Coup D'etat [Part 2]

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It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. This is what is churning down inside the soul.

I need to do something more. I never feel at peace. I never feel totally at rest. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see yourself in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Free Yourself, Be Yourself. 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 could be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. It hit me one time in a strange moment in which I was actually had a delightful night or two away with my wife. And I was actually just sitting after breakfast reading the newspaper many years ago. And as I'm just sitting in the reading newspaper, there was a story in there about the Iraqi national soccer players. This was right in that period of time in which Saddam Hussein had been ousted and yet he had not been found.

And yet it had become clear that he was off the throne and people began to feel safe about speaking up for the first time. And this was an interview with some of the Iraqi soccer stars. And I remember just reading it being just absolutely just my heart was just torn reading about what they were saying. Because their star soccer player, he said, I love soccer. And he said, but I hated the idea of playing because before every game, Saddam's nephew, Uday Hussein, would call them, would threaten them, especially before the important games, and threaten them with punishment if they didn't win the game.

Well, this was news to me. And then he went on further to say, I loved the game of soccer. I just wanted to play for the fun of the game, but I so wanted to quit.

He said, but I couldn't quit because Uday had threatened my family if I quit. I was sitting there reading this article and it began to just grip my heart. And I thought, why is this distant story seeming so real to me? And sometimes when that happens, you know, it's good just to pause and let the Holy Spirit speak to you. And I felt the Lord just saying, it's because that's you, Alan. And as I began to meditate on it more, I began to come to this very simple truth that when it comes to life, all of us are either living life for the joy of the game or we're living it for fear of somebody's disapproval.

In other words, all of our attempts at success, all of our attempts to excel, they're either being motivated by fear of what will happen if we don't succeed or by faith and the joy that accompanies it and the hope that accompanies it, the faith that says I'm accepted, so I might as well spread my wings and fly. These were the kinds of things that began to lead me on to a pretty serious self-assessment. I began to take inventory, and it didn't all happen at one time for me, but I began to notice some things in my life. I noticed I was overly hurt by criticism. This was not just as a pastor where somebody would have something critical to say, although that would really bother me, but you know, sometimes it's when it's the closest to home. And I began to realize that sometimes with my wife, and she might say something, and it wasn't critical at all. It just was, you know, she said the garbage needs to go out.

And I would take it as, oh, so if you were a better husband, then you would have taken the garbage out by now. Why was I so sensitive, is the bottom line to that. I began to realize that if I was honest with myself, I had too many mixed motives. It's like there's something really noble that I wanted to do to help somebody, but I was always plagued by this idea of at the same time that I want to help them, am I also having a little bit of a motive here that I'm afraid they won't like me if I don't help them.

I just, there was this unease I had with the mixture of motives. I felt also that it was just sometimes hard to speak the truth in love. You know, this is one of the basic things the scripture tells us to do.

You know, walk in the light as he's in the light. Speak the truth in love. Tell people what you really feel.

Just do it in a loving way. This was just not something I was able to do. This is not something I was comfortable doing. I was too afraid of hurting somebody's feelings. Why couldn't I just love people and speak the truth to them?

Why couldn't those things go together? I was also found that I just could become critical. And one of the things that we'll learn in this series is that hurt people tend to hurt people. Shamed people tend to shame other people. People who feel inwardly condemned, they tend to condemn others. People who have been criticized over and over begin to be critical of others.

Why was that? What was that tendency in me that I saw that I didn't like that would make me ever want to be critical? This part I felt doomed by failures too often. It's like if something went really wrong, instead of just being say, okay, I made a mistake.

Okay, you know, move on. That one of the things that would happen with me, it'd be I'd start becoming too obsessed with it. Think about it too much.

Think about the about the mistake and oh, and replaying it and thinking about it again and again. And so you begin to feel like that you're just you're somehow it's doomed you towards the future. I also realized that I had a hard time saying no, we're going to learn about that.

It could really, really be hard for anybody, especially for a pastor, if you have a hard time saying no, because there's always somebody that wants you to do something. And you eventually realize that you're not going to have time to do it all. And it leads to many other problems. Why didn't I have healthy boundaries?

What was at the root of that? I also, this is where my family really laughs at me a lot. I actually, this is dumb, but I actually turned down some honors. I turned down some things that obviously now looking back, were blessings from the Lord. And why couldn't I be okay if maybe there was a blessing that came into my life and the Lord just wanted me to have that or take that position of. I also had feelings if you're like you're an imposter. I had this feeling like if there's somebody that if they knew who I really was, then they would they get somebody else to do this, you know, that feeling of being an imposter. I also just had a sense, and this was probably the most important thing, was I just had a sense that there was some kind of ceiling over how far I could go or how far I could rise.

How much could the Lord use me? I felt like there was something, and this has to do with destiny. This has to do with not missing destiny. I think if there were no other reason why I wanted to pursue and discover what shame is, how it is healed, and get all the shame out of my life, if there was no other reason than this right here, is this I didn't want to miss my destiny. I didn't want to have things that God had for me to do, but there was something inside of me that was saying, oh no, I'm not able. I'm too ashamed or too unworthy. I'm too whatever.

Because the fact of the matter is that God can do anything through anybody, right? And what is that that would cause that that would cause that kind of feeling? I could list more.

I could list more, but that was the kind of inventory that I began to take, and I encourage you to take a similar inventory. I encourage you to begin to look at your life and say, you know, if there is something that is recurring, maybe there is a thought pattern, and you continue to have that kind of thought pattern. Maybe it is negative cycle of thoughts, or maybe there's certain sin you continue to stumble, and that area.

Maybe if you're drawn towards negative things, maybe even addiction, what is beneath all this? That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. 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 pastorallen.org. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly? Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you, or love you less. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame.

It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan 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 Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I could list more. I could list more, but that was the kind of inventory that I began to take.

And I encourage you to take a similar inventory. I encourage you to begin to look at your life and say, you know, if there is something that is recurring, maybe there is a thought pattern, and you continue to have that kind of thought pattern. Maybe it is negative cycle of thoughts, or maybe there's certain sin. You continue to stumble in that area. Maybe if you're drawn towards negative things, maybe even addiction, what is beneath all this? You know, we will spend so much time and money trying to get better at other things.

I mean, I will go out and buy the new golf clubs just to hit it five yards further. You know, we will take lessons to learn. We will study this. But so many people go through their life and never examine their own life or say, you know, the most important thing is for me to be healed and to be set free. And so that's what this is really all about. Shame says you don't measure up, and there's something that you need to do to make yourself acceptable. And if you don't find out what that is and make yourself acceptable, then you are going to have to keep working harder at it. And so what happens is that this same root of shame can lead us down equal and opposite negative paths. We can go down a path that says, if I've got to make myself more acceptable and I've got to do something to fix myself in order to really ever have approval and acceptance and love, then the answer is to just work as hard as I can at that, and to be constantly, constantly thinking about what do I need to do to get you to like me? What do I need to do in order to make myself more acceptable? And that, as we'll be seeing, just leads down a path in my life, it led towards tendencies, towards being workaholic, being perfectionist, and all the while very anxious, very anxious. But that same root of shame, it can lead in an equal and opposite direction, but it's the same root because another person might say, instead of saying, well, I just ought to try to be perfect, what they'll tend to say is I'll never be perfect, so why try at all?

And so that person might just go into rebellion. In other words, I think for so many of us, we tend to either move down a path that you could call religion, and that is what do I need to do to get God to accept me? What do I need to do? It's all about me and what I need to do. Or we can go down a path of rebellion, and that path is also all about me.

What can I do to gratify my desires? But the root of this is anxiety. Here's the way I think it works, is I think that we have this lie that says I need to measure up, and then we realize I don't measure up, and that gap in between there, between I don't measure up and I need to measure up, in between that gap right there, I think is the greatest source of anxiety in the whole universe. Because right at that point, that's where all of hell attacks us, is right at that point, because if you don't measure up and yet you have to measure up, then you're forever anxious about what if you're not measuring up. Now that anxiety leads to so many, many, many of our problems. In fact, I think this is what causes so much of the sin in our lives. It's so much of the addiction that people face. This is what is churning down inside the soul.

I need to do something more. I never feel at peace. I never feel totally at rest. Well, what happened in my life was I took this inventory, and I began preaching about this many, many years ago. I preached a sermon, and it was like the heavens began to open up.

And I ended up, I think, preaching about 16 weeks. But I knew then that it was just beginning in my life. I knew that I was on a journey. And what happened from there was the Lord began to show me how this one lie was connected to many, many other lies, how it was a whole web of thoughts that just weren't really true. And I began one by one to replace those false ideas with the truth of the gospel. And that's what I am praying for you.

And I'm praying for all who are watching, and you're participating in your small groups, or you're just wanting to be on this journey, and you're wanting to learn and you're wanting to learn and grow. But what we're going to see is not just a study of the scriptures and the promises of God, but what we're going to see is an amazing truth of the gospel. Because what the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us is a message that is exactly the opposite of shame. What the message of the gospel tells us is that, yes, you have sinned. You've fallen short of the glory of God. It is true in and of ourselves. We don't measure up.

But instead of telling you, measure up and then you'll be accepted. This is the gospel message that God loved you while you were still in your sin. That exactly the right moment Christ came and he died for the ungodly. That Christ came while we were still lost in our sin, still enemies of God. And so the precise opposite message of shame is given to us in Jesus Christ. You can't measure up on your own.

You never will be able to measure up on your own. But there is one who came and he is human. He was God, but he was totally human, born as a baby in Bethlehem, grew up as a carpenter in Nazareth. And the hand of God was upon him. He was perfect in every way. He was totally righteous. He deserved nothing but to be accepted by his father. But in an unthinkable exchange, Jesus chose to lay down his life for you and for me so that the message of the cross to you and to me is that the one who only deserved to be accepted in that moment was rejected by the world.

And his own father turned his face and he who knew no sin became your sin and mine so that we so that we who believe in him could be reckoned as the righteousness of God. Shame says you need to measure up or you'll never be accepted. Shame says I'm going to withhold my love and my acceptance from you until you prove your worth, until you prove that you can measure up, until you fix those problems that you have. I'm going to withhold love and acceptance to motivate you.

That's what shame says. But what God says is exactly the opposite. He says here's how I'm going to transform your life. I'm going to transform your life by showing you love that is perfect even when you don't deserve it. And the perfect love of God will cast out the fear in your heart. It is absolutely remarkable, delicious, extraordinary and wonderful. It is paradise if you ever have a sense even for a moment of being totally and completely and fully loved despite all of your weaknesses and shortcomings because in that you can be real, in that you can love others, and in that you can be transformed. The whole world might be saying to us in one way or another you ought to be ashamed of yourself, shame on you, but through Jesus Christ the gospel announces something entirely different.

Shame off you. That's what it's all about. I hope that you'll be able to begin digging into the wonders of the grace of God and for each of us as we continue to learn and grow. May every lie of shame be replaced by the astounding truth of the gospel. God's love for you is never-ending. God's love is permanent. God's love is full. God's love is unconditional. God's love can't be quenched. God's love can't be earned. God's love God's love is free. God's love is for you. And that's the gospel.

Alan Wright. That's today's good news from the teaching coup d'etat in our series Free Yourself, Be Yourself. And Pastor Alan is back with us in just a moment with today's good news thought. 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. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly? Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you, or love you less. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame.

It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan 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 Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Back in the studio with Pastor Alan, and I love the way you closed that with that reminder again that this can be a shame-off-you moment.

I think that the revolution that's going to be happening in many listeners' lives right now, Daniel, and this is the invitation, is to hear the gospel in a deeper way. God loves you, not because you've performed for God, but because God is love. Does God care about our behaviors?

Absolutely. But He does not need our good behavior. He doesn't need us to measure up in order to be accepted.

We could never measure up. So God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And when you accept Christ, you are fully accepted and the beloved, and nothing can ever change that. God's love is perfect, and perfect love casts out fear. What if there is a hidden tyrant in your soul like there was in mine? This tyrant doesn't put itself on billboards, but it certainly lords over you.

Maybe you don't realize it. Shame. It can be the motivational force, and we don't even realize it. And I am inviting every listener to join me in the coup d'etat, to overthrow shame and replace it with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that our lives get fueled, not by fear of failing, not by the anxiety of not being accepted, but we get fueled by the certainty that we have been accepted in Jesus Christ.

It'll change everything in your life. 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.