No Other Gospel [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

The accuser will use one percent of infection in your gospel in order to accuse you night and day. 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, Galatians, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. 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 made to Alan Wright Ministries.

So, as you listen to today's message, you can go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Here, when he says this word, it's troubled me all week, because Paul is the one who taught us, he said, bless and do not curse. He said, bless your enemies. But how could he even be saying this? Is he really saying just curse people?

I don't think so. I think what he's saying is that, like in the Old Testament, where an idol was called accursed, and like in Deuteronomy, it says don't bring an idol in, it's an abomination. It's an accursed thing.

Don't have anything to do with a cursed thing. And what he's saying is that that gospel presentation, you should have nothing to do with it, have nothing to do with anybody that's proclaiming it like that. This is very, very strong language, isn't it? He's mad. He is mad the way Jesus was mad when he turned over the money changer's tables. Jesus was mad that day. And the disciples saw him and they said, zeal for the Lord of hosts will consume him. They saw a fulfillment of scripture and what he was doing that day. He turned over the tables because he was furious.

Why? Because at the temple that day, they were exchanging currency in the court of the Gentiles. The Gentiles, the non-Jews, were not allowed any other place except for that outer court of the temple. The one place they could pray, and they had all these money changer's tables and the great chaos going on, plus they were robbing people. Because you had to, if you were gonna buy a lamb for the Passover, you had to bring your currency and exchange it for temple currency. You couldn't just buy it with regular currency, you'd buy it with temple currency. And so they were changing the money, and the exchange rate was robbery. So they're robbing people and they're preventing the Gentiles from even being able to commune with God.

In other words, the temple, the symbol of the place where you get to come and commune with God, and they were blocking people from the grace of God. And when you block people from the grace of God, you got Jesus mad. And he just, he got a whip out that day. Paul, he gets here, he's about to get a whip. You'll see him later in Galatians, he gets mad again. Why?

Because this is so important. When the gospel is mixed with law, this is what he's saying, that is a cursed thing. Wow. Any other gospel, other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, what he's saying is not just a diluted form of truth, it is deception. And as such, it is not just less powerful, it is poisonous. When mixed, the gospel isn't just less good, it isn't good at all. When mixed, and people adopt it, Paul says, you haven't just deserted the gospel, verse 6, you deserted him who called you. Here's the way I've been saying it, if I tell my wife, 99 days in a row, I love you, and then on the hundredth day I say, I'm not sure if I love you, I might leave you, and then 99 days I say I'll never leave you, and then one day I say I might leave you. That one day of conditional love infects and poisons the other 99. One percent of law introduces unlimited potential for fear, does it not?

In other words, one day in which you say I might leave you, I don't know if you measure up, then the other 99 days you'll be still thinking about that one day. And Paul's saying, if somebody's preaching a gospel like that, that's not going to build faith in anybody, it's going to build fear. If you think that you've got to have Jesus plus you've got to be circumcised, you've just introduced an unlimited potential for fear, because one of you hadn't done it right, one of you hadn't done whatever it is you're supposed to do, one of you hadn't done it well enough, one of you hadn't done it long enough, one of you hadn't done it righteously enough. How will you ever know when you've done enough?

You won't ever know. And the accuser, Satan, the accuser will use one percent of infection in your gospel in order to accuse you night and day. And what Galatians is all about and what has filled my heart and what is intoxicating me with the gospel right now is to get rid of everything except the purity and the simplicity of the gospel that announces that God has done it all for us in Jesus Christ. How wonderful this gospel is.

How magnificent. We have a gospel so rich, so powerful, it is more than we can know. But there is a revelation by which we can know it. It is what Paul says, a love that surpasses knowledge. May you know that which surpasses knowledge. He's talking about a mystery.

He's talking about a revelation of something that you can't figure out in your head, but it is so wonderful. And what we see in this text today and what we'll continue to see is that the gospel is a gospel of Christ, Paul says. It is not a gospel that is authenticated so much by its doctrines or even by the church authority. It is a gospel that is authenticated because it is the gospel of Christ.

That's what Paul's saying. You're abandoning the gospel of Christ. It is a gospel that is much more than a set of doctrines.

I hadn't looked upon these words in a long time. I found them to be profound. This is my New Testament exegesis professor, Charles Kouser, who taught me Galatians all those years ago and I look back at his commentary and I want to read you these words. The preaching of Christ's gospel, Charlie said, will inevitably convey God's grace, not in an abstract or theoretical fashion, but in terms of the particular human situation.

It may include judgment as well as mercy, imperative as well as indicative, and appropriately so if arising from or leading to the word that God is for us. If there is to be a test to be applied to preaching, it is this. Does it declare Jesus Christ as the unqualified liberator? And as Paul will go on to say in Galatians, does this preaching clarify what Christ has freed us for? In other words, all authentic Christian preaching is proclaiming Christ the liberator and that He's liberated us for a magnificent destiny. He continued by saying of the gospel, it is a divine activity by means of which people are drawn into the realm of God's grace. In the gospel, an energy is released to change the plight of people and circumstances. It is the power of God for salvation.

In other words, the gospel is not a set of doctrines. It is a living word energized because it is originated and authenticated by Christ. And when it is proclaimed, miracles take place. And Paul had seen miracles take place in the churches in the Galatian province. He had seen them come to living faith.

He had seen them be born anew. And the very thought that someone was stealing their joy, stealing their confidence, stealing their faith and robbing them of the power of the gospel was unbearable to him and so he writes this letter. And what he's going to say in a thousand different ways is that you need to know that you know that you know there is nothing that you do to make yourself belong.

It is what God has done that makes you belong and you can count on it and therefore live your life as a child of God. Many in the Reynolda church remember our former associate pastor Jim Glasgow whom we loved so much and he has been away for some years pastoring down in Wilmington, North Carolina and his daughter, Erin, was one of our children's babysitters and we got to watch Erin grow up and she watched our children grow up and yesterday Erin was married to another dear friend of our church and of our family, Tucker Johnson. Erin and Tucker were married yesterday and you have to just know Erin, she's one of a kind. She is a free spirit and loves Jesus with all her heart and Tucker's a free spirit and loves Jesus with all his heart and so months ago when they went to Jim, Erin went to her dad and she said she wanted to have the wedding outdoors and he said, why? She said, because I want the feeling of my wedding.

She said, I want it whimsical and being the Scott that he is, Jim asked, let me clarify, does whimsical mean more expensive or less expensive? 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. Today is the final day we're offering this special product. 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. Having officiated the service yesterday, I'll tell you I don't know if it's more or less expensive, but it's quite more disorganized. And it was whimsical for Aaron, but worrisome for the officiant. This was in Holly Ridge. No, no. It was, shall we say, on the outskirts of Holly Ridge, North Carolina. There's only one stoplight in Holly Ridge, and this wasn't in Holly Ridge.

It's out. It's out on a road that's not on MapQuest or the GPS. You can't find it. You go down a dirt road. No, it wasn't a dirt road.

It was a mile of sand. I went at the wedding. I pulled down around. I was going to be with the groomsmen hiding around these bushes. And they had trampled out the poison ivy around the area where the wedding was, but the poison ivy was rampant over me and the groomsmen in the bushes. And so 15, I'm not making this up, 15 minutes before we're supposed to march through the woods into our place and have the wedding start amidst this grove of old oak trees, my car got stuck in the sand, and the groomsmen were having to push my car to get it, and hundreds of people somehow found their way there. And Pastor Jim was in his Scottish kilt, per request, from the whimsical bride, and he pulls down in his car. The wedding is supposed to be starting in about 10 minutes, and he says, looks like we're going to be a little late. People are up there signing mementos, and they're doing the thumbprint artwork thing, and I didn't even know what that was. I said, that's fine.

Do you have any idea when it will start? The groomsmen are behind the bushes. He said, I don't know. I caught up with him a little later after that. There was a director at the wedding, but she was hiding from me.

Every time I'd try to find her, she was hiding. She didn't want to see me and me ask another question, because all she'd say was, nobody told me anything. And so, I see Jim a little later.

I said, any idea now? He said, I'm going to try to get him moving. He said, but you know, the good thing is it's not worrying Erin. He said, you know what she said to me a little while ago? Because, see, I'd been worrying about the 50% chance of thunderstorms, 50% chance according to weather.com, and no rain plan, and no place to go.

As if the bushes were going to help us. And he said, you know what, Erin, he said this 10 minutes before the wedding. He said, you know what Erin just said to me? I said, what? She thought it might be nice to have a little rain.

I looked at Jim Glasswell. I said, you just agree with me right now in the name of Jesus. No rain in the name of Jesus.

We're not agreeing with that. I'm not telling a half of it. We finally started the wedding, but beforehand, I thought there should be some prelude music playing, and nobody told me anything.

I found the wedding director. I said, what music is supposed to be going? She said, nobody told me anything. So I went to the guy that was going to sing a couple songs. I said, are you supposed to be singing now? He said, I don't know.

Nobody told me anything. I said, well, maybe you could just play some instrumental. He said, I don't have any instrumental.

I got two songs. So I went to the bagpiper. I said, are you supposed to be playing? He said, nobody told me so. He said, I've got a limit to repertoire, and I might get tired out. So I found another guy that was going to do some of the worship.

I said, how about you play the guitar a little bit? So he started playing, and finally we got in our places, and we marched through, and we stood there, and the bridesmaids came in, and it grew a little dark, and the wind was swirling from behind me, and across the bride and the groom, the way the wind blows before a storm comes, that kind of wind, it brings coolness with it, and yet worry with it, and it was blowing from back of my head across the bride and the groom. But the wedding party took their place, and here came Aaron, and she was like an angel, and she was unconcerned about the storm clouds that were brewing, and she looked at her groom that was weeping for joy, and I began to speak to them in my little message from the words of Peter, the husbands, to live with their wives in an understanding way, because you are heirs of the grace of life together. And I said, this is a word that is beautiful in the Greek.

It is one word, joint heirs. You're heirs together of incredible riches, and I began to talk to them about their inheritance in Christ, and how we bless them, because they're not orphans, but heirs, and as I was doing so, the wind just increased, and it was blowing through Aaron's hair quite whimsically, and she was beaming. She was beautiful, and while I was preaching, the pitter-patter of rain, I felt it on the back of my neck, and I thought, here comes the rain. What are we going to do? There's nowhere to hide.

There's nowhere to go. The rain started coming. It rained lightly for about 75 seconds, and then it dissipated, and when it dissipated, I felt a beam of sunlight back behind us, and I suddenly quit worrying about anything, because it was as if the Holy Spirit told me, quit worrying, Alan.

I'm giving my daughter everything she wanted. The wind blew her veil off of her face, and her daddy held it on the front pew over his kilt. I announced, I'm pleased to present to you Mr. and Mrs. Tucker Johnson, and the bagpiper played, and people shouted louder than you've ever heard them shout at a wedding.

They had picked up on the freedom. As the wind had been blowing, so had the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I looked at that father, Jim, with those tears in his eyes, and that kilt on his, that veil he was still holding, and he watched his daughter prance down, recessing out to the woods, and I thought, that little girl is getting this kind of wedding, because she asked her daddy, and there wasn't one thing that she had done to pay him for that. He just did it, because it was his little girl, and I just thought there in that moment, and I smiled, as I felt the smile of God reminding me, you could never pay a price dear enough to earn the father's favor, but God himself did in Jesus Christ. What I'm saying is, if you earthly fathers would show favor to your children just because they're your children, how much more your father in heaven who died for you? That's our gospel. Alan Wright. No other gospel is our teaching. It's from the series Galatians.

Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today. 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. Today is the final day we're offering this special product. 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.

Alan, it certainly is true. There is no love like the love of Christ. There is no good news like we have in our gospel. And maybe this is a good news, a gospel message, that's unlike anything that someone has heard quite like this before.

What would you say to that person right now where they are? Open up your heart. And sometimes there's just a beginning spot where you say, I'm not sure if I can even believe the gospel is that good, but I want to believe it. And maybe for somebody listening and you hear that story of a father and the great links it'll go just to show favor to his daughter. There's something inside of you longs for an experience of that kind of love.

And I think that's the beginning point, Daniel. I think sometimes when you haven't heard the message of the gospel and all of its beauty and purity and power, sometimes it begins like this. Your ears, your spiritual ears perk up and you begin to notice and you begin to listen.

It's almost like hearing a song that you really like and you want to hear it again and again and again. And so I think that's our prayers. We are going through Galatians is that the beautiful song of the gospel, the beautiful story of God's love, majesty and purity of this gospel will cause everything within you to stand up and pay attention because it's true.

It's real. God's grace is set upon you. 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 PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.