Seeing As Jesus Sees [Part 22]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

Maybe there's a deep irony in this story. If the disciples hadn't faced that storm on the lake that night, no one would even remember it. So in some ways, it's like Jesus sees our storms as adventures. And maybe some of our listeners- That's Pastor Alan Wright.

Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new life. I'm Daniel Britt, sitting here with Pastor Alan today as we dive into his brand new book titled, Seeing as Jesus Sees, How a New Perspective Can Defeat the Darkness and Awaken Joy. So Pastor Alan, as we are in this section of seeing the world, seeing the world as Jesus would see it, and this chapter today is we're going to dive in and talk about is on braving. Imagine yourself there and what better story to imagine than being stuck in a boat in the middle of a hurricane on the Sea of Galilee. And you're wondering, where's Jesus?

The one who made us set sail on this ominous night, because he's the one said, let's go over to the other side. And then suddenly you realize he's asleep in the stern. You feel like you're dying and Jesus is dozing. You're drowning and Jesus is dreaming and how do you feel?

And then just imagine, you know, I think just really put yourself there. Suddenly you hear a disciple shouting above the howling wind and Peter's voice, teacher, don't you care? We're going to die. And Jesus comes forth and suddenly you're next to him, shoulder to shoulder. And Jesus is looking at the storm. And for a moment, you see this tempest through the eyes of a man who has no fear of it.

He's looking at the peril of the ocean as if it were a puddle. And like a parent calming a child, he says, quiet, be still. And then it all stops. And you hear Jesus say, why are you so afraid?

And, you know, I just love to take moments like that. Imagine myself there, because this is, this is part of the training of seeing through Jesus' eyes, but it's not something you just imagine yourself being next to Jesus. You really are next to Jesus.

He's with you. The God of the universe is with you and you can speak to him and say, Jesus, I'm afraid, but you're not afraid. So help me see it like you're seeing it. Help me look with your eyes, even though I can't in my own natural eyes, see it. I know you in the spirit that you can.

And when you do, I think you begin to get a real deep sense of comfort. It's not that Jesus didn't say that the storm was real. He didn't say, Hey, it's no big problem.

He just, he just, he just said, be still. I'm bigger than the storm. So it's not really like, it's not a denial of the storms of life. It's not a pretending that it's not a real obstacle. That's not what it is.

It's something much better than that. It is seeing through the eyes of the savior who is the creator, who has sovereign power over it all. And I think he invites us into that, Daniel. I think that we are invited into a vision of the scary things of this world through the eyes of Jesus, who is not scared of it at all. Yeah. The book is Seeing as Jesus Sees.

And by the way, we're talking about braving, seeing storms get smaller. It's from Pastor Alan's book, Seeing as Jesus Sees, How a New Perspective Can Defeat the Darkness and Awaken Joy. And by the way, if you buy the book right now from any retailer, we'll send you a free video series this month when you let us know at seeingasjesussees.org. That's a companion video course, a daily reading guide, and a group study guide. All is our thank you for supporting the launch of Pastor Alan's new book.

It's valued at over a hundred dollars and it's yours simply when you let us know that you've already bought the book. Seeingasjesussees.org or pastorallen.org. Now growing up, my favorite movie was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. And so when I see this chapter, Seeing Storms Get Smaller, and it's not to deny that the storm's not real and may not be fun, but if I could see that the storm is smaller, I could live through it, I think. And that's by coming up next to Jesus. And I like the way you say, it's as if you are standing there and you look at Jesus and you see, okay, where has he fixed his gaze? Let me look in that same direction with him.

And as long as I'm standing right beside him, I think it's going to be okay. Yeah, exactly. Well, things that look so big to us when we're little, then we get bigger and they don't seem as big to us.

Yeah. So you're gaining a new, a new perspective. When I was a kid, why I went to the haunted house in the first place, I don't know. And I was old enough.

I don't remember my exact age, but I was old enough to know I shouldn't be scared of a silly haunted house, but I went with my big brother, David. And for some reason, the Frankenstein started, started following me around. Yeah. He just saw me some little kid there and he decided he was going to just make me scared. And he terrorized me and I did my best to act like I was not scared. I was like acting like I was cool and unfazed.

Yeah. But he would keep appearing around every corner. And finally, it just got to me and I burst into tears. I burst into tears and my big brother, David, he was a little taller than Frankenstein. And I hear him whisper to the guy, Hey, how about leaving my little brother alone? Can't you see he's scared?

And old Frankie left. And I tried to act like, Oh no, I wouldn't really cry. I just had something in my eye, you know, made it water. And, uh, but I remember, I'll never forget that. I was so glad my brother took up for me. It was like, I knew the Frankenstein wasn't real. And yet he just felt too real to me. And I got scared, but I was mesmerized by the look in my brother's eye when he looked at the monster differently than I did. So David was six foot one, and he looked at the Frankenstein and he saw nothing more than a relatively short guy in a costume, but I saw a monster twice my size. So when David spoke to that guy, he wasn't addressing a ghoul.

He was just talking to the ordinary guy inside the scary looking costume. I wonder if it was like that a little bit for the disciples that day at sea, the storm was real, huge by human standards, but small to God. In the same way, my brother was surprised that I was frightened in a silly haunted house.

I think that's why Jesus was probably genuinely surprised. He said, why are you afraid? I was like, you know, you're, you're with the one who created all of this.

There's nothing to be afraid of. And, and, and yet it was, it was a big seismic storm. So both things can be true at the same time. Something could be real and the storm is real. And from our perspective, it really is scary, but from his, it just isn't. And so what we need is something that is his perspective. Yeah.

Yeah. And you talk in this chapter, not to just go into denial. We talked about that.

Not to just avoid it and pretend that it's not there. And, and I liked the way that you even wrestled through in your own parenting this time with Abby, your daughter of the dog that was barking outside and the story you tell there, the different options that you had that you could have gone with. I had to include that story in the book.

I'll never forget it. You, Abby, it was a, it was, I remember it was a February afternoon, but it was very spring-like. She was three. And I was back in the backyard in the hammock.

We loved to get in the hammock and just swing and talk. And all of a sudden, um, a dog barked in the distance and she's, she says, hold me tight that I said, what's wrong. She said, a dog barked. I'm scared.

I said, Abby, there's no reason to be scared. She's like, I want to go inside, daddy. We go in and wonderful and she looks at me like, what are you two doing inside? It's this beautiful balmy winter day.

You don't get many of these. And I walked over to her. I said, well, a dog bark. She got scared and, and, and she wanted to come in and mumble back something like, well, this is ridiculous.

Little girl needs to be able to enjoy playing in her own backyard. And she gave me that look, you know, that says fix this. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, uh, she, you know, she might as well have said, Hey, you preach truth to thousands to set them free. You better figure out a way to set your daughter free from this silly fear of dogs.

But it raised the interesting question. How do you cure a two-year-old or three-year-old from a fear of dogs? I started with, you know, the logic, Abby, let's go back outside and play.

The dog is very far away behind a fence. She said he could get out. Well, she had a point there. It's not impossible. It was unlikely. The dog would get out of his own own yard, but, but it's possible. In fact, we see dogs on the loose in our neighborhood sometimes. So I couldn't lie. I couldn't tell her that dogs never get out of fences.

So I had to change my strategy. I said, Abby, dogs are nice. Puppies are sweet. She said they might bite.

Well, I couldn't lie. I couldn't, again, I couldn't say they never bite. I remember how my brother Mark dove into a dog fight one time to save our beloved Brownie from imminent death.

And he got bit bad. So I thought about just saying Abby dogs don't usually bite, but then I was like, do I really want to plant that in her mind that they sometimes bite, but you know, you never know which one's going to be a biter. So now I finally get, you know, desperate enough. I just had to call forth a scripture. I said, Abby, the Bible says God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but a power and love and self-control.

Let's say that verse together. So she said it aloud and personalized that I made her say it. And I said, say it like this. I am not afraid of dogs because I have, and she said, I don't want to say that. I said, why? She said, cause I am afraid of dogs. Finally, I just said, okay, let me pray for you.

And we went, we went and stayed inside because I didn't have anything but superficial answers for evidently. Well, I think that, that there's a way that we try to deal with our fears at too superficial of a level. And I don't think God ever wants to deal with it like that. It's more like a healing of a fear. When you see through his eyes, the only real way that Abby was going to not be afraid of dogs would be to grow up some so that they didn't seem so big and so scary. Now, yeah, she would be acclimated, be around dogs.

And then of course we got a beagle of our own and she became the biggest dog lover of them all. But it's like seeing the world differently when you grow. And I think that part of growing up growing up as a follower of Christ is learning to look with him at life. And through that you grow and you just begin to see things differently. So what once was scary is not scary anymore. That's maturing. And by the way, that was the beginning of Abby's wonderful debate career, right? Yeah.

Yes. The book is Seeing as Jesus Sees, and it's written by Pastor Alan. It's out now and it's how a new perspective can defeat the darkness and awaken joy.

And of course, even today, we've been hearing examples of this as we dive into the topic of braving and seeing storms get smaller. Hey, by the way, if you buy the book this month from any retailer, we'll send you a free video series. When you let us know it's seeing as jesussees.org, you'll receive a companion video course, a daily reading guide and a group study guide. All is our thank you for supporting the launch of Pastor Alan's new book and the important message contained in it. All of this is valued over $100 and it's yours free as our thank you gift. Simply when you buy the book at your favorite retailer, then let us know you've done so. You're supporting the book and we're so appreciative. Seeing as jesussees.org.

Seeing as jesussees.org or Pastor Alan.org. So the perspective and seeing storms get smaller and you go back and talk, you pick up on a story here in this chapter that you brought up earlier and that was with with colleague Pastor Chris Lawson. You talk about how he's not afraid of much, but there is a fear of flying. And I think a lot of people can identify and even say, I don't put all my weight on those things. I know, you know, Chris is not scared of much, but he does hate flying.

And, but he developed a strategy that works for him. If the plane is experiencing turbulence and he feels like, you know, grabbing and clawing at the seats, he says, he looks at the flight attendants because once on a bumpy flight, a flight attendant saw Chris getting nervous and she whispered to him. She said, I'll let you in on a secret. Every now and then I get a little worried about a flight and if I do, you'll know it. I'll scramble to my seat and I'll buckle in and you'll see fear on my face.

But until that happens, there's nothing to worry about. I've flown so much that I know when to get worried. And so whenever the plane gets bouncy, Chris looks at the flight attendants. If they aren't worried, then neither is he. So in that sense, he's looking at the turbulent air through the attendant's eyes and and he's yet to see one get nervous so far. So it helps a lot. So part of that is like, we look to Jesus, see how he's seeing it.

And if he's not nervous, then we aren't either. 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, 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's eyes. There's good news on every page because divine revelation and spirit filled living is a reserve for the spiritually elite.

Every Christian can live with wide eyed wonder and spirit revealed vision for a limited time. When you ordered a book from Amazon or your favorite retailer, you'll receive over a hundred dollars of bonus resources or the book visit seeing as Jesus sees dot org or come to our website, Pastor Alan dot org. 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.

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 preorder your copy of Alan Wright's newest book and discover and start seeing yourself, others and the world through Jesus's eyes. The section of this book that we're flipping through the pages of right here are seeing the world braving, seeing storms get smaller. And we talk about this, this famous story. And by the way, I love that Pastor Alan, how you talk about it. We don't hear a lot of stories in the Bible of just everyday, uneventful, normal fishing nights on the boat with calm waters. But we have this big one that we remember and it's the one with the storm. And even so, Jesus knew ahead of time this was going to happen and didn't say, let's sit this one out.

Let's stay on the shore. I think that I think that we have to say Jesus was not surprised by the storm. He was surprised by how afraid they were, but he was not surprised by the storm as if he had expected it.

Maybe we don't know for sure. Maybe he deliberately took them into it just so that he could show his glory and they'd have an adventure. John Eldridge, well, an author was once approached at a conference by a man. He was a judge in his sixties. He said he was a real Southern gentleman with pinstripe suit, elegant manner of speech. And the man started sharing about his love for sailing. And I love these words from, these are John Eldridge's words. Then came a twinkle in his eye.

We were sailing off the coast of Bermuda a few years ago when we're hit by a Northeaster, really came up out of nowhere, 20 foot swells and a 30 foot homemade boat. I thought we were all going to die. A pause for dramatic effect.

And then Eldridge said he confessed it was the best time of my life. Maybe there's a deep irony in this story. If the disciples hadn't faced that storm on the lake that night, no one would even remember it. So in some ways it's like Jesus sees our storms as adventures. And maybe some of our listeners can identify with that because adventures usually have something scary in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Adrenaline rush. And speaking of adventure, I love the story with your kids whenever they moving into their, what is it like a senior year in high school, big trip, trip of their choosing and what Abby chose. That was an adventure.

Yeah. I gave them a choice. Like you get to take a trip with dad, you know, kind of a welcome to your emerging adulthood, you know, and, uh, Bennett chose to go to the Bahamas and play golf and go down water slides. Abby instead, she heard missionaries that we supported, Jeff and Sissy Desjardins for over two decades, our church has supported them who were, had befriended a group of people in a small remote Island and Papua New Guinea, learned their language, befriended them and put their language into writing so that they could generate a new Testament. And these people have the Bible for the first time ever. And they were going to have a big party celebrating the giving of that Bible to this people.

And Abby said, I want to go to that. Well, what touched my heart and I was like, well, we're going well, as soon as I said yes to that, I wasn't really thinking about how near it was to the equator. It's literally 95 degrees on this Island and 95% of humidity all the time. I didn't quite wrap my mind around what it would be like to go to a place that had no running water, no electricity, no roads, no schools, no education. It was, they were separated from the mainland and from the mainstay of what modern culture is all about. And that we'd sweat and we would be, that we would have, I can't even remember, 20 different plane rides to get there and adversities.

And not all of them state of the art. Oh my, we were, there were so many things could go wrong at any point. And it was, it was scary at times to get there. And but we came back and as you were made reference early, Abby was into speech and debate, and she gave a speech and a national speech contest that ended up being awarded, really the national championship.

And she told the story and I give a whole excerpt of it in the book. I hope people get in and read it, but here's one line for it talking about how we praise God together with those people in the common language of the heart and beheld a people be given the word of God and their own language of for the first time. And in that moment, all the plane rides, sleepless nights, and mosquito fears meant nothing compared to the grandeur of God's grace among those precious people. So through Jesus eyes, adversities adversities look more like adventures. I think if you're going through a storm, you're going through a challenge, just ask him regularly, Jesus, how do you see this? I think he'll show you the storm will be smaller though real. It'll be smaller because you'll see it through the eyes of the savior. Alan Wright, our good news message from the pages of the book, Seeing As Jesus Sees.

Hey, stick with us. Pastor Alan is back joining us here in the studio, sharing a 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, 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's eyes. There's good news on every page because divine revelation and spirit filled living is a reserve for the spiritually elite.

Every Christian can live with wide-eyed wonder and spirit revealed vision. For a limited time, when you ordered a book from Amazon or your favorite retailer, you'll receive over a hundred dollars of bonus resources. To order the book, visit SeeingAsJesusSeas.org or come to our website, PastorAlan.org, 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.

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's eyes.

Here now with closing inspiration directly from his new book, here's Pastor Alan Wright from the pages of Seeing As Jesus Sees. Jonah was also caught in a storm at sea. He was also asleep in the boat and the others on the boat pleaded with Jonah to do something. Sounds a whole lot like the story of Jesus in the boat in the middle of the storm, except the depressed Jonah told the sailors, hurl me into the sea and it'll quiet for you because I know it's because of me this great tempest has come upon you. But the squall that arose on the Sea of Galilee was never going to destroy the disciples. No earthly storm could sink you either. Now you're made for eternity. Jesus was the better Jonah. He himself hurled himself into the tumultuous waters of guilt and shame so that you could be forgiven forever. So Jesus is with you and he sees it as the one who has paid the price to give you ultimate victory.

Ask him for his eyes and he'll show it to you. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 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.