From Self-Agenda to Divine-Agenda [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When you get the deepest gut reaction to something, I'm not talking about you got your anger issues.

I'm talking about the things that really, for some reason, it just really upsets you, and you are mad, and you are, like that. What's it doing? It's revealing what you care most about. 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. Are you ready for some good news? When you see Jesus mad, stop and pay attention, because if you can identify what Jesus feels most strongly about, you'll come right up to understanding the power of the gospel, because what he felt most strongly about was saving you. His love for you is so great that he had to say in the strongest voice, no to the devil, and no to Peter. We're reading in Matthew chapter 16, and I'll pick up at verse 13.

This was where we began the whole series on the life of Peter. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And he said to them, but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

And then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was a Christ. So we have marveled at this moment that Jesus is saying, You're not Simon, which is his birth name, which many think means unstable. We're not really sure of its meaning, but his life was one of instability, and you are instead rock. Peter means rock, and on this I'm going to build my church. And so he's blessed him, he's prophesied a destiny over him, he's claimed an inheritance for him, and he has issued this incredible blessing.

And then in the very next scene, look what happens. Verse 21, From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you.

But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan, you are a hindrance to me, for you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Well, my Tar Heels had a little hiccup on Wednesday night. Those of you that aren't basketball fans, the University of North Carolina played Duke on Wednesday night. It is, most would say, the most heralded rivalry in college basketball, perhaps in the whole nation. And let me just tip my hat to any of you that are Duke fans, the few scant number of you, because it's a wonderful thing when you're able to somehow beat a team that's much better than you.

And so I want to tip my hat to you. It was, I was watching this game, and it's like, Carolina's winning the whole time. And yet, I'm like, we must be up by 14. I look, we're up by four. And then I was like, Oh, man, we're scoring.

It's like a knife through warm butter. They cannot stop Bryce Johnson on the inside. What's the score? We're up by two.

We lead pretty much the whole game until the very end. And I'm not one of those that would go on and on about how clearly it was that Joel Berry was fouled on the last play. I'm not one who would, because that would be small to talk like that. That would be beneath me to say he was clearly fouled and that we technically would have been on the free throw line to win the game. I wouldn't say something like that.

I wouldn't. But instead, what I did was when I saw what was happening in this, and then Duke takes the lead, I'm like, you're just like, as you're a preacher, some of the very best words aren't available to you. It was bad, baby. It was bad. It was a bad loss. I woke up in the middle of the night and replayed some pieces of that game and tried to put it together until in my mind, I had settled it out that actually we had one. It was just a bad dream.

And then I went back to sleep. Now what's interesting about that is that early in the season, Carolina had a terrible loss to Northern Iowa. They'd only gone up there because it was Marcus Page's home area. And they went up there to play as kind of a courtesy and got beaten.

And it's happened sometime early. I don't remember when I saw something. I didn't watch the game.

I read about it in the paper and I'm like, Oh man, that's weird. Carolina loss. But I didn't lose any sleep over that.

Cause that was Northern Iowa. Who cares about losing to Northern Iowa, but don't want to lose the Duke. So I'm losing sleep and yelling at the TV and blaming people and everything else. One point of this is that when you get the deepest gut reaction to something, I'm not talking about, you got your anger issues. I'm talking about the things that really, for some reason, it just really upsets you and you are mad and you are about that.

What's it doing? It's revealing what you care most about. I didn't care about losing to Northern Iowa. I don't want to lose Duke. I don't want to lose. I'm already thinking about the next game.

I like, we're going to beat them next time. I mean, you know, cause I care about that. And it was proved in how I was reacting.

You know, I mean, I'm not sitting in front of the TV in Northern. I go, no, no, don't take that shot. But this game I'm just like, ah, it reveals what you care about. This is one of those moments with Jesus. I was going to say upfront, I spent hours this week meditating on just this question.

Is it true? As most commentators say that Jesus is just looking at Peter and calling him Satan, that he called him Simon and then he called him Peter, the rock. And then he called him Satan all in the course of a few short verses here, Simon, Peter, Satan.

And I finally just had to settle this despite what it seems from the text. He looks at Peter and he says, get behind me, Satan, as he looks at Peter. But I just am absolutely convinced of this, knowing the fullness of the scripture and how Jesus did spiritual warfare, how it was that Jesus, what Jesus did when he encountered those that were demonized and knowing the heart of Jesus, just absolutely no way he's calling Peter Satan. Because Jesus at times would deliver, like he delivered a man who had a legion of demons and he doesn't call the man legion.

He doesn't call the man. In fact, the number one thing of a compassionate ministry of deliverance is that whatever a person and whatever way they're oppressed of the enemy, you don't call the person by the name of the enemy. You instead rebuke the enemy's work in their life and you bless the person. I don't think he's calling him Satan.

I'm a little bit attracted to the idea that one friend had. He said, no, he said, I've always believed he was talking to Peter and then Satan appeared over to the side and he didn't even want to give Satan the stage. So he just said, get behind me, Satan. I'm talking to Peter right now. I don't know for sure, but this, what we see is that whatever Peter said is so aligned with the very thing that Satan would say, that Jesus is giving his strongest rebuke right here to his dear friend Peter. It's so strong. It gets his guts involved behind me. Rebuke you, Satan.

Care so strongly about this. Peter's life we have seen is this marvelous admixture of fear and faith. And I say marvelous because it enables me to identify with him, that who can't identify with someone who at one moment just, oh, I'm going to never leave you, Jesus, and the next moment falls back into the same old sin. And Peter's like that.

He's a real person. And what we're seeing in Peter is a transformation. We're seeing what's going on in his life. And I want to show you today why Jesus was so strongly reactive to this, what this is all about so that once again it'll point us to the efficiency, the fullness of the power of the cross of Jesus Christ.

All right, let's start with this. Life itself is, if we are honest, a strange mixture of the difficult things and the easy things and of the tragedies and of the triumphs. And that's real life. It's real life. To live a victorious Christian life doesn't mean that somehow we are able to escape from the adversities of life. That's never what it's meant by a victorious Christian life.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like the pressure's 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. 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. You know, I had a two-week period back in January in which I was just reflecting back on the two weeks. And I thought, this is so like life.

So much can happen in a couple weeks. So I was really looking forward to decompressing after Christmas. And the way that I was going to do this was I had a meeting in Florida with some other senior pastors of our denomination. And I enjoy their company. And I enjoy the time, the fellowship. And I was looking forward to that. And then the family was coming down to join us. And we were going to the family was coming down to join us. And we were going to go and witness to Mickey Mouse for a week.

And so while I was out at the senior pastor's gathering in the warm sunshine of Florida, enjoying the time, and actually was getting ready to get in a round of golf. And my wife called. And our little dog, our little Reese of 12 years, part of our family, they had taken to the vet. He wasn't eating anymore. And he was in pain. And they found a big tumor. And they had to make the decision and deal with it without me there.

I hate it when the hard things happen and I'm not there. But I wasn't there. And Reese was put to sleep. And there was great sadness. And then the family came down to Florida.

And we had such a wonderful, wonderful time. I was coughing. I was coughing during the time.

Didn't think much of it. And then before the big snow hit, I decided to go to the doctor. And they said, you've got a touch of pneumonia here. And then a few days later, no moon, you got worse. And I had to switch the antibiotic. And it took me a while to get over that.

And I was just kind of looking back over it. Isn't that just like, what can happen in a two-week period of your life? Florida sunshine, Mickey Mouse, the grief of the loss of your pet, and pneumonia, and the most beautiful and wonderful snow, and then being tired of the snow. All of it is just part of life. My friend and mentor Dudley Hall put it this way years ago, every day seems to have a bit of Good Friday and Easter in it, doesn't it?

And it's real life. And see, being a Christian is not that we somehow are avoiding all of these difficulties. Scott Peck in his famous book, The Road Less Travel, began with these words, life is difficult. This is a great truth, he writes, one of the greatest truths.

It's a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand it, accept it, then life is no longer difficult because once it's accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. He continues, fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping they'll go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them so that by deadening ourselves to the pain, we can forget the problems that cause the pain.

We attempt to skirt around the problems rather than meet them head on. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them. This tendency, Scott Peck writes, to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. And he concludes from this, but the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid.

Listen to the wisdom of that sentence. The substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid. Any alcoholic or drug addict could affirm that to you.

Anyone who ever got lured into an affair thinking it would bring an end to their pain would tell you it did just the opposite. Anyone who has ever built their life around a substitute for suffering in order to avoid the pain of going through that grief or dealing with that loss or addressing the problem could tell you that the substitute becomes far more painful than the suffering you would experience by walking with God right through the storm. And part of what Peter is saying here is I want there to be a life now that you're here Jesus and I have affirmed that you're the Son of the living God and you're the Christ. Now that the Messiah has come and our King is here I believe there's going to be no more suffering so it can't be that you're going to go to Jerusalem and suffer. But Jesus said it is necessary.

ESV says I must go. In Greek it's one little word, dei, and it means it is necessary. This becomes a very important word in the Gospels especially all throughout the Gospel of Luke but here we see it in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus uses the word it is necessary. This verb carries a tremendous amount of freight because it is saying that it is essential that this must happen. It is necessary.

It is something that must happen. You hear the urgency in Jesus's voice. Some years ago in one of his early books Max Lucado illustrated the incredible foreordination of the plan of God for Jesus to go to the cross by retelling a well-worn preacher's story about a bridge tender, a man who would operate the draw bridge and there was a train track that would go across it. In one day as the old preacher's illustration goes there was a bridge was up and the son of the bridge tender was out playing amongst the lower part of the bridge and was actually up amongst its great gears when suddenly the bridge operator realized that a locomotive was headed that way fast and it had somehow caught him by surprise and he had to lower the bridge in that moment and if he didn't then this whole train load of passengers would be thrust down into the deep ravine to their death and he had a horrible choice to make. To lower the bridge would certainly mean crushing his only son but not to would mean the loss of lives of all of these people and so in a moment of unbelievable pathos so the illustration goes the bridge tender lowers the bridge and those gears move and indeed his son is trapped and it takes away the boy's life and as the train passes over the bridge you could see through the windows all of its passengers laughing and having a merry time as they were completely unaware of the sacrifice that had just been made for them and so the illustration goes Jesus has died in your place and still there are many who thoughtlessly pass by having no idea the sacrifice had been made for them and it has many of the aspects of a beautiful sermon illustration it tells of a father's heart-wrenching decision it tells something of the anguish that the father must feel it tells of the extraordinary love for the greater good and indeed how many are unaware of what God has done for them but it has a huge flaw in it as Lucado pointed out many years ago and that is that when it comes to the gospel and the cross of Jesus Christ it was no stopgap measure it was no accident it was not something that came up and caught God by surprise in fact ironically this Peter who is the one who says emphatically you shall never go to Jerusalem and shall not suffer these things that you've said later in the book of Acts when he preaches the Pentecost sermon under the unction of the Holy Spirit he articulates it absolutely clearly men of Israel Acts 2 22 says 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 here it is to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men it was no accident what does it mean Lucado writes it means that Jesus planned his own sacrifice it means Jesus intentionally planted the tree from which his cross would be carved it means he willingly placed his cross on the place the iron ore in the heart of the earth from which the nails would be cast it means he voluntarily placed his Judas in the womb of a woman it means Christ was the one who set in motion the political machinery that would send Pilate to Jerusalem and it also means he didn't have to do it but he did it was no accident if you were to make the drawbridge metaphor true then you'd have to alter the story so dramatically that it would become unimaginable the father would have had to tell the son to go and play amongst the gears and tell him what was going to happen that soon he was going to lower them and crush them so that many people would be saved and the reason that we can't imagine such a scenario and the reason that we have such a hard time really believing the gospel is that we have a hard time ever seeing how wide how deep how long how high is the love of God the reason that it was necessary that Jesus go is not just because it was written and God could not be made out to be a liar but because the love of God constrained Jesus and his love for Peter was the thing that made him say no to Peter his love for you is the very reason that he went to Jerusalem and what it means therefore is that Jesus was saying to Peter for me to save you there is an inevitability a necessity of my suffering and in many ways if you could ever rightly understand this and there is so much misunderstanding about suffering and so many people that blame God for things that God's not doing that the devil's doing but if you could understand that there is a place of suffering that you would understand the words of Jesus that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains alone but if it dies it bears much fruit there's something about the mystery of life that there is in the letting go of what you're not supposed to hold on to the dying of the seed is the birth of the tree Alan Wright today's teaching is from self-agenda to divine agenda it's in the life of peter series and it's today's teaching stick with us alan is back in a moment with a final word for today 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 call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org alan as we look to the life of peter and we think of peter as this spiritual giant and we think of ourselves as not and then we look at how how much i think you i the word practicality comes to mind how practical this story is because when we look at the life of peter and we look even at today's teaching i can find myself in his story and i find hope in that i think all of us can identify with peter and um even in the moments where you see peter being rebuked by jesus and um that he's all he's missing the whole point of it right there's still something that can identify with peter um and i think that's part of what makes him attractive to us and part of what the more as i move along studying the life of peter the more enthralled i am with the kind of transformation jesus believed he had perfect faith because he saw who peter really was and he sees who we really are and he's moving us more and more towards his agenda so today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries