Foolproof Reproof [Part 2]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless.

The cross was his mission because he wanted you to have an experience of the life of God, because God, who is just and right, is a God who's full of mercy, and he didn't just want to be right, he wanted to be in relationship with you. 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, Foolproof, 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 Allen Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper if we're happy to send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastorallen.org, that's pastorallen.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. We'll have more on this special offer later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Every gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus had perfectly and without measure. So for this reason, not just because he was God, but because the Holy Spirit was right, Jesus knew often what people were thinking, right? I mean, sometimes, a few times, he just knew what they were thinking and he just called it out. Remember Simon the Pharisee that was having a party and Jesus was there and Simon was having thoughts about a woman of ill repute and she was thinking if he knew what a sinner this was, he wouldn't let her wash his feet. And Jesus, the Bible says, knew what he was thinking and said, Simon, let me tell you a story. And it corrected him with a parable.

But what's interesting is that if you read the Gospels with fresh eyes and stop and think about, therefore, everything that Jesus knew, just start with the 12 disciples. It's fascinating to me, he really didn't correct them that much. Now, he did, at times, have very pointed correction, right? One time he said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. And he said to them, oh, you have little faith. But he seldom said, I know what you're thinking, I hear what you're saying, and it's wrong. In other words, he's the Lord of the universe.

He knows everything and he knows everything that is right and wrong. And yet Jesus did not follow those bumbling disciples around and correct their every single step, did he? And in fact of matter, he became known as the friend of sinners, which goes far to explain how his demeanor must have been with sinners because sinners don't want to hang around with someone who all the person does is tell them over and over every wrong thing in their lives. I'll come back to it in a moment, he was pointedly critical of the religious leaders.

But to the vast majority of people that he interacted with and to the 12 that he spent three years with, he was surprisingly quiet. In fact, Paul, who you could arguably say was as full of the Holy Spirit as any man other than Jesus, and had such discernment and such spiritual power, he didn't spend all his time correcting every little thing. In fact, there's a fascinating story in Acts chapter 16, verse 16, it says there's a slave girl who has a fortune telling spirit and is demonically inspired. And verse 17, she followed Paul and us crying out, these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation.

And she kept doing this for many days. And the text says Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and it came out that very hour. But what I want to point out to you is that verse 18 says, and she kept doing this for many days. For many days, the apostle Paul knew that there was a young woman who was demonized and he didn't do anything about it.

In fact, it was just until finally it just got on his nerves so bad that he cast the spirit out. What I'm saying is that you can't spend your life walking around with a critical spirit always looking for somebody to criticize. And if you have a lot of discernment in the Holy Spirit, you're going to see the ravages of evil that are taking place. And even the great apostle Paul and Jesus himself did not make their life one of constantly thinking they correct everybody about everything. You need to know yourself and you need to know the other to even begin to know whether a correction should take place. And all this is pointing to an important truth that a mentor of mine once emphasized to us and taught our congregation.

It's more important biblically speaking, spiritually speaking, to be in relationship than it is to be right. The thing I like about my watercolor teacher while I was making this hideous painting of the gazebo at Lake Susan at Montreat is that she didn't need to come around and convince me that she was right. She wanted to help me, and that meant she wanted to relate to me where I was. Because she came around and she said, you know, don't be afraid to put more paint onto the paper. And I said, I am afraid.

I'm afraid I'm a scaredy-cat. And I said, because once you put paint on the watercolor paper, you can't get it off. I don't like watercolor. There's no white paint. You can't cover something up.

It's on there, and you've done it. There's no grace in watercolor painting. And she said, don't be afraid of the paint.

And so I said, I'll try not to. And she came back around a little while later, and there I was with my pale picture. Scaredy-cat watercolor painting. And she didn't say, see, I told you to use more paint, and here, let me show you one of my masterpieces. Instead, she just came around and she said, now, if you continue to do watercolor, I urge you, don't be afraid of the paint. She's relating, you see. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive, faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. 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. 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. Pastor Chris shared last week's message, which I thought was excellent on self-control, a message I asked him to give because I thought it was one of the great fruits in Pastor Chris' life.

Very, very, very seldom do I ever see him lose his control. And it's a very important thing in the Proverbs, and it's a fruit of the Spirit. But he shared in his introduction about some of the kind of pet peeves that make people lose their self-control. What he didn't tell you was he had asked the pastoral staff what our pet peeves were, and he used them in his sermon. And so I might as well come clean to say that the one that I had shared with him became an illustration in his sermon, and that is the one where you are driving down the highway, and there's an indication that one of the lanes is going to be closed ahead. And so you're supposed to get over to the right in anticipation of the lane closing, but some people drive down the left lane as fast as they can to try to swoop in in front of some slow-moving vehicle where they find a little space in order to get ahead instead of playing by the rules fairly and getting in the right-hand lane.

And the truth be told that one of the most embarrassing and stupid moments of my life was just a few years ago when I went with my daughter Abigail on a college-visiting little trip to several colleges we were visiting, and en route to the first one, we're driving down the highway. Left lane is going to be closed ahead. I get over in the right-hand lane in this very slow-moving right-hand lane, and we see a SUV is coming up fast down the left trying to do the classic, get past everybody, swerve back in in front of somebody, but the pickup truck, two vehicles in front of me, pulls over sort of in the middle to block the guy, and the guy right behind him just hugs his rear bumper so there's no way to get in, and it's left with the question, what will I do? What will Pastor Alan do? Will he, will he break the train and just let the person in there?

No, I would not. We spent about 15 minutes, the whole line of traffic, trying to keep this one SUV. He was just completely shunned from the whole community. And it went on for a long time. It was hard work.

I mean, it was hard work. And finally, when it was all said and done and nobody would let him in, the guy in the pickup truck, two vehicles in front of him, he's like putting the thumbs up to everybody behind him. The guy in front of me is like, woo, you know, like you just won the lottery or something. And all we had done was keep one vehicle from getting in line, which would have made my trip approximately 3.7 seconds slower if it had one more vehicle in front of me.

Instead, we just were so focused on being right. That's one thing in traffic, I don't endorse it, it's silly, especially if your license plate reads, Grace to you. I don't recommend it. What's bothering me is that you feel sort of satisfied just hearing that we pulled it off.

That's bothering me. But anyway, no. But it's one thing in traffic, it's another in human relationships, right? What do you want in the end?

It's not so important that you're right, but it's real important that you're in relationship. Here's the deep wisdom. It is to your glory to have enough grace to sometimes just overlook an offense. I just go ahead and get in traffic. Let me keep talking to my daughter.

But instead I lost 15 minutes of relating to my daughter and taught her how not to drive in traffic in order to be right about one thing. The other thing is very clear in the scriptures, and that is that God has so designed you as His own, and especially when you're in Christ as His child, that if you harbor bitterness and judgment towards someone, that it will in all likelihood come back to you. In Luke chapter 6 where he says, Judge not, and you'll be not judged. Condemn not, and you'll not be condemned.

Forgive, and you'll be forgiven. It follows with verse 38, which we usually apply to financial stewardship, but notice the context is actually here as he's speaking about judgment and forgiveness. And he says, Give, verse 38, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.

For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. If you sow judgment, it will come back to you in good measure. You don't violate sowing and reaping.

It just happens. Nothing will come back to you more quickly than your judgment of others. If you think the goal in life is to be right all the time and prove yourself right, and you operate out of a spirit of offense, Jesus essentially says to us the taking of the offense is worse than the offense itself.

Remember when he taught, don't try to get the speck out of someone else's eye when there's a log in your own. What he's saying is so often when you're hyper critically trying to be right and get one little speck out of somebody else's life, here's a sin in your life you need to point out. That you have taken an offense that has caused bitterness in you, and that bitterness, according to what God is saying for the plan of our human life, is worse than probably the offense that was committed.

He says in Hebrews, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. Well, what do you do with all of this when it's complex and every situation might be a little different, and how can you even come to a point of knowing how you're supposed to respond, and I think if I were to sum it up based on what Jesus has done for us, it's this. The more that you accept, receive, believe, and revel in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more secure you become as a human being, because the more that I think about how accepted I am in the beloved, and how my worth in God's plan of the gospel is not measured by my own merits, righteousness, skills, or ability to look good, but instead find myself loved unconditionally and infinitely so that I know who I am as a person who has various faults, and other people may come and go like or dislike, but the rootedness of my life is in the love of Christ that has made me an heir of the spiritual riches of God so there's something that is so reassuring that I become increasingly secure. This is God's plan for you to walk in that security, because it is our insecurity that makes us unreliable in correcting others, because if I'm insecure and anxious, then I may be quick to defend myself in a way that I'm overreacting because I inwardly don't feel secure. Or if I'm insecure, I might not have that deep sense of worth inside of me that enables me to know that this is the point I need to stand up and defend my boundaries and define myself.

So how can you know whether you should just overlook an offense or whether you should say, I know this is a boundary and you need to know this really hurt me. How can you know this except that you increasingly have the love of God in your life? And what's interesting to me is that as I survey Jesus and the way he interacted with people, it doesn't always work, does it, to say, well, what would Jesus do? Listen, if I did the things that Jesus did, I would get fired. I mean, what Jesus did in some ways overturned the very logic and wisdom that we're talking about today, because what Jesus did was at the moments that you think if you would just be quiet about this Jesus, then it would go better for you. If he just hadn't talked about destroy this temple and I'll rebuild it in three days, if he hadn't said something so controversial in front of the religious leaders, they wouldn't remembered it all the way to the point of his death on a cross. If he had just not healed people on the Sabbath and said things like I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, if he had not just said to the religious leaders, you're hypocrites and whitewashed tombs and full of dead men's bones and a brood of vipers, if he had been slow to speak to the religious leaders, he would send them to the Roman authorities to put them on the cross. And yet he did. And the very then moments that we thought you should speak up for yourself and defend yourself, he let himself become silent even before Pilate, even in his bogus trial against the trumped up charges that were leveled against him.

Do you see what happened? Was it Jesus overturned what would even be the conventional wisdom of Proverbs about how one should speak or not speak, because his mission was the cross and the cross was his mission because he wanted you to have an experience of the life of God because God who is just and right is a God who's full of mercy and he didn't just want to be right, he wanted to be in relationship with you. And because of what Jesus has done, anyone who accepts him is in right relationship with God forever. Let that deep security of your place in Christ and the continued promptings of the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of Jesus within you become your guide.

Know yourself and know others and ask yourself, do I just want to be right or do I want to be in relationship? And the Spirit of God will lead you. I hope you never have to have lunch with a pastor with a wiry beard who is eating a bean sprout salad, because I really can't tell you what you ought to do, but God can and that's the gospel. Allen Wright and today's teaching, Foolproof Reproof on the series, Foolproof.

Stay with us. Allen is back in the studio in just a moment as he shares his parting good news thought for the day in just a bit. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Allen Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. 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. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here in the studio, Allen, your parting good news thought for the day.

Has anything to do with sandwiches with beansprouts? Well, we've all been in that kind of situation where you wonder, do I say something to this person, do I not? And I think you have to follow the Lord on that.

But here's what I think I want to leave listeners with today. God never shames you. He never corrects you in a way that demeans you or distances you. Any correction you ever get from God is the sweet gift. I think it's just so helpful, Daniel, to think of God. The Holy Spirit is the greatest teacher in the world who has all wisdom. And so my invitation to every listener is open up your heart to all that God would ever have by way of correction for you. Reproof is a gift. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.