Experiencing the Affection of Christ [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I think the reason that he is making this case is the same reason that God wants to make a case with you. Because it's hard to believe in the love of God.

It's hard to believe in the affections of God. 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 Unspeakable Joy, 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. Are you ready for some good news? God's love for you is not just His committed covenantal love, as wonderful as it is, to know that you've been saved and you belong to God and He's never going to leave you and you'll never be rejected and you'll be able to live with Him forever. That committed love of God, what a wonder to know. But God's love for you is not just that sort of commitment, but God's love for you is also one of a Father's affection.

Affection. He not only has saved you, He has affection for you. And we today are in Philippians chapter 1 at verse 7 where some of the most tender words of Paul ever written, as he writes to this congregation that you can just sense the depth of his love for the Christians at Philippi and their partnership in the gospel. And I want to point you today to what it really means to experience the affections of Christ Jesus and to have that affection live in your heart as well.

Philippians chapter 1 and we're at verse 7. It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart. For you're all partakers with me of grace both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more and more with knowledge and all discernment so you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and the praise of God. Do you notice as we just read that short passage all these words that are just conveying the warmth of affection in Paul's heart and God's heart towards us. Just go back and look at that at verse 7.

It's right for me to feel this way. It's not just an intellectual and the intellectual kind of thing for Paul and you are partakers. It means co-sharers with me of grace and you can see I yearn for you verse 9 affection in Christ and then that your love will abound more and more. It's just language of just the love that is just spilling spilling over.

That's what that's what Paul feels for them. He feels the affection of Christ and and that's what I want to share about today. Well dads on your day it was just fun to go back and look at some of the stories of fathers and sons but I don't know why this just struck me. A little boy is eating lunch with his family and he says, dad, he says, is it good to eat bugs? And his dad said, now son, son, we don't talk about things like that. We're eating our meal right now. We're not going to talk about that.

I'll talk to you about that later. And they went on ate their lunch and father said, now son, what was it that you wanted to ask me about? And the boy said, oh nothing.

He said earlier there was a bug in your soup but it's gone now. All right men, here are the four stages of life for a man. First stage, you believe in Santa Claus. Second stage, you don't believe in Santa Claus. Third stage, you are Santa Claus. And the fourth stage, you look like Santa Claus.

Just one more, just one more if you don't mind. The definition of success for a man. At age four, success is not wetting your pants. At age 16, success is having a driver's license. At age 86, success is having a driver's license.

At age 94, success is not wetting your pants. How do we actually grow? What is it that when we're on the route to growth and maturity in the Lord, how does it actually happen? And what is it that God really expects of us? Brennan Manning, beloved author of the Ragamuffin Gospel. Brennan is in heaven now and he was a... he was a man to speak of the radical grace of Jesus all the time. And I heard him say that after all of his years of walking with the Lord, and he said after literally thousands of hours of meditating on the grace of God, after thousands of hours of discipling other young men in the ways of Christ, and thousands of hours as was his practice to spend in silent retreat to just be with God. He said, I have become convinced that at judgment day that if Christ asks you a question, he's going to only ask you one question.

And that question is, did you believe I loved you? I think so often we think that the pathway of our maturing both as men and women of God is something about our efforts. And I think the more I walk with God, it's much more related to our belief, our experience, our awareness of the love of God. And I think that's a big part of what Paul's talking about here.

I'll see if I can unpack it for you. Starting with this, is it odd to you that Paul is using such strong language as if he is having to make a case for how much he loves the Philippians. Verse 7, he says, it is right for me to feel this way about you. Well, whoever has to say that, why does he say that?

I mean, it's like a husband doesn't have to go to his wife and say, I love you, and say, and it's right for me to feel this way about you. But Paul's saying, he feels such a deep compassion and love for the Philippian church. And maybe there are some who either have not believed it, or maybe there are some who have felt that Paul had certain favorites in the church, and he's emphasizing I love all of you, or maybe these are just like most Christians, they have a hard time believing that such love is possible.

So he's starting this by, it's right for me to feel this way. But he goes on and he uses actual legal terminology, and he says in verse 7, in reference both my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, this is legal language, but he's not talking about staging his defense in Roman trial. He's talking about their partnership in the gospel.

And then at verse 8, he does something that's exceedingly dramatic. He says, for God is my witness, something that no Jewish leader, no rabbi would ever do for fear of misusing the name of God. But Paul here in a very rare moment is saying, I want you so much to believe this, that I'm going to invoke the name of God because you aren't here with me in prison, and you can't see it in my eyes, but I want you to know that the only witness I have to this right now is God who's with me, and I'll call upon him as my witness that this is how I feel about you. He is making a case for his love for them. He is saying that I'm giving you a defense of this, and I think the reason that he is making this case is the same reason that God wants to make a case with you. Because it's hard to believe in the love of God. It's hard to believe in the affections of God.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Have you ever thought that joy is a delight reserved for those who have no problems? Or have you ever assumed that some people are just born with a joyful personality?

If so, get ready for some good news. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit available to all in Christ, no matter the circumstances of life. Though Paul was in jail when he wrote his epistle to the Philippians, he spoke of joy 16 times. No matter what you're going through, you too can discover the secret to unspeakable joy as Pastor Alan Wright leads you through a life-building exploration of Philippians. When you make a gift to Sharing the Light Ministries today, we'll send you the new CD album, The Secret of Unspeakable Joy, as our way of saying thank you for your partnership. Your gifts are the only way we're able to continue broadcasting the message of grace all over the nation. Happiness may rise and fall with happenstance, but joy is ever-present in the Spirit.

So become a partner today and discover joy like never before. 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 was just, while we were, while we were worshiping as this image just came to mind, because I've talked to so many people that they go through such difficulties in life, whether it be an adversity, a relationship problem, a financial problem, a sickness, or a great disappointment, or perhaps even walking through an emotional illness and finding themselves battling depression regularly. And for so many of these, when you're going through circumstances where you're hurting like that, somehow it's just hard to believe, well, how could God love me? How could I sense the affection of God in the midst of this?

And I just had this image because I saw a young mother yesterday and her son had an earache at 103 temperature and she was at a party that was celebrating her, but I could see it in her eyes. Her heart was for her son. And I was just thinking about her son, her baby, who is being held by his mother, would never in a million years say, well, I'm just not going to be able to sense the love of my mother because I'm going through this adversity. Instead, when you need the affection of God most is when you are walking through something like that. And so for a lot of people, part of this is related to just some absolutely wrong beliefs and assumptions of blaming God for the problems that have been aroused and invoked by the brokenness and sin of humanity. God is not against you. God is for you. And so God has to all throughout the Scriptures be coming to us in one way or another saying, it's right for me to feel this way about you. You've got to understand that it is right for God to love you because God made you and God adopted you. And so you can't doubt the love of God. He's saying, it's right for me to feel this way. And he's saying, I want as the Holy Spirit as my witness for you to know the affections that I have for you. Quit disqualifying yourself from the affections of Christ.

Please, you can hear the heartthrob of God. My wife would count this amongst her favorite excerpts of a book from Annabelle Gillum, The Confident Woman. She shares it.

I've shared it before. But it tells the picture so, so beautifully as Annabelle Gillum writes about their second son who was profoundly mentally disabled. And she writes, his name was Mason. Mason could sing one song with great gusto, just one, Jesus loves me. He'd throw his head back and hold onto that first yes in the chorus just as long as he could.

And then he'd get tickled or almost fall out of his chair. She writes, I never doubted for a moment that Jesus loved that profoundly retarded little boy. It didn't matter that he'd never sit with kids in the back of the car. He'd never sit with the back of the church and on a certain special night, walk down the aisle, take the pastor by the hand and invite Jesus into his heart. It was irrelevant that he could not quote a single verse of scripture.

He'd never go to high school or they'd never be a dad. I knew that Jesus loved Mason. What I could not comprehend, what I could not accept was that Jesus could love Mason's mother Annabelle.

I believe that in order for a person to accept me, to love me, perform for him. And I carried this belief into my relationship with God. As I began to study the Bible, I found to my horror that he knew my every thought, let alone everything I said or did.

And what that mean to me? I concluded without a doubt that he could not possibly love me. He could never like what he saw.

Mason could never have performed for our love or for anyone's love, but oh, how we loved him. His condition deteriorated to such a degree and so rapidly we had to institutionalize him when he was very young. We drove 120 miles regularly to see him, but on this particular weekend he was at home for a visit and he'd been with us since Thursday evening. It was now Saturday afternoon. As soon as the dinner dishes were done, I would gather his things together and take him back to his house. I had done this many times before.

It was never easy. And I was washing the dishes. Mason was sitting in his chair watching me, or at least he's looking at me.

And that's when it began. My emotions were spinning, my stomach started tumbling, and the familiar sickening thoughts of separation and defeat practiced themselves in my mind. In just a little while I'm going to start packing Mason's toys and his clothes and take them away again. I can't do it.

I simply cannot do it. I stopped washing the dishes, got down on my knees in front of Mason. I took his dirty little hands of mine and I tried so desperately to reach him. Mason, I love you.

I love you. If only you could understand how much I love you. And he just stared. He couldn't understand.

He couldn't comprehend. I stood up and started on the dishes again. And then this sense of urgency, almost a panic, came over. And once more I dried my hands and knelt and firm my precious little boy, my dear Mason. If you could only say to me, I love you, mother.

I need that, Mace. But there was nothing. And I stood up to the sink again, more dishes, more washing, more crying.

And I believe God spoke to me that day and this is what he said. Annabelle, you don't look at your son and turn away in disgust because he's sitting there with saliva drooling out of his mouth. You don't shake your head, repulse, because he has dinner all over his shirt or because he's sitting in a dirty smelly diaper when he ought to be able to take care of himself.

You don't reject him because he doesn't perform for you. You love him, Annabelle, just because he's yours. Mason doesn't willfully reject your love, but you willfully reject mine. I love you, Annabelle, not because you're neat or attractive, not because you do things well, not because you perform for me, but just because you're mine.

If you get a picture of this mother kneeling before her son who has so many limitations, just saying, the thing that I want most is for you. I just need to know you know that I love you. God is saying, do you know? I just want you to know.

I need you to know I love you. Paul's making a case for the love of God. The affections of Christ is different than the intellectualizing of the love of God. The word that Paul uses here in speaking of this affection of Christ, where he says, I yearn for you with the affection. That word for affection is a very powerful Greek word.

Even the sound of it, splongsidsomai, the splongsnon. It refers to the inner parts of one's being, literally the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, because it was believed that these vital organs, that this is the seat of our deepest emotions. And you can understand this because when you feel something deeply, it's not like you just feel it up in your head.

You just feel it down to your toes. And you're just like in your inmost being, something inside of you is just moved inside. And that's what this word means. It's the word that is used in connection with Jesus at moments like it says he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Or there's several times as he had come, there were the amongst them, there were the sick and he had this compassion for this yearning, this affection for them. And so he healed them. So Jesus didn't, you know, we say, well, Jesus healed so that you could demonstrate his glory and that he did. But so often what the scripture says, the reason he healed people, it's because he just loved them so much. It's a different kind of a concept because it is, it is the affection of Christ is something that is not intellectualized.

It is experienced. When our daughter Abby was a little bitty and there was a time in which she was, I could see was upset that she didn't get to do something, whatever it was that her older brother or the older cousins or other people were doing, that she was too little. And so I just came to her in a moment of fatherly and pastoral sensitivity. And I said, Abby, I said, I understand what it's like to be the little one. I said, I was the littlest one in my family.

I was the youngest of three boys. I was the little one. And I said, it's hard sometimes when the bigger ones get to do something and the little one doesn't.

And I know how that feels. And just trying to identify with her. And then I said, but there are some things that are good about being the little one. I said, can you think of anything good about being the littlest one? And she rubbed her little blankie for a moment and thought about it and then came up with a real pearl of wisdom.

She said, well, you do get holded more. Sometimes it's good just to be a little one of God, just to be a weak one, just to be someone who doesn't have anything to contribute except just to be held by them. That's what the affections of Christ are like.

C.S. Lewis wrote a marvelous little book called The Four Loves in which he talked about four different kinds of love based on four different Greek words for love. But when he spoke about affection, it was particularly instructive.

He said, perhaps the best image of affection is a mother nursing a baby. And he said that affection is different from other kinds like friendship love because friendship love, there may be connections that you have things in common with this person. And you both like to do some of the same things. And you both feel called down the same path or you have.

And so you can become friends. And that Phyllis type of love is a brotherly love, a friendship love. Alan Wright, putting a bookmark here in our teaching, Experiencing the Affection of Christ in the Teaching of Unspeakable Joy. Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word.

C.S. Lewis said, No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. In other words, joy isn't an elusive dream reserved for a select few who have no problems or for those who were born with a joyful disposition. Actually, joy is a fruit of the spirit available to all in Christ. No matter what you're facing, you can have the joy of the Lord in the midst of it.

The apostle Paul did, though he wrote his epistle to the Philippians while imprisoned. He spoke of joy 16 times. Alan Wright's newest CD album, The Secret of Unspeakable Joy, takes you chapter by chapter through Paul's explanation of the secret of joy in Philippians. When you make a gift today to sharing the light, we'll be delighted to send you the new CD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

Become a partner today and discover the secrets of unspeakable joy. 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. So Alan, there is a phrase where the sun shines down on me and it's S-O-N, and I'm thinking of this and that radiant joy that would come. But the affection of God is not something we earn. It's not, and I think that a lot of Christians have the idea that Christianity is following the principles of Jesus and his model and is seeking to be obedient to the Lord, and it includes all of those things. But really what this message is about is that the essence, the heart of the life of a Christian, is an actual relationship with God. And as such, God wants us to experience his actual affection. There are many, many different ways that we experience the affections of God and Jesus Christ, but this is the importance. That affection engenders a deep connection between us and God and really between one another. And we're going to learn about how we can be led, not only warmed, but led by the affections of Christ. God loves you and he wants you to know it. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.