Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright.
Only when such a person knows God as both great and good. We're going to talk about the balance today. 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 Allen 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 pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.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 Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? God is awesome. He's great. He's sovereign.
He is beyond comprehension. He is transcendent. And He is holy, holy, holy. And God is kind, benevolent, tender, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. God's great, and God is good.
And anyone who would ever really know Him will be drawn into a real revelation of God only when such a person knows God as both great and good. We're going to talk about the balance today of awe and intimacy in our walk with God. And I'd like to turn you today to Mark chapter five for a story where you see both of these manifest in one miraculous account, one woman's encounter of Jesus, awe and intimacy. Mark chapter five, this is an amazing story because it's sort of an interlude and interruption of another miracle that's in the making.
He is on His way to heal Jairus' daughter. At verse 24, we read, a great crowd followed Him and thronged about Him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians.
And it's meant all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. She'd heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, if I touch even His garments, I'll be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus perceiving in Himself that power had gone out from Him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And His disciples said to Him, you see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me?
And He looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace and be healed of your disease. Perhaps one of the places in the natural realm that we could get an idea of how you could behold in one person something that would cause both awe and intimacy, you need look no further than a father of a daughter who has come into dating age. I have a daughter now who is 18, and it makes me remember a scene from a book I read many years ago of author Robert Wolgamuth and a book called She Calls Me Daddy. And he tells this tale that one night he was lying in bed with his wife trying not to worry. When did Missy say she'd be home? He asked his wife, speaking of their 15-year-old daughter. Around 11 o'clock, Robert's wife said, and after a few minutes of neither of them speaking, the father said, maybe we ought to call and see if we can find her.
So he did. He called the pastor's wife, the ones that were hosting this Bible study that 15-year-old Missy was attending that night. Susan, this is Bobby. I'm sorry to call you so late, but have Missy and David left your house? And David was the friend of the family and Missy's 17-year-old friend who was like a brother to Missy and who had taken her to the Bible study that night. The youth leader said that the kids had left a long time before, and there's plenty of time. They should have been home by now. So at 10 past midnight, his father announced, I'm getting up.
I'm going downstairs to wait. And by the time that he made it to the front door, David's car was turning into the driveway and the headlights sweeping across the front of the house. Finally, the father said, they're home. But instead of trudging back up the stairs, he decided to wait for Missy to get inside and hear her explanation of where she had been. The car came to a stop and the headlights went out. The engine grew quiet, and both David and Missy came bounding up the walk to the front door.
And there was Robert, the father, standing in nothing but his snow-white jockey shorts when he realized there was no time to dash upstairs. And so he had to just quickly jump around the corner into the living room, into a dark shadowy spot. The door came open. Missy came in with David right on her heels, and the father's sitting there wondering, what is going on?
Don't they know what time it is? Missy runs up the stairs to get something, leaving David standing just inside the front door. Well, he stood there for a moment, not having any idea that Missy's father was just around the corner in the shadows. Then unexpectedly, David begins to move. He starts humming. The sound of the humming gets a little louder and increases as he is making his way towards the living room. And the father, in his panic, tucked himself into a darker place right next to the piano, thinking he'll never see me. But David began to move, coming right towards the piano, until finally the 17-year-old boy was 10 inches away.
Listen to how this father, the author, writes about it. There he stood, Mr. All-Conference student leader and everyone's favorite teenage boy. And there I stood, Tarzan of the living room. All of a sudden he goes, hello, David. Just as casually as if I had bumped into him at a school function, what are you doing here? The boy gasped, he writes, quickly sucking in just enough air to keep from collapsing in cardiac arrest. His body froze, but in the darkness I could see that his eyes were moving up and down, scanning my terrific outfit. At that moment, Missy burst into the living room. A stuffed animal that the kids, the church, passed around like a mascot was tucked under her arm. Dad, what are you doing here?
I have an 18-year-old daughter. I'm just a little bit in touch now with this kind of thing. I have a good friend, an evangelist friend, who, he had a really rough life before he ever met Christ. And he's got a great line that my own autobiography doesn't allow me to give this one, but I almost wish that I could, because it's a great one. He'll just as told, any guy that comes around to take his daughter out, he just looked at him, he said, I've been to jail before.
It's not that bad. I'm willing to go back. So, anyway, there is something, if anybody's ever had a really healthy dad in their home, you could maybe identify with this, that there is something that within the child needs to be in both awe of the greater strength and authority of someone, and yet not be afraid and be able to come very, very close. And so we want to talk today about something that is essential about the nature of God, and therefore essential about how we actually can know God, and what it means to grow in your knowledge of God. And that is to understand God in His both awesome, astonishing character of who He is as utterly transcendent above and beyond us, and yet what God has done for us in Christ to make Himself utterly approachable to all who are in Christ, such that we could dare to draw near to the very throne room of grace in our time of need, and that we could walk daily in a sweet savor of fellowship with the very Creator of the universe. I want to show you today how the gospel has made it possible that you could know God in both awe and intimacy.
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, and 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. 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. Part of the problem with human nature is we tend to gravitate towards one side or the other. And sometimes even the thought of coming really close to God or seeing God as really great is not attractive to us.
And sometimes we want them in a little safe middle spot. Years ago, I wrote a little song. We actually sang it in worship, son. And it was a song about worshiping God for all of who you are. And in this song, it's sort of told in the verses where the story of this diversity of Jesus' character. And one of the lines in there was about Jesus turning over the money changer's tables. And it's described Jesus as having fire in His eyes.
And little Bennett, who was just a little toddler at the time, he would hear me kind of playing the song at the piano and we'd sing it. And he came and he said, what does it mean that Jesus has fire in His eyes? And he was a little concerned about this. And so my wife broke into the conversation and she said, it means that His eyes are bright and shiny and happy. I thought about it for a moment and I said, we cannot lie to the boy.
I mean, I just, we cannot. And so I said, no, it's not just that. Most of the time His eyes are bright and shiny and happy. But what this means, I put it this way, is it's the look of the eyes of one who is very powerful and love the church very much. And so He was going to make some people who were doing bad things to get out of the church. Well, there's another line in the song that Bennett didn't like either. And this was a line that spoke of them putting a crown of thorns on His head.
And Bennett came to me about this line also. And he said, what do you mean a crown of thorns? And I said, well, Bennett, I said, people were mean to Jesus and they made fun of Him.
And instead of putting a real crown on His head, they put a pretend crown, but it was made of thorns, sharp thorns. And they said, he said, well, if it put a sharp thorns on it, did it hurt? And I said, yes. Did it make Him bleed?
And I said, yes, it did. And he said later, I don't want to sing about the fire in His eyes. And then he thought about it. He said, and I don't want to sing about the crown of thorns.
There's a part of all of us that's a little bit like that. I don't really necessarily would like to think of the fire in His eyes or the crown of thorns, either the awesome holiness of God or to really think of just how He gave up so much. And this is why the cross was a stumbling block to so many people, to think that the great God of the universe would have to suffer and bleed and die.
And so there's a part of us that would rather have Him in some little safe little middle place, a smaller box. But what we see in this woman who comes and touches Jesus on this day is that she encounters Jesus, who at the same time to her is utterly powerful and awesome, and yet she approaches Him and she touches Him. It's so odd that her touch was received in this way, because there's so many people that were touching Him. You know, you ever thought about there can be different kinds of touches, right? I remember one time years ago somebody came to me and they said, hey, let's play a little game.
Let's see who can touch each other the most softly. So I went first and I reached down, like barely touched a little hair on his knuckle or something like that. And he said, okay, that was pretty soft. I said, okay, your turn. I put my hand out and he went bam and just slapped the fire out of my hand. I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, hi. He said, I guess I lose.
And I was like, yeah, you do lose. So you could say you touch somebody, but it can be very different. And even a very similar type of touch can be very, very different, right? You know, you could see sometimes I'm watching all this college football and somebody 300-pound lineman helps another 300-pound guy up and he gets him up and kind of gives him a pat on the rump. And then there might be some other place where there's a mom and she's having to get her five-year-old and give him a little pat on the rump. And it may not be the same kind of pat. One is about encouragement.
The other might be about discipline. A touch can be similar and yet have a very different significance to it based on the intent behind that touch, right? And so there's something that happened here that was very strange. Because what the disciples immediately said to Jesus, they said, well, you see everybody that's around here and a whole throng of people. Everybody's touching you. And you say, who touched me?
You're saying it's a nonsensical question. And so evidently, here's a picture of what can happen. People could be bumping into Jesus from every side and not have any significant encounter with Jesus because they didn't understand that it was the Lord of the universe that they were touching. So this partly explains how God could be present in any situation.
And some people perceive that presence and are touched by God and touch Him in His very heart and others do not at all. It was remarkable that this woman was willing to touch Jesus because she was in a condition of ceremonial uncleanliness. And this was described in the Levitical law.
So a woman who had a discharge of blood was not allowed to associate with others or go into the outer part of the temple where she normally would be allowed. And so the idea of holiness that you see in so much of Levitical law is a picture of the holiness of God. And it means this, that God is holy and sin cannot come into the presence of a holy, holy God.
The best image for me that helps me understand this is like if you think of something like the burning sun, like our star that is so burning hot and you try to bring something into the presence of the sun, bring a candle into the presence of the sun and it will just melt like wax. Well in the same way, that's the nature of the holiness of God. And this helps me so much to understand because the holiness of God is not about the cruelty or the mean nature of God.
It's not that at all. It's just to say this is who He is. He is just utterly holy. We wouldn't get mad at the sun for being bright.
It's just what the sun is. And this is who God is. And so sin can't come into the presence of God. If sin comes into the presence of God, the sin is going to be melted.
The sin is going to be killed. And so no sinner comes into the presence of God. And this is a picture therefore of so much of Levitical law that we're not under any of these laws as Christians. But some of this law was just drawing part of the progressive revelation of who God is. Now another part of the law also just as a side point was that many of the ceremonial laws were actually very helpful to the people. For example all the laws about hand washing. This is part of scholars say part of what enabled the Jewish people to survive.
Nobody else was washing their hands. And we didn't even have germ theory until just a couple hundred years ago really. And so quarantining dead bodies and these things part of Levitical law. Well part of the Levitical law was a woman with the issue of blood was deemed ceremonially unclean. And until such time that the issue of blood had ceased then she would not be considered clean. And this was a real problem because it meant that not only were you supposed to be touching other people, but you certainly weren't going to touch the holy people or the religious people. And so it's an amazing thing that this woman in the first place goes out into public in a big crowd.
There are some records that indicate that an unclean person was supposed to actually call out unclean unclean so that people could scatter. This is a woman who has tried for years to find healing and she can't find any healing. The medical practice was a farce in her day and she had just grown worse.
They tried different kinds of solutions to her problems and she'd only grown worse. And so she's desperate. And imagine her mindset therefore that on the one hand she'd heard about Jesus that He was kind, that He seemed to love the poor, that the quote sinners felt drawn towards Him. And yet she knew that she was, according to old covenant law, she was unclean. She'd seen the way the religious leaders would deal with sinners of the day. She knew what it was like to be disenfranchised. She knew what it was like to be put to shame. And so all of this is together in her mind and yet she comes and she dares to touch Jesus. So it's not just her faith that is on display here, but it is the radical step that she takes in a sense to risk it all that maybe even though He's awesome that He is also at the same time very good. Her reaction to Jesus and Jesus's reaction to her is quite telling because when Jesus said, who touched me, the woman assumed that she was in bad trouble. And so she began to become very afraid and she approached Him in fear and trembling.
You read the text, it's almost like this. It's like she would probably want to escape but she realized she couldn't escape. If someone had enough power to know that power had gone from him and had healed a woman, then he would certainly be able to find out who the woman was.
And so she comes to Him almost in a posture of great fear that there's going to be terrible repercussions for her but she comes in this fear and trembling. Jesus Himself stopped in the midst of on the journey to go and heal someone else and it's so telling about who Jesus is because Jesus was not content to just be a power outlet. He's not a force field. Let's say the Holy Spirit is not some power, some force field that you just plug into. This is so much of where Christianity differs from so much of the kind of pantheistic and new age kind of ideologies that talks about sort of tapping into some spiritual force or something like that. That is absolutely foreign to the Bible because actually Jesus is present with us by the Holy Spirit.
He is the Spirit of Jesus and He's a person. And what God is interested in is not merely being a power that we tap into. He is interested in a relationship with us.
And so Jesus is not content to be a power outlet for a woman to just have power go out from Him. He stops and He finds the woman because He wants to identify her. He wants to know her. He wants to see her. He wants to bless her. This is a marvelous picture of the nature of God. He is so strong that the worst disease cannot stand in His presence.
And He is so tender that He longs to show you His love and His forgiveness and give you assurances about tomorrow. Allen Wright, in today's teaching, really painting a picture of the God we worship, awe and intimacy. It's in the teaching, greater teaching, beauty of balance. 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 Allen 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 Allen Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Allen, is this not the great mystery of our God, how big and mighty and powerful He is yet intimate enough to live right within our own heart? It's amazing that our faith is such that we really can sing holy, holy, holy, and also sing what a friend we have in Jesus.
That it is the, really the whole gospel is summed up in this. God is great and God is good. He's not just a God who is distant and other and powerful, though that He is beyond us. But He is to the Christian. He is our Father. And we are given the most intimate of access and He wants us to know that we can come. And so at every moment of your life with God, you can know that He is powerful enough to oversee and provide and conquer whatever problems you might be facing. And yet He is utterly, completely for you. And because your sin has been forgiven in Christ, you can have utmost intimacy with Him. What a beautiful, beautiful gospel.
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