Seeing Others for Who They Can Be [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

So the good news of the Gospel is that if Jesus would have such an unlikely conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well, not being restricted or hindered by who she was, her place in life, the problems of her past, or all of the protocol that would prevent him, if he could have that conversation, what kind of conversation could he have with you and me? 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, You'll See, 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 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. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Years ago, he invited his parents to come visit him in New York. By this time, Gladwell had become world famous, best selling, and wealthy author. So he put his parents up in one of the ritziest hotels where all the fabulous and famous people stay in New York, just for fun. And after they'd settled in that evening, he went to meet them for dinner, and he said that his parents were not the type that watched much television, didn't read popular magazines. He said, my father knew three things, the Bible and math and gardening.

They were unaware they were in a place where celebrities were. Anyway, he said, dad said, did you have a good afternoon? He said, yeah. He said, I had a most wonderful afternoon. He said, what did you do? He said, I met a stranger in the lobby and we talked for two hours. He said, what did you talk about?

He said, gardening. He said, well, you did enjoy that, didn't you? And Gladwell said to his father, so what was his name? And his father said, I don't know.

Never found out his name. He said, but it was interesting. He said, people kept coming over and wanting to have their picture taken with him. And people kept bringing little pieces of paper over and asking him to write his name on there. I don't know why. And I was just thinking that celebrity, whoever it was, and Gladwell never knew, probably had the best afternoon he had in a long time that somebody didn't know who he was and could just talk to him about gardening.

There is something positive about admitting you don't really know because it opens up possibilities. It's interesting at verse four that Jesus leads the disciples through Samaria. The way it reads in the ESV is, and he had to pass through Samaria, but the actual Greek word here is a little word, dei, and it means it is necessary. It was necessary.

It is a word that Luke uses often. Like when Jesus says it is necessary that the son of man will suffer many things at the hands of the chief priests. So Jesus already had a sense that there was divine appointment here.

He lived poised for those appointments. And here's something that I don't know, and it's what I love the image Pastor Chris used last week. There are some things we just have to put into the mystery bucket.

And here's another one to put in the bucket. Jesus was fully God and fully human. God is omniscient and knows everything. Human beings don't know everything. Did Jesus know everything?

It's a very intriguing question to scholars and theologians. We do know this. There's at least one thing Jesus didn't know. He said it in Matthew 24 36 concerning that day and hour, the return of Christ, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father only. Interestingly, there was a place in Mark five, you know, the story of the woman had the hemorrhage and she touched Jesus's garment and Jesus at verse 30 perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned around the crowd and said, who touched my garments? It seems like he didn't know.

It's strange. And Luke two 52 says Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and with man. So he's God and he is in perfect communion with the father.

He said only do what I see my father doing, but he said, but my father shows me everything. So Jesus, I don't know. I just have to guess, but it reads to me this story, like maybe Jesus didn't know it all except as it was developing and by the revelation of the father through the unction of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had, the Bible says without measure that he knew we just got to go through some area and you have times like this where it's just, you are compelled by the spirit and you are unaware maybe why we're going this way, but we need to. And so they go through some area and he has this conversation and it reads as if Jesus just starts out as a thirsty traveler who needs a drink of water and maybe it did.

I don't know. Maybe he knew everything that was going to happen, but it reads like he starts the conversation and he says a drink of water and then the conversation builds and where he begins to realize that the father wants him to reach this woman's heart and this is a divine appointment and it just gets real beautiful real quick. When the conversation begins to build and she has said, well, why are you a Jew asking me for water even speaking to me? He engages with her by arousing her curiosity with this statement at verse 10.

Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Can you imagine what it was like for Jesus just walking around knowing what he knew? He knew what he was going to do on the cross. He knew the thoroughness of how his blood was going to be shed for the payment of sin and the cleansing of the conscience. He knew that on the cross he was going to be opening up the Holy of Holies to both Jew and Gentile and to anyone that would call upon his name who would be saved. He knew the power of the Holy Spirit to enliven and wake up the dead. He knew of glory to come from whence he had come to this earth, the glory that awaits every person in Jesus Christ. He knew all of this and everything more. He's God.

And everywhere he went, he's interacting with people who know so little. The only thing I can, I'm trying to think, what can I compare this to? Imagine that you're a physician today, modern medical science. You've gone to one of the best medical schools. Let's imagine there was a time machine and you could go back 200 years to help people because 200 years ago, just 200 years ago, medical care was just pathetic, wasn't it? They were putting leeches on people. Can you imagine you go to the doctor and say, ah, good, bring out the leeches. They would get the scalpel out for people that were running favors and bleed them thinking if we could get the bad blood out, then you'll get better. And they were just ruining their chances by just bleeding out all of the germ fighting cells in their blood. And it was just terrible.

Thank God we live today. But imagine that you were a physician from today and you went back 200 years ago. You meet with a physician in 1800 and you're seeing a patient who's got a fever. You're looking at it and you're going, ah, this is a routine, probably strep infection in the throat. I can see it. I can smell it. I know it is. Just need to get a simple antibiotic.

This thing will be cleared up within 24, 48 hours. But the physician in 1800 says, hand me the scalpel. We're going to bleed this person. What would you say? You'd be sitting there going, just 200 years have passed. When you got medical, not you'd be sitting there going, if you knew how much I know, you would not ask me for a scalpel. You would ask me for germ theory and antibiotic. You would ask me for my medical books. You would ask me to teach you. But sometimes you're in a position where you don't know enough to even know what to ask for.

If you think leeches are going to cure somebody, you don't know how to ask for an antibiotic. If you knew who you spoke to, Jesus said, if you knew, he said, you would be a different conversation. I wouldn't be asking you for water.

You'd be asking me. And the water I have to give is springing up from eternity. It is the life of the Holy Spirit.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Seeing as Jesus Sees. It's the title of Pastor Alan's newest book soon to be released, and it's the giant secret of real transformation. Alan Wright invites readers into a new, simple spiritual practice, a little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's a prayer that the savior loves to answer because after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness, and open your heart to wonder and joy by pre-ordering the book today. Though the book releases October 10th, if you pre-order now, you'll receive over $100 of bonus resources. Simply pre-order the book at Amazon or your favorite online bookseller.

Visit seeingasjesussees.org or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Give us confirmation that you've pre-ordered the book. And when the book releases, you'll be given a free audio book from the publisher, and you'll also receive a free six-week Seeing as Jesus Sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. All these valuable bonus gifts are only for those who pre-order the book. So place your order today with your favorite online book retailer and visit our website for instructions on receiving all the extra resources.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Allen Wright. He knows things about her. He says, go and call your husband. She says, I don't have one. He said, that's right.

You had five. Man, you're living with an Alice, not your husband. And you know, if you just read this and you don't know Jesus, you'll think he's just shaming her here, but he's clearly not because guess what?

If people shame you, what do you do? You want to get away from them and not come back. But instead, what she does is she scurries off to the village as fast as she can because she wants to tell people.

I love verse 28. So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and they were coming to him.

She forgot about needing natural water, left her jug there. She just wanted to get back and tell people, even though she was a scandalized woman in the noon time hour, she went back and she started telling people, come and meet this man. I think he may be the Messiah. You know, something about the way he interacted that he was just loving her while at the same time saying, I know some things about you. And she knew it was supernatural. The townspeople began coming and this is where Jesus says, look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. What you might see as a despised Samaritan, Jesus is saying, I've got huge faith for them. There's going to be a revival in this town. There's going to be a blessing that goes forth through this woman to all these people.

Look, see it. Anybody can change. Anybody can be saved.

Anybody can be used by God. Oh, about six or seven years ago, some of you had a chance to meet Hilda. She was here in our church.

She gave a testimony briefly and it was very unlikely that Hilda would have been here because it was very unlikely that Hilda ever been in any church sharing anything. She grew up with an alcoholic mother and alcoholic father. She saw her father abuse her mother and cut her. Her parents were, father was taken away.

The mother was not available. She went and moved in with her grandfather who turned out to be an alcoholic as well. She went through this hard life of abuse. She mothered a daughter and when the father was not relinquishing all the rights to the daughter, she assaulted the father and that was what first landed her in prison. While in prison she met a heroin supplier that became her chief avenue for heroin and she lived addicted to opioids and she began selling drugs in order to support her habit. It was a cycle of incarceration that took her from state to state until she wound up in Coleman, Alabama. By her own testimony she became the meanest woman in the jail because she had become so brazen in her spirit and so bitter in her soul and she never wanted to be beaten up by anybody so she beat up everybody else. She had had some religion in her life and it had left her feeling burned and she wanted nothing to do with it but there's a sweet pastor, one of the sweetest pastors you'd ever meet named Bobby Hill in Coleman, Alabama whose congregation had started a practice of taking the materials that I'd written called Shame Off You, a book and a workbook into the jail.

They had found that it had been so effective with the inmates and healing shame and setting people free from bitterness and drug addiction and that the sheriff said that he saw it work and he said, so do as much as you want to and talk about Jesus as much as you want to. So they did for a long season and they were leading these small groups with the Shame Off You materials and Hilda was invited in and she didn't want to come but she said later those people from that church were the most authentically loving people I'd ever seen in my whole life. So eventually she came and got into the small group and she said she was so mad and she hated it at first and came to a chapter that is called For the Want of a Mom and a Dad. And she said, we got done with that study that day and she said, I went back to my cell and I cried for two hours. And she said, I cried out to God and I said, if you're there, I really do want you and I need you, but it can't be like the religion I've seen before. She said, I didn't feel the arms of God and nothing seemed to happen and I fell asleep crying myself to sleep that night and I woke up the next morning and I was in the restroom and a cellmate looked at me and said, Hilda, what has changed about you? And Hilda said, what? And the woman said, you're smiling. Hilda said, she looked in the mirror and she was smiling and she realized something had changed and that in the middle of the day she opened her Bible and her eyes fell on a passage in which she read the words from Jesus, my peace I give you, not as the world gives you, I give unto you. And Hilda said she felt peace for the first time in her life.

Hilda not only finished that Shame Off You group, but she went again and again until I think she knows the materials better than I do. And she began leading groups in the Coleman County Jail of Women for Shame Off You and did so for years, changing women's lives. When she got her parole, she sent Ann and me an email and it said, I wanted you to know I got parole today. She said, but know this, God set me free long before I was set free. You never know.

You never know. I think sometimes we look at people and with our preconceptions, we have dug a rut and put them into it as if they can't get out. But Jesus never did that. Jesus is so powerful to see through all of our checkered pasts and our weaknesses and problems and to see what we can be. So the good news of the gospel is that if Jesus would have such an unlikely conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well, not being restricted or hindered by who she was, her place in life, the problems of her past or all of the protocol that would prevent him, if he could have that conversation, what kind of conversation could he have with you and me?

And if he could use her for a revival and authentic revival, doesn't it mean he can use anybody? The bliss of the gospel is this. You and I do not bring anything to the equation except for our need for God. We do not bring any of our own righteousness.

We do not bring any payment of any type. We do not bring any sacrifice to offer. Jesus has paid the entire price. It is his Spirit that does the miracle of making dead people come to life spiritually.

We are born again by his power, not our own. So what is it that we bring? We bring the recognition that we know very little and that we are very hungry and we're very thirsty. So in the end, this is a story about spiritual thirst because it is the only prerequisite for coming to Christ. It's the only thing you need.

The only thing you need is to know that you need him. I love the New Living Version's translation of Isaiah 55 verse 1, is anyone thirsty? Come and drink, even if you have no money. Come, take your choice of wine or milk.

It's all free. Is anyone thirsty? Come. Matthew 5, Jesus began his ministry by saying, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. John 7, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

And the whole big story finds its conclusion in Revelation 22, 22 verse 17, the spirit and the bride say, come. Let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Living water is available to you and me and to everyone you encounter for free. If you can look at an optical illusion drawing and see either an old woman or a young woman, if your brain can do that, what might happen if you start saying, Jesus, how do you see this person? You might see that all things are possible. You might see the most unlikely way to be completely transformed by the power of the gospel. Jesus sees perfectly.

We don't. So ask him, he'll help you. And that's the gospel. Alan Wright, today's good news message, seeing others for who they can be from the series you'll see. And Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio with a parting good news thought for today in just a moment. Seeing as Jesus sees, it's the title of Pastor Alan's newest book soon to be released. And it's the giant secret of real transformation. Alan Wright invites readers into a new, simple spiritual practice, a little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's a prayer that the savior loves to answer because after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness and open your heart to wonder and joy by preordering the book today. Though the book releases October 10th, if you preorder now, you'll receive over a hundred dollars of bonus resources. Simply preorder the book at Amazon or your favorite online bookseller.

Visit seeing as Jesus sees.org or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Give us confirmation that you've preordered the book. And when the book releases, you'll be given a free audio book from the publisher. And you'll also receive a free six week seeing as Jesus sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. All these valuable bonus gifts are only for those who preorder the book.

So place your order today with your favorite online book retailer and visit our website for instructions on receiving all the extra resources. So Pastor Alan, today's parting good news thought on the conclusion of this particular teaching. Would it be the encouragement that's here of being able to be an encourager to others? Well, just think about how many times in our life we just skip right by a conversation with someone because we have made assumptions.

In its worst form, it's outright prejudice or in other instances, even in people that we know well and are the person that is most needed to love them, we get little judgments that form. And Jesus just didn't have this. He saw people right through everything. He saw it. He saw, yes, he saw all the sin. But what he saw was the seed of what could be.

And that's what he spoke to. And it just is a wonderful thing, Daniel, if you can begin to believe that maybe something wonderful could happen in someone that in this case is through a Samaritan woman, a revival comes to her town, and nobody would have been able to see that but Jesus. So when you interact with folks, say, Jesus, how do you see this person and how do you see this situation? It'll change everything, and you can become a profound encourager when you see what Jesus' eyes. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.