Why Wouldn't Everyone Want the Fruit of the Spirit? [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. But the ministry of the new covenant of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is to bring you into the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's a fundamental difference between the covenants. The new covenant is altogether more glorious, he's saying, and it is of the Spirit. What he's leading to here is why would anybody want to gravitate back to the old covenant with all his bondage?

Because look how glorious this new covenant is. 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 filled 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 today. 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. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's 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. If you see it as a law that you'll fail at and put you under more condemnation, it's not good news. But if you understand the announcement so into the Spirit, if you understand it as good news, then it becomes an exciting prospect to live your life in that way. So when I hear Paul say, God's not mocked, you reap what you sow, I no longer hear bad news in that like, oh, yeah, well, see, that just shows I'm doomed.

I made so many mistakes. So there you go. Let me just try to manage the appearance and manage the fruit. Instead, I hear it, wow, I can sow in the Spirit and reap more from the Spirit. There's more love. There's more joy. There's more peace. There's more patience to have than what I have now as I sow into the Spirit. In other words, you have unlimited, incorruptible seed that you can sow anytime you want to. And it will reproduce after its own kind.

That's good news. And God has always operated this way with his people. He is sovereign and he has all power and he has all of the plans are his. But in his sovereignty, he commands us to be obedient and to follow him and to participate with him. And in that command is the promise.

So change your way of thinking. Don't hear a command as an opportunity for you to fail and come under condemnation. See, the command of God is the promise of God that empowers you to succeed at what he's called you to do. So God calls Moses out of a burning bush.

He says, I want you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go for you will deliver my people out of their bondage. Well, God is going to be the one who delivers them. God's the one who brings the plagues. God's the one who gives the instructions about the lamb. God is the one who opens up the Red Sea. God is the one who does all of that. But Moses is the one who's given the instruction, the word of God, holding up the staff as the Red Sea parts, participating with that which is God, God's work. So if God says, go announce the Pharaoh that my people are going to be set free, go and lead the people out of that.

It must be God's got a plan by which he's going to enable you to do that. So the promise is in the command. He tells Joshua. Joshua comes up to the edge of the promised land.

He says, Joshua, I'm gonna give you every place you step your foot in to describe the exact boundaries of the promised land. He said, It's yours. It's free. It's yours. I've given it to you. It is yours.

It is your inheritance. Now go step your foot into the promised land and take it. They come to the Jericho walls and he says, I'm going to give the city into your hands and here's what you do.

You walk around it. It doesn't seem like that has any important part in it because God's the one bringing down the walls and all they do is march around it. But the only difference really between Joshua and the people who followed Joshua and their predecessors 40 years earlier who died in the wilderness was not a change in the promise. The difference was Joshua went into the land and took it. He spoke his way to Nehemiah. He said, put it on his heart, a great burden to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. If he put a great burden on the heart of Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then there must be a promise in there that I'm going to provide the means.

That gave boldness to Nehemiah to ask Artaxerxes for the release to go and rebuild and for the provisions that would rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He spoke to the prophets this way. Jeremiah, go down to the potter's house.

If he tells you to go down to the potter's house, it must be because he's got a word for you. Jesus even spoke this way to his disciples, didn't he? They didn't hardly know what they were doing, but he said, go heal the sick. I mean, if he commanded you that, then he's putting a promise in there. So the most mature spirit-filled people discover, don't build my prayer life about managing the fruit of my life, and don't build my prayer life primarily on just asking God for the fruit. Build my prayer life on asking God to give me a command. If you want a promise from God, get a command from God, get a word from God, and in the midst of that, miraculous power is released. Now, this does not in any way undermine any of God's sovereignty. Human responsibility is just that, an ability to respond, response-ability.

But it's a response. God is sovereign, and there's no undermining that by anything that we do. No matter what we do and how much we might work and how much we might accomplish, every good and perfect gift comes down from God. That's my favorite joke, and I know I've told it too many times, but it came out about six years ago, about the scientists that came to God and said, we don't need you anymore. We've already figured out how to do everything and appreciate everything you've done so far. But, you know, you can go deal with another universe or something, but we're good now. And God said, well, that's great.

I'm glad you've evolved that far. But He said, maybe we have a contest just to make sure that you are at the level you need to be. And the scientists said, okay, fine. We'll have a contest.

What do you want to be? God said, how about we have a man-making contest? And the scientists said, sure, we've learned, you know, human engineering, genetic cloning, all of this.

We can do that. And so God said, great, I'll go first. God reached down, scooped up some dirt, molded it into a man, blew life into his nostrils, and there was a living creature. The scientists said, that was good.

Scientists reached down, scooped up some dirt. God interrupted and said, go get your own dirt. Because no matter what we do, we don't actually create something out of nothing. And God does that. So you can never dethrone God from His sovereign place of grace over all the cosmos. There's no amount of human work that can dethrone the sovereignty of God.

But the other side of it is that what we do matters. Before I came to Reynolda 14 years ago, and I talked to my predecessor, Pastor Dick Little, I don't think he'd mind me telling this, and if he does, it's too late now. But I was just talking to him about Reynolda, you know, and I was, of course, we were in that process, and he was telling me what a wonderful church it was. And he said, where have you been? I told him about serving a church in Durham and how things had gone there and how the Lord had really graced us with the church, had grown and the good things that had happened there. And he said, well, it sounds like you did a good job there. And I said, oh, you know, like we always are really humble, you know, and I was like, oh, well, you know, it's the Lord, you know, it's the Lord that did it. And he said, yeah, he said, I think maybe you had a part in that.

And then he told me this story. He said, you know, that was a man that was a kind of skeptic and a little bit irreverent, didn't go to church. And he took on a project to redo a log cabin out in the country. And he completely reworked it over a period of a year or two. And the preacher would come by every so often and try to invite him to church.

The man wouldn't come. But once the man had finished up his big project and done all this incredible work of this overgrown place, and it looked beautiful and preacher came by and he said, wow, he said, you and the Lord have really done a great job here. And the irreverent soul said, yeah, you should have seen it when the Lord had it to himself. Now as irreverent as that is, the point being that it really matters what we do, doesn't it? That doesn't mean that therefore everything depends on us, like God is needy.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Almost everything about New Testament Christianity is impossible by human power alone. Thankfully, God has never expected you to live the Christian life by your own strength. He has sent a helper and every single Christian is invited to live a supernaturally empowered life through the continual infilling of the Holy Spirit in a special bundle alongside the audio teaching. Pastor Alan has also written a booklet. Both the audio and the booklet not only explain the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but will nourish, inspire and draw you nearer to the God who longs to immerse you in his love and power.

Discover how to be filled with the Spirit and get ready for your life to be filled with fresh love, joy and power. 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 in our final days of offering this special product. 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. Some people think that God created people because he was needy and lonely. Poor God, sitting up there in heaven with nothing but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Bless his heart, just lonely as could be.

So he created us to be, replace the empty place. Oh, come on. You know, that's like my kids, you know, who we love, who we would lay our life down for. But we do occasionally remind them, we were married for 10 years before y'all were even born. And we were happy. We were happy before you were born. We're happy now.

And when you go off to college, we'll be happy then too. We didn't have you because we were needy. We had you because we were fulfilled.

And there's a blessing that wanted to spill over. God didn't create the world because it was needy. He created the world because he's an artist and he's painted a masterpiece. He created the world because he's a poet and there was something that needed to be uttered. He created the world because he's a scientist and something needed to be designed.

He created the world because he is love and love wants to be expressed. So I'm not going to take it when Paul says, so into the Spirit, because what I do really matters. I'm not going to take that and therefore say, oh, well, therefore it's all up to me. And people are like, well, don't tell them that because if you tell them God's in charge, then people will just say, well, I don't need to do anything. You know, I kind of grew up with the idea that the way I was prompted to do evangelism was from the old story of there's an angel that's talking to God before Jesus comes and says, well, what's the plan? And, and he says, I'm going to send Jesus and he's going to spend his time with just these 12 men. And, and he's going to tell them, and then they're going to tell everybody else. And that's, that's, that's, that's the way. And the angel says, well, what, what if those men fail? What, what, what is your plan then?

And God says, I have no other plan. And you know, it's a part of it. It's good.

It's motivating in the sense that what we do really, really matters. But you know, see, I would tend to hear that like, oh man, great. Okay. It's just totally on me. And I'm failing at it bad.

And I hadn't won anybody to Jesus, you know, in a long time. So that's just it. I mean, that can't be the way it is. That's what we're going to say that God of the universe, he, he, he always has another plan.

He always has a way of moving. People say, but if you say that, that God's sovereign, God is gracious and God's going to work his purposes out, then people will think, well, it doesn't matter what they do. That's not the way it works though. It is not a message that says it doesn't matter what you do to say that God is so big that even if you fail, he's still going to get it done. It is instead to say why we sow into the spirit, why we pour our lives into the gospel, why we do everything God calls us to do.

It is because in the first place, he's made us for the joy of being his partner. And that's incredible. It's incredible. It just that in and of itself is I played as a sophomore in high school. I played on a state championship soccer team at Page High School.

And, but when you say played, you need to, that needs to be clarified. I was on the team. There wasn't much playing that sophomore year at all, really. In fact, I only played that sophomore year when the game had already basically been decided. And sometimes the, it gets long on the bench over there.

And if, if you've got a good soccer team and you're up by six goals, by that time, I mean, you're trying to be supportive and cheer the team on way to go guys, you know, but you're kind of just, at some point you're talking to other guys on the bench. And I remember the first time that coach Osborne called me to go in the game, we're up by about five or six, about three and a half minutes left. And so I'm going in, I was the human victory cigar on that deal. And he called on me, right. I looked up at him like I'd done something wrong. I was like, why are you calling my name?

He said, Alan, come on. And I realized he's calling me, put me in the game. So I can remember the first time I go in the 10th grade, I go get in the game. And this game is now, by this time, it's got about three minutes left and we're up by about six. We can't lose. My presence does not matter one bit in that game. But I guarantee you, there wasn't a boy on that team who ran faster, tried harder, or threw himself into that game more than I did for that three minutes. And it didn't even matter that I was in the game. And yet I still threw myself into it. Why?

I don't know. I was in the game. Just being in the games more than enough to, sometimes after a really long day when I've been involved in something and I've seen God move and I've seen the Spirit be at work and I've just been there and you think about other things you could have done with your time and so forth like that. And people say, well, why do you want to do that? Why would you be in all that ministry?

And why would you want to spend that? And some days I just feel like, because I'm in the game. I mean, I get to see what God's doing up close, even if I didn't matter.

I just want to be in the I just want to be in the game. But there's something else inside of us, isn't there, that is designed to want to be in the game, to want to contribute. That is built into us.

And you see it in little kids. My nephew, Jake, when he was a little boy, there was nothing that boy wanted to do more than help you mow the lawn. And we were babysitting.

I can't remember how old he was, a little guy, maybe three or four. And I had to go out in the middle of a hot July afternoon and mow the lawn. I'd waited too long. The grass is too high. It's humid, yellow jackets nipping around at my heels. The last thing I want to do is mow the lawn.

I want to sit inside and watch golf on TV. But I got to go out and mow the lawn. And I go out, and I crank thing up, and I start mowing, and then I look, and there outside the front door, standing on the sidewalk, is little Jake. And so I cut the mower off, and I went over and I said, Jake, what are you doing? He said, can I help you mow the lawn?

And I was like, this wouldn't be good if we're babysitting, and he doesn't have every finger and toe left when we get back. And I said, no, Jake. I said, no, Jake. I said, this is dangerous. Uncle Allen needs to mow the lawn. And he said, can I please?

And I said, well. And so he came over with the engine still off, and I let him just kind of hold it for a little bit, and we just pushed it a little bit. But he's like, we're not mowing anything. And he said, please let me help you mow the lawn. I said, no, Jake. I said, but you stand up over there on the steps, and you can watch me mow the lawn.

So I cranked it up. I took a couple passes, and I glanced up there, and there is a little boy sobbing as loud as a little boy could sob. I cut the engine off. I went over, and I said, what is it, Jake? He said, I just want to help you mow the lawn, Uncle Allen. I just want to help you mow the lawn. And I thought, what is wrong with this picture? And oh, I thought, oh, how I wish I could let you mow the lawn right now.

But one time Bennett was, he wanted to help me. I was putting a couple of boards on the back deck at one of our houses many years ago, and that's a big project for me. You know, some of you guys, that'd be like comparable to like you building a whole garage is me, you know, getting a couple boards replaced. So I had to concentrate on this. I got the circular saw out there.

I just want to not chop off my own hand. And here's Bennett, little bitty Bennett, and he wants to help repair the deck. And I finally, to appease him, I just took an old board, drilled some holes in it, took his plastic nails and plastic hammer, put him over to the other side of the thing and let him, and I'd have to stop every so often, go over there and give him some more holes to nail in and stuff like that. And he was just, I mean, you know, having him as a helper was really slowing me down.

Took me about five times as long with all that help. And while I was doing all of that, I felt the Spirit of God speak to me. And that was the first day I saw myself as God's little helper. I don't ever want to say, God, why have you given me so much to do?

I just want to say thank you for letting me help. How empty life would be if we didn't get to live out in great destiny. We would run after some stupid thing of the flesh if we didn't have something of the Spirit to sow our lives into. So God is sovereign. He pours out His Holy Spirit into every believer's life. And our growing up in Jesus results, the result of growing up in Jesus has come from all the sowing of our lives in the Spirit. That's why God lets you go through things that you need to do. He could do it for you, but He's not going to do it for you because He's growing you into a Victoria Spirit filled Christian. So I think of Bennett playing golf, who before he was born, you know, I started just kind of walking by his crib saying, you know, I mean, just in the room waiting for him to say, you know, Bennett, you're going to love golf.

Allen Wright. And I like that. It's sowing and reaping. Why wouldn't everyone want the fruit of the Spirit?

After all, today's teaching in the series is filled. Hey, Allen's back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life. And a final word today. Thankfully, God has never expected you to live the Christian life by your own strength. He has sent a helper and every single Christian is invited to live a life that is naturally empowered through the continual infilling of the Holy Spirit. In a special bundle alongside the audio teaching, Pastor Alan has also written a booklet. Both the audio and the booklet not only explain the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but will nourish, inspire, and draw you nearer to the God who longs to immerse you in His love and power.

Discover how to be filled with the Spirit and get ready for your life to be filled with fresh love, joy, and power. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Allen, for the person who's listening and just heard a few moments ago, you kind of touched on this. Today's message is a message of let go and let God, right? You know, when you sow, you reap what you sow. And thus, when Paul says sow into the Spirit and you'll reap from the Spirit, it's a glorious good news invitation that says that you're not under the law, but everything you do matters.

And this really is the impetus for choosing where you set your mind. Every thought is like a seed, every word that you give, every minute that we spend, in some way, we're sowing all the time. And we can sow the sinful nature, we can sow the Spirit, and either way, we're going to reap. And there's abundant sweet fruit of those who sow into the Spirit. In your ministry, how have you seen people misunderstand the fruit of the Spirit? Well, I don't think so much misunderstanding the fruit in the sense of, well, oh, some way to say, oh, I don't want love, joy, and peace in my life.

Nobody really says that. I think what I see is much of the subject of this message is, well, Paul says, don't be deceived. You reap as you sow. If you sow into the flesh, you sow into the sin nature. From that, you'll reap. And if you sow into the Spirit, you reap.

I think what the bigger issue for us is that we all want love, joy, and peace. But it's interesting that sometimes we'll sow to the things of the flesh instead. You sow orange seeds, you're going to get oranges.

You'll never get apples from orange seeds. And that's kind of what Paul is saying. But it's a really good news message in this sense, Daniel, that if you sow into the Spirit, you reap from the Spirit. So we don't live under law, but we do live by the principles of sowing and reaping, and it gives us opportunity to build our lives around the habits of sowing into the things of the gospel. Sowing your heart, and your thought line in the things of the Spirit, and you'll reap from that more and more fruit.