Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: A Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. For your life, I bless you with the certainty of your adoption in Christ. You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. You received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8.15.
It means you belong. to him now. and forever. He won't unfriend you. He can't undo his eternal word.
So he can't un-adopt you. He has spent too much on you to let you go now.
So revel in the joy of your place in the family of God. Child of God, you're His. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Everything he's saying here in Romans is is the kind of Biblical blessing and encouragement and exhortation that actually brings transformation. He's saying, like, If you would just Think on these things and let it be the primary thought in all of your conscious life and let it abide in your heart, then it will lead inevitably to the conclusion that you're more than a conqueror.
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.
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More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Instead of saying, I'd like to be in better shape, you know. You have to start seeing yourself as the kind of person who is fit and who cares about health.
I remember some years ago I was I don't know, I was bemoaning to my wife about how much I sit around and I've been trying to change that, but nobody told me that you sign up to be a pastor and then you sit down and eat fried chicken for the next thirty-five years. And so I sit, I sit. I sit, I sit in front of a computer, I sit with people, I sit in meetings, I sit in coffee shops. And I told Ann, I said, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm become sedentary. I'm just, I don't just sit around.
And I looked at her, and I was thinking back to former glory. I said, I used to be an athlete. She said the thing that's absolutely the very best thing that you could say in that moment. She said, you're still an athlete. Oh.
I'm like, thank you for that, darling. I'm gonna go lift some weights right now. In other words, if you think of yourself as an athlete, you're likely to do the stuff that athletes do. Yes, yes. I asked my son one time, who's so diligent studying, and I never ever ever once, to my knowledge, ever said, You know, you ought to get in the books and study, you know.
He was just diligent about it. Abby was too. But I asked Bennett one time, I said, why do you do that? He said. He thought about it and he said.
I think I see myself as an A student, and so I just usually study as much as I think would be required to make an A on the thing. You're way better to get your student, your child, to see him or herself as an A student. then you are to focus merely on the outer layer, the outcomes. or even just the processes. You focus just on the outcomes.
You know, I want you to get in a good college and get a good job, you know, so you better study because you know. Again, a little bit of motivation, but not much. You get to the inner layer, and now you've got processes that from, you know, first thing from after school, we're going to set it up. You can't do anything else, no video games until you study.
Well, that might help bring some change. But the real change comes at the identity level. Everything that Paul has been building up to in Romans 1 through 8. is so that he can say with authority. You're more than a conqueror.
It is important. And James Clare says, many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. But the alternative to build identity-based habits And with this approach, we start by focusing on what we wish to become. Identity. And Essentially, and I think James Clare says it well, behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last.
That's not what A students do. What do you say? They don't they don't just not look at the books at all.
So, everywhere in God's Word, we're seeing that He's leading us into. The idea that there is victory for us in Christ. 1 John 5, where I think it's the Apostle John who's... Doing so much to crystallize all that he's learned now as a spiritual father and wants to convey under the unction of the Holy Spirit. Writes, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes, and that's the word nikao.
Victory. overcomes the world. And this is the Nikkei, the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
So the identity is the product of what you believe. He says in 1 John 4, for little children, you're from God. He's saying this is who you are. You're from God. You're born again by God.
You're from God. You're made by God. You're recreated in His image. And have overcome them. Speaking of those that are against Christ.
Now, you put it in the past tense. You've overcome that. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. And the essence of the spiritual battle is to get you to believe the reverse of that. Yes.
The inverse. It is to say, greater is he in the world than he that is in you.
So that your problems take priority. And they look like the greater thing. Then the power of the Holy Spirit who is in you. And you and I both, we go through adversities in the The problem with that is that it gives fodder to the devil. To point to your circumstances as.
Evidence that you're not a winner. And this is why James Clear in his book says if you want a new identity, well, he says it plainly: new identities require new evidence. And that's what happens when you get in the gospel. New evidence comes into your life. It's why people that have just feel like their whole life they've been victims, their whole life has just been nothing but one disappointment after another.
Nothing goes well for me. Things don't turn out right for me. I always tend to come up on the losing end. I don't have any luck. I have, you know, people like that, and they think like that, and then the gospel gets in.
And what happens with the gospel is you read stuff like Romans 1 through 8. That redefines who you are. New evidence. And then the Holy Spirit comes and takes up resonance in your heart. And Paul has said to us in Romans 8 that he is the spirit of adoption, wherein we cry, Abba, Father.
Because he's bearing witness to our spirit that we're children of God. And we realize if we're children, then we're co-heirs with Christ. And it changes the narrative of your life becomes accurate. It becomes true. About who you really are.
and how much God loves you and what He's done in your life.
So it's very important to say that The proof is not In your circumstances, but in the Word of God and in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit within you, because we're going to go through hard things.
So uh As soon as you talk about the victorious Christian life, somebody will say, Oh, are you just one of those that says you never have any problems and you're always going to be rich? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying I'm more like Paul. Here's what Paul, he said, I wish I can't believe I'm saying these things. But people that were acting like he was not qualified to be an apostle, and they were always talking about how much better they were.
And sometimes they'd say, Well, I'm so much better because I've suffered so much for. And so finally, in 2 Corinthians 11, he just said, Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman. He's like, I can't believe I'm having to say this now, but I'm just going to go ahead and tell you.
He said, With greater labors, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes, less one. You know why it was the 39 lashes, or called the 40 lashes less one, is because it was found to be the case that after 39 lashes, people often died. That's what that particular torture and beating was to bring people to the brink of death. He's experienced it five times.
He was brought to the brink of death by being beaten. by religious authorities. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. Night and day, I was adrift at sea, frequent journeys in danger from rivers. Robbers, my own people, Gentiles, city, wilderness, sea, false brothers, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, cold and exposure, and apart from these other things, there's a daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
So victory. And to be an uber victor. It does not mean the absence of challenge. but some kind of overcoming in the midst of great challenge. That's what it means.
And this word Nicao is used by Jesus. To speak of the essence of this victory in Luke 11, verse 20. If it is, he said, by the finger of God, that I cast out demons. then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, there's our word, Nikao. He takes away his armor in which he trusts and divides his spoil. You see what Jesus is saying? There is a huge cosmic conflict. There is a spiritual battle.
And here is the evidence. That the kingdom of God has come. You see me today. taking authority over demonic spirits. You know the kingdom of God's come.
And he said in John 16, he said, I've said these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. Thankfully. I doubt anybody in this room has had any kind of tribulation like the Apostle Paul experienced, thankfully. But we will have tribulation.
But take heart. I have, nika'o, I have overcome the world.
So, what then he builds on here. This glorious progression Starting at verse 31 of If everything I have said to you is true of the gospel, If it's true, Paul's saying, what I wrote to you in the early chapters of Romans. That all have sinned, and all are in the same predicament, and everyone needed a rescue because they could never make it past the flood of their own sin and the consequences of that sin. And if God Has come in the person of Christ to make that rescue by living a righteous life on your behalf so that. Anyone who trusts in him.
is credited with the righteousness of Jesus. Such that Jesus died in your place, taking the penalty, meriting you. As if you had lived His righteous life, so that you who are otherwise unholy would become holy, and therefore God would pour out His own presence, His own Spirit, into your heart by faith, so that you would become, in Romans 8, we learn, the dwelling place of God. If all of this is true. Then he says What shall I say to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us? I I just I just don't know what to say, except If all that's true, if he's that much for you, then What are you worried about? Everything he's saying here in Romans is. Is the kind of biblical blessing and encouragement and exhortation that actually brings transformation. He's saying, like, if you would just.
Think on these things and let it be the primary thought in all of your conscious life, and let it abide in your heart, then it will lead inevitably to the conclusion that you're more than a conqueror. And he's using Courtroom imagery. If God's for us. And it has right from the beginning the idea of like the gavels come down and the ruling is gone in your favor. A rule for you.
Are you guilty or not guilty? Do you deserve heaven or not? Do you deserve to be blessed or not? I rule for you. And if God's ruled for us, if it's for us, then it doesn't matter what else happens in the courtroom.
And all these other statements are judicial statements. He who did not spare his son, but gave him up for us all, how he not also graciously give us all things? An argument from the greater to the lesser. Verse 33: Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Judicial language, because God justifies.
Who can bring a charge? Who can accuse? Who shall, verse 33, bring any charge against the elect? In verse 34, who is to condemn? Which is the way God is.
Remember when Jesus liberated a woman who had been accused of adultery. Because the Pharisees had gathered around to stone her in accordance with old antiquated laws. And Jesus wrote in the dirt and we don't know what he wrote. Really fun to speculate what he wrote.
Okay. Because somebody speculated He was writing down the names of the mistresses of the Pharisees.
Well, we don't know. But then their stones start Dropping to the ground when he says, Any of you that's without sin, you throw the first stone. And they start letting go of their stones. And when they're all gone, He said. Where are your accusers?
Is there no one left to condemn you? Because Jesus didn't come just to Prove you. Rescued in the midst of accusation, he came to silence the accusations. That's his aim for you in spiritual maturity. That's what he's aiming for you.
Who's to condemn? There's nobody left. And Paul says, Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who is raised, who's at the right hand of God, who's interceding for us. The only one who is then the rightful place to be your judge has died for you and is interceding for you.
And who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Oh. There's no bailiffs that can come in the courtroom and separate you now. Nobody's going to escort you out and take you away to a prison cell.
Can't happen. It is logic on fire. It is the inevitable conclusion of all of Romans that you in Christ are more than a conqueror. And I think this is where So much of spiritual maturity comes is when. It gets so deep within us that we're not having this Same mental conversation all the time.
The same old shame buttons and the same old things that leave us feeling condemned. The more we grow, the more that's just not even in the conversation anymore. We don't give, there's just not a foothold to the devil anymore in that. I was thinking this week about Years ago, 2007 and 08, our church was sued. It was a very painful time.
We were excited about new construction project. I was showing, talking to some elders that weren't here at that time just yesterday. And we was describing to them what a number of you wouldn't ever know this to, but before we did this construction project. That Prayer room exit, that door right there was the exit to the educational building. It was the only place you could, only way you could get there.
And back in the day we'd flash up a number of a child in a nursery or something like that. And every picture had to make the walk of shame down the thing. I'd be up here preaching inside, here comes somebody walking on, and I had to go out the door. There was no way you couldn't get there. There was no door that connected, there was no hallway over there.
And so we didn't just build all this new educational space. We said, we got to build a way to get connected so that it doesn't have to be right there. You had to get up and go to the bathroom, you had to go out that door. It's Thank God for these facilities. Alan Wright.
Today's teaching, Total Victory, from the series More Than Conquerors, a study of Romans 8. Hey, Pastor Alan is in the studio here in just a moment to share a parting good news thought for the day. Don't go anywhere. Did you know Alan Wright Ministries is much more than a radio broadcast? Our mission is to help you see your life in a whole new light through the gospel of grace.
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That's pastorallen.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan as we place a bookmark in this teaching, Total Victory. and our good news thought for the day. Being victorious, let's be clear, it doesn't mean having no adversities. In fact, let's remember.
The one who's pinning these beautiful remarks, the Apostle Paul. Who elsewhere has listed all the adversities that he has faced? Five times the hands of the Jews received the forty lashes minus one. Three times beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, on list goes.
So for Paul to Think of the Christian life as one in which we are more than conquerors, obviously does not mean that you don't have adversities and great challenges, it means instead. that there's a kind of overcoming. in the midst of challenge, in the midst of adversity. That's the victory that we have in Christ, is no matter what you're going through. God is with you in it, and you can be assured of the final, ultimate victory in Christ.
Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
