Waking Up: How to Escape Spiritual Malaise [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

The truest sign that you've experienced God is you will be hungry for the Word 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 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 offer. 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?

Yeah! Oh, that was good. Here's your wake-up call. A wake-up call. By God's grace, you can wake up to the glory of God's Word, and wake up to the joy of telling others the good news, and wake up to the freedom that we can have, freedom from the fear of rejection.

Oh, we just are so in need of being fully awake. And we are in a series on Acts, and we come today to a story to watch the Gentiles come awake to the gospel. And I want to show you some truths from that, and pray that the Holy Spirit just refresh us in a very powerful way. We're in Acts in a series called Unlimited, and we're coming today to Acts chapter 13 and verse 42. This follows Paul and Barnabas at Antioch and Pisidia, where they have preached the gospel, and though they are rejected by some of the Jews that are there, the Gentiles have received it. And they've just been preaching, and all of chapter 13, almost all of it, is all about just a telling of the gospel, telling what God did through ancient times, and how Jesus was a fulfillment of the promises of God and about His resurrection. And we come to verse 42, and look at this. As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. Now that's just a preacher's favorite verse of all time.

They just begged, keep on talking. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas. So it wasn't just Gentiles being converted. And who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.

Now here's another great verse. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we're turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord commanded us, saying, I've made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

You see, that is the, the whole role of Israel summed up. It was never that they were more special as a chosen people is that they were chosen to be a light so that salvation would be brought to the ends of the earth. In verse 48, when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district. But they shook the dust, shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium.

And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Everybody would go during pandemic, people talk about being tired. And I don't know if you're a morning person or not, but it is sometimes hard to wake up. And I hear a couple of tweets. I thought pretty cute about how hard this get up. Sometimes this one, I may not be good at sleeping, but I compensate by being really bad at waking up. And then this one, see, see if you get this one, see if you get this one. Somebody tweeted, I've never gone skydiving, but I do regularly snooze a little longer after I've turned off my last snooze alarm.

So I get it. You know that feeling like, do I dare close my eyes? I'm out here now. I've got, I've got, I got no alarm going and I dare not close my eyes. A couple of weeks ago, we were preaching from Acts chapter 12 and saw a scene where Peter is imprisoned and likely to be executed the next day.

Maybe you heard the message. And James had been executed. Peter's likely to be executed. And the night before his likely execution, he's sleeping like a baby in the prison cell, chained to a guard on his right and his left.

And first place, what a beautiful picture. Wouldn't y'all be able to just sleep like a baby no matter what's coming in the next day. And an angel appears and this glorious light, this kind of glory of God comes into the prison cell. The shackles fall off and the angels are getting ready to lead Peter to freedom.

But it's almost comical. What happens next? It says the angel struck Peter on the side and said to wake up. It's like a parent waking up a toddler.

Like, you know, we got to get up and go. Well, when I read that text as I was preparing that message, I just felt very strongly the Lord just speak to my heart, wake up. It made me think about what I felt the first time that we regathered for worship.

Because as soon as we sang, it was just a few of us in the room. And as soon as we sang the first song together, just a few of the body of Christ, something, I don't know how to describe this, but something in me woke up. I don't know if anybody else has felt that, but it's like, it just woke up. And I realized that as was the case with Peter, in order to walk out of the prison cell, the first thing that needs to happen is you wake up. Wake up, the angel says, because we're getting ready to walk out of here.

The first step to freedom is waking up to the freedom that is at hand. And it has been what I think is, I don't know what to call it, but a spiritual malaise is the wordic phrase that comes to mind that I sense on the body of Christ after six months of not worshiping together. And I think God's here to wake up our spirits.

That's why I want to focus in on these two verses as I highlight, I was reading verse 42, as they went out and the people begged that these things might be pulled them the next Sabbath. The hunger and thirst for the word of God is one of the truest marks of spiritual vitality. And whatever experience you have in the Holy Spirit, call it what you want, an infilling of the spirit, an immersion in the things of the spirit, a baptism of the Holy Spirit, an awakening in the spirit, whatever you want to call it. When you experience a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit, the truest sign that you've experienced God is you will be hungry for the word of God. Every time, every time. And verse 44 characterizes what the fully awake spirit, what happens.

The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. You know, one of the strangest things just in the natural, it's kind of like one of those, well, duh. But one of the strangest things about sleep is that when you're asleep, you don't know you're asleep. You don't know you've been sleeping until you wake up. If you doze off during the movie, which does happen to me from time to time.

And my wife says, Alan, you're missing the best thing. You don't know that you were sleeping until somebody wakes you up and you go, oh, was I sleeping? Do you see you could be spiritually slumbering and not know it until you wake up? Wake up. Deliverance is at hand.

Wake up. The angel of the Lord has arrived in the prison cell. The gate's getting ready to swing open.

The shackles are getting ready to fall off. Be alive to it. Whoever's fully awake is going to see wonderful things and be used in wonderful ways.

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 is the final day we're 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. Really it's a tale as old as time, the idea of the one who sleeps that needs to be awakened. I guess it's the power of the timeless tale of sleeping beauty that the idea is that the evil one cannot kill the princess but could work a spell that would render her asleep until true love awakened her.

Sleeping until the prince with a transcendent love kisses her and the love, true love, would wake her up. I want to just remind you this morning that the devil cannot snatch you from God. Nothing could pluck you from his hand. Nothing could ever, ever separate you from the love of God and Jesus Christ. No demon or principality and not death itself.

You're his and you belong to him forever. The devil cannot kill you. So the wiles of the evil one and the workings of this spiritual battle are designed instead to seek to render your heart and mind into more of a slumber.

Unaware and unawake to the glories of God that are all around. That's the spiritual battle. And what wakes us up is not the law.

What wakes us up is a kiss of the prince of peace. We used to do this all the time at camp for a while. My wife and I, a couple of seasons, we were counselors of third graders at Camp Greer.

Camp Greer, how I love you, how I love you down in the valley. And all the third graders would arrive and cry the first night homesick. And by the end of the week, they all love Jesus. And we'd have the campfire and we'd do this with students, you know, of all ages. You know this. We'd get around the campfire that last night.

Everybody's on that mountaintop experience and full of love and love for Jesus. And we have those fire burn and then we take the tongs and take one of the embers and move it away from the fire. And we sit there and watch it smolder and grow gray and grow cold. And we'd say, this is what happens to an ember when it gets far away from the fire.

It loses its glow. So stay close to the body of Christ. Stay close to other believers. Stay close to your heart's fire for God. Because if you get isolated, it'll grow cold. And you know what?

That illustration was spot on. I'm going to say it plainly. The Lord just spoke to my heart almost audibly a couple of weeks ago, and I heard him say the devil has been feasting on the fear and isolation.

Because you know what hell is? Fear and isolation. We have to, and I appreciate your patience and prayer because we absolutely have to be leaders as Christians in wisdom, which I think means be quite aware of science and care about health and care about safety. And I mean, be leaders in that, right? And be responsible. But at the same time, I'm quite aware that emotional health is on the line. Emotional health is on the line. Physical health is at risk.

Emotional health is at risk. Somewhere we have to figure that out. And I think the beginning point of all of this is we just need to wake up. The Lord loves you. The Lord is good. And God's word is true.

The Holy Spirit is moving. Wake up. It's time to get out of this prison cell. Waking up is not always easy to do. I remember with a smile, I actually thought it was kind of fun waking up the kids, especially little Abby. Gosh, she was such a cute girl.

My heart was just, I just was a sucker for her ways. That little curly hair, blonde hair girl in the morning, all tucked in that bed, looking so cute. And I have to go in there and get up. Abby, Abby, it's time to get up.

She'd ignore me. Abby, you know, you remember that? Like pretend like your parents aren't waking you up.

Maybe they'll go away. Abby, we need to get up. Well, she got this thing where she would see you just take her hand and put it out. And she said, could just have five more minutes of this pitiful voice. Like she's going to die if I don't give her five more minutes. So somewhere along the line, I said, okay, I'll give you five more minutes. Well, that five minutes became an entitlement.

And so it was such an entitlement to her that I would come in. I'd say, Abby, it's time to wake up. She wouldn't move her head. She wouldn't move her lips.

She just take her little hand, put it out there and hold it up. Five fingers. And I'd say, okay, five more minutes. And so I always knew it was going to be that.

And one day I thought it was the cutest thing ever. I went in and I said, Abby, time to get up. Out comes the hand with the five. And then she did pull her head out of the bed and she said, five good ones. We sometimes say that to each other. I'm like, get up. I said, no, give me five.

Give me five good ones and I'll be all right. But I'll tell you there's some times that it's not hard to wake up a child. We didn't have to wake our kids up on Christmas day. They wake us up, which proves that it is not the will of a parent or the demand of an authority that wakes us up. But it's good news that wakes us up. The promise of something wonderful will wake up anybody. I'll tell you that some years ago, somebody gave me some tickets to the masters in Augusta.

One of the hardest tickets you'll ever have. You didn't have to wake me up on that day. Nobody's saying, could I have five more minutes? The best way to wake up isn't to be dragged out of bed by an authority, but to become aware that there's something thrilling that is ahead. The reason that we are sleepy spiritually is because we have been isolated and there's so much angst. And because there is a creeping sense, especially in our young adult population, that there's nothing good ahead. A poll came out this week that has surveyed over 2,000 young adults age 18 to 34, 56% said they have felt isolated. 25%, one fourth of all young adults say their mental health is either poor or fair. 55% said, this is the majority of young adults said difficulties were piling up so high they could not overcome them.

You don't want to get out of bed physically and you don't become aware of how much your spirit's falling asleep when that's the way the life in front of you looks. But that's not what happened when the gospel came to these Gentiles in Antioch of Pisidia and throughout the provinces of Asia Minor where they began hearing the gospel. Verse 42 should be translated differently, I think, than the way it is in the ESV.

ESV says when they heard these things, I mean, they begged that these things might be preached, but the New King James Version gives it more literally and better. It literally is so when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath because the word for thing for things here is the Greek word Rhema and Rhema means word. You know, what's so interesting is that in both Hebrew and Greek, there's not really a word for thing in the way that we use the word thing. Like in Hebrew, if they're gonna say thing, you say use the word Dabbar, which means word. And they're really the same thing in Greek.

There's another Greek word Pragma that's sometimes used for things. But in this, most all the translations say they beg them, come and tell us these things. But it's not actually things, it's come and tell us these Rhema words.

Come and tell us this again. We don't have time to talk about it, although it would be a fascinating thing if you never study it to see that there are really two Greek words for word Logos and Rhema. Logos is, I'm gonna oversimplify this, but it is a sense of the comprehensive totality of the nature of God's word and the purpose of God's word and its overarching truth such that in John chapter one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. That word is Logos.

In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God. But Rhema is the word that is used more for particular immediately personal words that are spoken to someone. Here's some examples of Rhema, Acts 13, 44.

I'm sorry, I jumped too high. Luke 24, verse 8, they remembered his words. What's Rhema? Matthew 4, verse 4, he answered, his written man shall not live by bread alone but by every Rhema that comes from the mouth of God. And Luke 2, this is a good example, in Luke 2, 15, after the angels had come to tell about baby Jesus to the shepherds, the angels went away into heaven.

The shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. Well, that's not thing, it's let's see this Rhema that has happened. I wish I had time to talk about this, but I'm just saying in the biblical concept, the idea of a thing, it doesn't make much sense. It is a word and a word carries so much weight that accompanies its actions and reality.

So it's a word. Alan Wright, today's good news message, waking up, how to escape spiritual malaise. It's in our series Unlimited and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his 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 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. Today is the final day we're offering this special product.

Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan sharing the parting good news thought for the day. And I remember again, this was preached during pandemic and it had been going on for quite a long time at this point.

We finally realized this wasn't a two or three or four week pause in life. And you, and I think the pastors at the church all came to get up with this phrase, spiritual malaise. And it was a really, really good definition of what was happening spiritually in the American church. Well, I, you know, I remember Daniel, the first time that we regathered, of course, churches all had different philosophies about this, but we regathered social distance for worship. And I remember that first time having not been worshiping with the people of God for quite some time, the very first song, you know, and there we are social distance, wear masks and we start singing.

And, but the very, I mean, by every standard you'd say, well, that's not our best moment of worship, you know, but by every, uh, every standard that would make it seem like it's not the best. I remember it, uh, and I'll never forget it. It was like something just woke up on the inside of me. And I think our listeners might be able to understand something about this, that there's a way in which we, as Christians, we are spiritually alive under God, but there's a way in which there can be a kind of malaise that falls on our spirit that leaves us, uh, in a sense, like something needs to just gently shake us. Something needs to just wake us up a little bit. And so, you know, maybe, uh, in faith, I could say as we emerge from, uh, from pandemic that my faith is that there'll be a great awakening, um, a great awakening that gets characterized by hunger for the word and, and passion for Christ. Um, and so, uh, let's all have faith for that together. But the first step is to wake up. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.