Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. God gave Adam and Eve his blessing. To be fruitful. to multiply. to rule.
And to name the animals. Sinless humanity had authentic discernment. To call an elephant an elephant. to see what something is in its essence. When we don't know another's essence, we label them wrongly.
But when we see with redeemed eyes, We know who someone is.
So I bless you, redeemed child of God. to see into the truth of things. to know another's God-given identity. to walk not by fleshly sight. but by faith-filled heart-eyes, and to name your world.
Accurately, pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. While he hung on the cross, Jesus just remembered the day of his baptism, for he remembered what his father had called him, my son, in whom I'm well pleased. Beloved, discard all of the names of the enemy empire and hear your father's name for you, son, daughter, in whom through Christ He is well pleased. 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.
God had given To man, this command to subdue the earth, to become the steward over the earth. God is the creator and God owns it all, but he created humanity in his own image. We are made of God. And he put us on this earth to exercise stewardship over everything on this earth, to subdue it and have it all be under our oversight as we are under God. And as part of this, He gave Adam the right to name the animals.
It's kind of interesting. It was like Adam in his In his sinless state Was able to see into the real essence. of all things.
So he called them what they were. Pictured as just a random assigning of funny names. It's something about, I know that's an elephant, and I'm going to call it an elephant. whatever words he was using. It was a delegated authority of power.
to name something. The capacity to see into the nature of what someone. Or something really is, and call it what it is, is essential for all wisdom and effectiveness in life. If you can't see what or who something or someone really is, then you don't know how to be a steward over it. If I were to go to the hospital and some nurse recognized me and said, Oh, Pastor said, I'm glad you're here because there's a family over here that is going through a very difficult time.
They really need somebody to pray and minister with them. I would say, Thank you. Yes, I'm there. I'm with them. Thanks for letting me know.
But if a nurse approached me and had me confused and came up to me and said, Doctor, doctor, I'm glad you're here. This man needs emergency surgery, then we'd have a real problem on our hands. You need to know who somebody is. and be able to call them for who they are. Because if you call me doctor, you're missing who I really am.
And if you call me pastor, then I walk right into that. If you don't know the right name of something, your ability to subdue and steward is limited, and you are made powerless. It's frustrating. It's it's it's uh unwise and it's It's dangerous when we call something by the wrong name. What Romans chapter 1 is really all about.
Is about with The power of sin at work in the world. People no longer knew The proper way to call God, they didn't know who God was, and therefore, what Romans 1 is describing is they didn't know. How to name anything else? Such that You start calling that which is good bad, and that which is bad good. And there is so much confusion because people don't know how to name something.
And judgmentalism arises when we don't name something properly. And we assign wrong names and we expect other people to act like what we've called them, but we don't know the essence. And so, part of the promise. God to us when we become Christians. Part of your inheritance, the scripture says, you are in Christ and you therefore are led by the Spirit of God Himself.
You have pulsating within your own being the very heart of God. You have, the Bible says, the mind of Christ. And therefore, part of your inheritance is what is being restored to you, is the capacity to see things for what they really are. You can name the animals. But Nebuchadnezzar couldn't name anything properly.
And all of Babylon had no idea how to name Daniel because they didn't know the name of God.
So they just give them the wrong name. I'm saying this, beloved. When the world When the people of Babylon call you all the wrong names. I encourage you not only to reject it and not believe it. But don't spend too much time on it.
Part of the message of Daniel is: look at this man. Just like Jesus. He didn't spend all his time trying to run around saying, quit calling me names. People that don't know your name are going to call you by the wrong name. You're not going to manage people that don't know the Lord.
What do you do with people that don't know the Lord? Tell them about the Lord. The only way that Babylon or America Or anybody changes is by the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So Daniel doesn't spend those time going, oh no. I'm not belt to Shazar. Let me tell you who I am Empire called him what the empire was going to call him. But the Bible called him Daniel. God knows your name.
He knows you because he made you. He knows you because he redeemed you. He can name you. Because he bought you. The attempt of the enemy kingdom to give foreigners the wrong name.
Is a picture of a spiritual battle. Daniel, beautiful name, means God is my judge, gets changed to Beltashazzar, O lady wife of the god Bel, protect the king. Hananiah What a beautiful name. When the colours are not aware you see Uh that Ending That sounds like yah. Most of the time what you'll know is that is The form of the name, the covenantal name.
The personal name, if you will, of the Lord that is revealed to Moses in the burning bush. And it is too holy in the Hebrew mind to even speak Yahweh. It is short for Yahweh, Yah. Yeah. Henaniah.
Which means Yahweh is gracious. Yeah. And Hananiah's name is changed to Shadrach. Which scholars think probably means either I'm fearful, very fearful of. or a command of Aku, the moon god.
Michael, there's our ending L like Elohim. I love this name, Mishael. You know what it means? In Hebrew, it means who is what God is. Who is what God is?
They changed Mishael's name to Mishak. Which scholars say either means I am of little account, or it means who is like. Aku. Another pagan deity. Azariyah.
There's Ya. Means Yahweh. is a helper. And As Araya's name is changed to Abednego, which means servant of the shining one Nebo. Interestingly, as you go through the narrative, you come to like Daniel chapter 2, and the king declared at verse 26 to Daniel, whose name was Beltashazzar.
Are you able to make known the dream? See how it words it? To Daniel, whose name was Beltashazzar. or he was called Beltashazzar. Same thing in Daniel chapter 4, verse 7.
At last Daniel came in before me, he who was named Beltashazzar after the name of my God. This is the way the Bible's talking. And In chapter 4, it begins to shift, and Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges Daniel as Daniel. In chapter five, the queen of the new king, whose name is Belshazzar. Actually, he calls him Daniel, and then later in Daniel chapter five, Belshazzar the king.
Flat out calls him Daniel. In Daniel 5:13, the text says, Then Daniel was brought in before the king, and the king answered and said to Daniel, You are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought forth from Judah. I think the point is. He's Daniel. And no empire can change that.
No earthly realm. could change it. In the spiritual battle, Therefore It is very important to not fall for what the enemy is trying to name you. And it's also important. to remember Who your enemy is.
Love the story of David and Goliath. Do you remember when David comes in, he first speaks to King Saul? And he's urging King Saul to let him go and fight Goliath. And Saul tries to label David because Saul Is jealous and mentally unstable and has no faith or courage. He says to David, You are but a youth.
You can't fight him. David doesn't receive the label, you are nothing more than a youth. And instead He talks about his years as a shepherd. And he says, The Lord has delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear. And he who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine as well.
That was David's name for Goliath. He didn't call him the giant. He didn't call him the great warrior. He didn't do like all the other Israelites and sit around and think about the size of his sh sword and his shield and how much all of his armor weighed. He just called him the uncircumcised Philistine.
That was all that mattered to David because circumcision was the sign of the covenant. And what he was saying was. Who is this man who's not in covenant with God to defy the armies of the living God? Don't let somebody who's out of covenant with God. Tell you who you are, they don't know who you are.
I love the name Daniel. God is my judge. It's like The whole story of Daniel. It's making this point. God.
Is the supreme king, and he's over everything. It might look like that Nebuchadnezzar is in charge, but he is not. It might look like that Darius The new king is in charge. He is not. It might look like Belshazzar is in charge.
He is not. It might look like the whole Babylonian Empire. Is in charge. They are not. In fact, we will see a dream coming up very soon in the story, in which there will be four empires that will come, one after the other, until there is one.
That is made of stone, that is not cut with human hands, and it destroys all of the other kingdoms, and this kingdom is eternal. It's a it's a story. About the invincibility, supremacy, and power of the one supreme God. And that God, Daniel says. is my judge.
He's the one that matters. You could throw me in a lion's den, but you're not my judge. What God determines is what will come to pass. It'd be a wonderful thing. To ever come to the point in your life Where you quit trying to please everybody else because you come to this basic awareness that what God thinks about you is all that matters in the end.
Daniel.
So there's this emphasis on Daniel. whose name suggests God My Father in heaven is the only one whose opinion ultimately prevails or matters. Who is a young man? Who goes through a period of preparation. who is like a foreigner In a culture that's unfamiliar.
And yet he He is so wise That people go, wow. And he's promoted. And yet at the same time He is persecuted. And he is thrown into a tomb-like den of lions, sealed with a stone. And while he is in that tomb, the mouth of the roaring lion is shut up.
by an angel And Daniel comes back as if alive. Again, sound familiar.
Sound familiar. Interestingly enough, when the story of Jesus. is being told in the Gospels. One of the early important points Is the angel coming to Mary, coming to Joseph? and telling them what they should call this boy.
You're going to be given the right to give him his name. But you shall call him Jesus. You shall call him Yahshua. Yeah. Yahweh, Shua.
is salvation. Jesus is just the transliteration of his Hebrew name, Yahshua. You shall call his name Yahshua. Because the Lord saves. And this boy is going to be your Savior.
Get his name right. Don't call them by the wrong thing. What's interestingly is that in the birth narratives of Jesus, it really begins with the story of John the Baptist being born. The son of Elizabeth in Zechariah. Maybe you remember the story.
It's very fascinating. Zechariah is told by the angel that Elizabeth will bear this child. And the angel says, And you shall call his name John. And Zechariah is like Well, what will be a sign unto me that I'll know all this is really true? Listen, if an angel comes to you and tells you something like that, don't ask for another sign.
Yeah. So he says, Angel says, here'll be a sign. You can't talk. Until the baby's born, you cannot talk. Lest you ask another dumb question.
But anyway, no, I've. No. And so for the nine months of her pregnancy, And all that's going on, Zechariah is just having to go around trying to motion to people and write things down, and then the baby's born. And it's eight days later at the circumcision, they're getting ready to name him. And Zechariah can't talk, but an angel had given him the instructions of the Lord: you shall name him John.
And they get ready to name the boy Zechariah.
Now, if you've been struck mute for nine months and you were told to name him John. You'd be like Zechariah too. They're getting ready to say, What? Everybody's like, I think we'll call him Zechariah. I mean, you know, Zechariah Jr., right?
And. And Zachariah's over there like, no, no, no. No, no, but and they're like, what, what? You say the president? And then he writes, his name is John.
And they say, Okay. John. And then his mouth is opened up and he can talk again. That that starts the stories. And then an angel comes to Mary and Joseph said, Call him the right name.
And then all throughout his life. People are calling them the wrong name.
Okay. He's amazing in his first sermon, he's amazing, and he says incredible. Incredible things that are just so anointed. But people say, Is this not the carpenter's son? They said, Is this not Mary's boy?
Calling him the wrong thing. Yeah, he's the carpenter's son, but you're missing it if you think he's the carpenter's son. He's the son of God. And then they say, Is he not the brother of James and Joseph and Simon? Mah, you're missing it.
He is their natural brother, but he is the firstborn of all creation, the first fruits of many sons. He's not just brother. to James and Joseph and Simon. He will be brother. to millions upon millions.
Uh Alan Wright. Today's teaching. What's your name? Rejecting false labels over your life. Unlock the power of blessing your life.
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So, in this teaching of Daniel and the series that we're in, Alan, even Jesus had to keep centered on who he was, even through life's toughest moments that he experienced while walking this earth. Yeah, if you could look back over Jesus' life and see that one of the principal strategies of hell against him was to try to rename him, label him a blasphemer, label him. uh someone worthless because he was from Nazareth, on and on. But the ruling identity of Jesus' life was from his Father. This is my Son in whom I'm well pleased.
How you see yourself shapes your sense of destiny.
So, This is what part of what made Jesus sinless as a human being was he fully trusted in what his father said about him and utterly rejected what the devil said about him. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
