Forward Expectations [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. It's much more about an announcement of what inheritance has already been secured for you than it is about what you need to do to secure it. But the fact of the matter is that once you know something is yours, then there is great energy that you expend to protect it, to bless it, to foster it, and to let it grow.

That's what God wants. 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, Forward, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout our entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It could 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 today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org.

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

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Well, even if you're tired, even if you're worn out, even if you're uncertain, even if you've had a lot of confusing things happen, or even great disappointments in your life, one thing's for sure, beloved, you are not stuck. In Christ, there is always a way forward. In fact, we're going to talk about today and in coming weeks, there really is no going back or backwards.

And the thought of just wandering in the same place is not appetizing either. So where are we going? We're going forward.

Even when we get to our last day and breathe our last breath, then you're going forward. I begin today with a quote, not from a theologian or a philosopher or an author or even celebrity, but a truck driver named Larry Walters, who in 1982 had the bright idea that he would sit in a lawn chair and strap 35 weather balloons to it. Remember this? And got some sandwiches and a BB gun, and he would have a little time floating in the middle of the air. He thought that perhaps he would rise up about 30 feet, pop a few balloons and come back down. But when he told his friends to cut me loose, he soared up 15,000 feet into the controlled airspace of the Los Angeles International Airport. Now y'all, what is that like? Sitting in a lawn chair at 15,000 feet? A 747 comes by, you know, what's he doing?

Just chomping down on the sandwiches? He was a miracle. He started popping balloons and he started coming down.

He got tangled up in some power lines and still survived it to be interviewed by reporters who asked him, Larry, why did you do it? And here is today's pearl of wisdom for us. He said, well, you can't just sit there. Well, that's a pretty deep statement and we're going to dive into that today because there is a part of us that when we think about challenges in the future, we'd rather just kind of stay in the same place, but we're not designed for that. And the narrative of the Old Testament hinges on this move from a people who were slaves, who were brought into freedom, but they weren't just brought into freedom to just be free. They were to go and occupy a promised land.

And that became the challenge. I want to talk to you about some promised land principles today as we talk about expectations of moving forward. As we started our missions emphasis, I asked the Lord about the theme and I sometimes get this.

It just came that one word forward, move forward. It's tempting, especially when you've been through a lot of difficult things and you think about challenges in front of you, to think, well, I'd rather just either stay where I am or go back to where I was. And neither, neither of those places has in it the blessing of God. So let's look at this familiar story of the spying out of the land. It's told at Numbers 13, the book of Numbers.

In the book of Numbers, starting at verse one, I'll give you some excerpts from these couple chapters. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a chief among them. So 12 spies representing the 12 tribes are to go into Canaan, the promised land. And they're told to spy it out and to bring back the fruit, right? Get a vision of the land, bring back that vision so you can put it in front of the people and say, look how beautiful the place is where we're going. Right?

That's what leaders do. They say, I've been over spying out the new land. And let me tell you how wonderful it's going to be.

It'll be worth all the challenges that it'll take to get there. Spy it out and tell us about the challenges that are there and bring back the fruit. At the end of 40 days, now chapter 13, verse 25, at the end of 40 days, they returned from spying out the land and they say, they came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the people of Israel. And they brought back word to them and all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

So, so far, so good. But then look what happened. Verse 27. And they told them, we came to the land, which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey. And that's, this is its fruit. Okay.

Here's some fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides we saw the descendants of Anak there. Well, this is a reference to a mythological breed of people that were sort of half angel, half human, these giants though down there, they're exaggerating. Caleb, Caleb, there were two spies that gave a faith filled report, Caleb and Joshua and Caleb verse 30 quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and occupy for where we are well able to overcome it. And then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. So they brought to the people of Israel, a bad report of the land. They spied out saying the land through which we've gone to spied out as a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people we saw great height. And there we saw verse 32, the Nephilim, these giants, the sons of Anak who come from the Nephilim. And we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seem to them.

So they just are exaggerating all of this and announcing the defeat before it's even begun. And then that night, look at this chapter 14, verse one, all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night. And they said to one another, verse four, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. And verse six, here's Joshua and Joshua, the son of Nun and Caleb, the son of Jephthah, who are among those who spied out the land, tore their clothes.

That's the Middle Eastern expression of greatest emotion and remorse, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we pass through to spied out is an exceedingly good land. They returned to the vision of the land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land for their bread to us, their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us.

Do not fear them. The story of the Old Testament in many ways hinges on the question of the land. This relatively small track of fertile land in the area that was known as Canaan in the Middle East was originally promised to Abraham.

You remember Genesis 15? He said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from the Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. And when the people had become enslaved in Egypt so many years later, they called out for deliverance and God sent Moses to be a deliverer. And God said to Moses in Exodus 3, 8, I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So Abraham and then hundreds of years later, Moses, and then we come to the scene in Numbers and then as we'll see in Joshua, the land is the issue. But the whole story makes it evident, which you're just reading it for the first time, that there's no question in God's mind about whether his people will have the land. He's over and over doing everything he can to say this is your inheritance. And there is therefore no dispute about whether they'll be able to take the land.

The question is, will they take it? That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind, you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's Word and God's Spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and Spirit always belong together.

The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the Spirit. The answer is both Word and Spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying scripture and some traditions emphasize the Spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both Word and Spirit. As someone once said, all Word, no Spirit, you dry up. All Spirit, no Word, you blow up. Both Word and Spirit, you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and his Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Today is the final day we're offering this special product. 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. The New Testament says of the old that the old is full of shadows pointing to the reality that's in Christ. So in the Old Testament, if you see a Passover lamb, they slaughter on the altar in the temple, you can notice a shadow, especially when you hear John the baptizer point to Jesus and say, behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is the Passover lamb. So over and over those thousands of lambs that were sacrificed in Israel were just a shadow, a picture, but not a full picture of the reality, which is Jesus.

A shadow when the sun shines and you see a shadow and you see only the shadow, it's enough to let you know there's a person who must be there, but you hadn't seen the person's face. And so the old is full of shadows. And I'm suggesting to you that the image of Canaan and the promised land vitally important piece of history, a true historical drama that unfolds in the pages of the Old Testament, nonetheless is a shadow. And the promised land is not a shadow of heaven.

Heaven's a place where there's not even gonna be any more conflict. A promised land is a shadow of the kingdom of God here now. It is a shadow of all the promises of God that are your inheritance and all that is put in front of you to occupy. And that's why I want you to be thinking about this today, because the shadow is to say the people of God had an inward conflict about whether they would believe God and occupy the land that was their inheritance. And the problem for us as Christians is not whether the promises of God are true, but whether or not we can occupy and appropriate that which he has already proclaimed to us. So the conflict then becomes in our own minds, doesn't it? That's the battleground.

It's internal. Look again at these two reports. Verse 30, Caleb quieted the people, let us go up at once and occupy it. We are well able to overcome. But verse 31, the men who had gone up with him said, we're not able to go up. And the word here that says they brought a bad report, the word for bad in Hebrew here is actually the word that is used to be translated evil.

Same word. So it was not just a negative report. It was a wicked report.

How lovely are the feet of him who brings good news, but how awful it is for someone who sows the seeds of fear. They brought a wicked report. Ed Welch just said of this, they were not just pessimists, they were false prophets.

That's the issue. They were wrong. They were wrong in what they reported. And the people just received the majority report, that negative, wicked report. They just received it.

They just took it right in, immediately took it in. It's like the fears that they already had were just lying dormant, waiting to attach in agreement with the report that came. You know, we've been talking a lot recently about agreement. And this is why it's just so important to live out of the Spirit, rather than the flesh. The flesh is so quick, our sin nature is so quick to agree with the bad report.

But the Spirit, who is always in tune with God, the Spirit, your spiritual self is able to agree with God's Word. Here's what happened. They were afraid that if they tried to take the land that they would not take it and would die in the process. How ironic that the only way that they wouldn't take the land and die in the process would be to turn back in the wilderness, which is what they did. And they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and died in the process.

And they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until the whole generation died off. Fear and faith are diametrically opposite and yet oh so similar because they are both forms of belief. And whatever you believe tends to lead you towards the object of your belief.

Right? So if you've got an important job interview, you've been looking for a job for a while and you get an important job interview. And if you're confident because you know you've got the gifts for this job, you feel secure and you feel secure in the Lord. Because, you know, ultimately he's your source and you feel confident in going in and presenting who you are in the interview. And you are therefore not nervous about it. You come across in the interview very secure, very confident.

You come across as a very positive person and you're able to talk about your gifts and how you're able to do the job well. Well, you're much more likely to get the job. If you go into it and you're just thinking about how I just can't fail at another interview and I just can't, I can't miss another job and I'm just, I've been, I've been rejected too much. And that's what's going through your mind. You're just nervous about it. You're nervous about whether you'll get rejected again. You're nervous and you're thinking about all the negative outcomes and you're just afraid you won't get it. What's that going to do to you? It's going to make you look insecure. It's gonna make you look like you don't have the confidence to be able to do the job.

You're far more likely to not get the job. Fear and faith are forms of belief that both lead towards what they believe in. They didn't believe that they could go take the land, even though God had told them over and over and over, starting with Abraham.

This isn't new. He had cut a covenant with Abraham. He had affirmed it and ratified it with Moses. He had spoken it to them.

And so they turn back. It's a deep gospel truth here, because the source of their faith was not to be in their own abilities, but in God's promises. And the people were not to take the land in order to make it theirs.

They were to take the land because it was theirs. The Bible spends, therefore, a huge amount of attention. God focuses us in His word on who you are and what you have in Christ. Being one of the most powerful shifts in your reading of the Bible, if instead of looking at it as an instruction book about all the things that you're supposed to do in order to be blessed, you start looking at it as a good news announcement of all that God has done so that you can be sure that you are blessed and learn how to walk in it. It's much more about an announcement of what inheritance has already been secured for you than it is about what you need to do to secure it. But the fact of the matter is that once you know something is yours, then there is great energy that you expend to protect it, to bless it, to foster it, and to let it grow. That's what God wants. To see what it is that He's given to you in the Spirit and the promises of God that are yes and amen in Christ, and for you to so thoroughly see it and believe it that then you want to do everything you can to continue it, to hold on to it, and to let it grow.

If it's your garden and you know there's gonna be sweet fruit from that garden, then you're the one more than anybody else who's energized to pull the weeds. Word and Spirit always belong together. The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the Spirit. The answer is both Word and Spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying Scripture and some traditions emphasize the Spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both Word and Spirit. As someone once said, all Word, no Spirit, you dry up. All Spirit, no Word, you blow up. Both Word and Spirit, you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and His Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. 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.

Today is the final day we're offering this special product. 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. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Well, Pastor Alan, as we begin this short series on forward, I'm assuming taking some forward momentum as we go through these messages. Daniel, we've all been through an exhausting couple of years, lots of grief, lots of pain, lots of uncertainty. And there is always a temptation to think that what I ought to do is just sort of hang on. But during the pandemic, the word I kept getting from the Lord was forward.

And so we're so happy to be able to air this series because there's always two ways to look, forward or backwards, and faith takes us forward. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.