Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. You're safe in God's love. I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's Romans 8, 38 and 39.
So I bless your spirit to rejoice in the certainty, to revel in the expansiveness, to refuel in the gloriousness of such a mind-bending, too good to be true, but true proclamation. You are safe. In God's love, child of God. You are safe. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
If I'm entitled and the blessings that would come in and through me are only related to my ability to work hard or skill, then there's a great limit. but not if I'm living under the favor of God. And finally, I would say that it means, beloved, anyone. can be blessed by God. 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 Nehemiah, Dreamer, Builder, Warrior, 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. For a limited time, this can be yours for your donation to Allen Wright Ministries.
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More on this later in the program, but now let's get started with today's teaching. Here. is Pastor Alan Wright. Nehemiah. who was a dreamer and a builder, but he also had to be a warrior.
because there was so much opposition. And it's timely, this study. And I love it. And I want to continue today in the first chapter. where last week we saw his call.
and how he felt a burden. And how God gave him a vision of repairing the broken-down walls in Jerusalem. After the exile and people were beginning to be restored back to their homeland. And he got word. He was the cupbearer to the king, which put in a position that was a Hebrew servant who had been exiled.
He's in the royal palace of Persia. And he gets a call in his heart from God to go and rebuild. And he starts praying about it. He prays for many days. In fact, four months go by before he ever talks to the king about getting permission to leave and getting the king's blessing to go and getting provisions from the king.
And I want to just focus in on verse 11. This is all we're going to do today, is verse 11 of Nehemiah 1, this part of the prayer. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant. and to the prayer of your servants. who delight to fear your name.
and give success to your servant today. and grant him mercy they NIV, I think, has it better for this instance. Grant him favor. in the sight of this man.
Now I was cup bearer to the king.
Okay, dear family, are you ready for some good news? The old cliché is true where God guides, God provides. When God puts a sense of call, whether it be the simplest act of generosity and love towards a neighbor or towards some great new mission. Whatever God has called you to, He delights in showing you the kind of unmerited favor that it will take for his call to move forward. I want to talk to you about asking God for his favor.
We prayed this over our kids, and they came to learn to expect this type of. life where Maybe gifts that you didn't expect would come or doors might open. And I was just thinking of example when Bennett was little. He loved Legos. He still likes Legos.
But he had saved up his money to get a Lego kit. They're real expensive Lego kits. But he had saved his money up. We went into a Lego store and he brought his money up there and he bought this big box. And it's kind of a big deal.
And I was there standing with him. And we started to walk away. And the man behind the counter said, wait a minute. And he reached behind the counter and he got two other smaller boxes of Lego kits. He said, wait a minute.
He said, I want you to have these two. And just gave him these two boxes of Legos. And Bennett was wide-eyed. And he was like, thanks. And we're walking away.
And I just looked at the little boy. I said, you know what that was? He said, favor. And I said, exactly. I think that might be the most powerful prayer we ever prayed over our kids.
It doesn't guarantee that everything they do is going to be successful. But as we'll see today, what the prayer for favor does is it puts you into a posture of receiving grace. and expecting grace. And this is what Nehemiah needed. because Nehemiah would not be able to carry out this mission of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem unless he found favor in the eyes of the Persian king for whom he worked.
And that's why he prayed. Favor appears in several different Hebrew words in the Old Testament. The word that we have here. As the ESV translates is mercy, and the NIV is translated favor. It is a beautiful Hebrew word, rachem.
Rachem. And it means to love deeply, to have mercy, or to show favor. And interestingly, it comes from the Hebrew word for womb. Because it is so connected to the thought of a mother's bond with her baby. Like Isaiah 49, 15, where the Lord says, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast?
and have no rachem, no compassion, no favor on the child that she's born. Though she may forget, I will never forget you. He is, the Lord is taking the greatest earthly example that we could have. that a mother who is nursing her newborn And has only thoughts of the best, of the well-being and every good thing that she would want for her child, and cannot ignore the child's hunger. The Lord's saying, I'm like that, but there could be a scenario where there'd be an unhealthy, earthly mom who might forget, but I would never.
I can't, he's saying. The Lord says he is Rachem. He has favor towards us. Micah 7, 19. The prophet says, You will have mercy, Rachem.
on us again. You will conquer our sins. You will throw away all our sins into the deepest part of the sea.
So this word for favor is related to overcoming the problem of our sin. I'll be coming back to that. and instead giving us what we don't deserve, the blessing we don't deserve. There's no guarantee of Rachem. There's not an entitlement.
We'll talk more about that.
So instead, it comes as something that is unmerited. And maybe the best example of the use of this word in the Old Testament is in the story of Joseph. If you know the story, Joseph is the youngest of all these brothers. and he's favored by his father. And the older brothers, therefore, are jealous, and they sell him into slavery.
And there in Egypt, he's falsely accused. and he's thrown him to prison. Jacob, his father, thinks that Joseph is dead. The brothers presume probably he's dead or forever gone. But Joseph, by the providence of God, is raised up to second in command of Egypt, by the favor of God.
And he rules wisely, having seen prophetically. that there'll be seven years of of great harvest and then seven years of of drought and famine.
So he leads Egypt into storing up grain during that seven years, and when the big famine comes, as he had prophesied. They're the only place where you could find food, and so Joseph's own brothers have to come to Egypt looking for food and in this ironic and moving scene. They meet Joseph but don't know he's Joseph. They could never imagine such. That's Alan Wright.
and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever wonder why little children wish they didn't have to go to bed and adults look forward to it? Ever notice how children see mealtime as an intrusion in the midst of a fun day, but adults see mealtime as the most fun part of the day? What happened on the path to adulthood that robbed us of the simple freedom and wonder on display in a child's heart? If you've ever longed to be a child again, here's good news.
You can. When Jesus told his disciples that the greatest in the kingdom were the little children, he was pointing to a huge spiritual truth. The abundant life is on display in the simple faith of little children. When you make your generous gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's timeless book, A Childlike Heart, as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call or visit us online today to make your gift and get your copy of A Childlike Heart.
The freedom and wonder of childhood awaits you.
Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. 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. In that encounter, Joseph learns that he now has a baby brother named Benjamin, who was born to Joseph's same mother, Rachel. And he doesn't, he's so glad to see his brothers, and he has so much grace towards them, but he wants to test them.
So he holds back one of the brothers, Simeon. And he says, go back to your father. and tell them that I want you to come back here. with Benjamin. Otherwise you won't get semium back.
He goes back and they tell Jacob about this, and Jacob is so grieved. He's like, I've lost first my son Joseph, who he presumes dead, and now Simeon's gone. And you want me to send my beloved Benjamin? He said, I can't do it. but eventually becomes convinced that there is no other way.
He'll never get Simeon back. and you'll never have food. And Lesie risks this. And I tell all this to set up Genesis 43, 13, where you can see this word rachem, favor, that gets used. And take Benjamin with you, Jacob said.
Now leave and go to the man. And here's his prayer, verse 14. Jacob says, I pray that God Almighty will cause the governor. to be merciful. That is to show Rachem.
It could be translated to show favor to you. And that he will allow Simeon and Benjamin to come back with you. If I'm robbed of my children, then I'm robbed of them. You can hear the pathos and the emotion, the desperation in the father's heart. that says it's boiled down to this.
Either you find favor with this man, and my children are restored to me, and we do not starve. or I am bereft of my children and we have no provision.
So go. And I pray for favor. It's is the epitome of the favor prayer. I have no other pathway. And Nehemiah is in a similar position with King Artaxerxes, the Persian king.
Nehemiah is the cupbearer.
So he's exiled along with most of the people when the king of Babylon sacked Jerusalem in 586 BC. And people were deported, most of them, to Babylon. And Somehow, Nehemiah, we're not told how, becomes cupbearer, which is, though he is a servant, a slave really. He is in an honored position of access to the very emperor of the empire. And as the taste tester of his beverages and constantly coming and going in the royal court, he had access to the king.
And Nehemiah has a burden that won't go away once he heard the walls of Jerusalem were down. And he had a sense of call that grew over a period of days that turned into months in which he wept and he fasted and he prayed. And so we saw the anatomy of a call last week, and now he is contemplating going to the king, and he knows there is no other way except Rachem. Unless the king has kindness, mercy, and favor, is inclined towards him. It will never happen.
Some scholars say it was dangerous for Nehemiah to approach a king with such a request. If he had not been met with favor, it could have been not only the end of his job, it could have meant banishment, it could have meant execution. There is a beauty and a power. And a transformational quality when you orient yourself and pray for favor. Because in the first place, If you view life like this, And you see grace like this from God.
It eliminates entitlement mentalities. I'll have more to say about this at a deeper level. But The idea that I am somehow entitled to something. from God. are entitled to this.
is a law and work mentality. and it breeds resentment. For any time you think you're entitled to something and you don't get it, then you're bitter about it. And bitterness, the writer of Hebrews says, springs up in the heart and defiles. not only us, but many others.
So if there's something that eliminates entitlement thinking in our mind, it's beautiful and powerful to us. Secondly, part of the reason I encourage you to pray for favor is that when you do and you see favor come in your life, you're on the lookout for it and you become grateful. The opposite of an entitlement mentality is a gratitude mentality. Gratitude says I didn't deserve it. I didn't earn it.
I couldn't have made it happen, but God did it. And he did it in this way and through these people, and I'm so thankful. and the thankful person is the joyful person. And we've seen so often, as we've talked about, the link between gratitude and joy.
So, praying for favor will eliminate you thinking like an entitled person. It'll make you grateful. And it'll also make you humble. like Nehemiah was. Because you know, if it's not about your own merit or your own ability.
which is the very thing that you're acknowledging when you pray for favor. It keeps you humble. And fourthly, it fills you with an outlandish faith for the improbable. that our minds would say might be impossible. But if life and the very best gifts come to us from God, not because we're entitled or deserve them, but because He's favored towards us, He's gracious towards us.
If it's his grace and his good hand that brings the gifts, What is impossible? Nothing. If I'm entitled and the blessings that would come in and through me are only related to my ability to work hard or skill, then there's a great limit. but not if I'm living under the favor of God. And finally, I would say that it means, beloved, anyone Can be blessed by God.
This is not for The spiritually elite, or the most educated, or the most prominent, what we see over and over. Is it because of the favor of God, He can open up a door at any time for anybody that He wants to? It is an odd thing in many ways. to see this theme of favor. Because it stands in such contrast to something that runs throughout all of our consciousness, and that is that we really value fairness.
We were at the beach the other week and the older, the grandparents, went out for a dinner date together and we had a good time. And the young mothers and the young women, cousin to the mothers, they went out for a ladies' night, which the ladies hadn't had, and they left back these two dads with the babies. to babysit. and the women went in and had their night out and the grandparents had their night away. And we got back about 10 p.m.
and walked in. The baby's of course long been in bed and there are the two dads watching a movie. And I was the first one in and they put it on pause and I looked at it and I recognized this movie and I had never seen that, I don't think, but I just started laughing because I knew what it was all about. And I said, we hadn't been gone but a few hours. And you guys have popped in a movie that your wives would never watch, hadn't you?
And they started laughing sheepishly. It was one of those revenge movies where the good guy goes and kills all the bad guys because of what the bad guys had done. And I said, well, what happened here to make the good guy want to kill all the bad guys? And they said, well, the problem was, first place, they stole his car. And they didn't realize when they were stealing it, the Russian mafia stole this car, that this is a former skilled assassin from whom they stole the car.
This is how these movies go, you know, like they didn't know this guy had special skills and stole his car. And I said, but he's going, he's wiping out the whole Russian mob just because they stole his car. He said, no, that wasn't it. He said, when they were stealing his car, they killed his dog. And his dog had been given to him by his wife, who died a year ago of cancer.
Well, that's it. Yeah. You kill a dog, that's it. Go after, wipe them out, kill them all.
Now, the whole movie, the whole rest of the movie, is nothing about revenge against the dog killer. And until you finally get, you have to kill a million people until you get to the one guy that killed the dog, you know. And it's like, and men like these movies: kill it, wipe them out, do it, wipe them out. And, like, why would anybody want these things? I'll tell you why.
It's because We yearn for fairness. We long for justice. Why? Because the world was founded by a just God. Justice means that good is rewarded and evil is punished.
And we want that.
So we'll watch a movie that's nothing about anything other than that. I mean, It's just that. Go kill all the people. because they did a bad thing. Yeah, but he was an assassin.
Yeah, but that's not as bad as killing a dog.
So, and so why? Do we feel this way? It's because there is an invisible law of right and wrong woven into the fabric of this world. Pastor Alan Wright in our good news message, praying for favor in the series, Nehemiah. 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 to click away at pastoralen.org.
Ever wish you could be a child again? Ever long for the simpler days when your biggest financial worry was counting the money in the shoebox of the lemonade stand? Ever long for the more carefree times when you wish the long summer days would never end? If you've ever longed to be like a child again, author Alan Wright has some good news. You can.
Because Jesus commanded us to become like little children in order to enter the kingdom, it must be possible. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you a copy of the first book Alan Wright authored. It's called A Childlike Heart, and it will lead you once again into the freedom and wonder of childhood. If you long for fresh, childlike faith, Alan's book will help you find adventure and joy in your grown-up walk. And remember, when you make a gift, you're broadcasting the love of God to thousands of people every day.
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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. Pastor Alan, this is a bookmark here on this teaching for today, praying for favor as we continue our study in Nehemiah. I love this prayer from Nehemiah love it.
to boldly, expectantly. Ask God for favor. when he is going to meet with Keen Artaxerxes. and ask for the grace. And the permission to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that were in ruins.
It is a pointing to towards the whole theme. of unmerited favor. That runs throughout the whole story of the Bible, the whole big story. is a story of we who did not deserve God's favor instead have received it through Christ. And so If you think that Nehemiah was in a position to ask for favor, how much more are we?
So, we've got a lot to learn here. It's really important. I suggest it's something you pray over your own life. You pray over your children's life. You pray over your spouse and over your friends and even your workplace because.
The favor of God can open doors that no amount of human skill or initiative ever could, and that's what happened to Nehemiah. 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.
