From Self-Confidence to Spirit-Confidence [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The same guy that wouldn't admit to a servant girl that he even knew Jesus, who is now standing up in front of thousands of people, and he can't contain himself, but telling the testimony of the goodness of God in Jesus Christ.

It's the same man. 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, Life of Peter, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, 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. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this special offer available today.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? The change that took place after Easter and Pentecost, after the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the change that took place in Peter and all the disciples is so marked, so dramatic, so amazing. They just can't come up with any other explanation except the very presence of God had come into their lives in this powerful way. And so what we see as the birth of the church is that it's not by might, not by power, it's not by human wisdom, but it's by the Spirit of God. And Peter and all the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit, and the promise is for us also. Today we want to turn our attention to Acts chapter 2 as we continue the life of Peter, and this is Pentecost.

We're liturgically in the calendar. We're not on Pentecost, but that's where we are in the life of Peter today. And it's fitting that this follows last week's Easter celebration where we see this transformation that takes place. And God, I think, this morning inviting us into a fresh infilling of the Spirit. It's Acts chapter 2, and I need to read a good portion of this up through 41. We'll skip around just a little bit, but I want you to see what happens for our man, Peter, that we've been following for all of these weeks and seeing how much he can be like shifting sand, how quick he is to sink in the sea or to not deny Jesus or fall asleep while interceding for him.

And yet on this day, everything changes. This is Acts chapter 2. This is verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And jump down to verse 11 after describing all the different kinds of cultures and nations that were represented. Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean?

But others, mocking, said, They are filled with new wine. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy, and I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that every one who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And that was all quoted from Joel. And then verse 22, Peter continued in his preaching, Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Jump to verse 29, brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that were all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God, Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourself from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word and were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. Is this the same Peter we've been following for all these weeks? Is this the same man who sinks in the sea, who sleeps in Gethsemane and denies Jesus three times in one night? Is this the same guy that wouldn't admit to a servant girl that he even knew Jesus, who is now standing up in front of thousands of people, and he can't contain himself, but telling the testimony of the goodness of God in Jesus Christ? It's the same man.

It's the same man. And something has changed. It was in the news this week.

I hadn't followed this story. A local advertising company in Winston-Salem had a sudden windfall of rich and lucrative new contracts that had come in because of one of their agents, one of their executives, who had been bringing in all of this amazing new business. And in fact, they had taken in an astounding two hundred and sixty-nine million dollars in new contracts. So they were so overwhelmed with all this new business that they actually went to another advertising firm in the Triad and asked for their help to come and help them handle all this new business.

And even they couldn't handle it all, so they hired forty new employees, many of whom relocated to North Carolina to come and help them because they had landed these big contracts with the likes of Coca-Cola and all these big companies. And this astonishing story has now surfaced because the man who brought in all this business has now admitted guilt that it was phony. And it is amazing that this could have happened. It's an astonishing story, kind of the stuff of a made-for-TV movie where this fellow is told he gets a certain bonus if he can bring in five hundred thousand dollars of new business. And so how he does it is he actually pretends that he's won a contract with someone and he falsified everything. I mean, this is amazing that he did this. He came up with false accounts and false emails and wrote false correspondence. And this then went on to where he started saying that he had been awarded these huge contracts and it totaled up to two hundred and sixty-nine million dollars of business that allegedly they had taken in. And all of it was fake, but it did fall apart on him. Because if you've got a story of amazing good news and people might believe you for a while, but if there's no substance to it, if it's not real, then eventually it just falls apart because there's nothing there.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like the pressure is always on? Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from 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. And as I reflect on Easter and what happened after the resurrection and then start looking at what happened with Peter and these early disciples, it's absolutely astounding, isn't it? Regardless of what you might believe and if you come under the sound of my voice and you don't believe Christian stories, true story, that somebody just made it up, you have to stop and think about this. It is possible, I suppose, that some of the early disciples just made up the story of the empty tomb and came and delivered this good news to try to make it all seem like it was true and might carry on this illusion of good news. But every kind of great news that might get people excited initially, if it's not real and there's not substance to it, then it eventually just falls apart.

You can't sustain that kind of thing. And so what happened in the gospel was not just that they witnessed Jesus having been raised from the dead and that convinced them that He was alive and that changed everything, but something else happened. And this is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion. There's no religion like this that teaches that what it means to be a Christian and what the privilege of being a Christian is all about is not simply believing that Jesus was raised from the dead because you've thought it through and you can see that it was logical or the Word of God seems to make good sense to you.

There's something else. A miracle takes place. And you have been given this privilege not only of being forgiven of your sins, but the God who created you and the God who made everything comes to reside in you and with you. And the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Himself, He comes inside of the Christian's life and He's with you forever.

And the Bible speaks of being filled with the Holy Spirit and every single Christian has the Holy Spirit, but Paul encourages Ephesians to be filled on a continual basis with the Holy Spirit. And what happens at Pentecost is that these disciples who had seen Jesus was alive, so they were believers now in Jesus, but they had not received the empowering presence of Jesus in their life. And on this day, on Pentecost Day that Peter's preaching, everything changed. And the boldness that you see, this shift that we've been talking about, watching the transitions, the transformation in Peter's life, this is where it really happens. That everything for Peter, it starts to make sense for him and he becomes captivated with the Word of God and he becomes absolutely convinced of the lordship of Jesus Christ and of the victory that God has accomplished and there's something in him that begins to just yearn passionately to tell everybody about this.

This is what happens when you're filled with the Holy Spirit. Everything that maybe had not made sense to you starts making sense by the providence of God and you become captivated with the wonder of God's Word, you become convinced with the victory of Christ and something changes where you just want to tell everybody about this. I want to talk about this, what happened in Peter's life and how this happens in ours, this amazing shift that has taken place. We call today's message moving from self-confident to spirit-confident and that's a good way to put it because that's what happened in Peter's life at Pentecost.

The first thing I want to talk to you about is how Peter, when he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he became convinced of the glory of God's plan. This was Pentecost, the day this was being preached and this was what in ancient Israel was called the Feast of Weeks, weeks like days of the week and the Feast of Weeks was called that because they were to count off seven full weeks after the Passover Sabbath, so that's in the spring and then seven full weeks after that, then they would celebrate Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks and we call it Pentecost because Penta means 50 and so that's the 50th day after the Passover. And it was a joyous summer festival in which pilgrims from all over would come to Jerusalem. Some scholars say that there are more pilgrims that would come at Pentecost than there were at Passover because the weather was so nice and so that's why there were all these different people that were there and it was on this day that this weary and worried band of disciples seeing that Jesus was alive, they had gathered and it was in the context of the ancient Jewish festival, the Feast of Weeks. The Jewish tradition held, and this is important, that the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost was first taken place, first took place at Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the law. And what happened at that time, we won't turn to it as in Exodus 19, is that God basically was speaking to His people and He came amidst fire and there was wind and there was smoke and they were told that the mountain was so holy that no one could touch it, no one could go up except for Moses. But what happened therefore at Pentecost, and this always became the symbol of what the Feast of Weeks was about and what Pentecost, is God revealing Himself to His people, God revealing Himself to people.

The reason this is important is if you would just go back and look at Exodus 19 and you see all the fire and the wind and the smoke and God speaking to His people and then you come to Acts chapter 2 and you read it, you'll realize that all of that was a shadow that was pointing to this day and now the fire is not some sort of holy fire that's going to consume people, but it appears as if it is tongues of fire that is resting upon each of these disciples and it's not a fire that consumes them or hurts them or incinerates them, it is a fire that empowers them. And the wind blows and the word for wind in Greek and Hebrew is the same word as spirit, the Holy Spirit is moving and the wind is blowing and there is the appearance as if of tongues of fire resting upon them, it reminds everyone of Exodus 19, but now it's all coming to pass in this glorious way that had been prophesied. And so something happens here and the people are so full of the presence of God and there is so much joy that people think they're drunk. People think that they're, well these people have been drinking and Peter said, no it's too early in the morning, which is kind of funny because it's like if it weren't early in the morning then he might say, well maybe they are drunk, but he says it's too early in the morning, that can't explain this, one of the funniest places in Scripture. And they are like drunk people in the sense that they are elated and they seem like they have no worries and they are something else has intoxicated them and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. And so this is what's taking place. And what happens with Peter is that as he gets up to be the leader and to do just as Jesus had prophesied that he would be the church's foundation and his confession of Christ would be the thing that Jesus would build his church on and this day the church is born and three thousand people are coming into faith because Peter is preaching. And it is Peter who hasn't ever been able to really understand what it's all like. It's like now the glory of God's plan unfolds. And that's why he is referencing this is that which Joel spoke of.

This is the fulfillment of the promise to David that there would be a king in his lineage. This is all making sense to me. Have you ever had a time in your life where there's just things that maybe you had all these different pieces of knowledge but it just didn't fit together for you and then something happened and you understood it. And it's just wonderful when this happens. It's like working on a puzzle and you're like, What is this thing?

What is this thing? And then a key piece goes in and you go, Oh, I see this. I don't know why this came to mind but an instance of this to illustrate that came to mind, I took piano lessons as a kid for years. And part of my piano lessons, I would learn chords and play the scales and learn my songs. And I'd go in my lesson, I'd do my chords, I'd do my scales, I'd play my songs.

I'd go next week, I'd learn my chords, I'd play my scales, I'd do my songs. And y'all, I had no idea that there was a relationship between the chords, the scales and the songs. In fact, this is part of the reason I quit was why do I have to do chords and scales? Nobody wants to do chords and scales.

We don't come into worship and say, Now, for the offertory, listen to some chords and scales. I liked the songs but not all the other stuff. And the reason was I had no idea of its purpose. I didn't have any idea how it fit together. So when I was in college, I decided to take a music theory course.

I ended up taking two of them. And when I got into the music theory course, I had to take the course pass-fail because it was going to ruin my grade point average. It was hard and the professor was mean.

It was a bad combination, hard course, mean professor. And to illustrate how hard it was and how mean he was, we had a pop test early on in which he just handed out a blank piece of staff paper. You know, it's got all the scores of lines on it.

You can put musical notes on, but nothing on it. And he said, I want everyone to write out in music your favorite Christmas carol, please. For some reason, I had just been playing Silent Night and I thought, well, it was in 6-8 and I think I can get this thing. And so I decided to do Silent Night. And I started putting down notes, I put the meter, I put the notes and drawing in the bars and everything. I turned it in. I got it back. I can't remember how miserable the grade was on it.

The main thing I remember is it had all this red all over it. And he had written one comment. He said, I don't know what song this is.

And then he added, but it is not Silent Night. Alan Light and today's teaching from self-confidence to spirit confidence on Sharing the Light. We're in the Life of Peter series and I encourage you to stick with us. Alan is back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. Ever feel like the pressure is always on?

Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from 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. Alan, we opened the program really declaring the mission of sharing the light. It's the good news of what God has done for us, for us in Jesus Christ. And that right there, I think, changes everything because it's as we hear in today's teaching about the Spirit confidence.

That's where we find our security, our faith, our ability to live another day resting in the good news. This, of all the moves that you see, we see the transformation that takes place in Peter's life. This move from trying to be confident in himself to just being confident in the power of the Holy Spirit that's working in him is maybe the most dramatic shift that we see. It is a complete shift in the source of power in his life. It is a complete shift in how he understands his place in this world and how he is fascinated now with the Word of God and full of the Holy Spirit when he gives the Pentecost message. What a beautiful portrait of what really happens in the Christian life. We might want to go through this life thinking, I need to be confident, I need to buoy myself up. And instead, we're going to see today what is the real secret to confidence, and that is the Holy Spirit in us. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.