By Appointment Only [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. This is a radical countercultural thought because culture asserts that we form our own destiny and that we become formed by our own efforts and then we get known. But what God says is, I know you, then I form you.

It's a reversal. 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 Brint, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Remade, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I sure 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 today's special offer.

Don't miss it. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.

Or call 877-544-4860. We're going to give you more on all this later in the program. But right now, let's dig in and get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? You're not here by coincidence. You're not on this planet by accident. In fact, you are here by appointment.

You walk with God in a very real sense by appointment only. I want to talk to you about the call of Jeremiah as we continue in this new series that I've called simply Remade because the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah offers restoration hope at a time of impending exile. A time of great turbulence that's not unlike our own time. A time of uncertainty.

A time in which there was much polarization and disagreement about the way forward. And in through the midst of it, like a trumpet, Jeremiah brings the word of God, both of the judgment against the disobedience of the people and the promise of restoration from exile. And so today we are in Jeremiah chapter one. And this is the words that we read beginning at verse four.

Jeremiah one, verse four. Now, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Ah, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak from only a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say I'm only a youth for to all to whom I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them from with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I've put my words in your mouth. And then these couple of verses from the apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter two. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Verse nine. Not a result of work so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You know the importance sometimes of an appointment. I am having to go through the process of helping my adult son take his same phone number that has been on our wireless plan for so many years and transfer it now to his own legit plan with his law firm. And so this is going to be one phone off of my bill now. I said, Sure. He said, I'm going to need you to talk to the provider and give them authorization to do this. And so I called and was put on hold and waited for about 10 minutes.

And then it came up and said that the wait time would be an hour and a half. Would I like to continue to hold? Sure. I'd love to just be on the phone for an hour and a half.

No. If you'd like, you can schedule an appointment for tomorrow. And so I did schedule one for the next day at 11 a.m. And at 11 a.m. the next day. By the way, have you noticed that it's very easy to get through to somebody if you're calling a TV provider or a cell provider and you want to sign up for something. But it's like a two day wait on the phone to actually cancel something. But anyway, the next morning at 11 a.m. when they're supposed to call, I am in the process of a crisis ministry with someone in abject need. And I am just thinking, is this going to get resolved before the 11 o'clock phone call comes? And wouldn't you know?

No, it didn't. I'm on the phone and I look down on the callers and I was like, it's my it's my cell phone people call and this is my one shot. And I'm just sitting there like.

I can't answer it. And I just kept on ministering to the person. You know, some things by appointment only become precious. And I want to show you in this call tonight, this this this centerpiece of it, that he, Jeremiah, was appointed as a prophet to the nations because God knew him before he formed him. And I just want to ask you a simple question and get you thinking about this. How much in your life would change if you really believed that God had appointed stuff for you to do before you were even born?

And how would it change the way you look on everyday life? Take a closer look at this text again. Verse four. The word of the Lord came to me and the word here in Hebrew for coming to me is actually probably better translated. It happened to me. It's it's it's like the coming of the word of God into Jeremiah's life and and ours is more of a total experience, a happening than it is merely a hearing of something.

It's like an event. And so Jeremiah, unlike some other other prophets and others who've experienced call, he's not saying I saw something or I heard something. He's saying it happened to me. This is just what I experienced and we don't know how he experienced it. But he experienced it.

It was like like you sometimes have a knowing inside of you. And at verse five, before I formed you, I knew you. So God forms.

We've seen like a potter. He creates the world out of nothing. And then he scoops up dust from the ground to make a man he he creates out of nothing. And then out of what he's made, he forms that he he brings it into existence. And then the Holy Spirit brooded over the face of the chaos and brought order out of it. And so God saw one who forms and to say, I formed you before I knew you. This is a thought I cannot get this out of my mind.

It's so glorious and mind bending to contemplate it. But what the Lord is saying is that he he saw you because he had an idea for you. And then he formed you. It means you began as God's glorious idea. Like an artist who just has a vision of something to create and then forms it.

And this is a radical countercultural thought because culture asserts that we form our own destiny and that we become formed by our own efforts. And then we get known. But what God says is I know you. Then I form you.

It's a reversal. And then at verse five, before you're born, I consecrated you. This is even more radical because to be consecrated literally means to be set apart, which is the definition of what it means to be made holy. To be holy in the Bible is not a religious concept about doing certain religious duties or services. It is about a position and about belonging to be holy unto the Lord is to belong unto the Lord.

And note this. Well, Jeremiah didn't make himself holy. God did. And you don't make yourself holy.

God does. God makes us holy by setting us apart. And when you trust in Christ, his own righteousness becomes yours. And a lot of people are very confused about this and think that that we're on some sort of mission to become more and more righteous. And so then we'll be more holy people. No, you already are a holy people in Christ.

And what's what really our spiritual growth is, is we're growing into it. Continuing at verse five, I appointed you a prophet to the nations. And the word for a point here is a a word in Hebrew, Nathan, like the name Nathan, that it means in the largest sense, give. It's I give you as a prophet to the nations. This is speech action. It is like saying I hereby make you. I hereby make you my prophet to the nations.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. 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. Jeremiah, like others, like Moses or Jonah and people that complain when God comes to them, he says, Ah, Lord, verse six, Ah, Lord, behold, I do not know how to speak. I'm only a youth. And one translator says it would be best rendered as, Oh, no, not that.

Or the old language, alas. This is what Jeremiah says. He says, Oh, no, I can't speak.

I'm only a kid. That's what it really means. And what's ironic, of course, is that Jeremiah is a powerful communicator. I think what is taking place here is Jeremiah just doesn't know it yet. And so the Lord doesn't entertain the complaint. He just says simply you shall go and you shall speak. And so you can say of this call that like every call from God, yes, we have a choice, but not that much because of the goodness and the power and the glory of God that becomes so compelling.

And I want to talk to you about these principles that you can see in Jeremiah's call. Principles of divine appointment. The first thing to say is that when you get an appointment from God, an appointment with God, you think really differently about that. It's unthinkable to miss an appointment with God, essentially to say. That's the first thing I want you to see. Think of it this way, that if you started looking on your life as God has made this extraordinary appointment with you and you saw it that way. It's like I wouldn't dare miss it. I don't know.

I got I got interested. And for some reason, while I was thinking about this concept, what are the what's the hardest restaurant reservation in the world to get? You know, some restaurants, it's just hard to even get it.

It's hard to get a reservation there. So I looked it up. I have no idea how to pronounce the first one. I think it is something like a sukiyabashi, sukiyabashi. Maybe if I said it really fast, sukiyabashi, it might sound right.

Sukiyabashi, sukiyabashi. I am sorry to just do that to the one of the most famous restaurants in the world in Tokyo, Japan, run by a 95 year old sushi master. There are only 10 seats. And to get one of them, you have to have influential friends or you have to be a regular at one of two of the most luxurious hotels in Tokyo. And the concierge might be able to get you a reservation, but it probably won't be on the date that you would like to have it. The second one is on the list I saw on this website is Rao's in New York, an exclusive Italian restaurant. In order to get a reservation at one of the 10 tables, you have to either be a regular or know a regular. And most of those regulars are celebrities. But it's even then going to take a year to find a date.

And I'll give you one more that is famous. Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark. If you want to stand a chance of getting a table, you're going to need to be on the Noma website the minute the booking opens, which is three different times during the year. And if you manage to secure a table, you'll need to pay for the food up front. If you have an idea of an appointment that is. So hard to get.

And rare. You think of it differently. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. I have designated you. I have. Arranged for this, Jeremiah.

What if you started seeing. Your day full of divine appointments. And getting an appointment, being appointed to. A position is altogether different than being voted into an office like the difference in a judge and a local superior court or district court that gets elected versus a federal judge that is appointed.

It's a big difference. One, you have to gear up and run for an election, get voted in and prove yourself to people. Other you just somebody who has the power to do so appoints you to the place. I don't know if I've ever really shared this traumatic experience in my life.

I think I've gotten over it, but I'm not sure. When I was in seventh grade, a wonderful honor happened. I was appointed by the ninth grade president of Mendenhall Junior High School. I was appointed that freshman at my my seventh grade year to be the seventh grade student representative on the student council, because I knew the girl that was the president and she appointed me. The problem was that then there would be an election the second semester. I was just the appointee kind of, you know, holding the position. But the election, how could I lose? I mean, I grew up in the area. I knew most of these kids and I was the incumbent.

So surely. But there was an election at the beginning of the second semester. And unfortunately, a northerner had moved down. A guy named Greg O'Brien had moved down. Was he one of the nicest guys ever? Did he speak to everybody in the hallway as he went by?

Was he really a good friend eventually to me? Yes, he was. But imagine my pain when I'm sitting there in homeroom and over the intercom for the entire Mendenhall Junior High. It was announced who the new seventh grade student representative was.

Greg O'Brien. I was like, what? And the whole rest of the students just barely even heard it like they didn't even care. But that's the problem of an election. I had been appointed, but now I got an election I lost. When you're appointed, you can't lose it. When you're an election, you've got to fight for it.

You've got to hold on to it. You've got to keep on getting elected. I appointed you as a prophet to the nation, God said. And in an appointment situation, it means that if it's the wrong person, it's not so much on that person as it is the one who appointed him or her. It's like God saying, I know what I'm doing and I'm appointing you. The appointments of God, the call of God are connected. So God calling Jeremiah into the ministry is to give him the announcement of the assignment that he has. And it is such good news because it is God's appointment. But Jeremiah doesn't understand that yet. And but if you can understand the call of God this way, that even when you have to face challenges by what he has called you to do, that there is within it and an assignment from God that is a blessing to you and a blessing to the world.

It always is. So you have to think of being called. You have to think of appointments that God gives. You have to think of all that he speaks to you about in your life in those terms. Like, what's one? Can you think of when you had one of the happiest phone calls you ever got?

Did you think of that? Like when it was a kind of phone rang and you just that call. Just just a dear, dear friend of our church, David Beatty, who was who's the pastor at River Oaks and our daughter church. And I was I was with him this week and he was saying he said he got one of the happiest phone calls he ever got. His five year old grandson from Tennessee called him. First time ever that he the boy, little boy himself had called. He calls. He calls David G. Daddy and David answer the phone and has his grandson on there. And he said, hey, G. Daddy.

And and he was like, yeah. And he said, I just wanted to call and tell you that I have trusted in Christ as my savior. He said, that's one of the best phone calls I ever had. There has some good phone calls. Alan Wright. Today's good news message by appointment only.

It's from the series Remade. And Pastor Alan is here with us sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical world view.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel and his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Thank you. You're now with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day. The teaching is by appointment only and leaving you on the cliffhanger there of this really great phone call.

And yeah, asking that same question. I've had a few that you really cherish and never forget. You never forget a call, a sense of call. We're talking about Jeremiah's call. And I love in Jeremiah 1 what God says, I appointed you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you.

I appointed you. So we're talking about life with God according to the appointments of God. And I think that all of us can identify there are some things that are hard to get appointments for. And as we talk about in the sermon, some restaurants that you got to get appointments for in advance. Or if you get a good appointment at the DMV, you don't want to miss that. And so an appointment with God, His appointment, if you begin to think of your life that way, you don't want to miss it. What would happen if you start looking on life more of an appointment than a random happening? And if you start seeing it that way, and you start seeing God involved in your everyday moments. So we're talking about that more tomorrow about the call of Jeremiah, but also the way in which God calls us. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.