Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. I bless the ruins of your life. to become the hill upon which your tomorrow is built, higher and better. Yesterday's over. But the rubble of your past need not be wasted.
This is what the Lord says, Jeremiah: I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents. And have compassion on his dwellings, the city. will be rebuilt on her ruins. Jeremiah 30, 18. God is not blind to your losses.
He is not deaf to your cries. He is moved with unquenchable compassion on your behalf. He is a restorer. a master renovator. who can incorporate every broken fragment of yesteryear into the foundation of a new Higher place for you to dwell.
Like the ancient cities rebuilt upon the ruins of former days. Your adversities have become clay in God's hands. He is molding a mountain out of your mistakes.
So you can live atop it in a whole new Perspective. That's today's blessing. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. You have in the kingdom of God a secret that the people in darkness do not have. And the whole mission of the body of Christ is to tell people that you can come out of the kingdom of darkness and you can become qualified for an inheritance in the saints of the kingdom of light, of the kingdom of God's own beloved Son.
We have a glorious, glorious announcement to tell the world. 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 called Daniel, 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. 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. Contact us at 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. Luke 16. The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John.
Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached. You just can't say it any plainer than that, can you? That is what is being proclaimed. everything leading up to the inauguration That Jesus Christ brought as he began announcing the kingdom of God is at hand. Everything had been announced before that, the law and the prophets were being proclaimed until John, but since then, it's the kingdom of God.
Everything that the people of God had always been anticipating, all of it, was coming to pass in the person of Jesus. Luke 9, when Jesus had called the twelve together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God. Go out and minister, he's saying, in the name of Jesus, and let people be healed, and let people be delivered from evil, and then preach to them this good news. The kingdom of God is here. That's what they were announcing.
And then Acts 28, here's a great text that tells us again: two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance, he preached the kingdom of God. Even when Jesus was warning the Pharisees. And he said, Woe to them. In Matthew 23, woe to you, Pharisees, you shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces.
You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. He brought little children, and he said, This is your example. Unless you become like a little child, you're not entering the kingdom of heaven. He said elsewhere, he said, If you see by the finger of God that demons are being cast out, you will know that the kingdom of God is at hand. Over and over and over, you see, what we're saying is that the message of the good news, of the gospel, of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not simply a message that says how you can be saved.
And it's definitely not a message that just tells you how you can have a better life. It is a message that is announcing the reality of an invisible empire that is growing and advancing and is real and unshakable and cannot be stopped and will take over everything until the day that is consummated, and God makes a new heaven and a new earth, and we reign with Christ forevermore. That's what we're announcing. See, we make our gospel too small. We make it too small.
Listen, I want to. I believe we should talk about how you can. have a better quiet time and How you can become more forgiving and You know, s be a better parent. I mean all that's really important, but Can you understand why, when I get up here with the Word of God and we got a world in darkness, that I got to do something more than just tell everybody that you can have a little bit better life if you'll just accept Jesus? Yeah.
I love the way Juan Ortiz put this years ago. Juan Ortiz, he was something else. And he. He said, you know, he said, the way that we talk about Jesus... We talk about, you know, have you accepted Jesus?
And we talk about Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart. Would somebody please let them in? Like poor Jesus standing out in the cold. Just hoping somebody will have some mercy on him and let him into his heart. Let somebody let him come in.
Y'all. Y'all, we got something bigger than that. We got an announcement of a kingdom. It's not just a message about you having a little mercy on Jesus and Him accepting you. It's a message about Jesus dying for you to have mercy on you so he could accept you.
It's an invitation for you to come into the kingdom of the glorious light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. It's big. Yeah, everything. What kingdom means literally is kings Domain.
It's short for king. and domain. You put those two words together, you get kingdom.
Now, a domain is hard for us to understand because thankfully we hadn't had to live under tyranny or live where one person gets to make all the decisions. But when I first discovered what kingdom actually meant, it was just right after everything on the internet was starting to become popular, and people were, you know, you could go out, and it was a neat, cool thing, you could go out and get a domain name.
So I just ran out there and got alanwright.org. I mean, you know. You can go out there and get it. You can get it right today. You could get you a domain for.
A few bucks, and you own you a domain. And it's a pretty cool thing. And that domain. In that domain. You are sovereign.
Yeah. Yeah. If you want to, you can just don't even let anybody know about your domain and don't put anything on it. It's still yours. Or you can open it up and you can have Millions.
or even billions of people, they could come into your domain. But while they're there, they got to do what you allow them to do. And now you can give somebody a passcode and a different level of authority within your domain, but it's your domain. See the idea of a kingdom Is basically the kingdom is defined by the fact that there's a king. It's not really about a physical location.
Even though earthly kingdoms have boundaries, It's really more about sovereignty.
So, what Jesus is saying when he's announcing the kingdom of God is, he's announcing the king. in all of his glory. The kingdom of God is the invisible realm. over which God is absolutely and completely sovereign. And what this means is that when you come into the kingdom of God, That you come in on God's terms.
There is no merging of the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of God is God's. Kingdom. And when you're moving and living in that kingdom, then It's all by his leadership, and he has authorized you in that kingdom, Christians. He's authorized you for more than you realize.
Yeah, a lot. We're ambassadors in this and and and we're We have an unbelievable authorization from him in the way in which we announce the reality of that kingdom. And So the rock crushes the idolatrous image. and makes it clear The plan is for the kingdoms of this world and the false ideologies of this world to ultimately be smashed into complete smithereens. It's not a very sophisticated word, but it sounded good.
Didn't just smash into smithereens. But that's what this is an image of. What it's saying is that this rock doesn't come. And just kind of merge into the statue and become part of it, you got two completely separate kingdoms. They are just as separate as light is from darkness.
And just as more powerful as light is than darkness, so much more powerful is the kingdom of God than the kingdoms of this world. Every time that light shines, It dispels darkness. But there is no such thing as shining a beam of darkness into a bright room and making it darker. C.S. Lewis.
He articulates this so well in the great divorce. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the center. Let me pause there. That statement from C.S. Lewis Stands in abject contrast to the spirit of this age.
The ideology of this age Is that it's like a big wheel, and there are different spokes, and we're all just coming in by the.
Now that ideology is either right or wrong.
Now listen to what C.S. Lewis says about it. He says It is not like that. Rather, We're living in a world where every road after a few miles forks into two. and each of those into two again.
And each fork, you must make a decision. I do not think, he writes, that all who choose wrong roads perish. But their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum. Like a math problem, he's talking about.
A wrong sum. can be put right. But only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point. Never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into good.
Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound bit by bit. If we insist on keeping hell, we shall not see heaven. If we accept heaven, we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs. of hell.
In other words, We are citizens of the kingdom of God. and we live in the world in various nations. It's a remarkable thing that in about a hundred years after Jesus' death and resurrection. We found this Uh Really, first example of what we call Christian apologetics, an explanation and defense of what Christians believe. It was from a disciple.
It was just an epistle. from mathetes, which just means disciple. to someone named Diognetus. And the famous letter of Diognetus includes these words: just marvel with me. At this description, this is about 130 AD.
For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own. They do not use a peculiar form of speech. They do not follow an eccentric manner of life. That although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, is each man's lot has been cast and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living.
At the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries But only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry like everyone else and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring.
They shared their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It's true that they are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws. but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.
They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They're unknown and still condemned. They're put to death and yet they are brought to life. They are poor and yet they make many rich. They may be destitute, but they enjoy complete abundance.
They're dishonored. And yet in their very dishonor They are glorified. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers, undergoing punishment, yet they rejoice because they are brought. to life. Yeah.
Yeah. It'll save you Enormous Angst. If you will accept That you are already a citizen of the kingdom of God. But the fullness of that kingdom is not yet consummated. And so you still live in the world.
This goes far to explain why Jesus could say, In this world you'll have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world. The image is of this little rock. That destroys the great statues symbolizing the empires of the world.
Symbolizing the wickedness of the world and the false ideologies of the world. And yet that little rock starts growing and growing and growing. Until there's this mountain and it takes over everything. It is for us. Great And wonderful good news.
Because it means that the kingdom Of which we are a citizen, Will never be defeated.
So do not be despaired. Do not be despaired. Grieve. Pray. Work hard.
Speak out. Do as the Lord leads you, to do good in this world. But Do not despair. We are citizens. of an unshakable kingdom.
It is to say that We have been granted much, much authority. in this kingdom, and we need to appreciate it and know it. There are authorities that, because we're also citizens of the world, we don't have fully. There are some authorities you do not have. Let's be honest about it.
You do not have the capability Of rebuking all trouble or suffering so as to escape the persecutions that come for the citizens of the kingdom of this world. There are many days I wish that we could. But we we can't. You can't you can't You can't just Rebuke And say, I'm not going to have any trouble ever come in my life. That's contrary to what Jesus said, and we're not given that authority, are we?
No. We're not. Even Paul. Who was being persecuted by a demon all the time. Everywhere he went, there was some strong demon that was persecuting him.
He called it a thorn. And he asked God to take away the thorn. And God said, No, even though you may be the greatest man of God on the earth, God's saying, You do not get a free ticket out of the challenges of living in the spiritual battle in this world. As long as we're on this earth and until Jesus comes back, there's a spiritual battle going on. And there's going to be some suffering in it.
There's going to be some trouble. There's going to be some persecution. And we have an amazing authority that we walk in. But just saying, well, become a Christian and everything's going to be great, that's just not true. We don't have that authority.
And there is also, I need to say, I need to just say this: that there is an authority that sometimes people try to exercise we don't really have. And that, I'm not going to say much about it, but just to say this: that while we have authority over evil, it is not our call to be trying to do warfare in the heavenly realms rather than the earthly realms. And there's scriptures about this, like 2 Peter chapter 2. We don't we don't We don't have anything to be afraid of, of the powers of evil, not one single thing, because we have been granted authority over evil. But God has angels in the heavenlies that are doing the heavenly battle.
We're here on the earth, citizens of heaven, but on this earth, that's our battleground. And one other thing to mention that before I tell you and celebrate with you some of the things that we do have authority over, but one other thing that we don't have authority over, and that is we don't have dominion over another human will. We don't. We don't. So as much as is possible, live with peace with all people.
You're not going to control somebody else's will, no matter how badly they're doing it.
Now, there are laws in the land, and thank God that we've got good laws of the land that sometimes somebody needs to be restrained, put behind bars, or whatever, and we use the laws of the land, but it is not within your capacity to constrain the will of somebody else. And this maybe hurts more than anything else in life because if it's your own son, or your own daughter, or your own friend, or your own spouse, and they've been caught up in the kingdom of darkness, it is the greatest trouble to the soul, isn't it? And we wish we could just somehow just claim them. Don't you just wish that at times you could just say, just let me shake you, just let me just show you. Can't you just see this?
Let me just, and instead, what we're invited to do, people of God, is to know who we are as the people of God and intercede and ask God and believe God and trust God and love people and bless people. You've got authority to bless people. You've got authority to announce blessing over people's lives. And you've got authority to rule your own thoughts, emotions, and your flesh by the Spirit. Of God who lives within you, communing with your own spirit.
The spirit's will in the flesh is weak, but we can take every captive, every thought captive, and make it obedient to Christ. And you do have the authority to bind and rebuke and repel darkness. Jesus gave this authority to his disciples, and he gave it to us. And I tell you what you've got most of all, beloved, you've got an authority in the kingdom of God to enjoy intimate, holy, joyful fellowship in the presence of God who's always with you. I'm telling you, nobody could ever take this away from you.
Nobody could ever take this away from you. They could put you in prison and they can't take away the fellowship that you could have with God. Nobody could take away your capacity to be able to rejoice in the Lord. Behold, forevermore. Rejoice in Him.
Rejoice in Him always, because you have in the kingdom of God a secret that the people in darkness do not have. And the whole mission of the body of Christ is to tell people that you can come out of the kingdom of darkness and you can become qualified for an inheritance in the saints of the kingdom of light, of the kingdom of God's own beloved Son. We have a glorious, glorious announcement to tell the world. So let's live at peace with people. Let's love people.
Let's bless people. And let's remember: we're citizens of another kingdom, and nobody's going to ever remove your citizenship from you. It is yours forevermore, and that is the gospel. Amen? Poor Decard.
Alan Wright. And today's teaching, the good news of the kingdom of God. 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.
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We've heard a lot about labels versus names. We've learned that it's our standing in Christ that gives us this status of being greatly blessed and highly favored. Our identity is the sons and daughters. And now we're talking about kingdom, a different kingdom, not of this world. It's so, so, so important, Daniel, that we realize no matter what is going on in the kingdom of this world.
Of which we are an earthly citizen, that our true citizenship is of another kingdom. And in that kingdom, We in Christ are the head, not the tail. And in that kingdom, we are destined to one day rule with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth. And so we live in this sort of paradox in which the worldly kingdom may not recognize us at all, but in the heavenly kingdom, we are already positioned with Christ. And I think that when we can live with that sense, we'll live with tremendous victory, even in the midst of great difficulties.
Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan White Ministries.
