Boldness and Humility [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

You can be bold, and you can be humble at the same time, which is keenly important as you think about our mission to the world. 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 Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Balance, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, 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 resource, today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 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? In Christ, through the gospel, you can be both bold and humble at the same time. And I don't know of any other way that it's possible except through the gospel. You can be bold and you can be humble at the same time, which is keenly important as you think about our mission to the world. And as we think about how faith works, as we think about sharing the gospel, there is a way in which, if we're going to be effective, we need to have utmost confidence in what we believe and yet have a meekness that knows we're not better than anybody.

I think if we could do that in that way, the world would open up their heart to hear what we have to say. Let me give you a great example of this. It's the person of the Apostle Paul, and we're in Acts chapter 9 and verse 1, and then I'm going to show you another text just a little bit later. This is Saul of Tarsus, and he is breathing murderous threats against the people of God. He's a Pharisee of Pharisees. This is the one who later becomes known as the Apostle Paul, but here's what happens in his call. In Acts chapter 9 verse 1, but Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting, but rise and enter the city and you'll be told what you're to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. And Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

What a picture. And then, just flip over to later in Acts, over into chapter 26. And what I want you to see is here's Paul. He starts out his ministry being blinded for three days and led by the hand around Damascus where he had gone with authority to arrest people, but instead he couldn't even see them, much less arrest them. So humbled, and yet here he is appearing before a king. This is Acts chapter 26, and I'll pick up reading at verse 9.

He is appearing before King Agrippa II. Paul says, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them, and I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.

And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. In this connection, I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, and Paul goes on to tell King Agrippa exactly what happened that we just read in Acts chapter 9. And at verse 24, Festus, the Roman procurator who was there, as he was saying these things in his defense, verse 24, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you're out of your mind.

Your great learning is driving you out of your mind. But Paul said, I'm not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I'm speaking true and rational words. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I'm persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets?

I know that you believe. And Agrippa said to Paul, in a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian? And Paul said, whether short or long, I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am, except for these change. So there's Paul, a picture of complete humility at his conversion, and then a picture of complete boldness, even so much as to share the gospel with a king who would have authority over his very life. Boldness and humility is what we're talking about.

How in the world we can have these together. I read this week about a lion who went around the jungle, and he would roar, and he came to the zebra, and he said, who is the mightiest in the jungle? And the zebra said, you are. And the lion roared. And then the lion came to a monkey, and he said, who is the most powerful in all the jungle?

And the monkey said, you are. And the lion roared. And then the lion came to a big elephant, and said, who is the mightiest in the jungle? And the elephant reached down with his great trunk and wrapped it around the lion, pulled the lion up in the air, swung him around about three times, wrapped him up against a tree a couple times, put him down under the water, and held him in a little pool of water until he almost drowned him, pulled him back up, and slapped him down on the ground, until the lion was just lying there almost breathless. The lion got up and dusted himself off, and he said, well, just because you don't know the answer to the question, there's no reason to act like that. It's interesting that Saul of Tarsus, who was so prideful, he was a Pharisee, a definition of a religious leader who thought he was better than other people.

That's bottom line if you're going to put it in the simplest terms. He kept the law better. He was more righteous.

And he thought he was doing the right thing by persecuting the Christians. But the glory of the Lord came and just shone upon him, so much so that it wasn't like a figurative light. It was a light so bright that he couldn't see. He was literally blinded for three days. And he's led by the hand.

You know, if you had been without sight your whole life, I suppose, you know, you learn ways to manage and you can navigate. But if it just happened like that, he didn't have any idea what he was doing. And on top of it, he hadn't eaten for three days. And they led him around by the hand. The mighty Saul of Tarsus was humbled. But in the midst of that humbling, he met Jesus. And he was given an extraordinary commission. And what ended up happening was he lived this life of mission that was at the same time unbelievably bold.

And yet, as we'll be seeing today, so humble. How can both things be possible at the same time? That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment.

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. 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.

Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. It's credited to D.T. Niles, a famous description of evangelism. This pastor and evangelist said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

And there's so much about that that's moving and there's so much about that that is tender and beautiful. But there's another part of it with which I don't fully resonate. And that is because once you become a Christian, you're not described as a beggar. In fact, you're not even described anymore as a sinner, but as a saint. You're someone who's been set apart unto God. Oh, we still stumble into sin.

We still mess up. But the definition of your life and the position of your life has changed. So much so that when you accept Christ, the scripture calls you a son or a daughter of God, calls you even more than that, an heir and a co-heir with Christ himself. And so in a very real sense, evangelism is not so much one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread as it is an heir of spiritual riches who once was a beggar telling another beggar how also to become an heir. In other words, in our sharing of the gospel, in the mission to the world, there is confidence in who we are in Christ. And yet there's this ongoing humility.

I don't want to explain how both things can be possible at the same time. I grew up, let me just talk about kind of the seeming conflict between these two things of confidence and humility. I grew up with an inward conflict inside of me, and even in the early days of being a Christian, where it still felt this way, and which I wanted to be the best and I knew it wasn't the best. And shame is, in its very sense, the thing that we'll be talking about our conference in November is this idea that I don't measure up. I need to measure up if I'm really going to be accepted and loved, but I got to figure out how to measure up.

And unless I do, then I won't be fully accepted. Well, when I was a kid, nobody ever said this is the way life is. It's just the way I was sorting it out. And some of this came from some of the brokenness in my own home and some of the absence of my dad and things that I longed for and all. And somehow it just gets wired into a kid's heart, and it's a wrong view of the world. But one of the plays, I've mentioned this, I think, before that it really, when I look back on it, I chuckle, but it's absolutely the truth. When I was a kid, I played tennis every day. I wanted to be the best player in the state. I wanted to play in college, and I wanted to be a professional tennis player.

And so I played tennis almost every day of my life up through high school, at the end of high school, and I got kind of burned out and just took up golf. And so I really, really wanted to be a great tennis player, and I got to be pretty good, not the best in the state, but maybe the top 10 or 15 in the state, when I was a kid in the junior tennis stuff. Well, the way it worked in tennis tournaments was that all these tennis tournaments all throughout the state, every kid was ranked. What you would do is you'd send in your results from every tournament to a committee, and this committee compared all the results and who had beaten home and so forth, and then they'd rank all the kids in your age group. So if you're the 12 and under age group, you could get a certain ranking, or you'd be the 13 and 14-year-olds, you'd get a certain ranking.

And so I was always sending these in with all the results of all the tournaments. And then you go to the tournaments, and your results from tournaments and your ranking were considered to seed you in that tournament. You know how a tournament works, they'll seed you. If there's 64 kids in the tournament, then somebody's seeded one, somebody's seeded a lot lower.

And the idea is you don't want the number one seed to have to play the number two seed until the championship final match of the tournament. That's the way it works. Let's see, like golf it in that way.

It doesn't matter. It's just you against the golf course. But in tennis and some other sports, it matters where you're ranked. So I lived, ate, and drank tennis, so I knew what every other kid anywhere in the top 25 or whatever in the state, I knew what they were ranked.

I lived with a consciousness of everybody's ranking. And here's my problem, was that if I go to a tennis tournament and I look, then all of a sudden in the second round, I was going to have to play so-and-so, and he's ranked higher than him, I'm like, oh no, I'm doomed. He's ranked higher than I am. And if I was ranked higher than the other person was, oh, this should be fine. He ought to just lay down and give me this match because I'm ranked higher.

The problem is that real life doesn't work like that. These are just some rankings. And I struggle with this because I would be my own worst enemy because if I wasn't ranked higher than somebody, but also as my own worst enemy, because if I was ranked higher than them, I felt kind of superior. And it used to be about the third game.

I go, man, I might have to try. Well, the reason I give you that picture is I think a lot of people live life kind of like that. Like there's a ranking system that goes on and you're always measuring yourself against somebody else. Somebody's ranked here, you're ranked here, or you're ranked here and you're ranked like that. And when you live by this ranking system, it causes all kinds of problems because you're either going to go, well, I'm ranked higher than other people, which is going to make you feel prideful and superior. Or you're going to say, I'm ranked lower than other people, which is going to make you feel ashamed and inferior. And it's seldom, is there anything that you can do other than either always being feeling inferior or always feeling superior to people. And it causes great tensions. And one of the things it does is it causes people who don't feel good enough to put down other people, right?

I'm going to put you down here. When we're cutting other people down, what we're doing is like, I'm putting you in this ranking, but I'm ranked here. Or what it does is that if you're with a feeling of inferiority, you're always judging yourself, condemning yourself, ruling yourself out, limiting yourself, putting some invisible ceiling over your own life that nobody put there. God didn't put it there. And yet you've put it there yourself. It affects us in our relationships.

It affects us in our marriage relationships. Because if you're operating with kind of rankings, like I've done all these good things. And so I'm kind of here right now, and you're kind of right here right now.

And so you've got to do some things to make it up and get up to here. And so we're always kind of jockeying for who's a little bit ranked higher than the other one. Who's done a little bit more around the house. Who's been a little bit nicer.

Who's been the one who's... And it just creates tension, doesn't it? Whole cultures have harnessed the ranking system and just turned it into a caste system, right? You're the untouchables. And you're the high rank people. And you're born into it. And that's just where you are with it, you see. I'm just saying to some degree or less, to more or less of a degree, this is a big part of the problem.

The problem that we face. And some versions of Christianity that you hear preached almost seem to buy into this system. And some of them so emphasize how lowly Christians are. And that we're sinners, saved by grace, but sinners.

Because that version so wants to emphasize the humility of what it means to be a follower of Christ. That it just makes you start feeling like you're just this emphasis is I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Oh, you're saved by grace. But I'm a sinner.

I'm a sinner. And what it's like, it's like you read the scriptures that say, count others above yourself or love others in a way. And you start, you translate all that into this mentality of, well, it just means I have to see myself as below other people. Or there are times in which the proclamation of the gospel just emphasizes all the victory that we have to such an extent that never even acknowledges that there is a way in which Christ's strength is perfected in our weakness. And so it comes across at times as arrogant. Or it can come across sometimes as Christians are acting like they're morally superior to other people. So we're higher rank. So in other words, so many people that look at the Christian church today, they're seeing something that's just kind of buying into this sort of ranking system. And what happens when we have this is that the heart is either filled with shame or with pride.

C.S. Lewis and his famous mere Christianity said, pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but they're not. They're proud of being richer or cleverer or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good looking, there'd be nothing to be proud about. It's the comparison that makes you proud. The pleasure of being above the rest.

And once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. And so you could understand this conflation understand this conflicted nature that we have about the issue of confidence and humility from a Christian perspective. And what a lot of people have done with this is they've essentially, because they haven't understood the gospel, they're essentially rejecting Christianity.

A few years ago, I shared this with you. I stumbled upon a blog that was written by a young woman who's telling about her honest struggles and it's around this very subject of confidence and humility and what it made her think about Christianity. I'm sharing this just to give you a glimpse inside the heart of a young person who's in conflict over this very question that we're talking about. She wrote, before I became a born again Christian at 16 years old, my problem at that time was that I didn't have enough self-esteem and self-confidence. I didn't believe in myself enough and I didn't try hard enough to believe in myself, which to be honest, I didn't because I wanted to be that grungy teenager who thought it was cool to revel in my depression and suicidal bent.

Let me pause there. She just divulged a huge amount of the psychological dilemma in a lot of young people. What she just said was, I had a big problem. I did not have self-esteem. Her life didn't seem important. She didn't have much hope. She didn't see much of a future. She didn't have a sense of direction and so she did not feel like she was worth very much.

A lot of young people are in that. And so she said, that was my problem. And she said, and I actually started wanting to be that kind of a kid because one of the ways that you can escape internal conflict is to just say, well, I identify myself as someone who doesn't have esteem or hope.

And so I'll be cool by just being that depressed kid. Alan Wright, maybe that hits home with you right now. And this is the moment where you can think, well, how do I have this boldness and humility, this beauty of balance? It's in our series right now in teaching of the same. And Alan Wright is on his way here in just a moment into the studio with additional insight on this for your life and a final word.

Stick with us. emphasize the spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both word and spirit. 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. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Yeah, Alan, I think this applies to so many, maybe even more than we may realize, that not sure how to balance these two, boldness and humility. It's so important, Daniel, because I speak to so many Christians who I think have this confused, and it causes a lot of consternation. And it causes some people to reject Christianity.

As one example is we'll be reading them out in today's, I'll read a blog inviting today's message. Part of the problem is that if you have a notion of humility that is more of a kind of a worm theology that says there's never a place for me to boldly and confidently express who I am in Christ and to feel good about the gifts that God gives me and to, well, if that is the case, then I think one or two things ends up happening. Either we go, well, if that's what the gospel is, I don't want it, and we get lured in by just the modern self-esteem movement.

I'd rather go with something else. Or we live with it, and we never enjoy the kind of boldness that God really wants to call us to of taking up our authoritative position in Christ in the world. And to me, this has been one of the most important parts of my own spiritual growth, part of the healing of shame that has led me to be able to at least embrace the concept of there's humility and boldness that go hand in hand. So important. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.