Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. I bless you today to believe for 1% improvement. Mistake me not. I do bless you to dream big for great conquests of vast promised lands. It's just that well Big territories are acquired little by little.
Little by little I will drive them out from before you, said the Lord to his people, when he promised them Canaan and Exodus 23, verse 30. It's great news. Because it's a whole lot easier to have faith for 1%. than for the whole kitten caboodle. It's hard to imagine having the patience of Job, but I bet you could see yourself 1% more long-suffering.
If it's hard to envision losing 100 pounds, I bet you could find confidence to lose one pound. 1% today. And believe for 1% tomorrow, 1% the next day, and soon. You'll have conquered all of Canaan. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
Every page of the Bible, wherever you are, you need to know where you are in the story. But in one way or another, that story is this: of what God has done so that you could be loved. 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. the whole of the Christian life is a process of ever attuning your heart.
to God's presence. that we not be ignorant of his manifold blessings. For if we have, even as Christians, no real interest in being close to his heart. then we can live like an orphan though we're an heir. And one way of understanding Christian growth is the process wherein people who were once spiritual orphans, not having God as Father, but now having been adopted and proclaimed as an heir, discovered daily who they are as a beloved child of God.
In other words, one way of understanding Christian maturity is that We live loved. We don't live as though we have no father. We don't live as though we have a father. who is limited or gone from the scene. We live like I'm a child.
of a father who has everything. and has unlimited love for me. That's where life becomes a dance. and you quit pushing people.
Now look back at the first part of our passage, verse 15. If you love me. You'll keep my commandments. I'll ask the father. He'll give you another helper.
God wants to help. To be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. God wants to teach. Whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him. For he dwells with you and will be in you.
When the Holy Spirit comes... You'll know it is I. The New Testament calls the Holy Spirit variously the Spirit of Jesus or the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And Jesus called him the helper, the parakletos, the one who comes alongside to help you and advocate for you. I'll be coming to you spiritually.
And you'll know. That it's I, when you receive the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And you'll know. More than you ever have known.
The more that you're filled with the Holy Spirit, the more you'll know you're my child. you'll know you belong. Paul Who By the unction of the Holy Spirit, understood this maybe better than anybody other than Jesus that ever lived, said in Romans 8:15, you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. but you receive the spirit of adoption. as sons.
by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Abba is the Aramaic, it's a Middle Eastern way of saying dada. It's why I recommended my grandfather's name to be. Grand Abba, and it became Daba for short because it's easy to say. That's why we dad da or ah ba, or it's like ma ma dad da ah ba.
And Paul saying, we call God Abba. Da da. This is how intimate the holy creator of the cosmos. wants to be with his children. You've not received a spirit of slavery that leads you back into fear, but a spirit of adoption.
Realizing that you're not an orphan because you're filled with the Holy Spirit is the antidote to fear. Nobody becomes unafraid because we say you ought not be afraid. They become unafraid when they know that they're secure. This is what happens when you grow into the love of God. And he says in verse 15: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Now, see the rhythm? See the order? Love, then commandment. Be loved, receive love, fall in love with God, and then you'll live rightly. All godly living, which God wants.
All holy and right and pure and courageous living, which God wants, flows out of a love relationship with God. And any time this gets backwards, And we think That we're going to earn more love from God by our obedience, and we put our obedience in front of love. If we're going to get love because we're obedient, then everything goes badly. If you live that way, that's orphan thinking. Um If you live that way.
It says I I I if I will be better I'll be a better boy or girl. Then maybe dad will love me more. It'll do one of two things. It will either exhaust you. Because at some point you realize I k I I keep messing up.
And if I think my father's disappointed every time I mess up, then I just don't know if I can do this, and you'll become exhausted or. You'll just go. I I'm not even going to try this, and you rebel. As one of my mentor Dudley Hall told me decades ago, there were two primary evil spirits. Two primary ways of demonic being that fought against Jesus all the time: the spirit of religion and the spirit of rebellion.
I don't think the devil cares which way He tries to take you out. One is weariness. of trying, trying, trying. And the other is waywardness. But either way, we get farther from the Father's heart.
And what he wants is to fill us with his love.
So you are not thinking like an orphan at all. You start thinking like an heir.
So all Obedience flows out of love. Law never makes orphans become heirs. Law, shame, and fear entrench the orphan heart. and to deeper insecurity. Jesus is saying, I'm going to empower you.
By my love. to keep my commandments. He does want us to keep the commandments. You won't see me, but then you'll see me. And because I live, you'll live.
Your sense of life and joy and hope will flow from my resurrection reality. I'm alive. You'll know it. Whether you're seeing me in the flesh or not won't matter because I'm going to be very real to you in the person of the Holy Spirit. Believe you're loved.
so that you can live as though you're loved and then you can give away love. This is what the rhythm looks like of Christian growth. 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 14-17, 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 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.
Now, look at the end section of this, John 14:20. In that day, you'll know that I'm in the Father. And you and me, and I and you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
So now it's like you're just looking on the other side. It says you can recognize this that one day you go, you know, I just feel like... I just feel like doing everything God said to do, because it's just, it's just, I just love him so much. And I just don't feel the same need to covet. I don't feel the same.
I don't feel the same, I don't feel like pushing anybody today. And what's happened here? He's saying.
So when you see that. You'll know it's a mark. That you've been experiencing my love. He's describing it from the opposite side. When you experience secure attachment to the Father's love, here's what it looks like: you won't feel alone.
You won't be alone. You'll know that you belong. You'll be in the family. You'll have God as your father. And through that experience, you will continue to grow.
And it'll look a whole lot like obedience. It doesn't mean that you won't be tempted. It doesn't mean that you won't ever sin again. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have bad days. But you won't live like an orphan who is constantly grabbing and constantly insecure.
I have a dear friend who adopted a son from Central America. He had been really traumatized as a little boy, and I think he was two when they got him. One of the things a lot of orphans will do is they'll just hoard their toys in because in the orphanages they often have to share all their stuff. And so, you know, it's just like that. And they had given this little boy some toy cars and trucks, and he loved them.
He would play with them all during the day. And one day, the dad was looking in the boy's room trying to find those trucks and those cars. He couldn't find them anywhere. And he's looking around and said, where are those things gone? He loves them.
I hate for them to be lost. And finally, he turned the whole room upside down. And he finally looked under the mattress, way back underneath where the little cards. There's nobody else in the house to take them. It was his own room.
And yet, you see, that feeling is like, I've got to hide this away. I've got to hold on to everything instead of I can live free. And my father, if these go away, there'll be some more provision along the way. He's describing How we grow. into freedom.
and joy and obedience. It's to say If you're being disobedient. I don't think you need more law. I think you need more gospel. It's not that God endorses anything that's wrong, and we need to stand against evil.
But if I'm struggling in an area of sand. The way to conquering it is not likely to be somebody telling me I'm bad and I need to try harder and put more law over me. It is to help me understand that I'm a child of God. The gospel The Bible says, is the power of God unto salvation. the proclamation of the gospel.
The saturating our very being with the good news of what God's done for us in Jesus Christ brings about a faith inside of us that wakens us up to the fatherhood of God. And for the Christian, it means we're waking up every day to who we are in God. It means that when you feel the propensity to sin, It's not going to be great self-will that gets you out of it. It's going to be instead. and awareness of the love of God.
that the best thing you could do when you're trying to conquer your besetting sin. is not say to yourself, I'm a terrible sinner, but to say to yourself, I'm not an orphan. I am a child of God. My father has everything. And he limits nothing from me and has blessed me with every spiritual blessing.
And I'm his and he is mine and I belong. him and I might be going through a hard moment right now. I'm saying preach to yourself like that. Because we're all going to have hard days. Most of our wrong living stems from anxiety, which is to say, insecurity.
And it's perfect love that casts out fear. God, bring your love into our hearts. Until we let go of religiosity and rebellion, because we don't want to be disconnected from love, because we're We are either weary or worried when we are, and that's when we're at our worst. Uh So the whole of the Bible. is one big story.
It's not, a lot of people misunderstand. The Bible is not primarily an instruction book. It's got lots of instructions. It's got lots of good counsel and advice. But it's not primarily that.
It is one big story of God's redemptive love.
So every page of the Bible, wherever you are, you need to know where you are in the story. But in one way or another, that story is this: of what God has done so that you. could be loved. you could be adopted. And then you could live lobbed.
So that you could give love. In the beginning, this is what God had: He had a son. He had a daughter. He walked with Adam and Eve in the coolness of the morning with such intimacy that they were just close like just son and daughter and dada. in perfect paradise.
Sin immediately brought a crushing distance between humanity and God. Shame brings isolation. The breeding ground of sin, despair, and anxiety is isolation. And this has been what's happened to humanity: is God, who had a son, suddenly. The son acted like an orphan and gave up the position of sonship and lived like one who needed to grab or do and ate from the one forbidden tree.
But God was relentless. He had a plan. He would have another son. He's a father who wants to adopt.
So he called up a man named Abram out of the Urd of the Chaldees, and he said, I'm going to make you the father of a nation. And at first Abram and Sarah were full of faith, but even they, when the promise tarried for a while, they brought in a maidservant, Hagar, to have a son in the natural way. And that son was Ishmael. The Bible says it was a wild donkey of a man. And eventually Sarah said, put him out of the house, and he was like an orphan.
For the real son of promise, Isaac, was to come supernaturally. And by God's grace, it's all God's adopting grace that flows. And so the people are emerging from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And they become a great multitude who are enslaved in Egypt, but God has adopted them. And so he brings them out with a mighty outstretched hand by the power of the blood of the Passover lamb.
And he sets them free. And he tells them to conquer a new land, but they're too afraid. And they act like orphans over and over again. If God seems a little distant, if Moses is gone too long, throw some gold into the fire and make a calf. It's a story.
Do you see this? Of God, who's one who adopts, and people who keep living like orphans, but God is relentless in his love. And so he came in the fullness of time as the only begotten Son of the Father. Jesus lived the perfect and sinless life. He was the Son who never disobeyed because he had a perfect, loving connection with the Father.
There never was any moment in which that was broken. And he came for this purpose, not just to show us what real sonship looks like, not just to show us what the Father looks like, but so there would be a moment in which he would hang on a cross, and the one who knew nothing but his father's affection would be given over to a moment of experiencing the curse of the world and the sin of the world and cry out, Eli, Eli Samatanai. My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? What is this?
that I'm feeling this crushing. Sense of separation from the Father. And he felt it, and he took it, and he took the sin into his being, and he took the curse so that anyone who trusts in him would have a right to become a child of God and be adopted by God. God is a father who sees you from a distance and wants to adopt you and have you belong so that he can love you, so that he can give you joy, so he can help you, so you can be in the family forever. And all of the Christian life is growing into an awareness of that.
You are the children of God. You are the ones who have been loved by God, adopted by God. This is your security. This is your ticket to freedom. This is your pathway to obedience.
Beloved, you are orphans no more. And that's the gospel. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message titled Orphans No More from the series Abide. Stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in just a moment with a parting good news thought for the day.
Stick with us. 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.
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 14-17, 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 877-544-455. 4860. That's 877-544-4860.
Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of our teaching, Orphans No More. And that just goes with the encouragement that you're a child of the king, so stop acting like an orphan. Yeah. We are the children of God.
We are heirs. We are orphans no more. We are heirs and it means that there's no lack in our father. We are heirs and it means that we are assured of a place in the Father's heart and the father's home. And when we are feeling like orphans, that's when we're grabbing for earthly security.
And I just want to reassure our listeners today, you're not an orphan in Christ. You are an heir. Yeah. 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.
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