Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Open your heart to receive today's blessing. May God make you like Ephraim. Joseph's second born, whose name means twice fruitful. You're destined to be more fruitful than you can now imagine.
Joseph had a dream, but he could never have seen this coming. After thirty years of abuse and trauma, slavery, false imprisonment, God put him on a throne in Egypt? It looked like he was going to die in an Egyptian dungeon instead. God used him to save the world from famine. to save his own family from starvation.
I'm blessing you to be like Ephraim. Blessing this to be a year of double fruit. May whatever good you can imagine be doubled. Fruit, sweet fruit. Not the stuff of raw ambition and worldly success, but real fruit.
the byproduct of the branch abiding on the vine.
So, may God's Spirit nourish you, fill you, and produce the fruit in and through you. I bless you to be like Ephraim. twice fruitful. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. But the ministry of the new covenant of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is to bring you into the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
It's a fundamental difference between the covenants. And the new coming is altogether more glorious, he's saying. And it is of the Spirit. What he's leading to here is: why would anybody want to gravitate back to the old covenant with all this bondage? Because look how glorious this new covenant is.
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 Phil, 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 today.
It 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. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. That if you see it as a law, That you'll fail at and put you under more condemnation, it's not good news. But if you understand the announcement, sow into the spirit.
If you understand it as good news, then it becomes... An exciting Prospect to live your life in that way.
So, when I hear Paul say, God's not mocked, you reap what you sow, I no longer hear bad news in that, like, oh, yeah, well, see, that just shows I'm doomed. I've made so many mistakes.
So, there you go. And we just try to manage the appearance and manage the fruit. Instead, I hear it. Wow. I Can sow in the Spirit and reap more from the Spirit.
There's more love, there's more joy, there's more peace, there's more patience to have than what I have now as I sow into the Spirit. In other words, you have unlimited Incorruptible seed that you can sow. Anytime you want to. And it will reproduce after its own kind. That's good news.
And so, God has always operated this way with his people. He is sovereign, and he has all power, and he has all. Oh Of the plans are his, but in Yeah.
Sovereignty, he commands us to To be obedient and to follow him and to participate with him. And in that command is the promise. Simple. Change your way of thinking. Don't hear a command as an opportunity for you to fail and come under condemnation.
See the command of God. As the promise of God that empowers you to succeed at what He's called you to do.
So God Calls Moses out of a burning bush. He says, I want you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go. For you will deliver my people out of their bondage.
Well, God is going to be the one who delivers them. God's the one who brings the plagues. God's the one who gives the instructions about the lamb. God is the one who opens up the Red Sea. God is the one who does all of that.
Moses is the one who's Giving the instruction, the word of God, holding up the staff as the red sea parts, participating with that which is God's work.
So if God says, Ye go Announce to Pharaoh that my people are going to be set free. Go and lead the people out of. Then it must be God's got a plan by which He's going to enable you to do that.
So the promise is in the command. He tells Joshua: Joshua comes up to the edge of the promised land. And he says, Joshua? I'm going to give you every place you step your foot. And he describes the exact boundaries of the promised land.
He said, It's yours. It's free. It's yours. I've given it to you. It is yours.
It is your inheritance.
Now, go step your foot into the promised land and take it. They come to the Jericho walls, and he says, I'm going to give this city into your hands, and here's what you do: you walk around it. It doesn't seem like that has any important part in it because God's the one bringing down the walls, and all they do is march around it. The only difference really between Joshua And the people who followed Joshua and their predecessors 40 years earlier who died in the wilderness was not a change in the promise. The difference was.
Joshua went into the land and took it. He spoke this way to Nehemiah. He said, put it on his heart, a great burden, to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. If he put a great burden on the heart of Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then there must be a promise in there that. I'm going to provide the means.
That gave boldness to Nehemiah to ask Artaxerxes for the release to go and rebuild, and for the provisions that would rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He spoke to the prophets this way. Jeremiah, go down to the potter's house. If he tells you to go down to the potter's house, it must be because he's got a word for you. Jesus even spoke this way to his disciples, didn't he?
They didn't hardly know what they were doing, but he said, Go heal the sick. I mean, if he commanded you that, then he's putting a promise in there.
So The most mature, spirit-filled people discover, don't build my prayer life about managing the fruit of my life. And don't build my prayer life primarily on just asking God for the fruit. Build my prayer life on asking God to give me a command. If you want a promise from God, get a command from God, get a word from God, and in the midst of that, miraculous power is released.
Now this does not in any way Undermine? any of God's sovereignty. Human responsibility is just that: an ability to respond. Response. Ability.
But it's a response. God is sovereign, and there's no undermining that by anything that we do. No matter what we do, and how much we might work, and how much we might accomplish, every good and perfect gift comes down from God. That's one of my favorite joke, and I know I've told it too many times, but it came out about six years ago, about the scientists that came to God and said, We don't need you anymore. We've already figured out how to do everything and appreciate everything you've done so far.
Okay. You know, you can go deal with another universe or something, but we're we're good now. And God said, Well, that's great. I'm glad you've evolved that far, but. He said, Maybe we have a contest just to make sure that you are at the level you need to be.
And a scientist said, Okay, fine. We'll have a contest. What do you want to be? God said, How about we have a man-making contest? And the scientist said, sure, we've learned human engineering, genetic cloning, all this.
We can do that. And so God said, great, I'll go first. God reached down, scooped up some dirt, molded it into a man, blew life into his nostrils, and there was a living creature. A scientist. That was good.
Scientists reached out, scooped up some dirt. God interrupted and said, Go get your own dirt. Because I No matter what we do, we don't actually create something out of nothing. Only God does that.
So, you can never dethrone God from his sovereign place of grace over all the cosmos. There's no amount of human work that can dethrone the sovereignty of God. But the other side of it is that what we do matters. Before I came to Ronaldo 14 years ago, and I talked to my predecessor, Pastor Dick Little, I don't think he'd mind me telling this. And if he does, it's too late now.
But I was just talking to him about Ronalda, you know, and I was, of course, we were in that process. And he was telling me what a wonderful church it was. And he said, Where have you been? I told him about serving a church in Durham and how things had gone there and how the Lord had really graced us with the church had grown and the good things that had happened there. And he said, Well, it sounds like you did a good job there.
And I said, Oh, you know, like we always are really humble, you know, and I was like, Oh, well, you know, it's the Lord, you know, it's the Lord that did it. And he said, Yeah, he said, I think maybe you had a part in that. And then he told me this story. He said, You know, there was a man that was a kind of skeptic and a little bit irreverent, didn't go to church. And he took on a project to redo a log cabin out in the country.
And he completely reworked it over a period of a year or two. And the preacher would come by every so often and try to invite him to church. The man wouldn't come. But once the man had finished up his big project and done all this incredible work of this overgrown place, and it looked beautiful. And the preacher came by and he said, Wow, he said, You and the Lord have really done a great job here.
And the irreverence. Saul said, Yeah, you should have seen it when the Lord had it to himself. Yeah.
Now, as your reverent as that is, the point being that. It really matters what we do, doesn't it? That doesn't mean that therefore everything Depends on us like God is needy. Um That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.
This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is a special teaching called Five Ways to Pray in the Spirit. In this practical and uplifting guide, Pastor Alan shows five simple and biblical ways anyone can pray in the Spirit. you will discover how praying scripture aligns your heart with God. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Call us at 877-425-845-845-0.
Five four four. 4860 or come to our website, pastorallen.org. U Today's teaching now continues. Here once again. is Alan Wright.
Some people think that God created people because He was needy. And Lonely. Poor God Sitting up there in heaven with nothing but the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bless his heart. Just lonely as could be.
So he created us. To be replace the empty place and oh come on. You know what I'm saying? You know, who we love who we would lay our life down for, who who But we we do occasionally remind them We were married for ten years before y'all were even born. And we were happy.
We were happy. Before you were born, we're happy now. And when you go off to college, we'll be happy then too. We didn't have you because we were needy. We had you because we were fulfilled.
And there's a blessing that wanted to spill over. God didn't create the world because it was needy. He created the world because he's an artist and he's painted a masterpiece. He created the world because he's a poet and there was something that needed to be uttered. He created the world because he's a scientist and something needed to be designed.
He created the world because he is love and love wants to be expressed.
So, I'm not going to take it when Paul says sow into the Spirit, because what I do really matters. I'm not going to take that and therefore say, oh, well, therefore, it's all up to me. People are like, well, don't tell them that because if you tell them God's in charge, then people will just say, well, I don't need to do anything. You know, I kind of grew up with the idea that the way I was prompted to do evangelism was from the old story of there's an angel that's talking to God before Jesus comes and says, Well, what's the plan? And he says, I'm going to send Jesus, and he's going to spend his time with just these 12 men.
And he's going to tell them, and then they're going to tell everybody else. And that's the way. And the angel says, well, what if those men fail? What is your plan then? And God says, I have no other plan.
And as a part of it, it's good. It's motivating in the sense that what we do really, really matters. But see, I would tend to hear that like, oh man, great, okay. It's just totally on me, and I'm failing at it bad. And I hadn't won anybody to Jesus in a long time.
So that's just it. That can't be the way it is. What we're going to say: the God of the universe. He eats. He He always has another plan.
He always has a way. of moving. People say, well, if you say that, that God's sovereign, God is gracious, and God's going to work his purposes out, then people will think, well, it doesn't matter what they do. That's just not the way it works though. Not A message that says It doesn't matter what you do.
To say that God is so big that even if you fail, He's still going to get it done. It is instead to say why we sow into the Spirit, why we pour our lives into the gospel, why we do everything God calls us to do. It is because, in the first place, He's made us for the joy of being His partner. That's incredible. It's incredible.
It just That in and of itself is Yeah. I I played As a sophomore in high school, I played on a state championship soccer team at Patrick High School. And but when you say played You need to that needs to be clarified. Um I was on the team. There wasn't much playing that sophomore year at all, really.
In fact, I only played that sophomore year when the game had already basically been decided. And sometimes it gets long on the bench over there. And if you've got a good soccer team and you're up by six goals, by that time, I mean, you're trying to be supportive and cheer the team on. Way to go, guys, you know, but you're kind of just at some point you're talking to other guys on the bench. And I remember the first time that Coach Osborne called me to go in the game.
We're up by about five or six, about three and a half minutes left. And so I'm going in. I was the human victory cigar on that deal. And He called them erike. I looked up at him like I done something wrong.
I was like. Why are you calling my name? He said, Alan, come on. And I realize he's calling me to put me in the game.
So I can remember the first time I go in, 10th grade. I'll go get in the game. And this game is now by this time it's got about three minutes left and we're up by about six. We can't lose. My presence does not matter one bit.
in that game. But I guarantee you There wasn't a boy on that team. Who ran faster, tried harder, or threw himself into that game more than I did for that three minutes. And it didn't even matter that I was in the game. And yet I still threw myself into it.
Why? I don't know. I was in the game. Yeah.
Just being in the game is more than enough to Sometimes, after a really long day, And I've been involved in something, and I've seen God move, and I've seen the Spirit be at work, and I've just been there. And you think about other things you could have done with your time and stuff like that. And people say, well, why do you want to do that? Why would you be in all that ministry? And why would you want to spend that?
And some days I just feel like. Cause I'm in the game. I mean, I get to see what God's doing up close. Even if I didn't matter, I I just want to be in the game. But there's something else inside of us, isn't there, that is designed.
To want to be in the game to want to contribute. That is built into us. And You see it in little kids. My nephew Jake, when he was a little boy, there was nothing that boy wanted to do more. that help you mow the lawn.
And we were babysitting. I can't remember how old he was, little guy. Maybe three or four. And And I had to go out in the middle of a hot July afternoon and mow the lawn. I'd waited too long, the grass is too high.
It's humid. Yellow jackets nipping around at my heels. The last thing I want to do is mow the lawn. Want to sit inside and Watch golf on TV, but I got to go out and mow the lawn. And I go out and I crank things up and I start mowing, and then I look, and there outside the front door, standing on the sideway, is little Jake.
And so I cut the mower off. And I went over and I said, Jade, what are you doing? He said, can I help you mow the lawn? And I was Like, this wouldn't be good if we're babysitting and he doesn't have every finger and toe left when we get back. And I said, no, Jake, I said, this is dangerous.
Uncle Alan needs to mow the lawn. And he said, God, please. And I said, well. And so he came over with the engine still off, and I let him just kind of hold it for a little bit. We just pushed it a little bit, but he's like, We're not mowing anything.
And. He said, please let me help you mow the lawn. I said, no, Jack, I said, but you say what, you stand up over there on the steps and you can watch me mow the lawn.
So I cranked it up. I took a couple passes and I glanced up there and there is a little boy sobbing as loud as a little boy could sob. I cut the engine off. I went over and I said, What is it, Jake? He said, I just want to help your mother alone, Uncle Alice.
Just for help to run along. I thought, what is wrong with this picture? And oh, I thought, oh, how I wish I could let you mow the lawn right now, but. One time, Bennett was, he wanted to help me. I was putting a couple of boards on the back deck at one of our houses many years ago.
That's a big project for me. You know, some of you guys, that'd be like comparable to like you building a whole garage is me, you know, getting a couple boards replaced.
So I had to concentrate on this. I got the circular saw out there. I just want to not chop off my own hand. And here's Bennett, little bitty Bennett, and he wants to help repair the deck. And finally, to appease him, I just took an old board, drilled some holes in it.
took his plastic nails and plastic hammer, put him over to the other side of the thing and let him, and I'd have to stop every so often, go over there and give him some more holes to nail in and stuff like that. And he was just, I mean, you know, having him as a helper was really slowing me down. Took me about five times as long with all that help. And while I was doing all of that, I felt the Spirit of God speak to me and. And that was the first day I saw myself as God's little helper.
I don't ever want to say God. Why have you given me so much to do? I just want to say thank you for letting me help. How empty life would be if we didn't get to live out a great destiny. We would run after some stupid thing of the flesh if we didn't have something of the spirit to sow our lives into.
So God is sovereign? He pours out His Holy Spirit into every believer's life. And Our Growing up in Jesus results the result of growing up in Jesus has come from all the sowing of our lives. in the spirit. And that's why God lets you go through things that you need to do.
He could do it for you. But he's not going to do it for you. Because he's growing you. into a victorious spirit-filled Christian.
So so I think of Bennett playing golf, who before he was born, you know, I started just kind of walking by his crib saying, You know, I mean Just in the room waiting for him to be more like, you know Mm-hmm. You're gonna love golf. Ah. Alan Wright. And I like that.
That's sowing and reaping. Why wouldn't everyone want the fruit of the spirit after all? Today's teaching and the series is filled. Hey, Alan's back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life. And a final word today.
This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is a special teaching called Five Ways to Pray in the Spirit. In this practical and uplifting guide, Pastor Alan shows five simple and biblical ways anyone can pray in the Spirit. you will discover how praying scripture aligns your heart with God. 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 877-477-777-777-7777. five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven. Five four four four four four four four four four four four four four. The same thing.
Or come to our website, pastorallan.org. Alan, for the person who's listening and just heard a few moments ago, you kind of touched on this. Today's message is a message of let go and let God, right? You know, when you sow. You reap what you sow.
And thus, when Paul says, sow into the Spirit and you'll read from the Spirit, it's a glorious good news invitation. That says that you're not under the law, but everything you do matters. And this really is the impetus for Choosing where you set your mind. Every thought is like a seed. Every word that you give.
um every minute that we spend in some way we're sewing all the time And we can sow the sinful nature or we can sow the Spirit. And either way, we're going to reap. And there's abundant, sweet fruit of those who sow into the Spirit. In your ministry, how have you seen people misunderstand the fruit of the Spirit?
Well, I don't think so much misunderstanding the fruit in the sense of, well, oh, someone would say, oh, I don't want love, joy, and peace in my life. Nobody really says that. I think what. I see in this uh much of the subject of this message is When Paul says, don't be deceived. You reap as you sow.
If you sow into the flesh, you sow into the sin nature. From that, you'll reap. And if you sow into the spirit, you reap. I think what the bigger issue for us is that we all want love, joy, and peace. But it's interesting that sometimes we'll sow to the things of the flesh instead.
You sow orange seeds, you're gonna get oranges, and you'll never get apples from orange seeds. And that's kind of what Paul is saying.
So it's not a, but it's a really good news message in this sense, Daniel, that. If you sow into the Spirit, you reap from the Spirit.
So we have, we don't live under law. But we do live by the principles of sowing and reaping, and it gives us opportunity to build our lives. around the habits of Sowing into the things of the gospel.
Sow in your heart and your thought, Lydia. in the things of the Spirit, and you'll reap from that. more and more fruit. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
