You're a Child of the Light [Part 3]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

Read the Bible correctly so that you understand when you come to a text like this and then see in the whole story how it is that a God of love has to also be righteous or else he's not loving and that there's a difference therefore between living as a Christian out of fear, maybe God's a little bit mad at me, that's fear versus wisdom that instructs us as living as children of light and so that finally then you come to his invitation at the end. 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 called Ephesians as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, 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. Contact us at PastorAlan.org.

That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. To the natural mind, my point is that if you just say, well, there's just a lot of evil in the world and here's what we're supposed to do about it. Just don't worry about it. You know? And this is the kind of God you have. He just says, well, you know, that is horrible.

People oppressing the poor, racist, genocide, child abuse. But you know, hey, it's not that big a deal. That's just stupid.

Right? That doesn't make sense. Now, because of this, most people, this is what they do. They either are going to form their own version of spirituality that would take away anything uncomfortable about the holiness of God, but in so doing would sacrifice any sense of ultimate justice and righteousness in the world. So they'd have a loving God, but not a righteous God. They'd have a loving God, but not a righteous God. But if God is not righteous, is he loving? But what happens to many other people, and this is the main issue with Christians who think that God is mad at them still, is that the idea that God could forgive your sin so completely that you would be utterly and completely forgiven. That seems unbelievable because we know that sin should be punished. Right? Herein comes the wonder of the gospel.

The gospel is the redemptive answer to this dilemma. Years ago, I was interested in watching an episode of the old, old Oprah Winfrey talk show. And because an author that I was interested in, Scott Peck, was on the show that day, and I made a point to watch it. And it was many years ago, and I can't find the transcript to it. I've found other things that Oprah has said since then, but I couldn't find the transcript of this particular.

But I remember seeing this and going, oh wow. I wish I could speak to that because Oprah and Scott Peck were talking, and Oprah said, she said, the thing that she said has bothered me so much, and began to make her really kind of move away from what we would say is an Orthodox or Evangelical Christianity to some kind of broader vision of spirituality, was she said, it bothered me so much to hear people talk about God as a jealous God. And she was like, why should God be jealous of me or of anything? And she said, that's such a petty emotion.

Well, when she said that, I remember at the time thinking, oh, it was such a misunderstanding. There is a concept of jealousy, which can be part of someone's wrath, that is rooted in human insecurity, right? If you've ever been in a relationship with somebody that's insecure, and one of the things they do is they tend to get jealous or even paranoid, you know, it's a very painful thing. And jealousy can seem so petty, right? I mean, this is where somebody is so insecure that they don't even want you to talk to somebody else or spend five minutes with anybody else.

And what is that rooted in? It's just rooted in I'm insecure, and I'm just worried that if I don't have your constant attention, then something is wrong and so forth. That's kind of a petty jealousy, right? But isn't there a different kind of jealousy that's altogether different than that that's actually holy and right and pure and good? And this is a scenario where if there was a man and his wife were unfaithful to him, if that man said, well, yeah, she's been cheating on me, but I don't think I should say anything because she might leave me for good or something if I do. I'm kind of worried about that. We'd say, wake up, man. Quit being so codependent.

What are you talking about? You are valuable. You are not a doormat, right? Or on the other hand, if the man said, well, yeah, my wife's been cheating on me, but you know, I'm okay with that. I can share her with others and everything would be fine. We'd look at him like, and you say you love her? Why?

Because isn't there a part of love that if the covenant of love is violated, that you feel good enough about yourself that you say, I'm not taking that. And there's another part of you that says, I'm intensely jealous. I'm not jealous of you.

I'm jealous for you. I love you too much to share you with others. This is the nature of God's love. God is love. The Bible doesn't say God was so angry at the world that he sent his only begotten son.

It says God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. The Bible doesn't say God is anger. The Bible says God is slow to anger. It says the Bible says that God is love.

But in that love, if he really loves and he's really righteous, he will hate all that is evil. The bottom line is this, the issue is the covenant. And God made a covenant with Adam and Eve and they broke it. He had a covenant with this world that he created and the world rebelled against him. And he made a covenant with a special people, Israel, and they broke his covenant. And what you see in a lot of the prophetic literature is that the response of a God who loves deeply, like the response of anybody who loves deeply, is going to be twofold.

I am grieved and I'm mad because I love you so much. The Bible doesn't say don't be angry. The Bible says be angry, but don't sin. Jesus came and Jesus was the fullness of the expression of who God is and what happened when he saw the covenant unfaithfulness and he saw how the religious aristocracy was lording it over like self-righteous hypocrites. They were like whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones.

And Jesus saw Jerusalem who had betrayed the prophets and stoned those who'd come to give the message of good news and who would ultimately kill him. And what did he do? Two respects. He grieved over this and he was mad.

Why? Because he loved. The intensity of the love demands that there be wrath against all that is unrighteous. The issue is that there was nobody that could keep the covenant.

The whole history of the people of this world is of covenant unfaithfulness to the covenantal God who loved them from the beginning. And so what God said was, I just need somebody on this earth that could keep the covenant. If there could just be one person on the earth, one human being that would keep the covenant and be faithful to me so that I could show the fullness of my love and never ever have to be grieved and never have to be jealous for him, never have to be angry because there were never any sin. If I could just do that with one representative, I could pour out my real nature and that is to pour out only love and blessing.

And there was no one. So God so loved the world that he came himself. The only person that could keep the covenant would have to be a God man. And that's what Jesus did. He kept the covenant perfectly.

Never once was there any act of disobedience. God the father said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. So when he went to the cross, laying down his own life by his own choice, what did he experience on that cross? God, the Bible says, made him who knew no sin to be our sin.

What does this mean? It means that God looked upon Jesus. This was God's plan. This was God's righteousness at work. He would look upon Jesus as if Jesus had committed every sin that had ever been committed in the past, present and future. And God who is so slow to anger and so long suffering, who had, you could say wrath that was stored up for all the centuries of the sin of humanity, a wrath that rightly should have caused him to destroy the world and start all over again.

But instead in his divine plan, this was the plan. Even though Jesus has never sinned, I will look upon him as if he had committed all the sin. And I will let him be the recipient of all of wrath against sin. This is what the Bible means when it says that God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus. This is what it means that he who knew no sin became our sin.

But it means something even greater than this. It means that not only will I look upon it as if Jesus had committed all of the sin, but for anyone who trusts in Jesus, I will make an extraordinary gift. The righteousness would be revealed in this manner.

Jesus would be sin, but anyone who accepts him would be regarded, would be looked upon as if they had lived the perfectly meritorious life of Jesus. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. How you see yourself determines how you live. In an 11 message series, Pastor Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling journey through the letter to the Ephesians. It'll flood your soul with good news and empower you to discover who you are in Christ. When you make your donation to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll not only send you the digital downloads of the entire transformational Ephesians series, but we'll also send you a printable copy of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? 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. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. This is all explained in Romans chapter three. I know it's getting late and I'm only on point number two, but look here in chapter three of Romans really quickly, because this is so important.

Romans chapter three verse 21 explains this. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. What he's speaking of is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that through this, what is he saying? The righteousness of God, not just the love of God, but the righteousness of God is on display in the cross.

The righteousness, verse 22, of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for the no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Here's verse 25, one of the most important verses in the Bible, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. And he clarifies, this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. If there were no cross of Jesus Christ, if there were no punishment leveled against all the sin of the world, then it would be right to accuse God of being unrighteous. But through the cross, what Paul is saying is that God's love is on display and God's righteousness. For what he did in the cross was at the same time he proved, I am just, I will do as I have said, the wages of sin is death and Jesus has died. The righteousness of God is revealed through the act of justice of sin being paid for, but he also reveals him as the lover of humanity and therefore the justifier of all who believe.

So he is both just and the justifier. And this word propitiation, which I'm very glad the ESV uses here, is the correct word because what propitiation means is not just the removal of your sin, but it is literally to say the receiving of wrath so that then towards everyone who trusts in Christ, God's demeanor and his complete attitude towards you in all things is one of favor. So Jesus, his sacrifice was not just covering our sin, but is the propitiation for our sins wherein all of the wrath of God against any sin that you ever committed was laid upon Christ on the cross and you have therefore received from God what you did not deserve, but you most certainly have received it and that is God has become propitious towards you. He has become favorable towards you.

In other words, what has happened is more wonderful than most people know and it is far exceedingly greater than any version of the gospel that wants to omit anything about the wrath of God against the sons of disobedience because this is a God who loves and a God who is righteous and has established the world in righteousness and would not go back on his word, but instead by his own son, by coming himself and taking our place on the cross, he has now put himself into the position so that anyone who trusts in Christ, God can do what he always wanted to do and that is to show you only his favor, to show you only his love, to show you only his goodness, to show you the power and the mercy of his love towards you in your life. Now then Paul gets to me and he says, does this mean therefore that we just act any old way we want to? And Paul says, of course not because every single thing you do really does matter.

Everything you do matters. You once were sons of disobedience. You once were walking in the darkness, but now you're in the light. He said, so don't even let it be mentioned among you that there's sexual immorality. Don't let anybody have anything to do with that former life because if you do these things, he said, you sow and you reap. If you sow to the sinful nature, Paul says in Galatians, you'll reap from the sinful nature, but if you sow into the spirit, you'll reap from the spirit.

What God has done in dying for you in Jesus Christ is to give you his own life, his own Holy Spirit, and he wants to pour out his Holy Spirit in you. So do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Don't spend your energy on that which does not satisfy. Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. It does matter what you do, but here's the bottom line. Let me just say this plainly as I can. He says, be wise instead of foolish. That's different than saying be afraid.

Understand this. Christians, this is the mature Christian walking in the abundant life. Okay, some man, he's thinking about committing adultery. If you commit adultery, do you lose your salvation?

No, but you're going to lose a lot. Is God just simply mad at you? Is God just simply going to turn his back on you because you sin?

Absolutely not. Everything that makes the gospel good is that God loved us while we were still in our sin and he knows every sin you ever committed. God is perfect love and Jesus has died for you. So it's a low-level Christianity. You say, well, the reason I'm not going to commit adultery is because I'm afraid God will be mad at me.

That's low-level. What Paul says is, you see how he puts it? He said, be careful. Look carefully, verse 15, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. It is not an invitation to a fear-based life. That's not the fuel for holy and right living.

The fuel for holy and right living is the wisdom of God, the mercies of God. You see, if I came up to two tall buildings and had a small wire between the two of them, I wouldn't walk across it. And the reason I wouldn't walk across it, honestly, I'd be too afraid to walk across it. But even if I wasn't too afraid, there's something that trumps the fear and that is wisdom.

Wisdom says, that would be foolish for me who doesn't know how to walk on a wire to walk across a wire between two tall buildings. I think what God is saying is, I want you to operate out of wisdom. It is not a gospel that leads you into a fear-based life. That's a law-based life that gives sin tyranny. Instead, what he's saying is that Jesus has conquered over sin.

I hope this is seeing how it connects with you. Read the Bible correctly so that you understand when you come to a text like this and then see in the whole story how it is that a God of love has to also be righteous or else he's not loving. And that there's a difference therefore between living as a Christian out of fear.

Maybe God's a little bit mad at me. That's fear versus wisdom that instructs us as living as children of light. And so that finally then you come to his invitation at the end. And what he says here at the end of this text is one of the most important verses in all the Bible.

Because what he comes to at the end, he says, if not all that, then what? And what he says is, verse 18, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And what is interesting here is that this verse, this verb, be filled, it is a progressive, it is an ongoing idea. It means be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Everybody who's a Christian, you receive the Holy Spirit when you become a Christian. There's no such thing as being a Christian and you don't have the Spirit of Jesus.

There is no such thing as that. So every single Christian has the Holy Spirit. So then why does Paul say be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Because what he's saying is that this is God's plan. He came in the person of Jesus so that anyone who would trust in him could have absolute assurance that God's not mad at you at all, because all of God's wrath against sin has already happened at the cross. And therefore, when you accept Christ, you, even though you still stumble in sin, even with all your past failures, even with all your current imperfections, you are regarded by God as if you had lived the perfect life that Jesus lived. And so you deserve, according to God's line of thinking, you don't deserve it, you weren't worthy of it, but because he looks upon you as the righteousness of Christ, what this means, therefore, is that you are in God's estimation worthy of receiving the highest gift imaginable to humanity. And that is the Holy creating powerful God to come and live inside of you on a continual basis, to teach you, to lead you, to empower you, to heal you, to instruct you, to move you, to inspire you, to give you joy, to give you peace, to give you love, to do every good gift inside of you.

This comes by the very power and presence of the Holy Spirit. So what Paul is saying is you're not sons of disobedience. You're not children of the darkness. You're children of the light.

You've been reconciled unto God and everything that he's been saying in Ephesians chapter 1, 2, and 3 comes up to this point. He says, therefore, don't have anything to do with the works of darkness. There's no life in that. There's no fulfillment in it.

Here instead is your invitation. Be completely assured that you can draw near to God like a toddler would to a daddy that loves him and be filled continually with his presence. You can be again today and every day filled with the very presence of the most high God. That is your inheritance. And that is the gospel.

Alan Wright. And that's a praise God moment right there. It's from our teaching. You're a child of the light in the series of Ephesians. And I encourage you to stay with us. Alan is here in the studio and we're back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word.

How you see yourself determines how you live. In an 11 message series, Pastor Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling journey through the letter to the Ephesians that will flood your soul with good news and empower you to discover who you are in Christ. When you make your donation to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll not only send you the digital downloads of the entire transformational Ephesians series, but we'll also send you a printable copy of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? 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. You think it's helpful when we're in the middle of something.

We're going through a hard place in life. It is helpful sometimes to pull back and get the bird's eye view, get the bigger picture of good and evil, and there are evil forces, but yet we're children of the light, and then we can get back down into the immediate need and be able to rest in his promises a little bit easier. Yeah, I think that what we've been learning in Ephesians, Daniel, and I say to our listeners again as we kind of come to wrap up this message about being children of the light and not associating and doing the works of darkness, is that we cannot overemphasize this.

Paul has been explaining who we are in Christ so that we will see the demonstration of the grace of God to us and know that a great exchange has taken place. Therefore, when he gets around to this point of saying, listen, don't live a sinful life. Don't associate with the darkness. Don't live in the darkness because that violates who you actually are.

This is why we can be exhorted to right living and yet it never become legalism because it's rooted in the grace of God that has established a new identity in us and who we are. So pull back and see this from the cosmic perspective of Ephesians. You are in the light. You're a child of the light. Therefore, it makes no sense for you to be involved with the darkness. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.