The End of Pride and Prejudice [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Everybody has sinned and everybody's fallen short of the glory of God. We all have the same predicament. We're all in the same separation from God without Christ.

There's only one way, and that is that God does the work that we can't do and saves us by His grace. 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. They had increased their IQ scores by a dramatic 27 points. Only afterward did the researchers reveal the truth to the teachers. The alleged newfangled intelligence test was actually just the standard IQ test, and these so-called bloomers were not actually poised to bloom. They weren't any smarter.

They were all chosen at random. The only thing that had changed was that there was this one set of teachers that thought they had students who were likely to excel, and those students who had teachers who thought that the students were going to excel, those students' IQ points soared 27 points. Paul's research has been vigorously discussed and debated, but dozens of studies followed it that proved the same point. Expectancy determines so much of behavior in others. It's been proven, for example, for managers who have positive thoughts about employees' potential, the workers do better. Military structures studies have shown when they believe they have higher-level recruits, the soldiers perform better. Even couples who have been told that they're a good match interact more positively with one another and have better relationships. We are primed, is the psychological term, and it causes expectancy. A fascinating Dutch research study some years ago gave a group of random students 42 challenging questions from the well-known board game Trivial Pursuit.

So everybody's going to answer these same 42 questions. Only difference was, according to instructions, half of the participants spent five minutes before the quiz writing down what they thought it would be like to be a professor. So one group of students, they said, we want you, before you take the test, spend five minutes and write down everything you can think of about what it would be like to be a smart professor in the university.

The other group was told to spend five minutes writing down everything that they thought it would be like to be a rude sports fan. The results were fascinating. The people who had imagined being a professor got 55.6 percent of the questions correct, but the ones who had thought about being soccer hooligans, they got 42.6 percent. It's a huge difference, enough in life to mean the difference between passing and failing something. Only thing that had changed was what they were thinking about before they took the test.

Let me give you something even more dramatic. Malcolm Gladwell references this more extreme version in his book Blink, and he tells of a study of black college students who were answering 20 questions from the GRE, the standardized tests that undergraduates take as they are applying to graduate school. The students, these African American students, were asked to identify their race when they were asked ahead of time to identify their race on a pre-test questionnaire, just a pre-test questionnaire and one of the questions was you have to identify your race. When they did that, as opposed to not having to identify their race beforehand, just that alone indicating African American with negative stereotypes that are associated with academic achievement for African Americans, somehow primed them and they performed much worse. In fact, in some of the results, half as well. Shocking.

Let me go one step further. I'm talking about the power of expectancy. I'm talking about the dangers of prejudice. A Johns Hopkins study showed that among very low income black kids, if those kids could have just one black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade, just one African American teacher, the chance that that low income black kid would drop out of school dropped 39%.

Why is that the case? I think it's proven out by another study that showed that when a black and a white teacher looked at the same black student, the white teacher was about, on average, I'm not generalizing about white people or black people, but on average, according to the study, was about 40% less likely to predict that the student would finish high school. We are shaped by others' expectations and our own, and what prejudice does is it pre-judges what you will be, who you can be. Prejudice is a box that we put mentally and spiritually around people and around ourselves, and in short, God had to end Peter's prejudice against Gentiles because he needed a preacher who had faith that Gentiles could be saved in the same way that he was. There is nothing that God does except through faith. Hebrews 11, 6, without faith, it's impossible to please Him. Matthew 17, verse 19, the disciples came to Jesus and said, why could we not cast out this demon, and He said to them, in verse 20, because of your little faith. Truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you'll see this mountain move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you. What God is saying is that He moves through faith, and what faith is, it is an expectancy of a positive, gracious growth and blessing that can come about in your life or in someone else's life.

And when the expectancy is negative, when it is in the opposite, it tends to lead to that as well. In other words, what God did was He had Peter get a vision in which first he saw unclean animals, and the Lord said, rise and eat. I'm changing your prejudice against the unclean animals. And then He took them to Cornelia's house, marched them right into the detestable Gentiles home, assembled a nice Gentile congregation for him there, and they said, tell us what you got to say. He started talking about Jesus, and as he was talking about Jesus, the thing that was happening was Peter had faith that these Gentiles could be saved. It's the reason that God wants us to get rid of pride that says I'm better than others, and prejudice that says I've made a decision about the limits of your life.

God hates that, and it breaks my heart to think of anyone black, white, brown, any ethnicity of any age of any person who never had somebody who had expectancy over his or her life. And for us as Christians, we are the people of faith. Mountains can move into the heart of the sea, and the chances that there's somebody in your life right now, that God this very day through this word is wanting to increase your expectancy of what is possible for that person, and there's a very real chance that He wants to heal some something in your own thought life about your own life as well. That's how things change.

They change when someone gets a vision of what they expect to happen. 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 pastorallan.org. 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 and 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. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. 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. He discovered something about God that day that he shows no partiality and the word for this is just beautiful. I just feel like I could preach a sermon series on this word, prosoplemtes because it is a Greek word. To say God shows no partiality barely even scratches the surface of what is meant by this because it comes from two different words. This word prosopon, it means face and it comes from this verb lombano which means to take or receive. So literally this word of phrase you see in your English translation to show no partiality, it literally means God doesn't give or take face. God doesn't give or take face with respect to a person's nationality or ethnicity or race.

Now what is he talking about? Well the whole idea comes from something that's very well understood in Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures now and throughout antiquity but we don't use the phrase as much but it's the idea of saving face or losing face. When someone from more Eastern culture talks about saving face, what they mean is avoiding humiliation, a culture that is built on shame and honor is built around the idea of we want to do a good job so we don't lose face, we want to make amends so we can save face. Why is this idea of losing face or saving face?

Where does this image come from? Well let me first describe it this way, when you are disappointed, what happens to your face? It drops. So I'm talking to you and then there's something greatly disappointed, I'll know it if your face drops so I no longer am looking at your face so you've lost face is what that means. It's like in golf, when I hit a bad shot, that's honestly when I most need to keep my head up and follow that ball that's going into the woods because I got to go find it but it's real hard to watch your own bad shot. When you hit a bad one, even the pro golfers, they just immediately, like this, you lose face, your face goes down.

I can't believe I'm willing to even show it but last year we lost face, the Carolina Tar Heels did against Duke, we were up by 13 points with just a few minutes left, botched the whole thing and do you see with.3 seconds let Trey Jones hits a three pointer to send it into overtime and then we botched the overtime having had a lead then and Trey Jones makes another buzzer beater and Duke wins it and look at Coach Roy Williams afterwards. That's lost face right there. You know you can almost think of this like when you think of when people have been accused or convicted of a crime and they're entering or leaving the courthouse, do they ever walk out with their, if they walk out with their head up like this it's because they are pathological but the well-known criminals, they're not going to look up. Here's another well-known one, if their hands weren't handcuffed they'd hide their faces.

Isn't that funny what people do? It's like they're coming out a notorious criminal or somebody that's been in the news and they're coming out of the courthouse and all the cameras are just flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash and what are they doing? They're grabbing anything to try to hide their face and we're like, why are you trying, we been looking at your face all week long in the newspaper, you can't hide your face but the instinct is I don't want my face to be seen, a loose face. But it's also a reference to a regular occurrence in the presence of the king. The oriental king would expect that subjects would come in and bow and the face would be down. You don't just walk right in to the king and just, hey king, what's happening king and just look right at him.

That's not the way to do it. You go in and your face is down, it's like I don't have the, I'm not worthy to be able to just lift my face up at you but if the king says lift up your face or the king goes over and lifts up the face, look at me, it means you've found favor with the king. For if the king doesn't look at you, you've not received favor. If you go in the presence of the king and the king lifts up his face and smiles, you have found favor.

He lifts up his face. This goes far to explain the meaning of the high priestly blessing from Numbers that I say over you every week, speak to Aaron in the sun saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you and the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and then face occurs again. The Lord lift up his countenance, that's his face, upon you and give you peace.

So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them. The blessing that was given to Israel was the shining face of God and so when Peter said I now realize that the Lord shows no partiality, what he literally said was I now realize that the Lord doesn't limit the lifting of his face to just one group of people. In Christ, all peoples, nations, ethnicities, colors of skin, ages, gender, all people in Christ experience the same thing.

God the father, the king of cosmos lifts up his face and smiles upon you and he realized that. He was saying to the Gentiles, may the Lord make his face shine upon you. And Cornelius and all the Gentiles and everybody there because of this preacher's expectancy and humility, they received the gospel and they're going to be with us. And in Romans 7, they're going to be there and will be there and all this beautiful diversity, all this wonderful, beautiful diversity will be there in heaven. This is what John saw in his vision on the Isle of Potmos, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne. And before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. One of the things that I've learned from some African American pastor friends during these weeks of study together and growth is, you know, sometimes I have black friends where I just think because such close friends that I feel like I don't even see color of skin anymore.

Have you ever heard a friend like that? I feel like I don't see it. And so we'll sometimes say I don't see color. And most of my African American friends said that that doesn't that doesn't bless me to hear that because I do have a different pigment to my skin and there are different colors of skin and the diversity is something that we celebrate. The ethnicity is something to celebrate, different cultures are something to celebrate. God celebrates diversity, but what he did was he came in one man, Jesus, to make one new spiritual race of people so that we are diverse and yet we're one.

And one day we're going to circle around the throne of heaven in various languages and from our different cultures and our different way of expressing ourselves and our different way of singing and dancing and our different way of communicating. And we're all going to praise the son of God together. So in this world now for Christians, let there be no pride.

I'm not better than anybody else. We're all in the same predicament. We're all sin. We've all fallen short of the glory of God.

And no prejudice that thinks that other people are limited. God lifts up his face in Christ on everyone. And that's the gospel. Alan Wright, today's good news message, the end of Pride and Prejudice. It's from our series Unlimited and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing our parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. In six video sessions, Pastor Alan and his wife and 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. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. From 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 in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day on this at the end of Pride and Prejudice.

And by the way, this was recorded in the year 2020, and there was a lot that happened obviously as we think back to pandemic, but also a lot of racial unrest in our country. And Pastor Alan, I know that your heart here is to, as the scripture says that we heard today, there is no partiality from God, there's equality, important to remember as we close out. Well, I just think this part of the book of Acts, when Peter realized, I now realize God doesn't show partiality, is very, very instructive to us as Christians in our thirst to see the end of racial inequality and to ignite the love that we have for one another, regardless of the color of our skin. And you can have Holy Spirit sort of open your eyes to something you hadn't seen before. And I think that's the thing. It's like when Peter starts realizing this, it's more about a revelation than it is a program or something. So it was during a season in which there was fruitful dialogue going on amongst pastors in our own city. And I thank God for the image of Acts, because here we see a church that is being built on the unity of the Spirit and how much division it overcomes when you're one in the Spirit. This Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.