Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Ann and I have so much in common, but we have a few ways in which we differ radically, and one is this. If there is a bump in the night, I assume it's nothing.
She assumes it's something. 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. Okay, Saints, are you ready for some good news? That was good. Peace of God runs deep. It's not superficial. It's not glossing over. It's not sweeping under the rug.
It's not ignoring real problems. It is a deep peace in the midst of the most real conflict. We were never promised that a Christian life would be a life of no troubles or conflict or problems.
Far from it. We're told in this world we'd have troubles, that we'd be persecuted for righteousness, and that there'd be wars and rumors of war, and that we're in a spiritual battle. But God has peace in the midst of it. We're learning about being peacemakers, and we've been learning all about how the Scriptures call us as Christians to, like Christ, not needlessly disagree so that we're just disagreeable.
Jesus could have disagreed with every single thing He saw. He deliberately came to be with people with whom He disagreed and loved them. We learned about living in harmony, that if there's one note, you can add another note in harmony, or it could be one that's dissonant, one that just sounds clangy. As much as possible, live at peace with people. Don't bring needless strife.
In this polarized world of ours, we need to learn all about that. But today, I want to show you a verse that is so curious that I never forgot hearing of this verse from the time I was about 15 years old, sitting at Trinity Church in Greensboro, the preacher of my youth, Roy Putnam, mentioned this as a side point, and I never forgot it. I revisited this verse after the terrorism of 9-11, and I spoke from this verse, and to all these years later, it's been on my mind. It's not really that I want to give an exposition of this text or the story of David and his sin or his conspiracy to have Uriah killed in battle or any of all of that. I just want to show you this verse as sort of a launching pad for provoking thought and then looking at a lot of other scriptures today. It's 2 Samuel, that's chapter 11. 2 Samuel, chapter 11, just this verse, verse 7. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.
How's the war going? Paul said to the Ephesians, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We're in a spiritual battle, he says. Don't ever get duped into thinking your battle is against people. It's a spiritual battle. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. We won't take time to review in the scriptures this magnificent picture of the armor of God, but if you could just envision a helmet of salvation, a breastplate of righteousness, a belt of truth, feet that are shod with the readiness for the gospel, a shield of faith, and a sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and you could envision that soldier, as this is a spiritual image for us, there's only one part of the soldier that's not protected, that's the backside because the anticipation is that you're in a fight.
And so the plan's not to protect you from the backside as you're moving away from the conflict. I want to talk to you about deep peace, the shalom of God. Anne and I have so much in common, but we have a few ways in which we differ radically. And one is this, if there is a bump in the night, I assume it's nothing.
She assumes it's something, and that's just always the way it is. If I hear something in the night, I have an incredible power of rationalization. I can tune it out. I'm the guy who hears a clunk in the car and cuts up the radio so you don't have to hear it.
But she's got rabbit ears, she can hear every little thing going on, and she'll call out the problem. Of course, I always have in my ammunition to bring back to her the Nathan Wheeler story, which happened many, many years ago. Nathan Wheeler was a seminary classmate of mine, and we loved him and Sherry loved them very much. And after seminary, we moved to Durham, North Carolina to pastor a church, and they went to Georgia to pastor a church.
And we hadn't seen them in a few years, as we were fairly new, but a few years into our ministry there in Durham. And one morning, I think it was a Monday morning when I'm most exhausted and just want to sleep as long as possible. The doorbell rang around 6 a.m., and Ann said, the doorbells, somebody's at the door. And that's another rule in our family is that if there is a bump in the night or somebody ringing the door at 6 a.m., for some reason it's my job to go investigate. But I said to her, whatever it is can wait, I am too sleepy, and I don't know what it is, and I turn back over in the bed. And she said, they rang the doorbell again, that somebody's down there. You need to go check, maybe it's a parishioner in need.
I said, I'm sure everybody's fine. The doorbell rang one more time, and she tried to get me to move, and I wouldn't move. And she sat up in bed, and she's looking out the window, she could see as the person, this man stepped off the front porch and made his way back to his car in the driveway, and she saw him from the side. And all of a sudden, she blurts out, it's Nathan Wheeler! It's Nathan Wheeler! I said, Nathan Wheeler, who passes a church in Georgia and we hadn't talked to in a couple years, has driven up here from Georgia and is ringing my doorbell at 6 a.m. without calling me ahead of time? It's Nathan Wheeler, he needs something. Alan, you have got to go down there. I said, it couldn't be Nathan Wheeler, that's nothing honey. I'm trying to pull her, it's Nathan Wheeler. He's getting in the car, he's right, you've got to go, you've got to go down there and see what happens.
So I pull on a robe, ran down the stairs, opened up the door, robe half open, I'm out there in my underwear waving at this car, and the car backs up and comes in the driveway. Now y'all need to know that Nathan Wheeler is about five foot six or seven. Wonderful friend, even back in those earlier years of his life was balding. And this man backed up in our driveway and when he stepped out, he was about six foot two with a bushy head of hair. This man and Nathan Wheeler had no physical resemblance whatsoever. The only thing I could say is they were both human beings and they were both men.
But other than that, there was no resemblance between these two men. He gets out of the car and he's got a bag in his hand and I said, uh, I'm sorry, I was waving you down, I thought you were Nathan Wheeler. And I said, how am I going to help you? He said, well, you all bought some Christmas wrapping paper from my daughter for the Girl Scouts and I was delivering it, you owe me $18. Let me get a check and I wrote the man $18 and I went back up to get in bed. My wife who had seen the entire thing out the window, the bushy headed six foot two guy, and she's just back up in the covers, you know, she's just like, I walk in, it was clap, I just walk in, I didn't say a word. I just crawled into bed, pulled the covers up, waited a few moments and I leaned over and I said, it's Nathan Wheeler, it's Nathan Wheeler. Told you it was nothing, it was wrapping paper.
And, uh, so every time there's a bump in the night, I can always whip out my Nathan Wheeler story. The problem is that sometimes she's right about it. The other, not too long ago, she said it was middle of the night. She said, I hear a buzz. A buzz? Yeah, it's a buzzing noise.
What is that? I said, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't hear anything, honey. You know, something's buzzing. I said, go to sleep, sweetie, go to sleep. It's fine.
It's still buzzing. Can you not hear that? No, I can't.
You need to go find out what that is. I said, well, you're not gonna let me sleep. No, that's fine. I get up, I start wandering around the house and finally I go downstairs and admittedly I hear something buzzing. And I said, oh rats, she's right, there's something buzzing.
I went around, I'm trying to find it. You know, by this time you're wide awake. And, and I go, finally, I opened the door to the garage and there it was buzzing. It was the garage opener motor buzzing because the button that cuts on the garage opener was stuck in the on position and it was buzzing.
And I had to do the switch and it quit buzzing. And I went back up and she said, it's not buzzing anymore. She said, what was it? And I just wanted to, I just wanted to say, it was nothing.
It was Nathan Wheeler. But I said, well, it was, it was a garage door opener. Well, what, what was wrong with it? Well, it was, it was buzzing. Well, why was it buzzing? Well, the button was stuck in the position. Oh, so if you hadn't done something, probably burned the motor out, wouldn't it have? Yeah.
Well, probably would have. 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. I admittedly, I'm just one of those people. I'm optimistic. I think everything is going to be just fine. And so I can find a lot of reasons to think that there's not a big conflict that's there that needs to be dealt with.
And some of this probably honestly goes back way early. You know, when you come through a family that has a marital breakup like my family and my growing up did, you know, you don't have maybe anybody to talk to about it and really deal with all your feelings about it. And you can, one of the things you can become is somebody that wants to smooth everything over. If I can just at least get the appearance of everything smooth, then maybe nobody will leave. But there's no such thing as being able to just ignore a problem and therefore have peace. Peace is more real than that. And it's deeper than that.
That's what I want to talk to you about. It's such an interesting verse of scripture. 2 Samuel 11, 7, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. Because what you don't see in any of the English translations is that the word that's repeated three times here in this verse is the Hebrew word that's usually translated peace, the word shalom. So literally the verse says, David asked about the shalom of Joab, the shalom of the people and the shalom of the war. He asked about the shalom of the war. Shalom doesn't just mean the absence of conflict. That's the way we tend to think of peace, the absence of conflict.
No buzzing noise. No, shalom means complete or sound or favored or prosperous or healthy or safe and whole. It refers to wellbeing in general. And so what David was saying when asking about the shalom of the war, he was saying is God's favor upon it? Is it well ordered?
Is it going well? It's a strange question to ask, but how's the peace of your war? Because we are in a spiritual battle and we are all at varying levels facing real challenges. There's such a temptation to just say peace, peace, where there's no peace. It was what Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 6, 13, from the least to the greatest of them, speaking of the religious aristocracy, everyone's greedy for unjust gain. And from prophet to peace, priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly saying peace, peace, where there is no peace.
He's saying you're putting a band-aid over a cancer and calling it healed. But under the surface, there is injustice and idolatry and rebellion against God and no love for neighbor. The kings in that day, as our tyrants today, inclined to surround themselves with people who will tell them what they want to hear. A famous example of this was Ahab, the king of Israel, who came into a partnership with the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, because they were going to invade Ramoth Gilead. And Jehoshaphat said to Ahab, well, do you have some prophets that you could have inquire of the Lord to see if the Lord's favor is going to be upon this military enterprise? And Ahab said, oh, yes. Well, he had 400 prophets under his hire, people in his royal court that would always tell them what he wanted to hear. And so he inquired of his prophets and they said, oh, most certainly, king, the Lord will give this over to you. Jehoshaphat kind of read through all that and said, is there not another one of whom you could inquire? He kind of knew that these 400 prophets were on the king's salaries. They were his yes men. And the king, I love this line.
It's almost hilarious. I actually, 2 Chronicles 18, 7, Ahab, the king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah, the son of Imlah. But look at this. He said, but I hate him for he never prophesized good concern in me.
I hate those people that tell me the truth about something. And it ends up that the prophets of Ahab all come to Micaiah and they say, now listen, you're going to talk to the king and you need to just tell him what he wants to hear. That's basically what they say to him.
But Micaiah refuses. You can understand that. And don't you just have days? You know what?
I just need somebody. I've had times I'll just walk in staff and say, everybody tell me something good. Tell me what's going on is good. And you know, that temptation to have our ears tickled rather than really dealing with a problem. You know, it's so funny. I was asking, and I said, honey, what are some illustrations of the way we do this?
You know, where we don't deal with the deeper theme. And her instinct was funny. She said, well, that's what we do when we go to the doctor.
We started laughing. You know, it's like before my annual physical goes, I'll go on a diet before I go over there, you know, fast a day or two before you go to the doctor and, you know, go in and try to be real calm and get your blood pressure as low as it can possibly be. Like people that go to the dentist, you know, and floss the day beforehand for the first time in the year. I'm going to go to try and impress the doctor so that, you know, I just as long as the doctor will say, well, you know, you look pretty good. Well, thank you very much. You know, then I'll be just fine.
No, no, you need somebody to tell you the truth. Sometimes the way that we deal with our deeper issues is we push them to the side and we use our energy to talk about and deal with the things that don't matter. Boy, there's a lot of that that goes on, isn't it?
Bickering over the little things that don't matter at all and not at all dealing at a deep level of love and truth about what really does matter. Allen Wright and the teaching the peace of the war, placing a bookmark here for the conclusion of this particular message coming up on our next broadcast. I encourage you to stay with us as we do continue in the series Peacemakers and Pastor Alan joining us in the studio, sharing a parting good news. Thought for the day in just a moment 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 pastorallen.org. Back here with Pastor Alan in the studio with our parting good news thought for the day as we place a bookmark here on the piece of the war. Well when David said to Uriah the Hittite to give him a report on how's the war going the actual language is so strange. He said to him literally how is the shalom of the war? He said how is the peace of the war? And what we're learning is that there's actually good news about the shalom of the war. We'll see more about this but our promised land where God leads us is also a battleground. And it doesn't mean that God wants us to have conflict but it means that in this world just because we are having conflict doesn't mean we can't have peace. And it could be that right now whatever tensions and whatever difficulties that you're facing that what God is most interested in is giving you shalom in the midst of all your trials.
So it's a good question how's the peace of your war? There's peace that passes understanding available in Jesus Christ. 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 pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-16 18:14:18 / 2024-03-16 18:23:43 / 9