The Imperishable Seed [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. In this world you can't open your spirit or your mind to everything, right?

Because there's a lot of junk food. But this is the pure nourishment of God. 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, The Elect Exiles, as presented at Enola 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 could 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. More on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. There's a service like, you know, like you began as a jellyfish and then what happened was, you know, this evolved and when your forebears were foraging on the plains, they were exercising all the time. And this is why, you know, and so when I read that, right, what do I do? Do I have a hissy fit and just go crazy and throw and go burn the book? No, I don't. I'm just like, well, they're wrong about that.

But boy, I'm really interested in learning about mitochondria right now and what's happening in my body. Because I'm not going into an existential crisis because a sweet man on Papua New Guinea thought that the moon was the tip of a spear. That doesn't cause me any existential crisis. It's just, you know, just what I'm saying to have a life of a biblical worldview.

It doesn't say it deep enough. What I'm saying is that we are people of the word. And so this becomes to us so real that that's what makes you feel like an exile in the world. When you see that which is in conflict with truth that is so pervasive and so obvious. But if someone else has not seen it, then we don't hate them for that, right? We love them, but they just don't see that. So understand that there's going to be a clash.

I feel like an exile in the world. I mean, I just, I do. It's okay just to admit that. And it's not to become unloving to say, I don't get that at all. I mean, every day I read the paper, I'm like, I don't get that.

I don't get that. New York State Court of Appeals, they ruled on Tuesday that happy the elephant at the Bronx Zoo does not meet the definition of a person. I, please understand. I told a story a few weeks ago about getting bitten by a dog, and I love dogs, and I love elephants. I like elephants. They're fantastic creatures, and we should honor, you know, and take care of our animals and respect them.

I think they should have good habitats, and I'm there with all that. But what this case was, was someone was suing, the Non-Human Rights Project was suing, under the legal strategy of the writ of habeas corpus, which is an old legal process that identifies that a person in body has a right to not be wrongly confined. And so the New York, this made it to the New York State Court of Appeals that happy the elephant should not be confined because he should have the rights of a person.

And what got me, here's what made me feel like an exile. The vote was five to two. These are two, these are two judges. They've reached the pinnacle. They're at the highest state court of New York.

These people went to the finest law schools. These are some of the smartest people in the country, and two of them said no, happiness should be treated as a person. I don't, I don't, I don't understand. I just don't, I just don't. A lot of confusion. A big brouhaha in our city this week because one of the independent bookstores was having a drag queen read stories to three to seven year olds.

A whole lot of people think that's a good idea. I don't, I don't understand. I don't, I don't, I don't, I mean whatever you believe about gender and sexuality, I just don't know, I can't, I can't go, I can't figure out why to watch someone dressed up with big hair and women's clothes, but also have kind of a five o'clock shadow and a mustache reading to three-year-olds Dr. Seuss books. I don't, and what world is that? I'm just saying it's okay, it's okay to just go, I feel like an exile in that, where a world where people, some people think an elephant's a person, and that it's a good thing to cause gender confusion.

I don't, I don't get that, right? But what I'm saying is that if you are a person of the word, it does not cause you any more existential crisis or honestly cause you to become hateful any more than me reading Younger next year that every few paragraphs have some evolutionary statement because there's a lot of other good that's in it. Do you hear what I'm saying? We are people, Peter says, that were born again through this word. Now this is an extraordinary statement, but this goes far to explain what Paul says in Romans that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There is something so powerful and beautiful and magnificent about the proclamation of what God has said in this word of his that tells the story of the redemption of humanity through the gift of Jesus Christ. There is something so powerful that is the expression of God that this is the way people are saved. It's through the hearing of that word.

Wow! We're a people who were born into this and to say that this is an eternal word therefore being born through it means that you're born unto eternity out of that which is spoken from eternity unto eternity. What's more is because it's imperishable seed, this is the primary thing I want us to get from this text, is that once planted it has not, I'm not talking about magic, but it has life generating power of its own. Jesus said in Luke chapter 8 when he was describing the parable of the sower and he just said plainly he gave the interpretation at verse 11 of Luke 8 said the parable is this the seed is the word of God. So seed is one of Jesus's favorite images to describe the word of God and Peter has picked up on that here to call the word of God imperishable seed. Now seed is that which is small sometimes almost imperceptible if it's a mustard seed that when it finds root grows like the seed of the redwood that when it grows to its full height becomes these redwood trees that are beyond description. That's what I want you to see is that the seed of the word that finds a place in your heart, your heart is the soil and the seed that's imperishable finds a place in your heart. Here's what happens by God's miraculous work. That seed is living and active and begins to grow unto something beautiful in your life and you may not even know what's happening.

There's no other word like that. We don't speak of our math textbook or the latest Christian living book that you've read we don't. But the word of God is imperishable seed.

So it has seed like property to it. What this means beloved is that in your morning devotion or evening or whenever you spend time with the Lord and you just have the word of God and you just meditate on that word and it's like what you're doing is more than just thinking about the word you're in your thinking you're you're saying Lord let that be like seed that comes and finds root in me. I was praying for you this morning that you would have so much revelation of the goodness of God's word that you would ever increasingly have no reservation about opening your spirit wide to the word of God.

In this world you can't open your spirit or your mind to everything right because there's a lot of junk food. But this is the pure nourishment of God. And I have I have built my life on this word. I love the word of God. I want you to love the word of God.

Life seed. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from tomorrow's tasks. Sometimes it's hard to focus on the moment that matters most right now in a hurried worried season. God invites you into the present modern day life coaches call it mindfulness, but it isn't a new psychological program and it isn't rooted in Eastern religion mindfulness living in the present is God's idea and the Bible unveils the way Pastor Alan Wright invites you to savor life each day when you make your gift today will send you Pastor Alan's eight messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and learn how to savor the textures and flavors of God's grace each moment in the moment every day of your life. 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 Pastor Alan.org today's teaching now continues here.

Once again is Alan Wright. I was thinking this morning how how God is so patient when as I've told you the stories before but when I was in fourth grade after my dad left my mom cried out to ask God if he was real and if so, please help her and the next day somebody came and introduced her to Christ because she was awake in the middle of the night with my mom on her heart. So our story began with a miracle and she invited us to her church that loved the word of God. I was in a church that didn't know much or love the word of God to be honest about it and we switched this church and I watched that preacher. I watched him love the word of God and I became a Christian but I was also sort of embarrassed by it all. I thought my mom was a religious nut you know even though I knew it was Jesus and I was embarrassed. I'm just telling the truth I was embarrassed because we had so many Christian books lying around the house, Bibles lying around.

I'm like all my friends are going to come over and think we're just religious nuts. Why we got to have all these Christian books lying around? I'm working on my sixth Christian book right now. God's got a sense of humor and when I was a freshman in college I had been involved in Young Life but when I would leave Stacy Dormitory and go walk to the Chapel of the Cross on Franklin Street to go to a Bible study I'll be honest I was embarrassed and I took my Bible and I hid it under some other books as I walked across campus and God's patient because deep down I loved the word and I was resonating with its truth.

He's patient with wherever you are right now but I'm just going to say that after all of these years of living and abiding in the word of God His word's true and trustworthy. It's the one thing you can just open your spirit wide to. There's no junk food in it. There's no poison. There's no garbage in it.

There's nothing. It's all pure and beautiful. Hebrews 4 says the word of God is living and active sharper than any two edged sword. It's living.

That's what Peter saying here abiding remaining living imperishable. The word is not wooden. The word is not just mere instruction. The word is something that is an expression of God that's alive. And therefore we love the word. Peter says that we are to verse to a second chapter like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that you may grow. If you've tasted and seen the Lord is good.

This is what you do. He says you will just you'll just long for it. The word here really means to crave. So here's the image really that Peter has. This is not there are by the way two other places in the New Testament where the word is compared to milk in comparing the immature or the young Christian with the mature in both Hebrews and Corinthians says you know you start with milk and then you move on to the meat.

That's not the image Peter is using here. Peter's not talking about milk for the young Christian. He's just using this as a metaphor to say that the word of God to us is like milk to a newborn so that when the newborn wakes up in the middle of the night and cries that baby is crying out for his or her mother's milk. And in that mother's milk just in the natural by God's amazing design every single thing that baby needs for nourishment including even the mystical impartation of immune system properties is in that mother's milk and that baby wakes up in the middle of the night and only knows one thing. I need some milk. I just need some milk.

I'm going to cry until I get some milk. May your soul long for the word of God like that baby does. And you're made you're born again by this word. You've been born again by this word.

If you're born again you were born again by the proclamation of that word. So you were born into this word through this word and made for this word. That's why your spirit craves the word of God. Your spirit craves the word of God. Now your flesh may at times crave the things of this world but your spirit the deepest part of you wants the word of God like a baby wants milk. Identify that part of yourself and let your whole being yearn for crave the pure milk of God's word. Psalm 119 I wish we could read the whole psalm but the psalmist says in the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.

Think of that. Would you rather have a billion dollars or the word of God. The billion dollars will fall apart and go away and the word of God will stand forever. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes.

I'll not forget your word. This isn't the way that you speak about a mere instruction manual. This is the way you speak about food. This explains why Jesus when he was tempted in Matthew 4 and the tempter came and said to him if you're the son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread. And he answered it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

I have food to eat Jesus said that you don't know of. He's saying that in the way that a baby lives by a mother's milk that the son of God lives by the timelessness of the word of Lord. So much so that John said in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and that word became flesh. Here's why we love the word of God.

Every page of the word is pointing to Jesus. He's our story. It's the story of the vastness indeed the perfection of God's love for you that knows no bounds and came to you in that perfect love not according to your deserving or any merits of your own. This is perfect love. This is the only love that will ever save us or set us free.

Every form of conditional love will turn it back to us and our own merits and will be left in fear of not being enough but not so the love of God. He came in the person of Jesus Christ in perfect love for you to take upon himself the full debt the full penalty through his blood on a cross so that whoever believes in him will have everlasting life and every page of the book in one way or another is telling us that story. So if you want to continue to learn as we go through first Peter about how to be an elect exile here's your groundwork here in Chapter 1. You're a person of the word. You have the real story. You're not having to cling to it.

You're not having to piece it together. It's just the true and real story just as much as what the moon actually is. So this is who you are. It's who God is. It's who the world is. And we live in it.

We swim in it. We love through it and we see everyone through it. The grass withers.

The flowers fade. But the word of the Lord remains forever. And that's the gospel. Alan Wright. Our good news message.

The imperishable seed from the series The Elect Exiles. Hey stick with us. Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. 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 Pastor Alan.org.

With so much worry about yesterday's failures and so much hurry getting ready for tomorrow's tasks. Sometimes it's hard to focus on the moment that matters most right now in a hurried worried season God invites you into the present modern day life coaches call it mindfulness but it isn't a new psychological program and it isn't rooted in Eastern religion mindfulness living in the present is God's idea and the Bible unveils the way Pastor Alan Wright invites you to save her life each day when you make your gift today we'll send you Pastor Alan's eight messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership make your gift today and learn how to savor the textures and flavors of God's grace each moment in the moment every day of your life. 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 now with Pastor Alan in the studio and our parting good news thought for the day and a love for the word of God. It's a good thing and it never fails. The world misunderstands the word of God. They think that it's about these individual rules and but no it is life-giving and is a story of God's redemptive love for us in Jesus Christ and as such this word the seed Peter says is imperishable and I just want to leave that with listeners today that every time you take in the word every time you're just every word you're hearing in today's message every time you pick up the Bible and meditate on the scripture it's like you're taking into your being something that is imperishable seed and if you've ever seen a giant sequoia or a redwood think about how it began as a little seed that you could hold in the palm of your hand and that's the way the word of God is so you take the seed and there's the word of God in you never dies yeah there's a harvest that is gonna be produced so live by this word love this word savor the word thank God for the word crave the word like a baby craves milk just love it and take in the word of God it's imperishable. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.