When Jesus Stands Up for You [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. It's not the case that people actually believe that, even though we're in a generation that has a new phrase that speaks of your truth and my truth, as if they're different variations of the truth.

In reality, we know that there is a right and a wrong. 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 Unlimited, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can 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 author. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

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

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Though we sing, stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Though we sing, stand up for Jesus, the gospel isn't about your power to stand up for Jesus. It's about Jesus' power to stand up for you.

And even more so, it's about the power that is released in your life when you see Jesus standing for you. In a series on Acts, we call it Unlimited, and we are today in one of the most moving and inspirational stories in the entire book of Acts, the story of the first martyr, Stephen, and of the incredible miracle that takes place when he forgives those who execute him. We're going to look at the whole story, but let's start just here in Acts chapter 7 at verse 54.

Acts chapter 7 verse 54. Now, when they heard these things, speaking of the religious leaders, they ground their teeth at him, speaking of their anger toward Stephen. But he, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, look, he said, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they, the religious leaders, cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. And then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, who we know of Saul of Tarsus, later known as the Apostle Paul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, reminding us of the loud voice with which Jesus cried out from the cross. And he cried out with a loud voice and said, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

And he'd said this, he fell asleep. Corrie ten Boom and her family were Christians who harbored Jews during Nazi Germany. And she was, along with her beloved sister Betsy, imprisoned at Raisinbrook concentration camp for what were considered her crimes against the state. They endured unspeakable indignities and hardships at Ravensbrück, and Betsy died just days before Corrie's release. And Corrie ten Boom established a post-war home for other concentration camp survivors, and she traveled the world sharing her story, and she spoke of Jesus, and she spoke of the forgiveness that's possible in Jesus' name. But one night, in a small German church, the unexpected happened. She describes it in an article that was printed in guideposts.

I'd like to read her words. It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I'd just spoken. It was 1947, and I'd come from Holland to defeat it to Germany with the message that God forgives, and that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush, the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin.

Betsy, oh, how thin you are. Betsy and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during Nazi occupation of Holland. This man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent. You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk, he was saying.

I was a guard in there. No, he did not remember me, she writes. I had to do it, I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us. But since that time he went on, I've become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things that I did there, but I'd like to hear it from your lips as well.

Fraulein. And his hand came out. Will you forgive me? And as I stood there, I who sins had every day to be forgiven and could not. Betsy had died in that place.

Could he erase her slow, terrible death simply for the asking? Could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out. But to me, it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I'd ever had to do. For I had to do it, I knew it.

Jesus, help me, I prayed silently. I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling. And so, woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me, and as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands, and then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother, I cried, with all my heart. And for a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. And listen to this, I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

Corrie ten Boom. The killing of George Floyd, the aftermath of some peaceable protests, some not as peaceable, so much anger. And this text of Stephen's stoning, therefore, feels particularly poignant and relevant to us. Scholars agree that the description of the stoning of Stephen was not the aftermath of a Roman tribunal or an official Jewish court. No, there was no trial here. This instead was an emotional, spontaneous mob lynching.

And I certainly don't aim today to address all the complexities of our nation's problems of racial inequality, prejudice, and unrest, and I do not derive from today's text a particular approach or strategy for the societal change that we so deeply need. But this story, the story of the first Christian martyr, has unspeakable power for our lives. What would it mean for you to forgive those who have hurt you?

I think it would mean something of what Corrie ten Boom experienced. Look at her words again. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then. She'd never known the love of God with such power and fervor as in the moment in which she forgave the person who represented the greatest hurt of her life, the unspeakable atrocity of the concentration camp at Ravensbrück under Nazi Germany, symbolized in this soldier, this guard. And she said, when I forgave, she said, I experienced the power of God's love. I want to talk to you about the power of forgiveness.

And this remarkable story of Stephen is going to point us the way. It's a big problem, of course, to try to forgive someone. And yet it is such a huge issue in the scriptures and is so, so important to the heart of Jesus himself. This is a familiar text, though it be troubling in Matthew chapter six at verse 14. If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

If you are a lover of grace and a child of the gospel, a child of the father of grace, then this is a troubling text in many ways if you don't think deeply about it. It's almost as if some would say that there's a condition upon your salvation, as if to say you must work up the ability to do something that runs completely contrary to human nature, to forgive. That you somehow have to enable yourself to be able to forgive or else you won't be forgiven as if there's a condition upon our salvation.

Let me just start with this. This is most certainly not what Jesus means. To put such a condition upon your salvation would be to undermine the entirety of the New Testament message, it would compromise the efficacy of the finished work of Christ, and it would pollute the purity of the gospel. Everything that makes the good news good hinges upon the assurance that God forgives us and makes us righteous in his eyes fully justified and wholly unto him through an act of undeserving grace.

That's what's so wonderful about the gospel. To say if you do not forgive others, your father will not forgive you cannot mean that you are saved by Jesus' blood and sacrifice plus your own ability to forgive wrongdoers. And the reason it can't mean that is because Christ came and died for the ungodly while we were still in our sin. He came to redeem us when we were dead in our sin so that he could make us alive. We couldn't do one single good thing of our own power and Jesus came for us. Well, perhaps Jesus means, this could be what he means, that if you preach, if you persist rather in harboring ill will, resentment, judgment, no mercy, unforgiveness in your heart towards wrongdoers, then it just proves that you haven't really received the mercy of God. If you can't have love for others, if you can't show mercy to others, maybe what he's saying is it just shows you have a root problem, that you're not connected to God. But I think there's something that's even deeper and more wonderful here. I think what Jesus is saying here, and the reason this is so important, it makes it into the Sermon on the Mount and is one of the few places that Jesus makes such a conditional statement as this, is that he is announcing to us that there is a flow of power, just like what Corey Tim Boom experienced, in the believer's life that is inextricably linked to our capacity to forgive others.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Would you love a better marriage? You don't need more good advice.

You need more good news. Marriages, like people, aren't changed by human effort or even by applying principles. Marriages are changed by the gospel of grace. In six video sessions, Pastor Alan and his wife, Anne, lead you and your spouse into a fresh encounter with the God of grace. You'll learn a simple, grace-filled process that makes great communication easy. You'll discover the freedom of forgiveness and the power of celebration. You'll also learn how to pray for your spouse and how to bless one another with a faith-filled vision for the future.

To help you grow, when you order the video series, we'll also send you two copies of the accompanying study guide. Whether your marriage is going through some special challenges or your marriage is in a season of health, you'll find powerful, transformational truth in good news for your marriage. Make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and fill your marriage with the grace of God. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. Many years ago, there was a dear older saint in our church, a spiritual leader that I loved very much and who loved me. But he became hurt by a change that we made in the church during the early years.

And of my leadership here, this is many, many years ago, this is decades ago. And it led us towards, along with our elders, some changes that not everyone agreed with and not all of them were popular. We thought it was the Lord's will to make a few of these changes.

But there's always a risk that someone would feel that their desires are not being honored. And so this dear old saint was grieved by the change and he became, he became upset about it. Now, he never did anything ugly towards me or towards anybody else. He just wasn't that kind of person. He was a dear, dear, dear brother. But what was grievous was that he lost his heart of joy. He lost his joy of worship. He didn't have joy being here, yet it was his spiritual home. And he would still speak cordially to me, but it broke the fellowship that we had.

And he never did anything mean-spirited or anything to really try to hurt the church. It wasn't like that. But it grieved me to see him having lost that gleam in his eye. I didn't know what to do except just to continue to bless and affirm him, apologize for any ways that I hadn't led well.

But there was just a sort of lifelessness to him. And one day, by God's providence, we were alone in the worship center at the Village Campus. And we were walking, it just so happened, together alone, headed towards a luncheon in another part of the building. And that day in the sermon, I had told a story about a young person, someone in their 20s, who had accepted Christ that week because of this new ministry that we'd started. And it had to do with some of the changes that this old saint had not been for. But as we began to walk, he stopped and he looked at me and he said, is it true that young adults are coming to Christ because of this new ministry? And I said, yes. I said, I don't want to say that they're just coming in droves. I said, but we've had some accept Christ and there are many conversations that are taking place with people that have become interested in Jesus.

People that hadn't talked about Jesus or thought about him in a long time. And he looked at me, he said, you know, I've been upset with you. I said, I know. He said, it's been a huge burden. And I said, I know it hurts my heart to know that you've been hurting.

And he looked at me, he said, but young people are coming to Jesus. I said, yes. He said, I'd never want to stand in the way of that.

I said, I know you wouldn't. And just all of a sudden, I hope you've experienced moments like this. I hope you've seen moments like this, but it was just all of a sudden. I've seen it.

I've seen it a thousand times. It's just something happened. A spiritual moment like what Cor.

Tim Boom experienced. It just, his entire countenance changed. His eyes changed.

His face changed. And just all of a sudden he just said, I'm sorry, I've been so upset. And I just looked at him, I said, well, could you forgive me? And he said, yes. And he asked for my forgiveness.

And I said, yes. And all of a sudden tears of joy just surfaced in his eyes. And then this big grin. And we started walking on to go to lunch. And he just looked at me and he said, I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders. He said, I just, I took a couple more steps with him.

He said, I just feel so happy. And from that time forward until his death, joy returned in his worship, his relationships, and in his life. Power in forgiving. Power in letting go of resentment. The power of the grace of God is at work when we are forgiving others. It's like we have become a pathway. We have become a conduit of the grace of God flowing through us towards others.

And when you'd experience that, it is, well, Corrie Ten Boom says the greatest experience of love you could have. If you want to experience more of the mercies of God, if you want to have the appropriation of the fullness of God's redeeming power, I think this is what Jesus is saying. If you will forgive others, what you're going to experience is the greater depths of the forgiveness of God. When you harbor ill will and you hold deep seated grudges, you do not nullify the grace of God to you, but you set up barriers around your heart that hinder your ability to walk in the grace of God. But when you forgive, healing happens. Leanne Payne, who was a profound spiritual counselor, some important writings that have helped shape some of my thinking about counseling, she said simply, forgiveness is the healing of memories.

Wow. Healing and grace and mercy and joy and love, these things come flooding into our lives when we forgive. There's a difficulty in forgiving.

Why is it so hard to forgive? Why is it so, why are we so quick to harbor resentment? Well, I think in the first place, because we instinctively know that there's a thing called justice and wrong should be punished and right should be rewarded.

That's what justice is. And we live in a generation in which there are many people that say, well, there is no really right or wrong, but beloved, as I say often, it's not the case that people actually believe that, even though we're in a generation that has a new phrase that speaks of your truth and my truth as if they're different variations of the truth. But in reality, we know that there is a right and a wrong. I mean, the outrage, the righteous outrage that has happened in our country over the unrighteous killing of George Floyd and all of the anger about that which is rooted in a sort of right indignant feeling against injustice.

Well, what is that coming from? Well, it's coming from a sense of justice. We don't say, well, you've got your truth and I have my truth when it comes to something like racial inequality. No, the truth is that racial inequality is wrong.

Racism is wrong and every form of it is wrong. It's just untrue to say that one race is superior to another. This is not true. But it is true to say that we are all one in God's eyes. We're all equally infinitely valuable.

That is true statement. So there's truth and there's falsehood and there really is right and wrong. And because of this, when you suffer a wrong, there's something inside of you that just wants to appeal to justice. Of course there's right and wrong and something inside of us wants to make sure that there is justice. And so when we suffer a wrong, the longing for justice arises in our hearts.

We know it's not supposed to be that way. Alan Wright, today's teaching, When Jesus Stands Up For You, it's in the series Unlimited. And we've got Pastor Alan joining us back here in the studio in just a moment with our parting good news thought for the day. Stick with us. Would you love a better marriage? You don't need more good advice.

You need more good news. Marriages like people aren't changed by human effort or even by applying principles. Marriages are changed by the gospel of grace. In six video sessions, Pastor Alan and his wife Anne lead you and your spouse into a fresh encounter with the God of grace. You'll learn a simple grace-filled process that makes great communication easy. You'll discover the freedom of forgiveness and the power of celebration. You'll also learn how to pray for your spouse and how to bless one another with a faith-filled vision for the future.

To help you grow, when you order the video series, we'll also send you two copies of the accompanying study guide. Whether your marriage is going through some special challenges or your marriage is in a season of health, you'll find powerful, transformational truth in good news for your marriage. Make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and fill your marriage with the grace of God. 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 here now with Pastor Alan in the studio. Our parting good news thought for the day, and it's hard to know what someone may specifically be going through right now, but there's negativity in someone's world, Alan, and they're hearing a message like this. As we place the bookmark in the teaching, what's the good news takeaway here?

Every single one of us has this in common. There's somebody we need to forgive. And, you know, as we will continue to learn, there are a lot of obstacles to our forgiveness, a lot of things that seem to make it difficult to forgive, not least of which is it feels like justice doesn't happen if we forgive someone. But forgiveness is not the excusing of a wrong.

It's not saying it wasn't wrong. Instead, forgiveness is really more about the release of bitterness and judgment out of your own heart. And forgiveness is essential.

This is what I want to say to the listeners. Forgiveness is essential for the restoration of our own hearts. Counselor and author Leanne Payne said forgiveness is the healing of memories. It's so closely aligned to letting go of the wound that when you forgive, something supernatural happens. So we're learning about forgiveness, and ultimately we see with Stephen the pathway to forgiveness is to see Jesus and to see what Jesus has done for you. When Jesus stands up for you, you have strength to forgive. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.