Blessing an Anxious World [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When you become a Christian, your debt's completely paid. You're completely free.

There can be no voice, no valid voice, legal voice of any accuser to say that you owe something, and therefore you're condemned until you pay it. God has settled that once and for all, and Jesus said, it is finished, and it meant your debt's canceled. 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, No Worries, as presented at Rinaldo 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.

You can learn more about it. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on all of this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. The other thing that happens is there's something, and I don't know what it is, but there's something in the sin nature that gravitates towards bad news. I have no idea why, but maybe it's partly we're so sinful that if you hear about somebody else's bad news that we're a little bit glad because it wasn't me, you know.

Oh boy, oh, that's a terrible typhoon. Well, I'm glad that doesn't happen around here. I don't know what it is there's something in the sin nature, but here's the big deal. I think that we've been duped into thinking that if we share too much of a good word, that people will quit trying. I think a lot of reason the blessing is withheld in homes is that people think that if I bless them, it'll go to their heads and they won't try as hard. And I want to say the exact opposite is the case. Bad news doesn't lead people to have energized, effective work. Good news does. We try harder and we run faster when we have good news.

When you have the blessing withheld, it actually causes the heart to stoop. I know this for a fact because I watch sports and my two football teams have had something of a turnaround this year. The Baylor Bears fell under a scandal a few years ago and two years ago, they won one football game. Now when you win one football game and you lose 10 or 11 of them, after about the 10th loss, you start expecting to lose. Let me tell you what happens when you expect to lose in a sport. You quit tackling and you quit blocking. Oh, you're going through the motions and you act like you're tackling and you're blocking, but you think you're going to lose, you just quit.

That's what we do in life. But everything's changed and my Bears are 8-0 and now they get in there and I've never seen them try so hard. And the same thing has happened for my Tar Heels.

Mack is back. Now granted, I think that they should have run the ball at first and goal last night and made a bad decision, but they've won four ball games. The last two years, they only won two and the stadiums are full. The students had quit coming to the games and now there's a lottery to get a ticket for it.

What has changed? Everybody thinks they could win. People don't even want to go to a football game, much less play in it if you think you can't win. And all of life is like that. And we're so deceived by this. My children who we just raised up under the sound of blessing.

And so they recognize the difference. So Abby texted me last week and she said, well, I went in to see one of my professors because I had not received any grades and we're halfway through the semester. And she said, I just want to see how I'm doing. She said, we've made presentations, we've turned in some papers, but I haven't heard anything. So I made an appointment, went and talked to the professor and she said, I just want to know how am I doing? And he said, well, you're doing very well, but I don't want to tell you because I want you to keep trying. She texted me back and she said, classic case of withheld blessing, isn't it, dad?

Classic case. We have this mentality and all of these things conspire for us to get focused and just hear the bad news. But beloved, I want to suggest to you that the cross of Jesus Christ was far more decisive than we want to acknowledge. That something has changed not only for our individual lives so that we can receive Christ and become Christians, but something has changed in the cosmos. Interesting, Stephen Pinter, who I was telling you about, the Harvard professor from whom I got all those statistics. Interestingly, he is a Jewish by heritage, atheist by belief system. And he appeals only to humanistic reasons for all of these advances. But listen to what he said. He said, though I am skittish about any notion of historical inevitability, cosmic forces are mystical arcs of justice. He said, although I'm very skeptical about any idea of some overarching purpose or force behind anything in the world, even though he says some kinds of social change really do seem to be carried along by an inexorable tectonic force. You know what he's saying? He's saying, I don't believe in God and I don't believe in any mystical answers to purposeful things happening in life.

I'm just a scientist. But the more I study social change, he's saying, it's so odd it almost seems like something's moving all this in a positive direction. It's God.

God loves this world. I've been reading the last couple of weeks, the writings of Rodney Stark. I think a lot of you would be fascinated by this Pulitzer nominated author who is a sociologist, a sociology of religion professor, actually at Baylor now, novelist and sociologist Andrew Greeley of University of Chicago called Stark a giant in his field and compared him to Max Weber, the famous sociologist of the last century. He's one of the most highly regarded scholars on the whole subject of sociology of religion. He began his research when he began, he wasn't a Christian and he became a Christian through the course of all of his research. And in his book, The Victory of Reason, he makes a compelling argument that Western civilization is a direct result of Christianity. So all of the advances in science that have led to all of these wonderful statistics that we talked about, the decline of infant mortality, the decrease of poverty, the increase of health in our lives, and so forth, were the indirect result of a whole enlightenment that began an explosion of science. And what he's saying is that all of this came about because of the Christian gospel.

And here's why. Unlike every other religion, he says, Christianity puts a value on reason. And the Christian says, God made me in His image and gave me a mind to think and therefore I should think about things and reason. And he said, that is what gave birth to Western civilization. And other religions that were just mystical in their emphasis or legalistic like Islam, never would have given birth to this is what he argues.

It's a fascinating, fascinating look at history. But I want to share with you what he says in his concluding chapter of the Victory of Reason. Stark writes, Christianity created Western civilization.

Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most of you would not have learned to read and the rest of you would be reading from hand copied scrolls. Without a theology committed to reason, progress, and moral equality, today the entire world would be about where non-European societies were in say 1800. A world with many astrologers and alchemists, but no scientists. A world of despots, lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos. A world where most infants do not live to the age of five and many women die in childbirth. A world truly living in the dark ages. When we think about this world and we think about the gospel and we think about the impact of Christianity and all of the good that Christianity has brought into this world, I do not believe that a truly honest scholar, regardless of their belief system, could look at history and say anything other than this, this one Nazarene man named Jesus did more to change the world for good than any other person who's ever lived, regardless of what you believe about him. Because what happened was after this Nazarene carpenter was put on a cross, a Roman cross in a Greco-Roman empire that committed atrocities, immediately after it, 12 mainly rural disciples and a lot of women started sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And within a short 350-year span, the entire planet was changed and the course of human history was changed. deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on so you can never really relax. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.

They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.

Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright, Free Yourself, Be Yourself. 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. It's interesting that Stark, by the way, I say almost parenthetically, but the modern age needs to hear this. Stark argues that one of the main reasons Christianity exploded as it did was because the way Jesus and his followers treated women. It was the first religion and he was the first religious leader that treated women with so much respect. In the Roman Empire, the average age that a girl was forced into marriage was 12. Many Roman girls were forced to marry before they'd even enter puberty. And at any point, a husband could mandate that his pregnant wife get an abortion, and it was a very common practice if a baby girl was born to expose the infant because girls were despised.

They would leave the baby outside, plenty of history shows this, to either die in the elements or be eaten by a wild animal. It was a Roman culture. Because of this, sociologists have determined that in the midst of the Roman Empire, there became a significant difference between the number of men exceeding the number of women. Jesus came and he spoke to women with a love that women had never experienced from any other religious leader.

And not only that, but writers like Paul, who would write in Romans 16, verse 1, paragraphs commending Phoebe, a deaconess in the church, and commending her for all of her service. And what Stark said, interestingly, is that women who on the whole tend to be more open to be more open towards spiritual matters were converted to Christ so quickly, experiencing a love like they'd never had before. And the Christian women weren't getting married at age 12, they were averaging getting married around 18. And the Christians didn't kill their baby girls, and so they had lots more girls and lots more women. And a lot of them were married to pagan men who then became Christians, and basically Christianity exploded because of women.

I'm just saying that is a far cry from what you would hear. I spoke a couple of years ago to a young woman who was a freshman at a major secular university who came home for a fall break, and she had been taking a women's studies course, and she said to me, I didn't know that Christianity had been so bad for women. I said, what are you talking about? And she said, well, I've learned all these oppressive things about Christianity.

I said, you're kidding me. I said, surely the professor has talked about everything that Christianity's done for the good of women, starting with Jesus himself, all the way through all the missionaries that have eliminated foot binding in China and started advocating for education of women and built hospitals that cared for them. And she said, well, no, the professor hadn't said a word about that. I said, well, surely your professor has talked a lot about how oppressive Islam is towards women. She said, no, it's almost treated like Islam's the good. I'm just saying that's just false. A professor should be fired. It's just bad history.

It's just wrong. Christianity has been the best thing ever happened to the world, whether you believe in it or not. And Jesus Christ has been the person who is at the center of all of that. Christianity is not dying. Christianity is growing across the globe. And beloved, I believe we're going to continue to grow.

Because you know what? Something happened at the cross that was more than just you getting the opportunity to become a child of God. There was something that happened there that was both personal and cosmic. Paul explains this in Colossians 2 verse 13. He said, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. What he's saying there is that our hearts have become stooped under the burden of the law and all its legal demands because the legal demands said that you must keep all the law or else you will be punished.

And we couldn't keep all the law. And so we were slaves to our sin under that whole system that ultimately would just bring condemnation. And so the debt that we have is so heavy, but Jesus came because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And Jesus Christ became sin for us in order to cancel that debt, to pay the fullness of debt. This is how God in his own infinite providential and sovereign wisdom and mercy said he is going to save the world. I will be just, God said. I won't simply overlook a debt. That's not justice.

Instead I'll pay the debt. And so cosmically he paid the debt in the person of Jesus Christ who was infinitely pure and paid the infinite price of God himself bearing death upon the cross so that anybody who believes in him and trusts in him has the right to become a child of God. And when you have simple trust in Jesus Christ, Paul says God makes you alive. Christianity is not about making bad people better. It's not about making good people exquisitely better.

It's about dead people spiritually becoming alive because of a miracle in Jesus Christ. That's what we believe in, nothing less. And so when you become a Christian, your debt's completely paid.

You're completely free. There can be no voice, no valid voice, legal voice of any accuser to say that you owe something and therefore you're condemned until you pay it. God has settled that once and for all. And Jesus said it is finished and it meant your debt's canceled.

But the impact I believe was not just personal. It's cosmic because look what else he said. This he set aside talking about the whole system of law that brings condemnation. He set it aside nailing it to the cross and he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. He's speaking now in the invisible realm of the of the authorities and powers that are demonic. He's speaking of the forces of evil and what he's saying pointedly is that with the cross of Jesus Christ, it wasn't just your own destiny that was changed. It's the destiny of the world. Because what happened was that when Jesus paid the debt, Satan, which means accuser, no longer had a legal right to accuse you of your sin.

It's been paid for. The balance of justice shifted. And it was in that sense, what Paul is saying, humiliating to Satan and all the demonic authorities.

The word that's used here for disarm actually is the word stripped. And it has the image of like a royal robe, which is the symbol of authority being stripped off. And it was as if there was a kind of authority that Satan had in this world as prince of the age that got stripped off of him and in that sense completely disarmed the enemy and changed everything forever. So that Satan and all demonic authorities and principalities are nothing more than squatters in this world who are waging battles that are definitely destined to lose.

And instead, the authority of Christ got invested into the church of Jesus Christ. And he gave us a good word to speak. He gave us the opposite of what Satan speaks. He gave us a good word to speak. He gave us blessing to speak.

He instructed, said, let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth. Instead, you let your mouth and your life become, as God was to the world, a blessing to the world for that's what makes the heart live. That's what makes someone's life change. We're called to be a blessing to the world. So the fact of the matter is that since the cross of Jesus Christ, a whole lot of things, not everything, but a whole lot of things are getting better. And the reason it's getting better is because Jesus came and Satan's been dethroned and the blessing of God is spilling out in a thousand million different ways and the gospel is growing and you're ambassadors for Christ, the body of Christ, sharing the love of Jesus in this world. What I'm saying is that you're not chicken little, your friends aren't lucky ducky and goosey loosey and the sky's not falling and Christianity's not failing and evil's not winning and the gospel of Jesus Christ is as powerful as it's ever been and that is the gospel. Alan Wright and that's good news, good gasoline for your engine on today's broadcast. In the series, no worries, blessing an anxious world. Alan is back in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for us all here in just a moment. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly?

Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you or love you less. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy and destiny as you shed performance based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life changing full length book from Alan Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. 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. Alan, I know you end every sermon with, and that's the gospel, but today it seemed like especially good news. Well, that's a crescendo right there of hope, because we hear a lot, Daniel, that says the world's getting worse and worse, and we just lose our hope, and maybe one day Jesus will come back, we get out of here. That is not the picture of the gospel. It's not what's happening. And today's message, and I really encourage our listeners, if you didn't get yesterday, go back and listen to it. Tell other people about this, because we just have believed the wrong thing.

The world's not getting worse. And I know there's a lot of horrible darkness there, but over the course of history, the Christian gospel's influence has been greater than people realize. And what they also don't realize is that so very much of everything that we call good that's been taking place in transformation in the world from all our technological advances to civil rights and women's rights, all of this, really the primary force of this is Christianity.

And as we studied today, the professor Rodney Stark, the Pewts were nominated author at Baylor, has made such a huge case for this, and it's so compelling. When the gospel came in the world, when the cross happened, something changed in the cosmos. And my eyes have been open to this, Daniel. The world's been getting better since the cross. I know that's a radical thought, and some of our listeners might go, what are you talking about? But go back and listen again to these statistics and think about this further, because there is great, great hope. Yes, we have great problems all around us, but do not give up and do not lose heart. Jesus is on His throne. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.