The Burning Inside Your Bones [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Isn't this beautiful, and isn't this wonderful? The Christian life is not so much about you starting a fire or stoking it.

It's about God putting a fire there and you acknowledging it and living under its warmth and its power. 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 be 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. And it's in that in-between time, I'm talking about the time in which you're told a flood is coming and you're supposed to build an ark, but there's nothing at that time but blue skies. That's when people laugh. It's when you've been promised a sun and a nation and a legacy as giant as the stars of the cosmos. And yet right now, all you've got to show is your wrinkles and when you've been given a dream of ruling, but you're thrown into a pit and sold into slavery and you're in a Egyptian prison. That's when you've been commissioned by God to liberate people from their bondage to Pharaoh. But in the in-between time, they still are in their chains and they're now making bricks without straw. I'm talking about the time when you're told that you're going to take a land full of milk and honey, but your spies come back and say they're giants in the land.

Hell makes much of the in-between time, the time between the promise and the fulfillment. And that's where the mockery comes. We learned in verse nine in our text that there was a whisper campaign against Jeremiah.

The gossip began and he was hurting. And this raw honesty is good for us to hear from him that he says, I'd rather just not even mention him. It literally reads in Hebrew like I stopped mentioning him, but then he just says I couldn't stop myself from mentioning him. I was thinking of Martin Luther, you know, who we think of this incredible reformer changed the whole world. I mean, that's just one of those people that's like, we're not here today if not for Martin Luther. And he just took these 95 theological statements, the 95 theses, he posted them on a door in Wittenberg Germany. And it started this huge discussion because he was talking about justification by grace through faith alone. And it was critical of the Roman church's legalism. And what happened with Martin Luther, he never intend to set out to bring about a reformation or leave the church or something like that. He started this because it was his conviction, but eventually he is brought before a huge Roman convocation was called the Dieter Wurms 1521 of that spring he's brought before the emperor and he's asked to recant his writings about grace and all of his books. And this great moment comes where Martin Luther is there, him against the Roman empire and the Roman church. And he has been boldly for these years proclaiming this deep conviction that he's discovered that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone. And he's asked, Martin Luther, will you recant from these writings? And he said, could I have 24 hours to think about it? I hate to burst your bubble, but that's what it was.

He's just struggling with it. And so the emperor grants him 24 hours to go home and think about it, whether he's going to go through with this or not. He comes back the next day and the scene that happens is just a powerful moment. The inquisitor says, I ask you to answer candidly, do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain? And Luther replied, since then your majesty and your lordships, since you desire a simple reply, I will do so. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.

God help me. This is what's happened to me is this has become a part of me. And to recant or repudiate now would be to contradict what I have come to know is true about God and I know it down in my deepest essence. He's saying there is an authentic struggle on the one hand, I would love for my life to be comfortable and to recant so that you all would approve of me and my life would not be in jeopardy, but I can't.

I got a fire shot up in my bones, I can't, I can't, I can't. I think what I want to see is this what God does. He loves you with his infinite love and has such beautiful and powerful purposes for your life that he knows that we're born in sin and wayward and prone to run away from him so he allures us and he becomes intensely attractive and we taste and we see that God is good. And you come to a place in your life, if you know Jesus, where it's like I can't help but know him because I have fallen in love with him and I see what he's done for me. And you are drawn in and then in the real life struggles where you have doubts or fears or the things that might make you want to run in the other direction, God is more committed to you than you are to him and he stays with you and he pursues you relentlessly so that you grow and you walk with God and then you become somebody different than what you were before and you can't deny who you are now. I mean it's like for Martin Luther to stand in front of them and deny all that would be to just as surely deny who he was as a human being.

He might as well say I'm not a human, I'm a cat. This is who I am, this is real, it's what's happened. You know I was following, I mean this is the kind of thing in everyday life I was following the story of Michaela Schifrin in the Olympics. She's 26 year old American alpine skier. She came to Beijing as a two time Olympic gold medalist, three time overall World Cup champion, four time world champion in slalom, youngest slalom champion in Olympic history.

She won, she was 18 years old. She is the most decorated female alpine skier in history, 11 medals, six of them gold and this Olympics has been a shock. Her first event she crashed and did not finish, a shocking shock to the world.

She never does that, she's consistent. The second event her specialty where she was certainly going to win the gold, she fell again and she did not finish. Her third event, a combined event, she was in good position after the downhill segment but she skied right out of the gate on the 10th and did not finish again. She was participating in a record six events and last night she was in her final event, it was a team event and her team was just edged out from winning the bronze so she's going home with no medals and she is the best skier in the history of the world. And as you can imagine, social media and all kinds of things on both sides of this and in a raw interview she said two days ago, right now I feel like a joke and reflecting on coming back and trying it all again before she went into the team event yesterday, she posted on Instagram, she said get up because you can, because you like what you do when it's not infested with the people who have so much apparent hate for you, just get up. It's not always easy but it's also not the end of the world to fail, fail twice, fail five times, even at the Olympics. Why do I keep coming back? Gosh, I know it hurts more than it feels good lately but listen to this, I come back because those first nine turns today were spectacular, really heaven. She skied perfectly for the first nine flags until the 10th when she spun out and this is what she said, that's where I'm meant to be.

So let's go for the team event training and the final alpine race. I do this because it's in me. I'm saying is that God will change your identity and the identity will fuel your determination. So parents, if you have an academically gifted son, help him see himself as an A student and he'll study to make A's because that's who he is.

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 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, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.

If you have an artistic daughter and you recognize her gift and just help her see that she is artistic and she'll paint beautiful pictures. Beloved, why is it that you do what you do as a follower of Jesus? Why do you forgive people so much? Because you are a forgiven one.

Why do you love people so much? Because you've been beloved. Why do you keep your promises? It's because you're a promise keeper. Why do you encourage others? Because you're an encourager. God's drawn you in, prevailed with His love upon your life, set His purposes down deep into your bones and you can't change it. So you flow with it.

You walk in it. And sometimes you're like Jeremiah and you just feel honestly like I'm weary of this and it doesn't seem to be working today. And then you remember God and His goodness.

Jeremiah knows that though he is being persecuted, he down deep, he loves every bit of what he does because in Jeremiah 15, 16, he says, your words were found and I ate them. And your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart for I am called by your name O Lord God of hosts. The deeper delight of knowing the word of God and fellowshipping with a God who reveals himself daily, transcends and overtakes His flesh's desire to give up on it all. Sometimes what happens is that God in your life fuels you in a direction that a big part of you doesn't want to go, but He prevails upon you by the fire of the Holy Spirit burning deep within. As I look back over my walk with God, that's the story in the big ways and the small ways. And I thank God for it. What I'm saying beloved is, isn't this beautiful and isn't this wonderful? The Christian life is not so much about you starting a fire or stoking it.

It's about God putting a fire there and you acknowledging it and living under its warmth and its power. You know, I really want to say thank you for praying for me and my family. Most of you know my sweet mom's gone to heaven here recently.

And I wanted to just tell you just a real life story that illustrates this. So mom had started experiencing some real abdominal pain that I was talking to her about, do you think we need to go to the hospital? She had, you know, a number of times over the last four years, she had to go to the hospital and she didn't want to go to the hospital. That was the default position is, mom, do you think we ought to go to the hospital?

No. And so the pain had to be very, very bad. And so I was talking to her on the Saturday night before the big snowstorm was coming in. And that day she just was feeling, she was just hurting way more than usual. And I said, well, we'll watch it, but what we don't want to do is get snowed in tomorrow and not be able to get to the hospital or have an ambulance come.

So that Saturday night I convinced her, I said, let's go. And she went to the emergency room. Well, the snow was big and thick and giant ice layer, snow layer. And our driveway is just, you know, real steep. And so it's real hard to get out of our driveway. And that Sunday, I guess we didn't have church that Sunday and we were all snowed in. And I couldn't get out, I literally could not get out. And so I didn't get to see mom at the hospital that whole day.

You know, just called her some, texted her some. And on that Monday, my driveway was no better. But I just, that afternoon I just told my wife, I just said, I need to try to get this driveway clear. She said, I just got to, I got to get out of here, I just need to go see mom. And but it was one of those where you had to get like a, more of a pick or a shovel like this and just bang it down six inches by six inches and break the ice open and then get the snow shovel and shovel it and break the ice and shovel, you know.

And it wasn't helping that that morning I had just read an article about how many men my age have heart attacks while shoveling snow at this time of year. So I'm going like this, you know, I'm like, is that, it's just a big one right here, you know. And so, but, and Ann said, don't worry about it, you know, she's, she, you know, you can go see her tomorrow, the sun's going to come out.

And and I just like, I need to do this, I can't, I can't not do this. And so all afternoon I worked on that one little section of the driveway and I was able to get up and I went over to visit my mom on that Monday night and prayed with her and told her I loved her. And at five a.m. the doctor called the next morning and said, she's taking a turn for the worse, can you get here? Said, I'm not sure if she'll still be here when you get here, I said, I'm coming. And a little glaze had gotten back over my driveway as Ann and I were backing up and I went, one, started sliding, two, started sliding, three, started sliding and we said, shut up. And we got out. And so that's how I got to hold my mom's hand while she went to heaven was because the Monday before there was a fire shut up in my bones to get my driveway open. Isn't God good? So don't resist the fire shut up in your bones, it's the gift from God to get you going where you need to be going and to keep you going so you don't stop.

And I think I love Jeremiah most of all because he points me to the better Jeremiah. Because Jesus didn't just proclaim the word, he was the word. The word more than we could imagine was shut up in his bones. And he couldn't stop himself because his mission was too clear. And he wanted more than anything else. This was the fire in his bones. He wanted more than anything else to save you. No matter how many people persecuted him, mocked him, beat him, stoned him, threatened him.

He felt the pain. He began his ministry with 40 days in the wilderness and he was hungry and the devil himself came to tempt him and said, why don't you just give up on this whole mission? You don't need to be a human. Just be God.

Turn the stones into bread. Deny your humanity. Every opportune moment demons persecuted him until finally he hung on a cross and they looked at him and said, ha, he saved others. He can't save himself. If you're God come down from there. And he could have called a legion of angels to slay his persecutors. But instead he said, father, forgive them. And he breathed his last because he came to do something much more than anything his own flesh would want to do. He came to fulfill the fire, shut up in his bones to save the world and ask the gospel.

All right, today's good news message, the burning inside your bones from the series remade. A Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his 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 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 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 Allen 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. Back here now with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day at the conclusion of this teaching, The Burning Inside Your Bones. There was a wonderful little children's book that read to our children so often, The Runaway Bunny. Yeah. Some of the listeners have heard it. You're familiar with it. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's the story of a little bunny who says, I'm going to run away. The mother says, well, if you run away, I'm coming after you. And the whole book is if the bunny tries this, then the mother says, well, I'll do this and I'll catch up to you and I'll change and I'll become what I need to in order to.

And so finally about the end of the book, the bunny says, well shucks, I might as well just stay your little bunny. And I just want to say to everybody listening today, God loves you that much. He pursues you that much and he's going to continue to pursue. So the best thing to do is let your heart be molded by him. Let him make you into everything he wants to make you into and just be surrendered to that because he's always going to catch up to you. He's always going to pursue you. He's never going to stop loving you.

So you might as well be his little bunny. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.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 pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.