When the Saints Go Marching In [Part 1]

Alan Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. You might feel you don't deserve it, and if so, you're good because you're right at the gospel when you are aware of how unmerited the favor of God is. That in the end does not have to do with your own righteousness.

It is not because of your own intrinsic loveliness, but something else has happened. 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 the series, Belonging to God, 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. 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? Though most of your life you've been trained to be humble as a Christian and say things like, well I'm no saint. Today's good news is that if you are in Christ, you are a saint. It means a holy one. You are one of God's holy ones in Christ.

Everybody in Christ is a saint. And that's the way that Paul addresses the Christians that he writes to in the New Testament. Today we're going to look at just two of the greetings that Paul brings in the epistles. The first one in 1st Corinthians and then we're gonna look at the opening lines of Ephesians. And I want to just highlight for you how Paul calls all Christians, he calls them saints, hagios in the Greek.

It means holy ones. 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 1. Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthathis. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just notice there verse 2, sanctified in Christ Jesus.

Again he's speaking of something that has happened. How you were called to be this, saints together with those every place who call upon the name of the Lord. So he's just saying clearly every place and every person that calls upon the name of the Lord, they are rightly saints together with you. And then at the opening verses of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 1. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 1. Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. So saints who were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. Saints he said to the Corinthians in Christ Jesus who have been sanctified and called into this. That's what I want to show you today. The links between what it means to be a holy one or a saint and this whole idea being called and being chosen and how it's possible that though we still sin, we could be called saints.

And the problem for us is we all know how fallible we all are so we have a hard time thinking of ourselves because we've been conditioned to think a saint is somebody who's especially virtuous and we know that we all mess up. Don't you get a kick out of when you see the bulletin bloopers that show up sometimes? We try hard to not have typographical errors and bulletins but sometimes it happens and these are actual bulletin articles that have shown up, not here thankfully I don't think, sometimes in the bulletin you don't have enough room and try to squeeze things in to the space you've got but be wary of abbreviations they may not come out right. This bulletin article said the ladies Bible study will be held Thursday morning at 10.

All ladies are invited to lunch in the fellowship hall after the BS is done. Don't want to abbreviate Bible study. Should not be abbreviated. A use of one wrong word can change the whole meaning. I feel sorry for this church that accidentally just misspelled one word.

The article said the outreach committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make calls on people who are not afflicted with any church. It should be affiliated I think. Affiliated is a better word. Sometimes there's irony in something and we don't realize it until it's too late like the bulletin article that said due to the pastor's illness Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice. It's not. Doesn't come across right. A tiny two letter word can mess things up like this article that said remember and prayer the many who are sick of our church and a community. One bulletin article said potluck supper prayer and medication to follow. This article just left a G out of the word.

That messed it up pretty badly. It said you don't have to be an experienced vocalist to join the choir. Anyone who enjoys sinning is welcome to join the choir.

And my personal favorite one wrong letter is all it can take can be the ruin of a staff member. I feel sorry for feel sorry for this church secretary. The bulletin article said the pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to the church secretary. See we know we're just as fallible as anybody else because you're a Christian it doesn't mean that suddenly you never sin never make a mistake never have a regret never it doesn't mean that right and so we're sort of trained up then to as part of our humility to acknowledge our sin. And yet we come to the scriptures and we see that Paul even when writing to the Corinthian church which was a messed up church in a lot of ways because he's a later in 1st Corinthians if you read all the way through but you'll realize that he's gonna have times he is really calling them on some of the kinds of sin that is going on there and it calls out their kind of gossiping spirit and sexual immorality and drunkenness he calls all that out but even in regard to their worship life they had come into pride and excess and insensitivity to the unbelievers that were in their midst and he had to correct them about that I mean if you just read 1st Corinthians you might go these these Christians are kind of a mess here and yet when he writes them he addresses them as Saints but how can you call some people that seem to be so messed up how can you call them Saints and and how is it that we knowing that we mess up could begin to see ourselves as Saints or huggios holy ones well just Paul says this over and over Romans 1 7 he says to all who are loved by God and called to be Saints he says also in 2nd Corinthians 1 to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the Saints Philippians chapter 1 verse 1 to all the Saints in Christ Jesus Colossians 1 verse 1 to the Saints and faithful brothers and so I want to show you today how the words of William temple are true that there is no such thing as a Christian who isn't holy and there's no such thing as someone who is holy that's not a Christian according to the New Testament it all has to do in the beginning with this sense of you being called and chosen by God and when you get a real sense of what it is to be in that sense called and chosen in Christ what Paul says you can begin to wrap your mind around that mystery that for at least for me has been the secret to help me learn to grow more and more to see myself from God's perspective and what we'll see is that when you live according to the identity that God has given you then you're going to be much more likely to live the life that God's called you to live they go they go hand in hand but it begins with this Paul says chosen in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless so the fact that you're holy to God is related to what he said to the Corinthians called to be holy called to be a saint and what he says to the Ephesians chosen in him these things of being chosen of being called of belonging and being holy are all part of the same the same package well we have had a scandal of sorts at the Dixie Classic Fair yes I perhaps you were heard an earlier a message the illustration that I used my handcrafted pottery of the bear head that I've so masterfully created and Montreat North Carolina over the 4th of July in the pottery class as I sat next to the instructor and made sure each step of the way that it was absolutely looking like a North Carolina black bear and so I entered mine into the fair my daughter also was a freshman in college now she entered hers into the fair as well and I didn't know not to in any way both or to put my daughter's handicraft down but there was a problem on the snout on hers I mean it was just very long too low down it was just it was just it was I affectionately called my my bear Smokey the bear and I called hers Pinocchio the bear and so they were entered into the adult pottery craft part of the Dixie Classic Fair felt sure that there'd be a blue ribbon on on mine we got word on Friday night as the fair opened it because somebody took a picture and we're no ribbons on them we didn't thought well we went in on Saturday or to go see for ourselves this travesty and we got in there and Abigail's bear has a third-place ribbon on it and mine has none are you kidding me what sort of travesty of justice has taken place I'm researching now whether there's an appeals committee or anything within the fair you know like they do in the Olympics or something I surely whoever was judging this has never seen a real bear before Pinocchio has won a ribbon and I'm high and dry with no ribbon my daughter's never gonna let me live it down it is been so we're furthermore wondering there was not a ribbon there Friday night how did one get there on Saturday that's part of the part of the scandal but slowly over the week I've been gradually trying to accept the fact that Abigail's bear got a ribbon and was judged to be better than my bear it was judged to be a third-place winner mine was not and I've just had to accept that because in the end here's my point in the end if the judge put a ribbon on her bear is a third-place winner it's the third-place winner right her bear was judged to be third place hey to be a holy one to be a saint means in God's eyes you have been judged to be so it means it has been declared on your life right and you might feel misshapen and disfigured you might feel you don't deserve it and if so you good because you're right at the gospel when you are aware of how unmerited the favor of God is that it in the end does not have to do with your own righteousness it is not because of your own intrinsic loveliness but something else has happened that's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series imagine for 99 days in a row someone tells you I love you I'll never forsake you when you feel cherished but what would happen if on the hundredth day that same person said I'm not sure you're good enough for me if you don't measure up I don't think I'll love you anymore wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days wouldn't 1% of conditional love poison the other 99% well just 1% of law is enough to spoil grace the tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear what if I don't measure up when might I be rejected when the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian Church the Apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law Alan Wright's 12 message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace it's called Galatians and that's the gospel discover the purity and power of the grace of God when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at 8 7 7 5 4 4 48 60 that's 8 7 7 5 4 4 48 60 or come to our website pastor alan.org today's teaching now continues here once again is Alan Wright something else has happened that the scripture very clearly portrays as a sort of legal transaction a something that has happened in the spirit by God wherein he is justified in blessing you and he has always wanted for himself a holy people so what you see in the Old Testament is this saying that on the one hand it seems so scandalous that God would choose out of all the peoples this one people and through this one man Abraham make a nation and then declare this is my holy people and he made a covenant with Israel through Moses that if they would obey everything he said then they would be his treasured possession and they would be like a kingdom of priests unto the Lord but they never could obey so what you saw prefigured in the shadow of the Old Testament and the shadow of the people of God of Israel was something that was really pointing to the reality that was going to come in Christ that God was going to have a greater mediator the man Jesus Christ who is also God who would mediate a much better covenant and the point of this covenant was that God would have for himself a people that he could call his holy people he must know that in in his choosing of Israel it was never ever ever ever depicted in the Old Testament that it's because Israel was somehow lovelier than other people or was somehow better than other people instead what he was doing was he was putting on display the power of his sovereign grace it was never ever ever to say that God doesn't love all people but to paint a shadow on the landscape of history so that when you see what's happened in Christ you could grasp hold of this that God has always wanted a people unto himself that are rightly his holy people because God is holy and he wants a people who are holy but the problem is the people couldn't make themselves holy couldn't keep the Covenant couldn't obey his laws and so God who is holy didn't have a people who could rightly be judged as holy because they didn't live holy lives and so Christ came and what Paul is speaking of in Ephesians is a mystery so beautiful and so profound you could spend all eternity thinking on this that you yes if you're a Christian you have chosen to follow Christ but you only did so because God from the beginning of time has had his eye on you there has been a call that has gone to you that has been effective there is a way in which you can in your heart embrace this mystery yes you've chosen to follow Christ but you've only done so because of the magnificence of the predestining love of God that was set on you before you ever knew how to love him and the reason that this is important is because I don't see how you could ever see yourself as holy unto God unless you could see it in the context of radical ultimate grace which means that you have not brought any of your own goodness to bear upon God's grace being poured out into your life I think what happens I you know it's so long in my Christian life every time I'd hear about predestination like Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8 or here in Ephesians 1 or I'd see the word chosen or the idea of the elect and all that stuff I was so odious to me it was just so objectionable to me that I would just sort of cough and move on to the next scripture because it just seemed like that on the one hand to say you're chosen would feel so presumptuous and prideful and in saying something negative about other people who weren't amongst the chosen or in what bother me even more was it seemed to take away from the dignity of free human will like God is just somehow foreordaining some people to heaven and some to hell you know that caricature of Calvinism that can be this idea of severe double predestination you know like God just in the beginning is just like oh you know I think I'll take that one that one look pastor Chris compared to the children's game duck-duck-goose you know where you go around duck-duck-goose and the goose supposed to chase you around and he said he said the way some people do their theology it's like duck-duck- damned you know like God was just somehow just in the beginning just capricious about all that how ridiculous to view the notion of being chosen in Christ in such simplistic terms that go beyond anything the scripture ever says so if you're going to grasp this I suggest you not think of it in wooden terms we are not robots and God is not a machine who's pulling names out by the lottery God's a father and where's children Alan Wright that's a good word it's from our teaching when the Saints go marching in from the series belonging to God Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today imagine for 99 days in a row someone tells you I love you I'll never forsake you when you feel cherished but what would happen if on the hundredth day that same person said I'm not sure you're good enough for me if you don't measure up I don't think I'll love you anymore wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days wouldn't one percent of conditional love poison the other 99% well just 1% of law is enough to spoil grace the tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear what if I don't measure up when might I be rejected when the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian Church the Apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law Alan Wright's 12 message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace it's called Galatians and that's the gospel discover the purity and power of the grace of God when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty that's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty or come to our website pastor Alan dot org and I like what you said there as we put a bookmark that we are not robots and God is not a machine I'm gonna hear more about this in our next installment we are children of God and the idea of being set apart unto him or chosen in Christ is not this caricature Daniel that people have of you know some kind of double predestination and everything's fate and so forth that just I think we can understand this more in relationship and so when we had our children there's a real sense you could say well yes they're choosing us because they they recognize I belong to these parents and therefore I love them and I choose them and I choose to take their food that they provide for me so but our choosing them are wanting them went long before I think that that's where we're we're we're headed and I think that if the if our hearts can become more and more convinced of this then there's a certainty a confidence that can emerge of how much God wanted us and therefore how much God has done for us and therefore how much we belong to him today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries