Seeing As Jesus Sees [Part 11]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

It's a real important story. It invites personal questions. How do you think Jesus sees your sin? How does Jesus view you when you are at your worst?

And I would say all authentic spiritual and psychological growth, it hinges on the answer to that question. Jesus, how do you see me when I'm at my worst? 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 sitting with Pastor Alan today as we are anticipating the release of this great new book called, Seeing as Jesus Sees, How a New Perspective Can Defeat the Darkness and Awaken Joy. Releasing October 10th, but you can pre-order the book today. And if you do so right now, and when you let us know, we're happy to send you really a slew of resources here.

That's a technical term, by the way, a slew. A free audio book, a daily reading guide, a study guide, and companion video course. All of this is our way of saying thanks for supporting the launch of Pastor Alan's new book. And supporting is exactly what you're doing when you pre-order. It helps to propel the message even further. Suffice it to say that it goes far to ensure that on release day, that this message, this book becomes more prominent in the marketplace. So right now, what you do is pre-order wherever you find good books, and then just let us know that you've done that. Just say, hey, I've done it.

Here's my receipt. Seeing as Jesus Sees dot O-R-G is where you can go to let us know. Seeing as Jesus Sees dot org, or simply connect with us at the traditional website, Pastor Alan dot O-R-G. Pastor Alan, it's good to be with you again as we flip through the pages of this book.

And you know, we're not going to give any major spoilers. Keep the book exciting for folks as they do finally get the chance to hold it in their hands, or read it, or listen to it. But I will say that today we're going to be talking about something that a lot of us, I think, whether we like it or not, we find ourselves thinking about it probably way too much. And that's our own sin. And it's something that we spend a lot of time at this ministry saying, you know what, that's taken care of. Jesus took that upon himself.

But how does Jesus see us as it relates to our sinfulness? We're talking about how Jesus sees things and learning to pray a simple breath-like prayer. Jesus, how do you see this?

I think it's really good to have these kind of breath prayers where all of a sudden you're frustrated. All of a sudden you're scared. All of a sudden you're unsure. All of a sudden you feel condemned. Jesus, how do you see?

How do you see this? It's a prayer he loves to answer because he came to open the eyes of the blind. He came to be light so that we wouldn't stumble in the darkness. He came to open spiritual eyes. He came to enlighten the eyes of our heart. And when you see something accurately, it changes you instantly and effortlessly. So we're just saying over and over, as we so often do in this ministry, though the law was a good gift, it doesn't empower you to keep it.

And so if you try to live by the law, you're going to just feel condemned by it. In the same way, to say, as noble as it is, I would like to be more like Jesus, so what would Jesus do? I ought to be more like him, does not empower you to do so. So a better question is, Jesus, what do you see? How do you see? Let me have the eyes of my heart enlightened.

And that's what we're learning to do. And in this section that we're talking about with a few little highlights from the book, as you said, so, so much more in the page of the book that we hope everybody will rush right now in pre-order. But in this section, we're talking about how does Jesus see ourselves? So you can say, Jesus, how do you see me?

And maybe the most important time to ask that and to get his eyes is when we're at our worst. So we're talking about repenting, what it really means from Jesus' perspective. And, oh, we're in for a treat in this chapter. And in this broadcast, as we begin talking about the beautiful story of the woman that was called in adultery and all Jesus did there, we're going to look at that some. But I think we got a lot of a lot of us got the wrong ideas about about sin and about repentance. It feels so shaming.

We think it's like there's some bony finger pointing at us. Repent, repent, you know, Daniel, just for fun. I need to share with our listeners. I've muffed a few lines at weddings over the year, but there's one story that takes a proverbial wedding cake at the rehearsal. A couple asked the officiating minister to end the service with a creative twist, a twist. The groom would kiss the bride and then they'd begin recessing. The music would stop and the couple would pause mid aisle. And the plan was the pastor would bless them by then saying, go and may the peace of God be with you. So the next day, the wedding service went well. Everybody looked beautiful and music was stirring. Pastor announced the couple, his husband and wife groomed, kissed the bride.

The recessional music began triumphantly and the couple started making their way down the aisle. Then as planned, the music stopped abruptly and the couple turned and they faced the pastor's plan. But the pastor. And this is this pastor was a friend of one of my pastor friends. He heard that pastor's brain froze and his memory memory just lapsed.

And in a panic, he shouted, go and send no more. You could imagine all the laughter raining down in that wedding and those words that brought laughter there. Did the opposite for a woman that was caught in the scent of adultery, the Pharisees had had trapped her in order to trap Jesus. And they want to know how would this world famous Nazarene mercy teacher view her sin? You know, would he shrug and say, no big deal, let her go? If so, then they would dub him a law breaker or would he endorse her execution per the law of Deuteronomy? If so, that would seem to debunk all his teaching on love.

So it's a real important story, invites personal questions. How do you think Jesus sees your sin? How does Jesus view you when you are at your worst? And I would say all authentic spiritual and psychological growth, it hinges on the answer to that question.

Jesus, how do you see me when I'm at my worst? That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Wondering what you need to do to find more freedom, wonder and joy?

What if you don't need to do more as much as see more? What if victorious breakthrough and enduring transformation comes not by striving, but by seeing? For years, Pastor Alan Wright has been practicing a new spiritual discipline. A simple prayer, Jesus, how do you see this?

It's brief enough for a single breath, but deep enough for lasting life change. It's a prayer Christ loves to honor because the Savior came to open blind and blurred eyes. Jesus is, after all, the light of the world. In his new groundbreaking book, Seeing As Jesus Sees, Alan Wright leads readers into a fresh kind of Bible study where they're invited in close, side by side with the Savior to see themselves, others in the world through Jesus' eyes. There's good news on every page, because divine revelation and Spirit-filled living isn't reserved for the spiritually elite.

Every Christian can live with wide-eyed wonder and Spirit-revealed vision. The beautiful hardcover book releases October 10th, but for a limited time, when you pre-order the book from Amazon or your favorite retailer, you'll receive over $100 of bonus resources. Simply pre-order the book, visit SeeingAsJesusSees.org, or come to our website, PastorAlan.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. Christ's call to discipleship isn't an invitation to strive to do what Jesus would do, but to come and see what Jesus sees. So pre-order your copy of Alan Wright's newest book, and discover and start seeing yourself, others, and the world through Jesus' eyes. Here with Pastor Alan in the studio, and as we're flipping through the pages, we also want to make note how the book is divided, because there are many things you can look at through the eyes of Jesus. And in this particular section that we're talking about is really, I guess you'd say, looking inward. And that's an important thing to do, is how do you see yourself?

And then from there, I think we're going to branch out and see ways we can look at the world around us. But our sin is a problem. It's a problem that Jesus came to solve. And yet, here in this life, we still deal with it, and it's how we deal with it, or how we see it, I should say, that changes everything. And so this chapter is titled Repenting. And that's also a misnomer of a word that some people take and run with in a far different direction than it was ever intended. Well, repentance, really, New Testament, it comes from a Greek word meaning change your mind, change your way of thinking. That's really what Jesus is interested in.

He's not mainly interested in us just feeling bad about ourselves. But it's a horrible feeling when you get caught, right? And you've had your own brush with the law here.

My mostly goody-two-shoes adolescence was blotted by one brush with the law. A long-time buddy, I'm going to call him Josh, in case the feds are still looking for him. He invited me one summer to go swim in the abandoned rock quarry in my hometown. Conversation was like this, Josh, hey, Alan, you want to go for a swim in the old rock quarry? Me, goody-two-shoes.

Why would I want to do that, Josh? Because it's a clear, deep-water canyon that looks like a scene from out west. Me, goody-two-shoes, sounds dangerous, illegal, I bet the water's cold. So he's talking me into this, and he's been there a lot. He knows where to park at the back fence. First thing I noticed was that there was a lock on the gate. And then the next thing I noticed was a no trespassing sign hanging above the lock.

So I was like, Josh, I don't feel good about this. He says, all that lock, that little sign, I've always been there, climb over, goody-two-shoes. We scaled the fence, and we make the short walk to the edge of the quarry. Sure enough, it was gorgeous. The water was crystal clear, 100 feet deep, steep canyon walls thrusting up on all sides. I jumped off of small cliffs into the refreshing waters, and it just, you know, it was. It was like a scene from out west, grottos and nooks and crannies. It was all fantastic for about 10 minutes until I hear Josh go, oh, no, what? He said, look up there. And I'm like, you're kidding me.

I thought you said they didn't care. Well, here comes a police officer high above us walking down the trail. He'd seen Josh's car parked and at the back gate, and he'd driven up top, and he watched us splash around.

He could see it all. Still, just weirdly, we're crouching behind the rocks like outlaws. And he comes out and says, boys, he says, come with me.

And this is the thing. Josh was no goody two shoes. He'd had a few encounters with the police. I wasn't surprised that he was in trouble, but I was surprised, Daniel, that I was in trouble. Josh says, never let me live down what happened next.

It's more embarrassing than the trespassing offense. When the officer told us to go with him, I'm embarrassed to say it. But I said to the policeman, do you want me to, sir? If you were to meet my old friend Josh today, and you would ask him about me, he'd probably make a mocking face and go, you want me too, sir? I might as well have said, let me introduce you to Josh. He's a hoodlum.

He swims here all the time. Take him away for life. But surely I can't be in trouble. I'm too good. The cops like, yes, you too, son. I was sure I'd rot in jail forever and have my life ruined. Bob just, he didn't even think about it. He headed out to Montana and went camping and said, I doubt they'll come looking for me. Eventually the DA let me off the hook. My dad talked to him for me and I was still able to become a minister. Court never did look for Josh.

He spent about five years skiing out west and then got a PhD. It's such a silly story, but I was horrified at the moment because isn't it different? Interesting how differently we can view our trespasses. You know, some deal with guilt feelings by treating sin lightly. No big deal. Everyone's doing it.

That was Josh. You know, we can justify sin. All life's hard. I need some pleasure. We can redefine it. Who's to say it's wrong? It feels OK.

It must be OK. But then, you know, others of us cope with guilt feelings by judging sin to be a serious problem in others. The bad people, not ourselves.

Do you want me to, sir? Can't apply to me. We can hide behind hypocrisy. You know, pride. I'm better than other people or tip the scales through self-righteousness.

See, my good outweighs my bad. In other words, without authentic encounter with Jesus, people become either rebellious or religious. And I guess the rebellious drive off to Montana believing they don't have to obey the religious stay home and convince the D.A.

that they're too good to be prosecuted. So two different pathways of dealing with sin unless we see our sin through Jesus's eyes. Unless we encounter Jesus. And with Jesus, you know.

He sees it. In the third way, not not rebellion or religion, he sees it through what he came to do for us. That's why I think he told a story about a father who had two sons, both of them sinned egregiously, but in completely opposite way, the younger we call the prodigal.

He went to a faraway land, blew his dad's fortune on wild living. But the older stayed home and tried to be perfect, claimed to have never disobeyed. So the younger tries to find happiness and rebellious pleasures. The older tries to find fulfillment in prideful self-righteousness.

But neither attempt worked. So with Jesus, there's a third way of dealing with predicaments of sin, not through rebellion, not through religion, but through redemption. It is Jesus's beautiful way. So when you begin to ask the question, Jesus, how do you see me when I'm at my worst?

How do you see me when I've been caught? How do you see me in my sin? It's helpful to look at how Jesus viewed people who were caught in sin, and maybe that's what leads us to the story of a woman who's caught in adultery. So throughout, Daniel, the book, I like to take readers and in this broadcast, take our listeners to the scene as if you are not trying to so much learn some religious principles, but to look through Jesus's eyes, watch the scene develop through his eyes. And you can learn a lot when you look through Jesus's eyes in the stories of the gospel.

It's a powerful, beautiful way to read the Bible. To understand how Jesus looks on sin means that he both sees it, I think, more weighty than we see it, but then he sees us more liberated from it than we could ever see ourselves. And so to see the sin for what it is, but then to see ourselves washed. So he's looking at it through his eyes, the Savior's eyes, who came to redeem us.

And that's what we need from him. So you read stories in the scripture and try to look through his eyes. It's like we have the Holy Spirit. When we say, Jesus, how do you see this? Jesus, how do you see me? We're inviting the Spirit of Jesus to do what Jesus promised to do, and that is to bring the light of life to us so that we don't stumble in the darkness. We're inviting the Holy Spirit to do what Paul said, to enlighten the eyes of our hearts. And so it's a very important prayer to say, Jesus, how do you see me?

How do you see me? I've watched people at times, Daniel, in their sin try to act like it was no big deal. That's not how Jesus sees it. And I've watched people in their sin get so stuck there and so ashamed. They're condemning themselves, and that's not how Jesus sees it. How does Jesus see it? Well, let's just take a moment and go with a crowd and see yourself in the midst and get close enough to try to look through Jesus' eyes as they bring this woman who was caught in the very act of adultery. Caught.

Caught. Seems like that in today's world, politicians, celebrities cruise past infidelities unscathed, but not so a first century Jewish woman. So you got to pause here. Notice the tremor in your own hands and heart and feel your soul as it knows something of that kind of remorse and angst. Put yourself there as if you are not just in the crowd, but what if you are that woman? And there's no hiding place, and your sin's in the open. Your soul feels more naked than your body, and you know you're trembling not just for the shame of the moment, but for the stain that you fear will linger for a lifetime. It's just you alone, guilty, quivering.

I just want you to envision yourself as if you're that woman. Because we're learning to see ourselves through Jesus' eyes. It's part of the principles that are taught in this book. It's a brand new one that's coming out from Pastor Alan, Seeing As Jesus Sees, and it releases October 10th. We're back in a moment with our parting good news inspiration, To See As Jesus Sees, in just a moment. Wondering what you need to do to find more freedom, wonder, and joy?

What if you don't need to do more as much as see more? What if victorious breakthrough and enduring transformation comes not by striving, but by seeing? For years, Pastor Alan Wright has been practicing a new spiritual discipline, a simple prayer. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's brief enough for a single breath, but deep enough for lasting life change. It's a prayer Christ loves to honor because the Savior came to open blind and blurred eyes. Jesus is, after all, the light of the world. In his new groundbreaking book, Seeing As Jesus Sees, Allen Wright leads readers into a fresh kind of Bible study where they're invited in close, side by side with the Savior to see themselves, others, and the world through Jesus' eyes. There's good news on every page because divine revelation and spirit-filled living isn't reserved for the spiritually elite.

Every Christian can live with wide-eyed wonder and spirit-revealed vision. This beautiful hardcover book releases October 10th, but for a limited time, when you pre-order the book from Amazon or your favorite retailer, you'll receive over $100 of bonus resources. Simply pre-order the book, 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. Christ's Call to Discipleship isn't an invitation to strive to do what Jesus would do, but to come and see what Jesus sees. So pre-order your copy of Allen Wright's newest book and discover and start seeing yourself, others, and the world through Jesus' eyes. Back here now with Pastor Alan and our closing inspiration, directly from the new book, Seeing As Jesus Sees.

Here's Pastor Alan Wright. How does Jesus see our sin? Well, first, He sees it. He really sees it in all of its life-robbing power, in all of its idolatrous ugliness.

He sees it in all its dark deception. He sees our sin to the depths, and His heart breaks, and He grieves, and He longs for our freedom. But it isn't despairing to think of how deeply Jesus sees our sin.

It's reassuring. I love the words of J. I. Packer in his classic book, Knowing God. There is tremendous relief in knowing His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can disillusion Him about me and quench His determination to bless me. How does Jesus see our sin? Well, He sees it.

But then He sees it not at all. Isaiah 43, 25, when God forgives sin through Christ's atoning work, God remembers our sins no more. Jesus' sacrifice is not partial. It's full.

That's the picture. There is no one left to condemn. As far as the East is from the West, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. So next time you get caught trespassing and hear the accuser's voice condemning you, pause and think of the Messiah who stooped for a woman in the dust, and then ask Jesus, How do you see my sin? And when you have Him open your spiritual eyes to the wonders of His mercy and advocacy, you'll be swimming in waters deeper and clearer than any quarry lake. And with all the accusing voices silenced, your heart can rise with gratitude.

Your head can lift with confidence as you also go and sin no more. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.