Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. You have found favor with God. Gabriel's message isn't just for Mary.
Now in Christ, It's who you are. You're favored by God. No need to be afraid of His Holiness. You found favor with God. No need to be afraid of your own weaknesses.
You have. found favor with God. No need to be afraid of the future. You found favor. with God.
So I bless you today to move from worry to wonder. from angst to anticipation, as you let the words of the angel become God's word to you. you have found favor with God. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. These signs and wonders are because God loves people, He wants to help them.
It's not so that these apostles or anybody else could be impressive. We don't care about being impressive. We care about people. And every sign and wonder you see, Is pointing to what God most wants. Your heart.
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 am Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in our series, Empowered, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. Um 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.
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. More on this later in the program.
But now let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. And I think as a fourth grader, I accepted Christ. I think that's where my Christian journey started. Just didn't have much fellowship or much way to grow.
But when I got into 10th grade, I got into a Young Life small group in my high school, two seniors that were discipling us and other believers, and I fell in love with Jesus. Yeah. I mean, right, is it possible that I had the Holy Spirit even from fourth grade on, but didn't know much, didn't grow much until high school and 10th grade, I began to really grow and I started to fall in love with Jesus? I started feeling a warmth in worship. I started I started I started longing, I started wanting to To worship Jesus.
I started loving the Word of God starting in 10th grade. I wanted the Bible study to go on and keep talking about Jesus.
So, what's that? The Holy Spirit's doing something in me, right? And I kept on with God, and then my junior year in college, I was minding my own business, as I told you last week. Just minding my own business, having a little prayer in my dormitory room, and all of a sudden, the sovereign holy God just came into my dormitory room, and it was the most, I'd never experienced anything like it before.
So holy. He's so holy. I never felt more remorse for my sin, never felt more hopeful in my life. Who is the Holy Spirit? Holy, holy, holy.
Lord God Almighty. And there was a tenderness in his presence. And I wept for weeks. And I said yes to a call to the ministry that I've never once doubted. I've thought about quitting, but I've never doubted.
So what was that?
Well, what without experience in the tenth grade, Holy Spirit? What was I experiencing my junior year in college? The Holy Spirit. And then my senior year, Our Bible study, we started studying the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Because We didn't know anything about him.
It's like somebody has said the Trinity is not the Father, the Son, and the Honorable Mention. I think a lot of churches, that's the way it's been. It's like I've heard about Jesus and the Father, I've never heard anything about the Holy Spirit. And I was like, I don't want to learn about the Holy Spirit. And I started reading about miracles that have taken place, not just in the New Testament, but throughout the history of Christendom.
And I was like, if any of that's real, I want some of that. And I started just asking the Lord, I want more of that. And my senior year, I went home at Christmas break. My mom, who I just, you know. Yeah, I've told you before.
I thought for so many years, my mom's just a religious nut, you know? And everywhere you look in our house, Christian books. I'm like, why do we gotta have all these Christian books? And now I've written seven of them. And.
And I was looking around. I was just so hungry. I was just so hungry. And I found some little book on her shelf said, The Way to Pentecost. And I don't even know if it's good theology, bad theology, but it was talking about the Holy Spirit.
And I just, I didn't know what I was doing. I just went and got on my knees. I said, God, if there's more of you, God, I just need you so much. And I'm just praying. And then the Holy Spirit came upon me.
I began to experience a kind of joy. I felt intoxicated. I was like, is this what they found in the book of Acts? It is. It is.
I began to have spiritual gifts in my life. I began to pray in tongues. I began to have kind of prophetic vision. And the very first thing, you know, I've ever told you this, the very first thing that happened to me after that infilling and my senior year in college, the very first thing I did, I said, what am I going to do with myself? I was just overjoyed.
I was like, oh, I love God so much. And you know what I did? I remember my mom had been asking me for weeks if I would clean the gutters. And so I went and got on the roof and I cleaned out the gutters joyfully. Everybody's always asked me, what's the mark of the infilling of the Holy Spirit?
I said, it's when you joyfully do what your mom wanted you to do. That's it, you know. They're like, oh, just clean the muck out of the gutters. I love you, Jesus. You know.
I just love you, Jesus. Oh, this stuff's nasty. I'm about to fall off the roof off the second floor. I love you, Jesus. What was that?
Yeah. What was that? I experienced the Holy Spirit in the fourth grade. I experienced the Holy Spirit in 10th grade. I experienced the Holy Spirit in my junior year.
I experienced the Holy Spirit in my senior year. And in 1993, I was minding my own business. In my church in Durham, and things are going well. And my mom is calling, and she said, We got a revival breaking out at our church. I said, Mom, I'm not comfortable with your church.
And But she kept after me and kept after me. I said, and we got to go. She said, Pentecost is breaking out. And I said, We told her, we said, We got an ice cream social Wednesday night. We can't come, you know, but.
That was actually true. We went. We went and some Young Pentecostal evangelists laid hands on me and. I mean, in all these times I've experienced God, I had never experienced anything like this in my life. And joy started happening in my life.
It's never gone away. I mean, I've had plenty of sad times, but I mean, the joy itself has become a default position in my life. It all happened there, and I began to just. Tremble under the power of God. I'll tell you more about that story sometime if you haven't heard it, but.
What was that? Well, that's just another infilling of the Holy Spirit. What I'm saying is, let's just not make more of this. And I don't think we need to split denominations and form clubs. I mean, like.
Listen, listen. If the Holy Spirit comes upon you... And you start praying, and your hand starts shaking. That happens to me sometimes. I don't know.
I feel it right now. My hand will start shaking a little bit. You don't have to form a whole denomination over that, of the people that shake. You don't have to. You don't have to have a small group or a supper club of the shakers.
You really don't. I have nothing against the Shakers and the Quakers, but I'm just saying you don't have to form a whole denomination over that. You don't. No. I mean, if when you experience the Holy Spirit, what happens?
Is that there's a deep stirring of compassion inside of you? And you begin to feel what others feel. And there's something in you that must feel the way Jesus felt when he came to Lazarus' tomb. And it said his deep insides were troubled and moved within him. And Jesus, the Lord of the universe, wept with compassion.
If the Holy Spirit moves in you and you weep with those kinds of supernatural tears because you are called to be an intercessor, then wonderful. But you don't have to start a denomination of weepers. I think the weepers and the shakers can all get together. I'm just saying this is what people have done with this text. They're like, well, look, the Samaritans, they got Jesus, but they didn't get the Holy Spirit.
So there's obviously there's two experiences. And here's exactly how it happened. This is not theology. This is just God breaking out with love and mercy and goodness.
Well, Simon got really messed up at this point. Verse 18. But Simon's When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands. He offered them money. Saying, give me this power also that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
Mm. He just thought this was really cool. And what we don't know is Did he really know it was authentic and he just authentically wanted to have the power of God in his life? Or Was he looking for another money-making scheme? I'm not totally sure.
I think he just thought it was really cool and he didn't really understand yet. I think he thought That's the real power of God. And the way I've gotten everything else in my life is through manipulation. I think he thought You want to get a good house, you get your money, you buy a house. You want to get a good car, a good chariot, you get your money, you buy the chariot.
If you want to get a good education, you got to pay for it. If you want people to think that you're great, then you got to earn. It by being impressive. And so he just thought, you gotta pay for this. But Simon's got it all wrong, and Peter rebukes him strongly.
Verse 20, Peter said, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. I just parenthetically I want to say. This is Christianity. Peter. Who knows how much money Simon had?
Peter could have gotten rich that day. But it was abhorrent to him. to monetize. The miracles of God. There's no part of Christianity.
that would manipulate He Said, you have neither part nor lot in this matter, verse 21, for your heart's not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours. Pray to the Lord that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, Pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you said may come upon me.
What's Peter's problem with Simon? Two things. First is this: you thought you could obtain the gifts of God with money. You've missed it. You haven't understood the fullness of what makes the gospel so good.
And that is this: that the gifts of God are free because Jesus has purchased your redemption. I've prayed with a lot of people over the last decades And if there's any single impediment to faith, any single impediment to receiving from God, I would say first and foremost, it is this. We all tend to think because of our shame or our past or Our unworthiness, and all, we tend to think that in some way, even though it might be small, We are disqualified from receiving the good gifts of God. Beloved, you aren't saved by grace. and then filled with the Holy Spirit by your own righteousness.
You're saved by grace. You're filled by grace. You're empowered by grace. You're used by grace. It's grace all the way through.
Yeah. Simon, you can't buy. The power of the Holy Spirit, because the power of the Holy Spirit. is free. There's no such thing as one Christian who's more qualified than another.
To receive and move in the wonder-working power of the gospel. They came and laid hands on those Samaritans who were despised by the Jews, didn't know the Torah. And all of a sudden the same thing started happening to them. Why? Because God doesn't wait until you got your act together before he starts filling you with his Holy Spirit.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit is how you get dragged together. And the second thing. that Peter feels so strongly about here. is your heart's not right with God. You're missing this second thing, Simon.
And that is that God cares Not so much about lending you his power. He's not a force field. He's not something you just plug into to use for power. God is personal. And he wants a personal heart relationship with you, attachment.
with you. All these signs and wonders are marvellous. but they're just pointing to the reality which is Jesus himself. It's not become a Christian and you get these signs and wonders. It's become a Christian and you get Jesus.
And the signs and wonders that might come, hallelujah. are because God loves people. And he wants to reach them. He wants to help them. And he wants to heal them.
And he wants to transform them. He loves people.
So signs and wonders, yea. Let's have more. But let's have him point us to Jesus. We love Ocean Isle Beach. It's our happy place.
We've been going there for decades. And now there's a new way you can get there on I-74 and get there faster and go through Whitefield. But back in the day, for most of my years, you had to turn south off 74, get on 501 for a little bit, go through Rowland, and then get on 904 and start heading towards Tabor City. and you take all these turns through the back rows. That's the only way you could get to the beach.
And so I've done it a million times. And there is a place where you could miss a turn. There's a left-hand turn when you're getting closer to the beach. But thankfully, there is a green sign there. It says, Ocean Isle Beach, this way, 17 miles.
I love that sign. Because it took longer to get to the beach back then than it does now, and by that time you're ready to be there. And then when I'd see that sign, my heart would leap for joy. Because I knew It's not much further. I mean, just very short order, we're going to be riding over that Ocean Isle Bridge.
Where it's a rule in our family: you roll down the windows and you slough off all your problems and drop them into the waterway. They can't carry them onto the island, that's our rule. And I'm going to be on that island and I'm going to worry less, and I'm going to get my sandy toes down in that warm beach, and I'm going to jump in the ocean, and I'm going to play with kids or whatever else is going on. I love that sign. 17 miles ocean, I'll beach this way.
You're almost there. Love that song. But you know what I never did? I never said, hey, kids, Ann. Let's camp out here.
I love this sign. I'm going to pitch a tent right here at the sign. I'll build a campfire. We can have a hot dog roast. We can sleep here for a couple nights.
I love this sign. Everybody, let's take a picture around this sign. Here, get one of me hugging the sign. I'm kissing the sign. No, the sign I love because the sign is pointing to the reality which is nearby.
Simon. Your heart's not right. These signs and wonders are because God loves people and He wants to help them. It's not so that these apostles or anybody else could be impressive. We don't care about being impressive.
We care about people. And every sign and wonder you see, is pointing to what God most wants. Your heart. A heart relationship with you. I like to think we're going to see Simon in heaven.
I like to. I think maybe he got really excited about Jesus, got baptized, and he just didn't get it yet. That's what I like to believe. But I know this is the lesson for us from this amazing story. The gospel of Jesus Christ is free.
The power of the Holy Spirit is free. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are are free. The impartation of the Holy Spirit and the conferring of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of the hands is free because it's grace all the way through. It means that if you're in Christ, you are qualified for every spiritual blessing. Wow.
And it means this. Whether you shake or hoot or holler or grow silent or or or or get or get trembly or get happy or get weepy or get or get or get quiet. Or whatever the Holy Spirit does in you. Praise the Lord. But it's still all.
A sign and a wonder pointing you. to the Savior of the world. Mm. He's free. And he's here.
And that's the gospel. Alan Wright, our good news message, Power Beyond Price, from the series Empowered. Please 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. Allen Wright Ministries is more than just a daily radio broadcast.
Here are Daniel and Pastor Alan explaining another layer. You know, Pastor Alan, through this radio ministry, it's often been said that this is a friend, a friend in time of need. It's a friendly voice. It's that encouragement I needed to hear, and the Lord used this ministry.
Well, how about your email inbox? Do you think there's ministry there? The daily blessing is such an encouragement. The daily blessing is a positive vision. It's rooted in scripture, so it's full of truth.
And it is something that I believe God leads me into and inspires. And you receive it in your inbox, and you can read it. There's also a video of me presenting it, and you can just take it in. It becomes something that I think gives strength for the day and helps root you in God's idea about you. The world's got all of its negative messages.
And Daniel, we need to fill ourselves with God's truth and God's plan. And blessing is in the Bible. A mystical kind of power, really, a thread that weaves together so much of the whole narrative of scripture. And it's much neglected. It's right alongside of prayer in its terms of its importance.
And we need to bless and be blessed. And so let me bless your life day by day, morning by morning, or in the evening. And it's absolutely free at pastorallen.org. Just give us your email address and you can start receiving a daily blessing. Click on to pastorallen.org today to learn more and take advantage of this opportunity.
Again, that's pastorallen.org. Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of Power Beyond Price.
So do you think it's okay to marvel at the power itself and then also marvel at the fact that it's a free gift? Yeah, I think so. I think that in the end, you know, and let's remember this: signs and wonders from God are beautiful indicators of the reality of God, right? And so when God does something powerful, But remember the sign is a sign. is pointing to Jesus.
And so, what God is always interested in is the relationship we have with Jesus. And that's why we must not be. taken by a mere fascination with the power of God. The reason that I want the power of God in my life, Daniel, is Because I love people. And I want to help people.
And I think that's where most of our listeners are. You know that you have people in your life you'd like to be able to help them more. You'd like to be more effective in your witness. You'd like to be able to love people more deeply.
Well, That's why you need the power of God. We don't get the power of God just for the sake of having the power of God. That was a little bit of what Simon the Magician's problem was. We get the power of God for the sake of living out the mission God's given us to live. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
