The Most Beautiful Kiss [Part 1]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. If we're really going to be healthy, we want to experience the depths of each side of this. We want to have deep sleep, meaning no activity. But we'll have other times where we have all kinds of activity and we don't feel sleepy.

Our problem is that half the time during our activities we feel sleepy and during our sleep we feel active. You want these opposites to be held together. 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 this series called Peacemakers as presented at Reynolda 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. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.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. Are you ready for some good news? Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called the sons of God. And in the very fact that he called us the children of God peacemakers, it must be possible that in such troubled times as this that we are not simply helpless bystanders, but we are instruments of God's peace. And so we are looking deeply into the idea of being peacemakers as we look toward Jesus, who is the peacemaker who has reconciled us with God. And today I want to turn you to Psalm 85, where here in the middle of your Bible, I want to show you one of the most beautiful and profound verses in all of the Bible that is prophetic in its power, pointing us to Christ and instructive to us if we're ever going to be peacemakers. And this is Psalm 85. I'm going to pick up reading at verse eight. It really is a it really is a Psalm that is awakening to the plans of God to restore the people of God and to bring glory to the land and revive them. And we pick up reading in verse eight. Let me hear what God the Lord will speak. So there you have it.

It's already keying us in. It's a prophetic type text that we want to hear from God in troubled times, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. So we need a word from the Lord to speak peace to his people, and we need it today.

But let them not turn back to folly. So the peace of the Lord is not merely this sort of vague sense of acceptance of all things, but it is accompanied real peace by the turning away from folly. Verse nine, surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. And here's the verse I want to focus on. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky.

Yes, the Lord will give what is good and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps away. The teenager came home with his report card. He made all F's and one D. His father said, son, what have you been doing? And his answer was classic.

He said, well, I guess I've been focusing too much on one subject. I want to talk to you about balance, but balance in the biblical sense doesn't mean that you somehow have neatly divided all your time up like pieces of a pie and all these different things. Balance doesn't mean, biblically speaking, this little kind of middle of the road place where you never experience any extremes of any time.

No, balance is really something that is mysterious in this sense that the picture we'll see today and it's all throughout scripture is what's in God and what is in us is it's like we can experience what seems to be opposite and yet they are held together. And when they are married, when grace and truth kiss, when what seems to be opposite is actually wed, that's where we have abundant life. And that's where we are effective. And that's what makes us successful.

And that's how we'll have peace. You ever stumbled and as you did, you might have noticed you tend to throw your arms out like this. Why? To help balance you. I remember thinking as a kid watching those tightroper walkers at the circus and thinking, wow, that's amazing. They can walk on that little rope. And what's even more amazing is that they do it while carrying a big heavy stick. Not realizing that that big long pole that you've seen, you know, the tightropers walk with is actually helping them maintain their balance by a principle called moment of inertia. I looked it up and you know how an ice skater, a figure skater, and when they start turning, they might have their arms out, but then when they go faster and faster, they bring the arms in because the more your weight is distributed away from you, the harder it is for something to turn, which works in favor of the tightrope Walker because you don't want to twist. And so the longer that pole and then wait out at the end of the pole, then you are slowing down the moment of inertia.

You are making it such that if a wind blows or you lose your balance a little bit, that you have, you have a much more able to correct yourself. In other words, isn't it something that God has made us such that balance happens through these things that seem to be on opposite ends. If you think about it, God made night and day.

He didn't make it where everything's just in between. And if we're really going to be healthy, we want to experience the depths of each side of this. We want to have deep sleep, meaning no activity, but we're going to have other times where we have all kinds of activity and we don't feel sleepy.

Our problem is that half the time during our activities, we feel sleepy and during our sleep, we feel active. You want these opposites to be held together, right? In your life. You need times in which you laugh.

And you'll also need times in which you cry. Jesus did both. In fact, Jesus demonstrated to us the perfectly balanced life. There were times in which thrones of people around him and he reveled in healing the masses of people.

And other times he hid so he could just be alone. You need both. We need to be able to celebrate. We need to be able to contemplate.

Life when it's at its healthiest is balanced. And I want to show you today the spiritual picture of that in Psalm 85 as it prophetically points to John chapter one where Jesus is described as the man who came full of grace and full of truth. I want to just start by diving immediately into verse 10 and showing you four words that are so important. You just can't overstate how important, how freighted these words are in the Old Testament. And the first word here, steadfast love, is how it is translated. But this word, as I've told you before, is my favorite Hebrew word, chesed, chesed.

Sometimes you'll see it transliterated with a c in front of it, c-h-e-s-e-d, because the Hebrew language has some sounds we don't make and includes a kind of an airy sound in the throat, chesed. And chesed is the covenantal love of God. It is an expression sometimes translated unfailing kindness. And you can think of chesed as covenantal kindness in the way that if you are in covenant with someone, like a parent is with a child, oh, you didn't write down the covenant, you were just born into this covenant. And if you're a mother and you had a child, then you love that child not because your child is more beautiful or more gifted or more skilled or more productive than every other child. You just love that child more than anything in life because it's your child and there's a covenant of love. And that love means you probably would die for that child. And it means that even if that child goes wayward, you can't stop loving that child because you're in a bond together. It's a covenant.

It's not based on any merit of the one who is receiving the love. And that's the covenantal love of God. That's chesed.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Prayer. As a Christian, you know it's important and you want to make it a priority. But if you're like most, your prayer life can slip so easily into routine, lacking fervor and passion. Maybe you're wondering what is the key to praying with real power.

In Ephesians chapter six, the Apostle Paul has a clear answer. Pray in the Spirit. But what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

Some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language. But in Alan Wright's unique series, Praying with Power, Pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the Spirit. Discover how praying God's word is praying in the Spirit. Learn how to listen to the Spirit as you pray. Come to see Jesus as your prayer partner. It's practical.

It's powerful. Get Pastor Alan Wright's Praying with Power and discover the power of praying in the Spirit. Change your prayer life and you'll change the world. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album, on a USB thumb drive or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. The psalmist is in a sense prophesying here saying when chesed and faithfulness meet and faithfulness is a Hebrew word emeth and this is another covenantal word that is associated with God's covenant with his people that there's not only going to be chesed, his love, but that you can count on emeth. You can count on faithfulness from God. You can count the word means firmness or truth. So I'm going to call it firm truth. This is the rock solid truth of God. He doesn't just love you, but he is truthful towards you. He is consistent and he is firm and this is the nature of God.

And when you see chesed and emeth meet, something special has happened. And the second part of the verse is righteousness. Righteousness is sedek. Sedek is fairness or justice.

I would say this is fair justice for all. Sedek. It's one of the most important words in the old testament and the word that is used here joined with it kissing righteousness is a word peace which comes from a Hebrew which you may know shalom. Shalom is much more than the absence of conflict. Shalom may be something that's happening in the midst of conflict. In fact I'm going to preach on this a time that David asks about the shalom of the war.

How's the peace of your war going? And shalom means the favor of God is bestowed so that total well-being is happening in your life. It's why in Hebrew if you want to say goodbye to somebody or say hello you say shalom. Shalom. So you greet them. Shalom.

It's a beautiful thing to say to somebody. To say shalom and say may you have shalom. May you have the favor of God that brings about health, well-being, prosperity, and every measure of good thing in your life. That's all shalom. Peace.

Right? Shalom. Honestly it's the same thing we say when we say goodbye just nobody knows they're saying it because goodbye is short for God be with you. God be with you.

Goodbye. People try and take God out but you say goodbye you just brought him in and shalom is to say therefore that there is favor and well-being. Righteousness the ascetic is justice and justice means that good is rewarded and wickedness is punished and shalom means that there's favor and grace that comes that you don't deserve.

How can these two things even go together? Well what the psalmist is saying is when you see these things come together when you see when you see the ascetic and the shalom of God kiss all something beautiful is going to come from that marriage. In fact faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky. Faithfulness and righteousness join together as heaven and earth are meeting and then our land will yield its increase. So the answer is grace and truth meeting and this happens perfectly in the person of Jesus. A problem is that grace and truth tend to get polarized and some people seem like they want all grace and some people seem like they want all truth and I say neither one will make a difference.

They want all truth and I say neither one will make for peace. I'm gonna stick to script on this next portion because I don't want it to get too long and too cheesy. It's already long and cheesy so I'll stick to my script and hopefully you can get the point of my little story. Once upon a time not too long ago not too far from here there were two lands separated by a great chasm. One side was called Karis land and on the other side it was called Alethea land and the two peoples that dwelled on opposing sides of the chasm could not have been more different. The people in Karis land took great pride in their heritage. Their forefathers named it Karis land built on the Greek word for grace. And everything in Karis land was grace, grace, grace, nothing but grace. The territory on the other side of the chasm was called Alethea land because their name came from the Greek word for truth and the Aletheans prided themselves on living by truth word for word everything point by point black and white no exceptions and they never associated with each other but they would chant across the chasm at each other. Those in Karis land would chant out across grace grace that's our land truth hurts it must be banned.

I warned you it was cheesy so hang in the Alethea is chanted back at them truth truth that's our name whatever is wrong grace is to blame. Now Karis land was the most accepting place you could ever imagine anyone who'd ever felt restricted or rejected felt welcome in Karis land. In Karis land they always thought of how they could show kindness. The last thing anybody in Karis land ever wanted to do was make anyone feel upset so they didn't ever want to impose their will on anyone.

It was quite relaxed there but not much got accomplished. For example school was quite tricky. It seemed far too restrictive to impose one version of truth so school children would go to first grade math class and ask their teacher miss teacher what is two plus two and the teachers were trained to respond well what would you like for it to be and the child might say 10. I like the number 10 and the teacher would say well then fine far be it from me to suggest that my two plus two equals four is better than your two plus two equals 10.

10 it shall be. There weren't many successful engineers in Karis land and people got lost all the time in Karis land because there were no maps and certainly no GPS systems. Google maps and navigation systems were not welcome because they are far too restrictive.

The height of rudeness to tell someone which direction they should go. They heard stories of people in Alethea land who had phones that would talk to them while they drove in their cars and say turn right in 500 feet. The sheer thought made the people in Karis land gasp in horror at such binding and restrictive and narrow-minded technology. If you stopped to ask for directions in Karis land how to get to the candy store they would tell you how wonderful the candy was and how beautiful you looked but they wouldn't tell you how to get there because that would be rude so instead they said things like drive towards the sun roll with the wind and nobody ever got anywhere. It was frustrating living in Karis land because sometimes people would say to each other honey what'd you do today and one would say I drove in a circle around the roundabout the whole day not knowing the real direction. Health was a problem in Karis land you could imagine because children asked their parents is ice cream just as good for you as green beans and the parents not wanting to burden their children with heavy handed top-down truths said why my sweet child that is a matter of personal preference do you want ice cream to be good for you yes then so it shall be. So ice cream was the main diet of the children they had a big problem with the criminal justice system in Karis land people liked living there because it was so accepting and so they built big porches and put rocking chairs on their porches but they couldn't keep their rocking chairs because people kept taking them there was so much grace but there had to be a huge rocking chair manufacturer built in order to replace all the stolen rocking chairs they had a saying in Karis land follow your feelings and follow your heart if anyone tells you what to do from them you must part so as you can see Karis landers thought the way to have peace was to be all grace and no truth but the truth be told there was very little peace in Karis land and there was a lot of chaos. Alan Wright our good news message titled the most beautiful kiss from the series peacemakers thanks for joining us Pastor Alan is back in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day stick with us. Prayer as a Christian you know it's important and you want to make it a priority but if you're like most your prayer life can slip so easily into routine lacking fervor and passion maybe you're wondering what is the key to praying with real power in Ephesians chapter 6 the apostle Paul has a clear answer pray in the spirit but what does it mean to pray in the spirit some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language but in Alan Wright's unique series praying with power Pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the spirit discover how praying God's word is praying in the spirit learn how to listen to the spirit as you pray come to see Jesus as your prayer partner it's practical it's powerful get Pastor Alan Wright's praying with power and discover the power of praying in the spirit change your prayer life and you'll change the world when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album on a USB thumb drive or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastoralan.org back here with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day Alan what is your prayer for someone listening right now after hearing a message like this well I just think that sometimes we feel so distant from one another and even distant from God so much of the tension and so much of the strife that fills our daily life and so many disappointments and to think in the midst of all this how can I have peace and how can I have joy and I think this is so much the key what we're talking about today to think about what God has done to restore relationship with him think of what he's done for us in Jesus Christ it is an invitation to dwell on the good news of the gospel in the midst of a world of a lot of bad news right now Daniel and I'm praying for each and every listener that he will grant you the grace to think on everything that is true and noble right and pure lovely admirable excellent and praiseworthy 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 pastoralan.org that's pastoralan.org today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries