Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Diet has changed and there's no sugar and no sugar substitutes for 30 days and I did it to a tee. I followed every bit of the law on that thing and I came to you afterwards having had no sugar for 30 days and I said, I made the declaration, I said, you know, I've discovered something.
Fruit is delicious. 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 called Unleashed as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. You can find out more about it and even receive a copy of your very own 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 at PastorAlan.org. Find out more about it and make your request or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Again, our website, PastorAlan.org. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. I find it to be a law, when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God and my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. And when he mentioned I see it as a law that I when I want to do right, he doesn't mean law in the sense of God's law, he means like a principle or an axiom. It just happens like this.
It's axiomatic. And this is his first mention of evil. You'll notice all throughout Romans 7, it's interesting, this whole struggle that he's talking about with sin, he never mentions the devil. He mentions evil finally here to remind us that ultimately we're talking about something that has cosmic significance.
And he says this is all making me captive. The more I want to do what is right, and the more I realize that I try hard to do what is right, and the more I realize I can't, the more I realize I'm captive to what is wrong. So there's the biblical image of the nature of sin that apart from the gospel and apart from Christ and by own fleshly effort, it is nothing less than slavery. Verse 24. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And this image, verse 24, of the body of death, F.F.
Bruce, one scholar, suggested that it's an image taken from a practice of an Etruscan king, Byzantius, who tormented his captives by strapping a dead body to them. It is like that when you are stuck in sin, and like a decomposing body strapped to you that you carry around. And so all of this is Paul's explanation of the complex kind of struggle that goes on within our own lives. And he comes to the answer at the second part of verse 25.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The seemingly narrow choice is the expansive choice. The seemingly constricting way is the way of freedom. See, both God and all people have this in common.
They want freedom. It's about the avenue by which you come in to that freedom. So when he says at verse 25, So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. But with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
He is summarizing all of chapter seven, and he is saying there's a fierce competition within me, and it's complex, and I've been losing every time that I try to win it by my own fleshly efforts. But Jesus is the answer. And after all of Romans one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven, he comes to Romans eight, verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We hadn't just been waiting for this since Romans chapter one. We've been waiting for Romans eight one since the beginning of creation.
We've been waiting for this moment, and in many ways I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for Romans eight, verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, because the problem of humanity is that once sin entered into the world, we felt condemned. We knew it was wrong, and people have throughout history done everything imaginable to try to escape that feeling of condemnation.
They've constructed every imaginable kind of religious system of trying to pay God back, invented all kinds of mythologies, all kinds of practices, and many, many diverse ways of trying to prove themselves to the deities to be okay after all so they wouldn't feel condemned by their sin. And there's been a whole other stream, of course, throughout history that has said we can never make ourselves acceptable, and so we're not going to try. We will be the ones who determine what is right and what is wrong, and so there is even now in the spirit of the age such a cry that says, don't tell me what is right or wrong. I will decide because the way to escape the feeling of condemnation is to come to the conclusion that there's nothing that I do that is wrong, and we have tried all of this throughout the history of humankind, and it never works. And there is no deliverance from the angst of the human soul until you come to the place of there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Listen again to the fullness of what he says at Romans 8-1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. The only way of deliverance, Paul has been saying to us, is to be set free from the law of sin and death. And what is the law of sin and death? It's where here's the law, you try to keep it, you can't keep it, so you realize you're sinful and the wages of sin is death. And so you live in constant angst and fear that because you can't keep the law that you're under condemnation.
And the fear that you won't be accepted, the fear that you'll be ashamed, the fear that you would be unloved, that fear, the greatest fear in all of the world, is running like an angst down deep in the unconscious soul. And you cannot escape it until you come to the place of being able to say with Paul, Romans 8, 1, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. But the only way that you could ever come to that place is to come to an understanding of what Jesus has done for you. That He came as a human being into the likeness of sin, meaning the likeness of a human being like every other human being who has sinned, but He didn't sin. But when He went to the cross, He became sin, He took your sin, and He took the penalty for it.
And He died for you. So that anyone who trusts in Him would be declared by God the Father to be the righteousness of Jesus. So, in order to not be condemned, instead to be accepted, someone had to adequately pay someone had to adequately pay the price so that you could be reckoned as righteous. To not walk in condemnation means not only to know that you're forgiven, but to also know that when God looks at you as His son or daughter, He looks at you as if you'd never sinned. And what happens when you start living out of that is you're out of the law of sin and death, and now you're into the law of life and the Spirit in Christ Jesus. You're into a new way of living, a new way of seeing everything.
And how is it that you experience this new life? You experience it, Paul has argued through Romans 7, by recognizing I cannot deliver myself, I need a Savior, and it is the Lord Jesus, and you submit. In other words, the weight of freedom is almost exactly the opposite of how most people think. You, like the culture, might have thought the weight of freedom is to think harder and deeper and more seriously about your sin. Accept Jesus, many Christians do, and then still spend a lot of time in self-condemnation. But the way out of sin is a whole new way of seeing your life. Seeing yourself not as condemned, but accepted. Because when you see yourself as accepted, and the more that you do, and the more that you know that love of God that has set you free, the more the angst of the soul begins to melt away. This is a huge paradox. The key to freedom from addiction and victory from all sin is that you must not only recognize your sin, but recognize that by your efforts you're not going to get better. That the law is good, the law is good, but the law is not powerful. And so it will leave you only with more frustration, more angst, and more condemnation.
That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. This is what the Lord says, I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.
The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album, Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. 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 simply makes you feel worse trying hard to do what is right and not being able to do what is right and therefore it becomes like a downward spiral where your shame that eats away and gnaws at you with anxiety then becomes increased at your attempts to keep the law that fail and you feel even less acceptable. And what's fueling the addiction in the first place is that very anxiety. This is where the truth of the scripture and the whole description of Romans 7 is absolutely mirrored in most modern theories of addiction. That it is simply this, that the restlessness anxieties and discontents of our souls, that anxiety is so uncomfortable that people are looking for some way to quieten it or to cover it.
And there are substances and behaviors and even relationships that may temporarily cause chemical reactions in the brain that touch upon the centers of the brain that bring pleasure and happiness and quieten the anxiety, but it's only temporary. And what happens is in the need to constantly cover that anxiety, substances and behaviors can become addictive. This all goes very far to explain the success of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups, because what happens in those groups?
What happens in those groups is that people come together who are committed to being honest with one another about their problems. And this all began back in a day in which there were many times on a Sunday morning there were well-dressed people up in a beautiful sanctuary acting like they had their lives all together, but on Tuesday night in a musty basement there were some people that were sitting together and openly saying, I'm Joe and I'm alcoholic. And in that environment where people are able to open up and talk openly, there is an exposure to the light of truth. And everything the devil does is in the darkness, and everything God does is in the light. And this is why 1 John says, if we walk in the light as he's in the light, then we'll have fellowship with one another. It's the only way we'll have authentic relationships, and the blood of Jesus will purify us.
The blood of Jesus has already been shed and is already qualified for the cleansing of all of our sin, but it's only in the walking and the light that we appropriate it. So, in AA there is honesty and there's insistence on the honesty. Well, one of the things that I've always loved about all the dear brothers that I've ever known who worked with AA and sponsored others in AA is that they became quite adept at reading through all the lies and cons and deceptions of other addicts. And it's a wonderful thing. I think sometimes only a person who's recovered from addiction can see well enough into somebody else and know when they're lying about it.
You not only need some people you can be honest with, you need some people who will know when you're lying. And the second thing that happens is that not only is there this new and unprecedented honesty that happens in the addict's life, but you sit in this circle of people who likewise are being real about their own problems. And so instead of others condemning you, you find yourself accepted as a human being in that context. And what I'm saying is that all hope of genuine change in our lives, whether it's an addiction or any besetting sin or any just bad habit in our lives requires both of these things. That we get Romans 7 honesty about the struggle that's within us and that I cannot by my own power overcome this problem.
I need a higher power. I need God and I'm willing to be honest about this struggle. And at the same time, I absolutely have to have an assurance of absolute love and acceptance. And the problem is beloved in this world, there's nobody that can give you a guarantee of 100% love and acceptance. And you'll always be left wondering if I told this person everything about me, would this person still love me like he or she does now, but with God, he already knows everything that you've ever done wrong, everything that you ever will do wrong, every thought that you've had. And he came knowing all of that and died for you in your place because the love of God is perfect and endless.
And that perfect love cast out your fear and beloved when your fear is gone, it changes everything in your life. And what he says in Romans 8 chapter 1 is that you're ushered into a whole new way when you discover the freedom of the gospel, because you get filled with the Holy Spirit. And what the Holy Spirit does is that he not only, he not only has a gracious way of convicting you of the wrongdoing in your life, but he is constantly encouraging you. He's a helper, and he wants to move you into more and more of the Spirit. There's a strange words of Jesus, to him who has much more is given to him as little, the little is taken away, but it's true of every dimension of life. And what happens is that when you're in the Spirit, you just grow more and more.
So into the Spirit, the Scripture says. So I told you a few months ago that I was conned into going on a 30-day diet by my daughter and my wife and I, we went on the whole 30 diet, which means that your whole diet has changed and there's no sugar and no sugar substitutes for 30 days. And I did it to a T. I followed every bit of the law on that thing. And I came to you afterwards, having had no sugar for 30 days. And I said, I made a declaration.
I said, you know, I've discovered something. Fruit is delicious. And the day that the diet ended, the next day, my wife got to celebrate by having a hip replacement surgery and I celebrated by having a piece of chocolate. And the next day I had a little more chocolate and I decided to dabble back into some ice cream. I had told myself I'm going to stay in this kind of, you know, no sugar thing. And then I dabbled into some cake and some pie. And now here I am two and a half months later and I have a declaration to tell you, chocolate is delicious. To him who has much, more is given. If you have a hunger for chocolate, you're going to have more hunger for chocolate.
Isn't it funny how these things work, right? And what Paul is saying is there's an invitation to move out of the addictions that lead toward destruction and to move into a law of the spirit of the life in Christ Jesus. I've been in Texas because I went to teach the Theological Round Table. I read about 600 pages on worship from some beloved authors.
I wrote a paper for it. I went and I taught and I ministered with other ministers for days. I came home and I was able to dive into Romans chapter 7. I was able then to preach last night and preach again this morning.
And guess what? My body gets a little tired. My voice gets a little raspy. But what's happened to my spirit? I'm hungrier for God than I was before I started all of it. The more time I spend in the spirit, the more time I want to be in the spirit. The more time I'm in the word, the more time I want to be in the word. The answer, the answer to transformation and moving on past all the setting problems of our life is not the flesh trying harder.
It is recognizing I can't keep the law. Jesus did that for me. And I submit myself to Him who has the power to liberate me.
And your thirst begin to change. And whatever thirst you have for God, act on it and drink deeply. And say to yourself therefore in the morning, not, oh, I'm a miserable wretch and a sinner and I'm going to try harder today. But instead, wake up in the morning and tell yourself there is therefore now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus and I've been brought into a new way of living the law of the life of the spirit in Christ Jesus. And that will set you free. And that's the gospel. Alan Wright and Good Clear Answers today.
Freedom from addiction through grace is the teaching in the series Unleashed. I encourage you to stay with us. Alan is back in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. This is what the Lord says. I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.
The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album, Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. 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. Back here in the studio with Alan Wright and Alan, what is your good news thought for the day to leave us with? So addiction is fueled by mainly anxiety. And that anxiety is primarily rooted in our shame. So if I feel like I don't measure up and I have to measure up in order to be accepted in love, and the thing that I want most is acceptance and love, the shame and the pressure and all of that that gnaws at our souls, that's an engine that is fueling and working towards a solution. And all addiction really is is some temporary behavior or chemical or pattern of life that for some reason puts us in a position where we don't feel that angst for the moment. And so the answer to all of this is the grace of Jesus Christ. To have the grace of Jesus Christ assure you that you are absolutely loved by God and accepted no matter what. No matter whether you fail or succeed, the pressure lifts, pressures off of you. And so it is that the roots, the driving force behind the addiction can lift as you find yourself more and more accepted in Christ. If you're struggling with an addiction, get some help and find not only a good friend, find a good counselor, probably find a good 12-step program. But know this, that it's the real answer to addiction in the end. It's not just managing as important as it is your behaviors. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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