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. When God looks at you, If you're in Christ, He's smiling. And it changes everything. 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 More Than Conquerors, a study of Romans 8 as presented at Renulda 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 Alan Wright Ministries.
So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
And more on this later in the program. But now, as we get started with today's teaching, sitting here with Pastor Alan Wright, and we have to put a disclaimer, there is a video that during the message, Pastor Alan, you showed a psychologist and an experiment with mothers and babies. And we refer to this a lot throughout this teaching. And so it's key to understand what we saw. When you envision this video, just envision a mother.
Who is interacting with her infant child, and the mother's smiling, the mother has that look of approval. In a way that only a mother can. And then they are instructed in the experiment to. Just become blank and non-responsive with their child, not angry looking, you know, not scolding the child. Just blank face.
In this very interesting study, what happens with the child? Is almost heartbreaking to watch because the child becomes first confused, but then just by not having his mother's smile, he can become frustrated and weepy, and in some places, seemingly inconsolable. And so I'm reflecting on that, Daniel, throughout as we think about the remarkable acceptance that we have in Jesus Christ.
Now, with today's teaching, no more condemnation. Here's Pastor Alan Wright. Hey, are you ready for some good news? There is, therefore, now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no Zero does not exist anymore.
I want that to come through today. The condemnation. of God does not exist for those that are in Christ Jesus. Not now. And not in the future.
Not Tomorrow when you disappoint yourself and others. You can't disillusion them. He came and died for you knowing everything wrong with you already. And his love for you is perfect. Wow.
Romans Eight. One. That little girl was in a a church play and she just had one big line. It was going to come in this moment, and they were going to light some candles or something, and she was supposed to speak the words of Jesus and say, I am the light of the world. And so she was on stage, her mother was off stage.
You know, cheering her on, and they got to her big moment, and the little girl froze. And she couldn't remember a line. Just that one line.
So her mother is in the wings there, mouthing it to her. I am the light of the world. And the little girl gets, ah. My mother is the light of the world. And from The growing body of brain research We're discovering It's sort of literal.
That when a mother smiles at her Child The infant brain lights up. And joy happens. In the delight of a mother's radiant countenance, a baby begins to have the sense of well-being. And Attachment. Love is being conveyed.
Through the smile of the one who loves. Which goes far to explain why God from the earliest time wanted the priest to Speak this over their people all the time. Lord, make his face shine upon you. It is the will of God. That We Experience his smile.
Because the smile It's transformational. And in fact, even just when you see somebody and they smile at you. Yeah. is doing something to your brain. and your whole inner core being.
And in that sense of smile there comes a And acceptance. sense of security, and that's where trust is born. And today we come to this. Glorious passage: There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ, and you can recognize. That's what God is saying here is that He wants His people, and everything Paul's been saying in Romans.
Up to this point, he wants his people to really get this. That When God looks at you. If you're in Christ, he's smiling. And it changes everything. So, if you're new with us, we've been in Romans the whole year.
So, we've been waiting to get to Romans 8:1. And I've been waiting my whole life for Romans 8:1. The whole world has been waiting. For Romans 8, 1. The cosmos has been groaning in travail, waiting for Romans eight one.
There is therefore now no condemnation. And If you were to recap what we've learned in the first seven chapters, you could sum up of this way that Paul, under the unction of the Holy Spirit, has shown us why everything was all wrong. The problem is called sin. And Since means that because all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God, and none have obeyed perfectly. that all are deserving of condemnation.
And that sounds harsh. To the modern ear, but if God is just, then what justice means is that Good is rewarded and bad is punished. And the world we've seen in Romans 1 through 7 is not full of good people and bad people. It is theologically full of bad people and a good God. And so the problem has been sin.
And the problem is that even the best of us can't keep the law. We can't keep any form of the law. And We've seen that We couldn't keep any standard, much less the high and holy standards that we see in the scripture. about always loving others as yourself and loving God with all your heart, we can't we We can't keep the some of the most basic commandments. But as we saw, twentieth century writer and theologian Francis Schaefer said, even if you just were trying to keep your own standard, if somebody put a tape recorder around your neck and all it did was record the things you said that other people ought to to do.
Including when you're driving down the street and how you talk to others on this thing and everything else. If all your standard was just your standard for other people, we couldn't keep that even. We can't keep any standard. And so all have fallen short. We got a sin problem.
But the law, we've seen, is not the problem. The law is good. Because the law is a revelation of the nature of God. If God says, do not lie, it reveals that God's not a liar. He doesn't like lying because he's not a liar.
She says, do not steal. It's because God's not a thief. He's a giver, you see? It's revealing something about God. And so it's God's word, and the law is good.
And the law Comes alongside of our sin, Paul said. And it lets us see. in graphic relief how bad our sin is. And in fact, he said the law, when it comes alongside, though the law is good, When we try to keep the law, things just seem to get worse. Or We don't try to keep the law at all and things get worse.
So there have been, apart from Christ, there are two responses to the coming of the law. And the first response is... Maybe you call it religion, and that's I'm going to try hard to be good. I'll try and try to be better than other people, so I'll satisfy the law, and then I'll feel happy, I'll feel at peace. And it never works 'cause we can't.
And then there is, call it irreligion, a rebellion. That says, I'll redefine the law, I'll make my own law, I'll ignore any revelation from God or other thing, because the way that I'm going to feel okay is by saying there is no real right or wrong, and it doesn't work. It doesn't just lead to, it's not just because of the debauchery, it leads to because nobody is happy. Nobody is happy. While living a life that is not the design of God, would it just never be?
So that's what we've learned in Romans 1 through 7. And if you were to. stay apart from Christ, then the sad news is that There is a lingering sense of condemnation. I've told before about the little boy that he and his sister were spending the week with their grandmother. And they're having a good time.
A little boy had a BB gun. One day he saw his grandmother. She had a beloved pet duck. And sh he he just, you know, he was shooting at some tin cans and things, but It's hard on a little boy with a BB gun in his hand, and there's a live duck walking around, and he just wants to see if he could shoot that live duck, and he did, and the duck keeled over. And uh he felt so horrible about it.
And he didn't know that his sister, Sally, so little Johnny, we'll call him Johnny, little Sally was looking through the window and she saw the whole thing.
Well, that night at dinner, they were sitting there and grandmother finished dinner. She said, Sally, it's your turn to do the dishes. And Sally said, I think Johnny will do the dishes tonight. And Johnny said, What? It's not my turn.
And Sally leaned over and whispered in his ear: She said, I saw what happened with the duck.
So Johnny sprang up and did the dishes. The next morning, grandmother said, Did you both make your bed this morning? Sally said, Johnny's gonna make the bed for me. And he looked at her and she just said, Remember the duck. And so he went and made the bed.
And this went on for several days. Until finally Johnny just couldn't stand it anymore. One more thing that was hanging over his head and all this combination. He just said, I can't stand it anymore. Grandmother said, I was out.
I had to be begun. I wasn't really thinking. I shot the duck. And she said, I did it. And grandmother smiled and she said, I know.
I saw it too. I've just been wondering how long you're going to let your sister hold that over you.
Well, it gives you a a good picture of Really the fact that is if we are not forgiven If we're not fully forgiven by God, And we have sinned against God. There's a real sense in which the powers of hell have a sort of legal right to accuse us and condemn us. And some people are going to be trying to Do all the dishes and make up the bed to make up for it so that they can try to live a little bit ahead of it. And some people just say, you know, I don't care. And they go in rebellion.
But the lingering spirit of condemnation is the is the problem of our souls. And that's why The whole world's been waiting for Romans 8.1. It is the declaration A great crescendo following Paul's explanation of why being. in Christ is a whole new way of being. It is a new system.
It is to say that Jesus was perfect, deserved only reward from God, but deliberately, because of his infinite love for you, went to the cross and a great exchange took place. Where he who knew no sin became your sin, and you became his righteousness. And in turn, You are now under that grace. And God is smiling upon you because the condemnation. doesn't exist.
Because you are not Under law, Christians. And if you're not under law, then the law of sin and death is gone for you, and condemnation is gone for you, and what's left is the smile of God. I want to show you a little video from some years ago, some groundbreaking research from a child psychologist, Edward Tronic, who doesn't experiment about just how powerful a mother's countenance is upon her child. I'm actually not only exegeting our text, I'm sort of exegeting this video for illustrative purposes so you can see something about what this means to be really have no condemnation from God.
So, a lot of other studies have confirmed this same kind of thing.
So, it shows us something about what's going on inside of this child. And I want to just draw a couple of points for illustration here to help us understand. Who God is to us in Christ. And the first thing I just say is, don't you feel really, don't you hurt for the baby during those moments when her mom's not smiling? My wife said, Are you going to show that thing?
How bad is it? I don't want to see that thing. I said, It doesn't last long, and the mother starts smiling again. It's like, you don't even want to watch it for 20 seconds, to watch a baby not have her mother smile for even just a little bit. Which tells you a lot, doesn't it?
That you feel great pain for that little baby just for those few seconds. You feel that, don't you? Because. You don't have to have any other science or anything else to tell you that it proves more or less. that if a child did not have a caregiver's smile, And that sort of ongoing affirmation that it would be scarring.
And you could imagine how difficult for that child to ever learn to really be secure in the world, right? And of course that's all been proven out. And what grieves me, and I thank God so much, is not really in the world so much the evidences of our sin nature, the things that manifest. You know, drug addiction, crime, and hate, racism, greed. He hates all of that.
But I think what hurts God is at the root of it all. It's like if a baby, if that baby had thrown a temper tantrum, the baby started banging around willfully, being defiant or whatever, you wouldn't be as bothered by those outward manifestations as you were by the core problem, would you? You would know what the core problem was. It would break your heart. And so, does this not go far to help you get a spiritual picture?
of what really is in the heart of God about how He wants to solve the problems of people. I think so often what religion does, it wants to come and try to address, hey, the baby's throwing a temper tantrum, we're going to address that. But what really needs to be addressed is the attachment love. and the joy. Because of the smile.
So, grandbaby Mia, she's seven months now. I think a week or maybe even, maybe even two sermons have gone by without me mentioning. It's long overdue and I apologize for that. I apologize for that. She turned seven months, and it's getting cute.
I'm telling you, it's already been cute. But I was just thinking, honestly, like as a new grandfather, if you were to ask me, you know, what do you want most for your grandbaby?
Well, of course, I want her to know Jesus. I mean, by far and away, right? That's the most important thing. But apart from that, what do you want most? And if I were to go through all the lists of things that you would want, health and joy and good relationships and prosperity and fruitfulness and safety and covering and all the things that we pray, right?
favor upon our life. But I think if I were really to get it down, other than just knowing Jesus, I would, if I had a magic wand that I could wave it and say, what would your dream be for this little baby girl? that she never experienced condemnation. I don't even know. What would happen to a person if they never experienced condemnation?
Can you imagine the magnitude of freedom and security and faith that would exist? It's why everybody needs Romans 8.1. Romans 8.1 is the answer to the world. The second thing I noticed from that video I'd love to leave Mia up there the whole summer, but you can take her down. They're not looking at me anymore.
They're just looking at Mia. And it's the second thing I noticed from that illustration is that The parent doesn't have to scold or openly shame the little child in order for her to feel hurt. All she had to do was just be disconnected. It's not a mean look, it's a blank look. She doesn't scold her.
She doesn't openly shame her. She's certainly not. Physically hurting her. But just the thought of not being connected. not being fully accepted.
and not being celebrated. leaves the infant ultimately inconsolably sad until she is celebrated. Wow. This is not change in life really for us. Um but we mature.
and we start understanding that m most people don't necessarily celebrate us. But The feeling of being disconnected and not celebrated, it goes away. And what it does, the baby starts using all her tricks. to try to be accepted. How do we get back to that smile?
How do I get the celebration back? How do I get that feeling of connectedness with you again? How do I feel attached to you, mom? That's Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message, No More Condemnation from the series More Than Conquerors, a study of Romans 8. And by the way, the video that is referenced, if you'd like to see that, simply come to pastorallen.org and search for that full video teaching No More Condemnation.
That's at pastorallen.org. And Pastor Alan's back here in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Stay with us. Prayer works. And here at Allen Wright Ministries, we believe prayer is one of the greatest ways that we can care for one another.
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Back here now with Pastor Alan as we kick off this series, More Than Conquerors, and place a bookmark here on the teaching, No More Condemnation. My boy, Pastor Alan, that is good news. I've been waiting my whole life to hear those words. We've all been waiting to hear those words: no more condemnation. Because in the world, we don't receive perfect love, even from those who love us best.
It's not perfect, and we've all felt it. We've all felt the Pangs of shame and condemnation, as if we're being loved less because we don't. perform perfectly. And so this news from The crescendo of Romans, Romans 8:1, there is, therefore, based on everything we've learned in Romans 1 through 7, you can be assured there's no condemnation, none, zero for those who are Christ Jesus. When you taste.
of that kind. Of perfect love, it changes everything. 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.
