Generational Blessings [Part 4]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When you discover generational blessing in your life that you hadn't previously discovered, you didn't invent it.

But when you see it, you can appropriate it in a whole new way. 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 today's message in the series titled Exponential Grace 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. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series, Praying with Power.

Here is Alan Wright. And I'm going to tell them the truth about Jesus, and I'm going to tell them the truth about what God's done for them, and I'm going to tell them how wonderful they are to God, and how wonderful their lives are, and how blessed they can be. And I couldn't wait to pour it in just for the opportunity because I'm a preacher and I can't always convince you, but I knew if I raised them from the point that they're a little baby and couldn't roll over in the crib, I would just put it in their head and just fill them up with the gospel and they would believe it. And it's been a great delight to do just that because the power of the blessing flowing through the generation is far greater than the power of the curse. The curse can be broken and the blessing can never disappear. Glory to God. Which makes me want to just shout or run or jump because it doesn't matter, beloved.

Vote in the election, influence your government, but our hope is not in a government or an election. It is in the change of a generation, and God has set up a plan where it can happen exponentially. You never know where it gets started. One seed grows one tree that bears so many pieces of fruit, and inside each piece of fruit a bunch more seed.

It's a great plan. It means all I gotta do maybe is impact one person who grows into a tree of righteousness and bears fruit upon their family and their friends, who then bear fruit and it all grows exponentially. The whole exponential thing is mind-boggling. I am no mathematician.

I can't figure this stuff out. There is a legendary story of a beggar who meets a generous king, and the king offers to feed the poor man for a couple months at his banqueting table, and to give the poor man clothes so he could maybe get back on his feet, maybe get a job. And the beggar did a surprising thing. He asked his majesty if instead of eating at his lavish banquet table for two months and being adorned with all the finery of royal raiment, the beggar said, I'm a humble man, and would it be instead that you might give me tomorrow one grain of rice, and the next day two grains of rice, and the next day four grains, and so forth.

The king himself, not being a mathematician, thought the poor man to be a fool, but he said, if that be your desire, so be it. The next day the beggar showed up held at his hand and the king put one grain of rice. The next day he placed in his palm two grains of rice.

The third and the fourth day, so on. So a week later the beggar brought in a teaspoon for the 128 grains that was due to him, but in two weeks it caught the king's attention because now it was a half a kilo. At the end of the month, the daily portion had grown to a whopping 35 tons of rice, and so the story goes, a few days later the king had to declare bankruptcy and give his kingdom to the beggar. You've heard the one about a penny.

I read a blog this week of a father who did the age-old trick on his kids. You can have an allowance, he told his eight-year-old and 12-year-old, of a dollar a day for two weeks, or I could give you a penny and it'll double each day. The eight-year-old tried to do the math, got to day seven and realized that after a whole week he was still only getting a $1.27, and he said, this is a rip-off.

No way. Give me the dollar. The 12-year-old didn't feel like doing the math, and so he went along with the dollar deal also.

The dad said fine and gave him a dollar dutifully each day for doing their chores, but he put a chart up on the refrigerator that marked what they would have been receiving, and they felt quite happy about it during that whole first week. But on day 11, they started getting upset when they realized that if they'd gone with the penny route, that it would have been worth on day 11 $20.47. And it didn't take much more math from that point to realize that if it kept doubling for two weeks, it was going to add up to $163.83 instead of their $14 that they received. And what it really gets interesting is that if you carry out the math for a month of doubling the penny and adding it up, that it adds to over $21 million.

One more illustration just to make the point. Take a sheet of paper of the ordinary letter size variety folded in half, folded a second time and a third time, and it's about as thick as your fingernail. Continue folding it if you can, and it's seven folds. It's as thick as a notebook, and if you could fold it 10 times, it'd be as thick as the width of your hand. Unfortunately, it's not possible to keep folding the paper more than about 12 times if you tried it yourself, but if you could keep folding it, at 17 folds, it'd be taller than your average house. At 17 folds, it'd be taller than your average house. Three more folds, and that sheet of paper is a quarter of the mile, I mean a quarter of the way up the Sears Tower. Ten more folds, and it's crossed the outer limits of the atmosphere. Another 20, and it's reached the sun from the earth.

At 60 folds, that piece of paper folded 60 times would have the diameter of the solar system, and at 100 folds, it has the radius of the universe. Now, if that is true, what does it mean when God says his love goes on to a thousand generations? It's bigger and better than what we can comprehend. So everything, according to the seed principle, reproduces according to its own kind, and everything in God's world that is good is designed for increase. The design of God for this shows up sometimes. You can notice it in your own children or in your own life from your parents, and it's just such a fascinating thing when it happens. It makes you wonder.

You know, it's interesting. Our son Bennett, our 17-year-old, is a senior. He's gotten into debate, and when he first started debate a few years back, he said, you know, debate a few years back, I honestly, I didn't say so, but I wasn't really in favor of it because our gas bill from driving kids to extracurricular activities was already too high, and the time wasn't there, and between golf and other extracurricular activities and church and doing school, I didn't see how we had time for debate, and so I started kind of with no particular affirmation from me, and sure enough, Bennett and his first debate partner, by their own admission, were terrible. In fact, one of the funniest lines that we've got going right now with regards to debate is when Bennett was in one of his early debate rounds against some very experienced debaters, and his partner Andrew, sitting at the desk with him while the team was offering their rebuttal speech, Andrew just leaned over to Bennett and said, we're getting slaughtered, and so it was for most of the first year.

There were very few wins. There were no qualifying for any other events, and the next year wasn't a whole lot better, but something happened this year, and they got, they got pretty good, and in fact, I wasn't there, but there was a regional debate tournament up in Washington, D.C., Ann called me, and she said, your son just got voted as the number one speaker in this regional debate over these six or seven states, and I was like, my son? I thought they stunk at this, and they made the nationals this year and actually came in about 20th place in the nation this year and got really good, and here's what the thing is, that when Bennett started all of this, it wasn't until sometime later that my own mother, his nana, came and started talking to him about debate, and Bennett's like, well, how do you, he's like, nana, how do you know anything about debate, you know? I mean, sometimes when you're little, you're like, my grandmother, she's sweet, but she doesn't know anything, and she was asking him about his 1AC and about the, what the topic, what all these things like that, and he had to come to learn that my mother and father met each other in their college debate team. I'll tell you, my son, another thing that's interesting, Bennett is a good golfer, and I love golf, but I can't play like Bennett plays, but my grandfather, I didn't play any golf growing up, I hated golf, I thought it was boring, why would anybody play golf, and I don't know, I don't know what it took to cast that demon out of me, but anyway, I came to my senses and realized it's the best sport, but anyway, I, it was not too much later in my life I played golf, and my grandfather on my father's side, DC Wright, he was on several occasions the city champion in the city of Greensboro, he was a scratch golfer, and I was walking with my daughter Abby, and I said, Abby, you see how these generational blessings just come right on through? She said, no, daddy, that one jumped over you, so I had a little debate with him, say, no, it came through me, she said, no, it went around you, I said, no, it comes invisibly through you. Abby said, well, what about me? She said, I like dancing and I like horseback, she said, we got, I don't know anybody in our family that rode horses, I said, oh, I said, I know you had people ride horses, because it wasn't that many generations, they didn't have cars, so you had people riding horses.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. In Paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship, they were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted, and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.

Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. And today is the last day this special offer is available to you. 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. What I'm saying is the design of God, the good gifts come from God, but they came through the generations. And wouldn't it be an astounding thought, just if you started to realize, wait a minute, I might have received some negative things, which can be, praise God, broken in Jesus' name. I can replace ungodly beliefs with the truth. I can replace the consequences of those previous generation sin by my new status in Christ.

I got a new identity. But wouldn't it be a powerful thing that in the midst of doing that, you also started an exploration of all the things that were good. Because the negative things that impacted you do not invalidate the good things that were imparted to you. I mean, just in a natural illustration, it's like, okay, I admit it, I didn't inherit whatever genetic code to have good eyesight. I got nearsighted and in fourth grade, been wearing glasses ever since. But I do have good teeth. I never have cavities. I go in, they clean my teeth, they say, look good, see you again. I got good teeth. It'd be crazy for me to say, well, you know, I'm just cursed, I got bad eyesight, unless everything else is wrong with me, too. No.

I got good teeth and I plan on keeping them. Emphasize the more powerful thing in your life, which is blessing. Wouldn't that be something? You know, one grandfather walked out of this morning's service, he said, you know what this makes me want to do?

I'm going to sit down and have a conversation with my grandson. You know, one of the things that got woven into the life of Israel was the telling of the stories. See, after the Passover, after God did this unbelievable thing for the people of God, part of the Red Sea, he delivered them out of slavery so that they would be free. He opened up the Red Sea, and then he gave them an inheritance. And as he did so, he gave them a feast to celebrate called the Passover.

And everything in the Passover is symbolic, and it has a purpose, so that the fathers could tell the children, this is what God did for our family. This is your ancestry. And I want you to understand this, because I never want you to look on your life as if you're the father of God. You understand this, because I never want you to look on your life as if you're a slave.

You were set free, and that has ended. And I want you to see your life in the context of the blessing that God has brought, and this amazing rescue by which He liberated you. And you can remember the bitterness of that slavery, but I want you to also taste of the savor of the goodness of God, for this defines who you are. The definition of God's affection on you is seen in this blessed Passover, and He set up all these feasts.

Well, those feasts also pointed to how God provides for us when we're in difficult times, and I did a whole study on this in call the book God moments, because in rehearsing and remembering God's presence in your past, you activate faith for today. So, when you discover generational blessing in your life that you hadn't previously discovered, you didn't invent it, but when you see it, you can appropriate it in a whole new way. It's like, I don't know, imagine that there's a family that had artistic genius in it, but along the way, there was brokenness in the family, and there was no time for the children, for a couple of generations, everybody's just sort of surviving. But in their whole genetic code, there was artistic genius. And then someday, somebody says, your great-great-grandfather was an incredible artist, look at this, and then hands the child canvas and paint. And suddenly you discover there was an artist where you didn't know there was one. You didn't invent the artistic genius, but you uncovered it.

It's like a seed that you water, and you watch it grow, and you watch it flourish. So, I'm on a little bit of a treasure hunt right now. My grandfather, my mother's father, who he died at age 90 when I was six, he was a preacher. I really want to get hold of some of his sermons. I always heard he was kind of a stern man, that he thought drinking Coca-Cola was a sin. And so I thought, well, it ain't nothing in there for me, because I'm gonna drink my Coca-Cola.

Diet Coke, too. But there's something that's awakened in me, a prompting from the Lord. It's like, yeah, there might have been some things that he missed, but there were some things that came down to you. Stop and appreciate. You're a preacher of the gospel, and it didn't start with you.

What about you? And wouldn't it be an extraordinary change in the way you looked on relationships if you saw that God's plan for transformation in the world was generational blessing? For the way in which you decide to spend your time, for whether you're a parent or not, whether married or single, you can have spiritual children. Your greatest impact might be to impact one person that you love and disciple.

If you're a parent, no matter what you're seeing from your kids, no matter how frustrating a day can become, I invite you to so fix your mind on generational blessing that even when you get your most mad that what comes out of your mouth is not you're no good, and you come from a line of no good people, but what comes out even in the moment of discipline or anger is that you got a blessed life, and God has passed along blessing to your generation, and I'm going to see that it comes to pass in your life even if we have to have a little discipline right now. Training yourself in this, the way that we are going to change the world is through the pattern that God set up in the beginning, a generational blessing that becomes exponential. Go out and vote.

Influence your government. Be a good citizen, but let's never despair, and let's never put our hope in the wrong place because the hope of the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ growing exponentially through the generation. The invitation, therefore, is to appreciate and appropriate your inheritance both in the natural, but then in a way that's even greater, and that is to understand this, that there was a first Adam, and he sinned, and therefore all have fallen short of the glory of God, but there's a second Adam who came. His name was Jesus. He lived a sinless life, lived a sinless life, and on the cross, he, the Bible says, who knew no sin became sin. He became your sin and mine, and Galatians teaches us that he bore in himself all the curse, for cursed is the one who hangs upon the tree. You have, Christians, in Christ a new identity, and it is an invitation to a celebration that begins here on earth, and it will go on and on, for though the iniquity of the fathers may be passed to a third in the fourth generation, the love of God goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on, and that is the gospel.

Allen Wright. In today's teaching, Generational Blessing. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly?

Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you, or love you less.

Imagine no more of that anxious feeling that you get deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on so you can never really relax. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In Paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.

They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted, and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.

Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame, and there is only one antidote. The grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Allen Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. And today is the last day this special offer is available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. to go back and look and say, you know, there are blessings that have come down through the generations to me. The things that have been passed down to me. And I think that, you know, for people like me who have been through a lot of healing in their lives emotionally, you know, we can almost spend so much time focused on what are the things that need to get fixed in me and the things that got handed down that weren't helpful that we can miss. Hey, wait a minute, what about the beautiful gifts that have been passed along? And that's what this is about. Well, today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.