From Unsure to Secure [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I want you to see my faith. I want you to see God at work.

I want you to experience this, because Peter had all this determination of what a passionate and faithful disciple he was going to be, but what he needed was Jesus' own faith. 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. How could it be that it just so happens I'm growing up in a Christian environment? What if I hadn't grown up? All of these questions, all these intellectual questions, so many go through this kind of journey. And what it did for me was, in the midst of all of that sense of oppressive, mental, intellectual sort of anguish, at the same time that I was experiencing some of the worst doubts I'd ever experienced, I was also saying to God, if this is all real, I need to know that it's real. What I was asking was to experience firsthand the presence of Jesus. And the hunger and the thirst that I had at that time, I'm convinced, is what God used to lead me into a transforming experience of His presence.

And you might call it many different names. I was already a Christian. I already had the Holy Spirit. But you might call it an immersion in the Spirit. You might call it a baptism.

You might call it a release. You might call it an encounter with God. You might call it experiencing the power of God for the first time.

You might call it knowing in your heart what you've known in your head. Whatever you call it, there is, in the Christian life, an opportunity to actually be with Jesus in a way that you know Him and you can talk about Jesus the way you would talk about any other friend because you have actually spent time with Him. And when these religious leaders saw Peter, what they said was they recognized he'd been with Jesus. And it's so interesting to watch how Peter's life, just in front of our eyes as we watch the gospel be unveiled, how his life is being transformed. It might be in sort of fits and starts. It might be like he's growing and then, oh, he's down. You know, who amongst us hadn't been on that kind of roller coaster spiritually?

But it's moving towards this place because he's been with Him. On the day that we read about in Mark, Chapter 5, where Peter gets to see these miracles, there's so much Peter must have learned on that day. I mean, you could just go through a mental checklist. What are all the things that he learned about Jesus that day? Well, he learned that great crowds were always around Jesus. Jesus is popular.

Check. He learned that Jesus had compassion upon the six. Jesus is compassionate.

Write it down. He learned that Jesus cared about women, which was unusual in that culture where women were not very honored. And he stopped both these miracle stories were about women.

Okay, learn that about them. He learned that Jesus loved faith. He delighted in the woman's faith.

It touches God. I mean, you could just go through and start writing down all this list of things like if Peter were taking notes on what he was learning from Jesus. But do you think that's the way he actually was learning that day? No, it wasn't.

It wasn't that. It was that he was just being with Jesus. And then Jesus is going to heal this little girl, raise her from the dead. And he invites Peter and John. Just I want you to come in.

I want you to just come and see this. Come and experience, come and learn by simply being with him. So there's a process in which when you're with Jesus, your faith is not something that's just intellectual.

It's something that is experiential. Now, here's the second thing that's so important about being with Jesus is that when you are with someone, not just Jesus, but just anyone, whoever it is that you're spending a lot of time with, you become more like them. And there's almost a mystical quality to this, not just in our relationship with God, but almost with other people.

One self-help author has famously declared that you are the sum or the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that we are amazingly, we amazingly become more and more like those that we spend so much time with. This is no more apparent than in marriage. Those of us that have been married for a long time, it's just crazy how you just, I mean, it's weird. It's just weird.

Some of you old married folks, can you attest to this too? It's like, Ann and I will be riding down the road and just be quiet for a long time. And then we both open our mouth at exactly the same moment to say something. Nobody said anything for the last 20 minutes. And also we open our mouth to say something and we bring up the same subject.

I mean, this is kind of scary. I told you, I think that some years ago in the middle of the night, I mean like 3 a.m. in the dead middle of the night, for whatever reason, Ann and I both woke up at exactly the same moment, that half waking up just to reposition ourselves in bed. And we both woke up exact same moment.

What are the chances of this? Turned towards the center of the bed and clashed each other's heads right in the middle of the night. We couldn't sleep for an hour after that for laughing.

I'm like, what are the chances of headbutting my wife in the middle of the night on a sitting position? What made us get up at the same time? There's just something that begins to happen where you almost like are thinking like each other and you become like each other. It's an extraordinary thing how this happens.

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, Master 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. I don't know why this dawned on me this week, but my dad was a bit of an artist and a cartoonist and he had drawn a little cartoon mouse that became a little character in their Grimsley High School yearbook in Greensboro. He drew the pictures that were in his high school yearbook. I don't know why this dawned on me, but I was always a little tinkering with art and little cartoons and different things.

And I drew the picture for my junior high yearbook and I was asked to do that. I never even thought about it. I never thought... You don't realize the ways that you're being like somebody because you don't think about it that much. I'm talking about the ways you become like somebody. You haven't even thought about it, but you're becoming like them. And there's a way in which what you see in Jesus you see in Peter because he's just been with him. To make more sense of this, just think about how you talk, for example.

This is unusual. Of course, here in the South, I think everybody ought to talk like we do. And then people come to the South who aren't from the South and they think we talk funny. And the things that they don't understand. And some of y'all, I need to explain a few things too. Y'all is... Y'all can refer to... It's the second person plural, but it doesn't necessarily refer to an entire group. And that's why sometimes we have to say all y'all. See, people get confused by this. It's like if I said to this side of the room, now y'all say hallelujah and y'all say praise the Lord, but all y'all say amen.

You see, so you need to be able to get these nuances right. I was talking one time to a waitress at a little breakfast joint down at the beach and she was just accused could be so Southern. And she talked about how much fun she had with Northerners coming down to the beach. And she said, one time a man said, what is a grit? And I loved her response.

She just said, honey, they don't come alone. In our town here in Winston-Salem, I have some information for anybody that's new here. We have an important road here that should be for any of you that have any knowledge of the Spanish language. It should be pronounced Buena Vista Road.

That's how it should be. I know a little Spanish. It should be Buena Vista. It means good view, right? It's an important road and there's a popular neighborhood here that's by that same thing. But we don't say Buena Vista here in Winston-Salem. We say Buena Vista. And it's funny to watch the people come in who, you know, are educated and know that it should be Buena Vista. But if you come in here to town and you ask somebody where's Buena Vista?

They go, what are you talking about? Oh, Buena Vista. Yeah, well, it's over there. And so you just got to come and be amongst us for a while before you finally accept the fact that the name of that road is Buena Vista. And that's just what we say.

And I'm sorry about that, but that's what we call it here. And you will become like that eventually. And you'll be saying Buena Vista and then you'll be talking to one of your educated friends and some other party and say, Buena Vista, what have you done?

Moved into Hillbilly. You know, okay. But you see what happens is you just, if you just by being around people, you start sounding like them and you start acting like them. And something happens when you're with Jesus. You don't, you don't necessarily make a list of the things that you're trying to become in order to become more like Jesus. You just are with Him by the presence of the Holy Spirit. You're with Him by time in the Word.

You're with Him in prayer. You're with Him in fellowship. You're with Him with others. When you're, when you're in fellowship with others who love Jesus and are talking about Jesus, you're with Him. You're with Him in the meditations of your heart. There's just all these different ways, so many ways that you're with Him. And when you're with Him, you become mystically more and more like Him. But there's a third thing that happens when you're with Jesus.

And this is what happens when you're with anyone who has a higher faith than you have. You begin to see the world through the eyes of the one who sees it more vividly than you do. That this is, this is a principle of life and this is so important to understand about the Christian walk, about why it's so important to just simply be with Jesus. When you come into the world as a little baby, you have such a limited perspective. And you begin to see the world through the eyes of your mother. You begin to see the world through the eyes of others around you. So you have your own vision, but you quickly come to realize that you have very limited knowledge and very limited strength and influence in the world.

And so how you see the world becomes shaped by the ones that you're in relationship with and how they see the world. This is why the parent's role is so spiritually powerful. Is it when that parent is in touch with God and understands the child, the parent has a prophetic role and can see destiny over the child's life that the child cannot yet see. And the very fact that the parent can bless that, the very fact that the parent can see it, the very fact that the parent can affirm it, enables the child to begin to see it. In other words, if you have a father who knows the Lord and can see prophetically into your life and sees with greater faith than you do the possibilities, this is God's design and this is called the power of blessing. And you begin slowly but surely to see your life through the eyes of faith that another one had before you ever could see it.

And what happens is that there's something that is raised up on the inside of you. And what Jesus was giving Peter the privilege to do by bringing him into the room where a little girl is going to be raised from the dead was not so much like Peter, I want you to write all of this down so that you can do this exactly the way I do it because one day you are going to be used by me to raise a woman from the dead just very much like this. That wasn't when he says, I want you to see my faith. I want you to see God at work. I want you to experience this because Peter had all this determination of what a passionate and faithful disciple he was going to be.

But what he needed was Jesus's own faith. It's an extraordinary thing when you just simply have the opportunity to be around someone who sees life from a higher level than you do. It changes you. Golfers know that there's an important golf tournament every year in Atlanta at the East Lake Golf Course. What not everybody knows is that there was a marvelous redevelopment project that took place there. I was aware of how horrible and crime infested the East Lake area was when I lived in Atlanta many years ago. I'd been through the area.

It was called the Little Vietnam because people were being shot every day. It was like the drug center of Atlanta. And they came and tore down a public housing facility that was there. And with the help of an entrepreneur businessman Tom Cousins, they decided to try something very different. And they put in a mixed kind of housing where half of the people were on public assistance and half weren't. And others invested in this area. And crime in the last two decades has dropped 95 percent.

It could be a number of reasons for this, of course. But what Mr. Cousins says who was behind this, he said, I think it's this simple. He said there were kids that got to grow up next to families where there was a dad who was there, got up in the morning, got the paper, drank his coffee, went off to work, came home, played with his kids in the yard. And nobody had ever seen this before. Nobody had ever just seen what does life look like if it's not dealing drugs and shooting people and going to jail.

And just by being around it, just that fact, it's transformed an entire community. And I just want to say to you that if this type of transformational quality of new vision can come into someone's life just because they live next to somebody that is not in the cycle of crime, poverty, and incarceration, how much more transformation could take place in our lives by being with Jesus to the extent that we see the world through His eyes. See, this is in the end what I really think was happening with Peter. When Peter went in to pray for this woman who had already died, the Lord in the text says Peter prayed. I think the Lord clearly spoke to Peter in this moment and He gave him this authorization and said she's going to be raised up from the dead.

And so he knew that was from the Lord. But in the midst of that, this wasn't Peter saying, oh, man, I wonder if I can have the kind of faith Jesus did. This is Peter who's seeing the situation through Jesus's eyes.

This is what happens. Your life and your faith is so built when you're with Jesus. And here's a final thing to say about what happens when you're with Jesus.

And this might be the most important of all. To say that you have the privilege of being with Jesus and that this produces transformational power and virtue in your life is not just to say that you mystically become like Jesus. And it's not just to say that you see the world through Jesus's eyes. But it is to say that you are always and forever authorized because of who you are with.

To be with Jesus means that wherever Jesus can go and whatever privilege Jesus has, you also have that same privilege. My friend and mentor, Dudley Hall, several years ago was invited to go to the National Prayer Breakfast and sit at the head table. The reason was not because he was speaking or doing any of the public prayers or any other reason except that a friend that he had mentored, a well-known musician, Allison Krauss, and she was singing at the event. And so she had asked Dudley if he would accompany her for the event. And so he did. And Dudley said he got to the security and, as you can imagine, huge security for an event like this. And they recognized Allison. They welcomed her on in. And Dudley came up and they said, Who are you? And he said, Well, I'm with her. And they checked his papers and said, Okay, you're with her. He came on in.

They didn't know who he was. He came on in. He said he was just standing around when they were doing sound checks and stuff. And Dudley, if you remember, he was a big guy, bald, goatee, big guy. And he said he had a dark suit on and he was just standing with his arms crossed up at the front like this looking around, not realizing what he probably looked like. And a man came up to him who Dudley recognized to be the former mayor of Dallas, Texas. And the former mayor came up to him and said, Excuse me, am I allowed to go back through that door, go use the restroom back there?

Dudley said, No. And the man said, Okay, I'm sorry. And the man said, No, no, no, I'm not anybody here. He said, I just recognize you.

I'm from the Dallas area. And he said, I'm with her. Oh, okay. He sat at the front table next to the vice president of the United States and said, Why are you here? I'm with her. You're with Jesus. You're seated with him in the heavenlies. Where can he go? What can he do? What privileges does he have?

Whatever those are, they're yours too. Something happened. Peter was on trial and they saw his boldness.

They saw that it wasn't coming from his education. It was coming from some other place. And suddenly it dawned on him.

Oh, yeah. He's one of the ones who was with Jesus. You too get the privilege of being with Jesus because the Holy Spirit resides in you. And as you're with him, your life has changed and empowered. And that's a gospel. And life changing news to grapple with on today's teaching from unsure to secure in the life of Peter. Alan is back in a moment here in the studio with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. 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 it 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 master class, 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 master class 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. Alan, to hear that life changing good news, and maybe somebody's listening right now and they're hearing this maybe in a fresh way, but they're also struggling with accepting that.

It's too good to be true. And how do I change the way I'm living my life in light of this goodness? I think so often for a believer, Daniel, what needs to happen is instead of operating, living by your own sense of your identity, you just begin to make a shift and you see your identity in him. And you not only see, okay, this is who I am in Christ, but this is how God now sees me. And so it means to, not just with a message like this, but every day to think much of the gospel, think much of what has been accomplished in Christ. Think much of the unending, unconditional love of God for your life. And this is what ultimately leads to assurance and a sense of security. This good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.