Bless Those Who Curse You [Part 1]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. That same redemptive grace that has saved you, can flow through you in your relationships with others and make a lasting difference.

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 a series titled The Power of Blessing 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.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? God has saved you and me through a redemptive grace that is characterized by this simple fact. He loved us when we didn't love Him, and He blessed us when we didn't bless Him.

And that same redemptive grace that has saved you can flow through you in your relationships with others and make a lasting difference. Luke chapter 6 verse 27, Jesus said, But I say to you who hear... Just love that phrase. Sometimes you'll hear it too. Whoever has ears, let him hear.

If you can hear this, what He's saying is getting ready to reveal a huge heavenly secret. Not that many people see it. Not many people have ears to hear it. But to you who do hear, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. This is a text that is really important and prevalent in the New Testament. Let me give you a couple other instances because Paul says a similar thing in Romans 12. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.

And Peter says the same thing in 1 Peter 3, Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. I stumbled upon this week a video that's one of the most viral right now of YouTube, and somebody caught on film, these little preschoolers. I think they must be three years old. Two little girls talking to a little boy, just cute as could be. And there was a dispute that arose. And they're very young sounding English. It was almost hard to understand what they were saying. But the little girl was clearly saying, It's raining outside. And the little boy said, My mommy said, It's sprinkling.

And he kind of struggled with that word sprinkling. And the little girl said, My mommy says, It's raining. And he said, Well, my mommy said, It's sprinkling. She said, My mommy said, It's raining.

He said, No, it's sprinkling. And they're having this three year old debate over whether it's raining or sprinkling. And several times you could see each of the children, they are wanting to maybe get their hands on the other one. But they are just with all their three year old willpower restraining from touching. One time the little boy just starts to reach towards her face and brings his hand back.

One time she brings her finger up towards his face and brings it back. But it kept going. It's raining. No, it's sprinkling. It's raining.

It's sprinkling. Finally, the little girl took her finger and just poked the boy right in the chest just like that and said, It's raining. And he suddenly just crumbled. And he said, You poked my heart. He turned away from me and said, You poked my heart. It is one of the cutest things. Today I want to talk to you about what do you do when somebody's poked your heart.

And they will do it, won't they? We're going to talk today about one of the most difficult things imaginable. It's one thing to learn, as we have been over the last number of weeks, about the power of blessing. And you think about blessing your children or your spouse or family members and the people around you that you so want it to go well for them that you could begin to incorporate into your life the power of blessing, which is to will the good of another and want what is good for them and to want it in such a way that you have faith and you invoke the grace of Christ Himself and speak it over them. It's a positive vision for another's well-being.

It's a positive future that you envision and you speak it out. And what we've been learning is that we are empowered by that blessing, that there is something that's not magic, but it is a spiritual principle and it is spiritually powerful. But it is quite another thing to begin to think about blessing those that curse you. And yet it's really important, it appears not only in the lips of Jesus here in Luke, but also in Matthew.

It appears on the lips of Paul and of Peter. It is something that is absolutely powerful in the Christian's life and it is a huge secret that most people never really understand or grasp. And so I want to talk to you about it today. I want to talk pretty plainly about this. And basically I want to talk about how difficult it is, the problem of trying to bless those that persecute you. I want to talk about why it's so problematic. And I'll try to stop myself and not use the whole sermon on the problem because we can easily identify how difficult it is. I want to talk about the power of blessing those that curse you, just how powerful it really is and give you some testimonies of that.

And then I want to talk about what makes it possible. How could you possibly ever do this and develop a lifestyle of blessing those that curse you? So let's first just talk about the problem. And the Lord was kind enough to let me have an object lesson this morning because I've been in the ministry about 30 years.

And this is the first morning that I had a hard time turning into my own church so that a recreational event could be happening on the street in front. And I just need to let you all in on a little thing. I'm not really doing well with the secularization of our culture. Maybe you're doing better than I am. I'm just going to be honest with you. I'm not.

I might look like I'm doing well with it. But I feel like writing a letter to the editor every day. I feel like standing up and ranting and raving every day.

And part of this is a function that I have to admit to myself, as most of us do, that we are so privileged to live in a country that values the freedom of expression of the churches and has, for most of our history, valued church. And I'm used to that. And I'm also, I'm just not used to being a minority either, right? I don't really know what that feels like.

I don't know what it feels like to be in the powerless position. And so I'm just being honest with you. I'm not doing that well. I'm struggling with it. And somehow it just hit me this morning that I was pulling in. And I was having a hard time and people, we were talking on the phone to other people, having a hard time getting to church this morning. Our attendance is lighter this morning. I'm sure that we've had people that have not made it to church this morning.

And so I've been kind of hit in the face this morning with how hard this is because here was my reaction. When I pulled down to the light this morning, the police officer said, are you going to church? I said, yeah, I'm the pastor of the church. And it would have been nice if somebody had told me about this. When does this end?

He said around 1030. And I said, okay, okay, can I please turn now into my own church? And that was probably not a model of what I want to preach today, was it? So I think the Lord is just showing me right off the bat.

They give me a little opportunity to fail at my own sermon before I even get started. And then I came back in and one of our members said they wouldn't even let me turn down there. It was all blocked off off Silas Creek Road, turning right onto Reynolda. And I turned around. I said, I'm going back out there to talk to him again. Thankfully, I took a kind and gentle fellow with me who this time we went back and spoke to the police officer, a different one. And they said, sir, we said, there are a lot of people that want to come to church today. And I said, they don't think they can turn from down at that intersection.

And we would be so appreciative if you would help them with that. And spoke a little more kindly and it went much better. And they said, I'll do all that I can.

But my blood is still boiling just a little bit. I'm grieving the whole deal where it's like one person said they were turning in and said, they said, can I turn in there? And they said, yeah, where are you going? To that big white church that's sitting right there.

That's where I'm going. So is this new for us, right? To have a culture that becomes so increasingly secular that it's a little bit of an afterthought about whether people could get to church. What I just want to talk to you about for a moment is just how difficult a proposition it is to bless those that curse you.

And for a variety of reasons. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's Matthew 543 in a parallel passage to our text today.

He said, but I said, you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Alan Wright Ministries will help. Coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we have created a flip style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip style devotional as our thank you for your partnership.

Each spiral bound devotional comes with a convenient easel style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. 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. When he says you have heard that it was said, what's interesting is Jesus is not quoting an Old Testament passage here. In fact, in the matter there is nowhere in the Old Testament that says you should hate your enemy. There are lots of places that say you should love everyone but never says you should hate your enemy. So he's not quoting the scripture here. What is he quoting? He is quoting either a traditional misreading of the scripture that people tended to circulate or more likely he is just quoting this is the general prevailing ideology that you hear. And I would just suggest that the first problem for us in this is that everything that you hear you can you hear and everything that goes into us says just the opposite of pray for your enemies. It says essentially love those that do good to you and hate those that don't. I mean everything. Think of our whole media. You know I like a good action flick as much as the next guy and I was thinking about some of these you know hero movies or the you know what came to mind was like some you know Steven Seagal movie where what they do in these movies is they work you up into a frenzy by having uh somebody in the hero's family get murdered early on you know uh by some brutal uh wicked person and uh and then the rest of the movie you got to seek them out and you imagine getting to the climactic scene and there's Steven Seagal you know he's got all those moves and everything and he comes in there and he kept the person cornered and and you know what's going to happen then is where he's going to come up there and he's going to put his right foot up on that person's left cheek and knock them down and then just start beating them to a pulp and you're just like okay this guy's got to go imagine that scene he catches and he finally says good I finally got you cornered I just want to bless you and pray for you I want you to know I've forgiven you for killing my daughter you know I mean we just like we'd be throwing stuff at the screen like boo no way no no because you know we're all wrapped up in it this whole idea just doesn't even make sense to us it in fact it's something that almost seems like it couldn't be true and also that maybe it shouldn't be true that's how deep it is with us everything you have heard you have heard it said all right everything you've been taught goes like this it's just the way the way of the of the world I told you a few weeks ago our son Bennett was helping out with vacation bible school and he had had some little boys and two of them got into a scuffle and one was being kind of mean to the other so Bennett pulled the kid aside who had been kind of victimized and he said now you know what the bible says when when people we do when people are mean to us and boy said what and Bennett Bennett said we we're nice to them and instead of being mean back and little boy just paused from him and said well that's stupid and uh and I just think that that let's just start with the thing is just a problem in the first place because there's a part of it just says that's stupid but let me tell you a deeper part of the problem uh and this is what I experienced this morning okay um and that is the flesh when the bible talks about the flesh it's really talking as as not about your actual physical skin and bone it's talking about the sinful appetite the the appetite of our not not just our bodies but also of our thoughts the sinful appetite and what many many people don't realize that are christians is we realize we're in a battle against the devil and to some extent a battle against the ways the world but you also have to realize the bible teaches that we're in a battle against the flesh you're in a battle against your own sinful appetites and those those sinful appetites just because you become a christian they don't they don't go away and what happens is that the flesh it just it gets gratified by sinful responses so let me draw the analogy for you the other night I was watching a tv show and we had some leftover ice cream cake from abigail's birthday now this particular ice cream cake shall I describe it to you it had crumbled oreo crust waves of chocolate and vanilla high premium ice cream with a kind of whipped cream and and real sugary icing cover I can feel water going down in my mouth right now while I'm saying it and I was just watching this show and I just said you know I'm I'm going to splurge I'm going to have me a piece of that abby was having a piece I said I'm gonna have a piece of that and it was so good I mean we put some extra whipped cream on it and uh it was just oh man it was so good and I got done I actually literally my outlook on life looked better at that point after I ate that you know I mean it was just like man I just feel okay I feel really good now and I the thought just came in I want to eat two more pieces of that I want to eat two more pieces of that ice cream pie and uh and yet another process took over and that was my mind kicked in and I've learned now that um one piece of ice cream pie is roughly equivalent to one pound uh around the waist and so I just thought um okay that'll be two more pounds and I really don't I don't have room in my pants for that right now and so I just decided to limit it to the one and uh even though I had to grieve that a little bit because I wanted I wanted more what was going on there was that the the flesh had an appetite but there was a bigger truth that played out right I was talking years ago to a guy who was breaking free from a severe cocaine addiction and he had been sober for quite some time the Lord was intervening in his life things were going well and I just asked him I said how are you doing it tell me some of the things so I look to help other people as well and he said well one of the things that's changed for me is that he said I used to have like a small little tape that would play in my mind but would only play the one piece of the picture the one piece of this uh story that was the high that I would get from the drug and it wouldn't play out any of the other part of it in other words it only saw and only my appetite for this one thing and all I would think about is the high all I would think about is the momentary relief of anxiety all I would think about is the kind of the exhilaration moment and I wouldn't allow myself I wouldn't think about the rest of the story I wouldn't think about how I've lost my wife I wouldn't think about how I've lost my career I wouldn't think about all the things I'm gonna lose I wouldn't think about all the dangers and all of the health problems and all the issues I wouldn't think about that he said but now I'm training my mind that when the appetite emerges that I let that that tape recording in my mind go ahead and play the whole scene you know what he was saying there he said I am learning to see the truth in other words there is an appetite and that appetite is placing its demand but there is a truth and that truth trumps the appetite and I think this is what happens in the battle against the flesh the flesh has an appetite my flesh is appetite this morning I'm just being honest with you I'm just a human being like you are and I mean it's kind of like I want to say listen I don't ask that much of the city but please don't block our church on the one morning that we need to be able to come you know my flesh is just going like this and I mean I'm literally I turn around to the 360 I'm gonna go back out there and I'm gonna talk to him what my appetite of my flesh wants to do is not to go out there and bless him god bless you for being out here this morning and directing traffic and and keeping people scared from coming to church because they think they're getting a ticket but but god bless no that's not my my appetite the flesh and so the flesh is trying to tell you this is the way you should do it right and it's really no different than saying you ought to eat three or four more pieces of ice cream pie it's just an appetite but the appetite is not seeing the whole picture the fact of the matter is there's a higher truth and that higher truth must trump the appetite so it's difficult for us because when you're in the moment that every and especially if you're angry everything within you wants to curse tony campolo tells a story about uh teaching his sociology class one time about discipline in the in the household and he was talking about the importance of parents only disciplining out of love and not out of anger and frustration that you do so for the well-being of the child and um and so you have to be cool about this and and learn to discipline and love and offer instruction rather than just you know uh lashing out in anger well this is such a obviously a difficult thing to think of is um for any parent that one of the students went home that night and composed a little poem as a satire of how difficult uh this whole concept was and came back and gave it to campolo the next day and it read never discipline your child in anger never spank him when irate irate instead wait until some happy time when both are feeling great it just kind of raises the whole point of the difficulty of this right is it by the time that i feel calm cool and collected i don't feel like spanking you anymore you know what i'm saying but this is what god is saying he wants to train us up in something that is all together higher and better to see the thing in a whole new way and that is what i think the lord wants to offer many of us this morning is basically a paradigm shift in your thinking a watershed moment where you begin to look on this completely differently than you ever have before but that's what that's what the words the weight of jesus's words are i think the reason this is such a problem is that you know maybe more so with guys than than ladies i don't know but you know generally uh i feel competitive i mean i've always been raised up that way and most of us are competitive it's kind of a competitive society and it's hard to put these words of bless those who curse you and pray for your opponents it's kind of hard to put that into the context of also being in a competitive environment Alan Wright i can agree i i see that that's a tough one to process bless those who curse you is today's teaching in the power of blessing series you stick with us alan's back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on god's blessing instead of the curses of the world this month's special offer from Alan Wright Ministries will help coinciding with the release of pastor alan's new book the power to bless we have created a flip style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter the beautiful spiral bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of god's blessing right in front of you as paul wrote to the philippians whatever is true noble right and pure think on these things so make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip style devotional as our thank you for your partnership each spiral bound devotional comes with a convenient easel style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with god's blessing now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month 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 pastor alan.org back now sitting with pastor alan and our parting good news thought for the day bless those who curse you by the way the teaching series the power of blessing and pastor alan's latest book is the power to bless how to speak life and empower the people you love it's available wherever good books are sold right now you can get it through amazon barnes and noble online at pastor alan.org there are also some other formats of the book available if you prefer an audiobook for instance and it's available and we encourage you to get your hands on it so pastor alan what's our parting good news thought on today's teaching as we place the bookmark here bless those who curse you it's astounding that jesus doesn't just say tolerate your enemies he says love them he doesn't just say do your best to get away from those that persecute you and forget about them he says pray for them so you may be sons of your father who's in heaven you know to say to bless your enemies is so countercultural and so unrivaled in any other type of ideology that you just know it's from the heart of god and danny i just want to leave our listeners with this this is what god did we were friends with the world and therefore enemies to god and he came to us in the person of jesus christ to bless us with the unspeakable gift of jesus christ to bless your enemy doesn't mean to excuse their sin it doesn't mean to endorse it but it does mean that you instead of cursing them are going to find the grace in christ to actually speak a positive vision over that person's life i would say to our listeners give it a try you might be amazed at what happens today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries