Being Filled with the Holy Spirit [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I don't know what to say, for I don't know much. I know too little.

What can I, a person of lifelong personal privilege, what can I truly understand about the plight of those who are hurt by systemic racism? I want to be a part of the answer. I want to contribute more than words, and though I may not know how, I can learn. It'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 Unlimited, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going 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. Now, more on this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Anyone can be filled with the Spirit of the living God. Any believer anywhere can be filled, regardless of age, social background, religious heritage, gender, nationality, or color of skin. Anyone can be filled with the Spirit. We are in a brand new series. It is on the book of Acts.

We called it Unlimited. And today, we look at the beginning of Acts 2, starting at verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?

Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Philia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Serene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God, and all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? The fact that the living God equally unreservedly comprehensively delights to fill any believer with his own holy presence proves more than any other evidence that every human is equally cherished and valued by God.

And when Christians are together filled by the same Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus himself, barriers fall away and supernatural love arises. The killing of George Floyd has grieved me as so many of you in an unprecedented way. Perhaps it is the undeniable clarity of the video or the pitiful plea, I can't breathe, the symbol of a white man's knee on a black man's neck for no reason.

Maybe it's a combination of all these things, but I, like many of you, have been undone. And I don't know what to say, for I don't know much. I know too little. What can I, a person of lifelong personal privilege, what can I truly understand about the plight of those who are hurt by systemic racism? I want to be a part of the answer.

I want to contribute more than words. And though I may not know how I can learn, when I was a youth, I worked at Wright's Clothing Store on Elm Street in Greensboro, across the street from Woolworth's where the sit-ins that became part of the foundation of the civil rights movement took place. I walked across the street and at lunch, there's a teenager, I had lunch and I sat in that Woolworth over and over, but I didn't really understand its historic significance. I was really blessed that my parents, to the best of my recollection, never uttered a word that I could remember as racist. In fact, as I've shared before, my father gave me a precious gift. One day as we were leaving the field after one of my peewee football games, the football fields were adjacent to a city park. And as we approached the parking lot, we saw a middle-aged African-American man.

He was sitting at a picnic table reading a book. And as did most people in my home community, the man at the park table recognized my TV newsman father and spoke to him. Dad was humble.

He never acted like a celebrity. I liked that about him. And my father politely stopped to talk.

The man at the picnic table explained that he'd gone back to school and that he was learning to read. I want to be better than Martin Luther King, the barely literate man said. And as we walked to the car, I unthinkingly mocked the man.

I said, he can barely read and he wants to be better than Martin Luther King. I guess expecting my dad to join into the mockery. But I'll never forget that day. Instead of joining in my mockery, my father said solemnly, I think that's a very noble goal for him, son.

And so we walked silently to the car. Other than the memories of my dad giving me the rapid towel treatment that he called the drying machine after my bath when I was a preschooler or the spy stories that he wove for us at bedtime. I think that day at the city park when my father blessed a black man and corrected me, it was probably my favorite memory of my dad.

And to my knowledge, to my knowledge, I never mocked in word or deed, a disenfranchised person ever again. Nearly 24 years ago, when I came to be pastor of Rinaldo, several churches had joined for an Easter sunrise service that year. And for some reason, that event didn't get scheduled again, but Bishop J.C. Hash of St. Peter's Church and World Outreach Center and I very much wanted to continue.

And so we did. And for 23 years, the first face other than my wife's that I've seen on Easter day for the last 23 years is the glowing face of Pastor J.C. Hash. Bishop Hash took over leadership of St. Peter's in 1987 after his father's death. In 33 years of leadership, he led that fellowship into becoming one of the largest churches in our region, a nationally sought preacher. He developed an extensive ministerial alliance and he's helped shape a generation in our community for Christ. When Ann and I began to spend some time with J.C. and his wife Joy, we just considered it a high honor and we fell in love with them. They're deeply spiritual and they're just fun to be around. If you've ever worshiped at St. Peter's, you'll know what I know.

It's a community of love, of joy, a lot of joy and faith and a great sense of honor. So as our nation is reeling from the George Floyd killing, I asked Bishop Hash if he would sit down with me for a conversation on camera that might shed some light and some love. I want you to see our conversation and it's part of my message today and I hope that it will help you understand more than you do now. And regardless of the color of your skin to take next steps in letting go of any form of prejudice. And so I want you to enjoy this conversation at this very important moment in the history of our nation. And when we come back from the conversation, I want to show you from Acts chapter two, some beautiful truths about the infilling of the Holy Spirit and how anyone, anyone can be filled with the Spirit. I've been friends for 23 years. We probably should have our wives out here with us.

That would be a good idea. Joy and Anne, they're two peas in a pod in a lot of ways. They get a lot of similarities. They have a lot in common. They love the Lord and they're both a force of nature themselves.

They're bold to speak up. How long you enjoy being married? 56 years.

Oh my. 57 years. I just celebrated my 57th year. Well, we got a long way to go and we just celebrated 35 years.

You and Joy have sure modeled for all of us a marriage and what marriage in the Lord does and your family and your church. You know, I was reflecting back how we became friends. We've been doing an Easter sunrise service together for 23 years. And I had met you right off when we got here in 96. And I just thought, that's the kind of person I want to be a friend with because you have, you've been 33 years at St. Peter's.

And your leadership has been just amazing, extraordinary. But yeah, friendship is important. And I think so often everybody's thinking about, well, what are the right things to say?

And how do we do that? And when we've been friends, I don't, I honestly, I don't think that that's a, that's my African American pastor friend. That's just my friend. We're Christian friends.

You know, I think that's the difference, Alan. Natural people focus on the natural things. Spiritual people focus upon spiritual things. It's by the Spirit that we are able to come together and lock ourselves into one another because we're now in the perfect will of God. There's something when you move in the will of God where you're moving in the flesh. And in the flesh, you can't make things happen.

You can force it, but you make a mess. But when the Spirit is in it, things settle in just ordinarily happen. We're the same in the Spirit.

And, and you know that we know that when we worship together. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. If ever we've been ready for a new year, this is the year. As you start planning and dreaming for a great new year, we want to help.

Alan Wright Ministries has produced a beautiful, inspiring wall calendar with you in mind. Each month not only depicts the month in a heart-stirring image, but also includes a specially crafted blessing for the month from Pastor Alan. As Pastor Alan explains in his new book, The Power to Bless, which releases February 2nd and is available from Amazon for pre-order now, blessing is a biblically-based faith vision over your life. God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply. Blessing isn't the reward for your productivity.

It's the fuel for it. The 2021 blessing wall calendar gives you space to write down all your important appointments and make plans for a wonderful new year. And most importantly, each time you see the beautiful image for the month, your heart will be strengthened by the empowering blessing statement from Pastor Alan. This year, don't just organize your life, bless your life with the 2021 blessing calendar. It is our gift to you when you make a donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. Contact us today and start your year out right by the power of blessing. 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 Lord was just moving and it was, you know, just you look at that sense when it's just an anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. And there was so much joy and so much love between all our people. You feel the love of Jesus. And I'll never forget you looking at me and say, well, here I am, six foot two black man.

And you're going to think it's a straight mama kiss you on the jaw. You gave me a holy kiss and and, you know, just affection just when we've had meals with you and joy, we just we just enjoy you all. But see that scripture when Jesus said, men shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded forth out of the mouth of God. He said, it's the spirit that gives his life. So again, I feel that I as a father, as a pastor, whatever role I'm playing, I represent God.

Yeah. The same is true with you as a Christian, as a born again man, as a pastor, everything you do once you get saved, born again, you represent God. You can show people God in the flesh or you can show people God in the spirit as you make that decision. Well, this is this is as our people know, this is really part of my sermon is we've just started a series on acts.

Yeah. And in when Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit came, there were people gathered there from all different regions. And when the Holy Spirit began to move and they began all hearing their own and their own language, they're hearing the gospel. But the love that immediately happened and the sense of we are all one, it just happened by the spirit. And I just I love worshiping with you. I love worshiping with people.

We I think we forget of the color of our skin. Right. And you know what it is? You said it just while ago, the love that is expressed. And see, I think this is some of the challenge we're facing in our society today is to love the love of God, the shadow brought in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. As we grow in the love of God, we grow in life. The people will not see God in his fullness until the church grow in his fullness.

And one of the challenges we're facing today is yes, people are safe born again, but they haven't taken the time to develop themselves in the love of God. Everything that's representing God, the foundation is the love of God. Yeah, God is love. God is love. The foundation of everything that Jesus did was the love of God. And Jesus taught our first love was love the Father with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Then he said love thy neighbor as thyself.

That neighbor covers. It's not a racial thing. It's a spiritual thing.

Yes. Your neighbor was everybody's kin to the tongue. That God died for all of humanity, just not for one group of people. He died for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Jesus went to the cross for all of humanity. And until we learn that God has a part of everyone, we learn to respect people more.

Yes. I just think that as we start maybe to go a little deeper into these great emotion and pain of the horrible, horrible, atrocious events we witness in the killing of George Floyd that has surfaced so much, so much anger just understandable and so much hatred. It seems to me, and I'd like you to say something about this, JC, that when you're really in Christ and you really understand the gospel and what God has done for us in Jesus, you realize at least two things. And the first is this, every single human being is infinitely valuable. That's true.

Because Jesus paid an infinite price. And sometimes I think of the way Joy, like I can think of times we've had meals together and she'll just say, tell me what your community is saying about this right now. What are you hearing right now? And just wants to listen. And I think part of it, and I hope that I've been learning from you about this, JC, is that you're a lifelong learner.

And I think that's part of the joy of getting to know people that may not come from the same cultural background is it's a beautiful thing to learn about the diversity of people because people have so much uniqueness and beauty in every human being. Getting closer to the pain of the events of the last days. Somehow this was just, it aroused compassion. It also I think is awakening within a lot of people, within a lot of white Christians. I realize I've been too silent. I may not feel like I'm complicit in it, but I feel like I want to do something. So let's talk about that a little bit.

What do we do? My son, James Jr., and I was talking, and my daughter, Mia, about some of the issues that we have in our nation today. And I hear my heart when I'm getting ready to say, based upon what you said. I strongly believe that for racism, our differences, there's always been diversity. That was even in Jesus' day when he came, but that's what he came for, to break down all of it.

We're all the one in the Lord simply, but this is my thing. I personally believe until the Caucasian pastor stand up and tell their congregation that it's wrong, it will never stop. Now as long as a black man's saying it's wrong, all they hear is an angry black man. But when you have, if a Caucasian pastor will stand up and say, this is wrong, racism is wrong, as a Christian, it's wrong.

Now you're going to find it in the world, because the world not saved. But if I believe it's Caucasian pastor will stand up and just flat out tell their congregation, this is not right, this is not God, this is wrong. Simple as that right there. That's the Christian way, because the Caucasian pastor has a stronger voice than the black pastor when it comes to speaking to people of the white race. Now let me say this, you have racism in every race. It's not only in the white race, you have racism in every family.

You understand what I'm saying there? You got it in every family, you got it in every race. So it's not only a white thing, but I do believe this, a majority of your Caucasian people don't really understand racism because they never faced it themselves. I just like you asked me the question about the situation that has happened with George Floyd. My response to you will be this right here, to get the feel of what really happened during that time as a Caucasian person, you have to flip the coin.

What if that was your son there and there was four black officers there doing what those four white officers did, how would you respond? See that's it. Sometimes you don't know how a shoe feel until you wear it. You can talk about how bad it hurts to wear shoes, don't fit your feet, but you don't really know what the situation is until it touches you. But once it touches you, you get the feel of it. And see, once you get the feel of it, then that's when you can respond. That's when you respond.

And a lot of people of your race has not faced racism like a lot of blacks have. And I think there was something just to say a little bit about own feeling. Why was this maybe different than other one?

It was, it was so clear it was caught. But I think that when I became emotional about this and I've been more emotional about this than maybe any other racism and violence against a minority that I'd ever seen, it was partly, I remember when my daughter shared, she said, dad, I just cried at this video. And I was like, I hardly wanted to go. I didn't want to go look at it. It's hard to look at.

But I turned to her and I said, the problem is that if that had been, and I'm still saying it, a white man in a business suit, there wouldn't have been a police officer. We've never seen that happen. No, it never will happen.

It would never happen. Yeah. And I think that to begin to at least try to think about, try to at least imagine you can't imagine because you're not, I'm not in it. Alan Wright, today's good news message being filled with the Holy Spirit. It's from our teaching unlimited. And Pastor Alan is back in the studio here in just a moment with our parting good news thought stay with us. If ever we've been ready for a new year, this is the year as you start planning and dreaming for a great new year, we want to help.

Alan Wright Ministries has produced a beautiful, inspiring wall calendar with you in mind. Each month not only depicts the month in a heart stirring image, but also includes a specially crafted blessing for the month from Pastor Alan. As Pastor Alan explains in his new book, The Power to Bless, which releases February 2nd and is available from Amazon for preorder now blessing is a biblically based faith vision over your life. God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply. Blessing isn't the reward for your productivity.

It's the fuel for it. The 2021 blessing wall calendar gives you space to write down all your important appointments and make plans for a wonderful new year. And most importantly, each time you see the beautiful image for the month, your heart will be strengthened by the empowering blessing statement from Pastor Alan this year.

Don't just organize your life, bless your life with the 2021 blessing calendar. It is our gift to you when you make a donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. Contact us today and start your year out right by the power of blessing. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Thank you're in the studio with Pastor Alan as we place a bookmark in this very special teaching and conversation even in the middle of the teaching. Pastor Alan, you and a long time friend, Bishop J. C. Hash. And you're both pastors in the same city, but obviously different races, different backgrounds. And how refreshing to hear two men sit down and just talk openly about differences.

Well, it was, of course, in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing that we sat down and had this conversation. We're airing it now when still very much at the forefront of our thoughts as a ministry is longing for there to be equality and understanding also there are many nuances to this discussion, which it was a privilege, therefore, to sit down with my friend of 25 years, Bishop Hash. We celebrate Easter together as our congregations with sunrise for 25 years. And my wife and I, we enjoy dinners with J. C. and Joy Hash. We think so highly of them. Their congregation, St. Peter's World Outreach Center and church is one of the most important and influential churches in our community, predominantly African-American. But our congregations just love being together.

And so we just said, let's have an honest conversation. And, you know, I just I just trust his heart so much. And J.C. is, as I've always known him, he is always he just believes in the power of words. He's not he's never a person who'd be negative. He's a person who's positive. And yet, you know, this was we had this conversation at a time in which there was just a lot of heartache. There still is a lot of heartache. And I just felt like it was important for us to air this in the context of our study of acts where we see the real answer ultimately to racism is the infilling of the Holy Spirit, who is no respecter of persons. So happy to have this conversation on the air. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.