is his will. That you be with him.
and that he is with you. This is the treasure of God, and this is what we treasure as Christians. The Christian life is not about you trying to just get something from God. Even salvation itself, though, that we receive, and we receive so much from God. And it's not about you doing something for God, although He has important purposes for you in this world.
The Christian life, which is on display in John 14 through 17, is this: it's being with God. He said, I don't even call you servants, I call you friends. In my father's estate, all the heirs. are going to be there. And that's what I care about.
That's what he's saying. I'll be headed to the beach for the Lynch family beach vacation. They're already there and people flying in yesterday. We've been doing it since as long as I can remember. As long as I've been part of this family.
her side of the family or the beach trip and uh we got two houses and bunches of people and um I'm gonna want to read books. And they're not going to let me. I'm going to sit down in my little chair. And some child's going to run over and I want to play. And I'm going to say, okay, I'll get back to the book in a minute.
And then I never will. I never will. And I'll do that all week. And I still ride the waves. And Ann's already there.
She was telling me what Mia was loving, getting down in the surf and putting her belly down in the shallows and calling it swimming. And I'll be swimming. I'll be on my belly in the sand. I'll be eating sand. And we'll have a great time, and we'll go eat seafood.
And I'm going to say I'm going to eat the healthy, broiled. salmon and I'm going to get calabash shrimp. And that's just, you know, fried stuff. It's all going to happen. You know, I've got all these aspirations, but I know what's going to happen and it's going to be fun.
And but it's not really about the surf and the sand and the sun and the seafood. It's really about. being with each other. Yeah, we've been doing this a long time. And Anna Catherine, my niece now lives in California, so she's flying in.
Bless her heart. She got. One of those cancellations yesterday on the flight.
So she's losing today. She's getting in late today. Abby got in from Washington yesterday. Ben and Amy are already there. Nephews and nieces, we got a new.
Got a new baby there, my nephew. They've got a a new baby named Graham after my father-in-law.
So we get to hang out with Graham for the first time. He's a chunk and um I'll be holding him. I don't kid him. Um that's what it's about. Mm-hmm.
But we'll be thinking also about You know, those that aren't there. Um my voice will get choked up even to think of it. Ann's younger sister Mary, who hadn't been there in so many years since her death, many, many years ago. And uh we wish we had all four of her grown kids with their busy lives, but Richard will come, one of them's gonna be there, and uh But Mary, she loved that trip. Before she got cancer and it took her life way too early.
And she had these four little kids, and that beach trip, I remember one year, like you're a mom of four little ones, and it's like the beach trip was like everything. It's like you spend it all day long talking to two-year-olds, and now you're gonna be around some adults and some people to help, and then all the fun and everything. And one year, all these little kids, and two of them, I think, got real sick. Joe, her husband, was right. He's like, we just need to go home.
We've got to get back to our pediatrician and we got to get home. And so after like one or two days at the beach, they had to just leave. I'll never forget, you know, watching them back out of that driveway and seeing Mary in the front seat, just tears streaming down her face. I looked over at my wife. She's crying too, you know, and it's like, there'll be other beach trips.
And we couldn't have known that there wouldn't be that many more for Mary. She, of course, Mary won't be there. And again, this year, we won't have Ann's parents. Mimi, every time we don't eat a piece of her chocolate cake because it won't be there, we'll think about Mimi's chocolate cake. And I think about Graham every day.
He would go to Big Nails and get biscuits for everybody every morning. And so a nephew, Richard, said he'd take that enterprise over. I think Big Nails shut down. We'll go to Hardy's, you know, but we'll think about Graham. And he's not there.
And I'll think about him. I thought about him yesterday because we had this little game that we'd play with each other. Like his way of acknowledging how blessed a given day is and how blessed we are. It's like sometimes you'll just catch a perfect day where there's just the right amount of breeze and the temperature is just right. And he'll come over and say, Ah, and he says, Is this perfect right now, or is it one degree too hot or one degree too cool?
And we would joke with each other.
So we just had a thing. We'd say, Graham. Two? He's like, yep, two, too much. You know, I mean, we just kind of joke.
And I talked to Ann last night. I said, how was the day? She said, it was beautiful. She said, Granddaddy would have said two degrees too warm, but it was just almost perfect. And we'll think about that, and we'll miss him.
What I'm saying, do you hear what I'm saying? We're going to have a great time because we're going to be with each other. But it's not going to be a perfectly great time because we don't have everybody. We would only be fully and finally happy when we have all of our people. And Jesus is saying You can count on this because this is my deepest, most visceral longing.
is I just want to be with everyone of my own. In my father's house, if a huge estate and there's enough room for every single heir. And he's saying to his disciples, People that were quite fallible and were going to fail him in various ways said, I want you to know what I really, really want is to come back and take you to be with me where I am. That's what Jesus wants. to be with you.
And you can say yes to that. Every day. And it can become the treasure of your life. to be with him. That's what being a Christian is all about.
And that's the gospel. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message at home with Jesus from the series Abide, taken from John 14 through chapter 17. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. 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 pastoralen.org. Are you ready for some good news? In a world filled with confusion and false advertising, Jesus knew exactly who he was and exactly what his work would accomplish.
He did not leave us guessing. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What if the Christian life is not about striving harder? but about abiding. Living with God, not just under Him or for Him.
but in him. Living as secure, spirit-filled children of God, not as spiritual orphans. Living with the Holy Spirit as our live-in teacher, helper, reminder, and guide, so we do not have to rely only on our own voice. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is Abide, Experiencing Jesus in John 14 through 17, a powerful digital audio series that explores Jesus' most intimate words to his disciples. Through teaching from these chapters in John, you will discover the freedom and confidence that come from living in Christ's finished work.
As our thanks when you give today, you will receive digital access to Abide, Experiencing Jesus in John 14 through 17. 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. Back here now with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of this teaching, still at the beginning of the overall series, Abide at Home with Jesus. Boy, it reminds me of a Christmas song, a prayer, come make a place in me, Lord Jesus.
You know, when Jesus says that I'll come again and take you to myself. that where I am you may be also I think what I want to leave with our listeners today is this is the deepest assurance. that you could possibly be given by the Son of God. that Jesus has committed to every one of his disciples so much that he's saying I want More than anything, to be with you and you to be with me, that wherever I am. There you will be, and I will be.
It's just staggering in its beauty. It's just glorious. He's saying that what he wants more than anything is for us to be at home. and to be with him.
So that's the longing of God's heart. And that's the assurance for the Christian's life. You'll never be alone because Jesus has that commitment. What's the Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860.
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. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastoralan.org. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
