The Rescue [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. We're very much like those trapped boys in that cave, in a spiritual sense that our sin has caused us to have such a massive separation from God, and that none of us, none of us can make our way back to God.

None of us can save ourselves, and we need a rescue. 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 am Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series we call O Bologna, a study of Romans chapters one through three, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, we sure 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. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer, and you can 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 now let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news?

You can't save yourself at all. Not at all. And the reason that's good news is that the realization and admission of how much you need a Savior, that is the beginning point of your rescue. Years ago, psychologist, author, famous James Dobson said his boy Ryan was little, and he was a pretty rambunctious kid. And one day when Dobson was home, his wife wasn't there, and so he was watching Ryan, and all of a sudden he got too quiet. So he started looking around for the little boy, looked into every room in the house, couldn't find him.

He looked through the kitchen window and saw that little Ryan had somehow managed to climb up into the bed of a truck that some construction workers had parked in their driveway. Dobson said he had no idea how he got up into this truck bed that was higher than the little boy's head, but he had now positioned himself so that he had kind of squirmed down and was hanging there from waist down, his legs dangling a couple feet above the ground, and he was just stuck. So Dobson went out there to rescue his son, and as he was slipping up behind him to take hold of him, and the little boy didn't know his dad was there yet, Dobson overheard the little boy saying to himself, somebody, help the boy. He kept saying, won't somebody just come help the boy?

And of course Dobson got him down and got really tickled. And if you think about your life and you think about what you really have needed, you've always needed somebody to help you. I think rescue stories are inspiring.

And so I was riveted by Ron Howard's movie, 13 Lives, came out recently. It tells the story of 12 soccer players, ages 11 to 16, and their assistant coach, who after practice in their home in Thailand one day, went to explore the Tam Luang Cave with all of its different compartments in its labyrinthine ways. And there was going to be a birthday party later, but the assistant coach thought that'd be a fun thing to do. So they all biked over there and they went in to explore the cave.

This is in 2018. Monsoon season starts at the end of July, and this was in June, so there shouldn't be any problem with that, but it came early that year. And while they were in the recesses of the cave, the rains began to fall. And of course they were unaware of how the tributaries and the underground water and all of it began to seep in and then began to flood into the massive cave. When they made their way back to the cave, towards the cave entrance, they realized they had now become blocked by the flood and they could not make their way. So they retreated and retreated as the waters continued to fill until they were at a back part of the cave some two and a half miles away from the entrance. And nobody knew they were there. And they had no food or water or provisions.

And they settled up into a rocky higher elevated place. The coach at one point decided he would try to swim. They had a long rope.

He held on to it. The currents were too strong. It was too deep. And beside it, it filled the cave with water so there was no air pocket. There was nowhere to rest on the journey back to the entrance of the cave.

So people, parents and others wondering where their kids were began searching. Someone saw the bikes and their backpacks at the entrance to the cave and they realized what had happened. They didn't know if they were alive or not.

The rains had started and they seemed relentless. The Navy Seals of Thailand came. And though they were brave and skilled in underwater diving and swimming maneuvers, no one had ever been diving in a cave before. And someone ventured towards it and came back and said it was impassable.

And what were they going to do? Thankfully, there was a British cave explorer who lived nearby and a resident there in Thailand who knew this cave very well. So he came and met with the seals and he began to draw out for them a diagram and show them all of the different conduits and compartments and rooms in this massive cave that began to help them. And he suggested to them that they contact two British cave divers. Whoever knew that such a thing even existed. But there are just a few of these men in the world that were highly experienced at diving in caves that have been filled with water.

It's completely different than scuba diving in an ocean or a body of water. And so they called in these two men who were ex-firefighters, one an electrician by day, the other had an IT job. And so they were cave divers by avocation. And they brought them in. They flew in and they evaluated the situation and realized it was incredibly unlikely that they would ever find these boys or this coach.

Nobody was paying them. Meanwhile, the whole village began cooperating, people trying to work with local experts to divert water away from the cave and build new channels and streams that would eventually flood the farmlands around it because they were trying to, as a village people, save these lives. On the 10th day, the two cave divers, they had managed to make it on about a six hour dive to the very end. And when they came up, there were these 12 boys and their coach all alive.

There is real footage of this and what a moment to see this. And then the real crisis, how in the world would they ever get them back to safety? These boys that were malnourished and weakened from 10 days of isolation in a cave, how could they take these panicky boys through a two and a half mile journey, six plus hours underwater and get them to safety?

Meanwhile, the rains continued relentlessly. And so the real crisis was at hand. And what they did to save those boys, their idea was absolutely crazy.

I'll come back to it later. If you don't know the story, it's astounding what they did. It's gripping when there is someone who's willing to make a rescue at great personal peril. It is something that we can find our souls riveted at because perhaps we all know that down deep within us, we all need that kind of rescue. I'm wondering like, have you ever had to get rescued? And you probably say, well, no, I've never been stuck in a cave. I've never been in some place where I was trapped.

And I had to, you know, most people would say, no, I hadn't. But you know, I was thinking about this when we went to babysit for a grand baby Mia on Valentine's day and taking care of this four month old, which is so fun and reminds me, it just takes me right back to parenting our own newborns. And it reminds me how odd of God to design the world that we come into the world utterly helpless. 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 Wright's newest book just released.

And it's the giant secret of real transformation. Followers of Christ tend to focus on doing. So we've been told to ask, what would Jesus do? But even our noblest efforts to be more like Jesus ultimately fail for the same reason that pledging to keep the law never works. There's no gospel power in our self striving. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye opening new book, 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 went over the darkness and open your heart to wonder enjoy by getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new beautiful hardcover book. And as an additional thank you for your support, you'll also receive a free six weeks seeing as Jesus sees companion video series from Pastor Alan along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life.

As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees, and you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When 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. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. You put a baby in a crib, and when the baby wakes up and the baby is hungry, there's only one way the baby will be fed, and that is that someone comes to her rescue. So in a real sense, every single one of us has been rescued a thousand times, because if someone had not come to you and fed you and changed you and cared for you, then you would have never, ever made it.

We're, we're all in the same predicament naturally. And what we see in Romans chapter three is Paul building his argument, this logical and beautiful flow of thought that is going to carry us on to Romans eight and then carry us on to chapters about how then we shall live. When we discover how freeing it is that there's no condemnation for Christ and the power of a Spirit-filled life.

But now in Romans three, he's taking what he has taught at the end of Romans one and throughout Romans two, and he's putting this together and it's beginning to coalesce. It's beginning to see this as we begin to understand that all have sinned, that all are in a predicament. In a sense, what he's saying is that we're very much like those trapped boys in that cave. In a spiritual sense that our sin has caused us to have such a massive separation from God and that none of us, none of us can make our way back to God.

None of us can save ourselves and we need a rescue. Let's pick this up and look at it paragraph by paragraph, starting in verse one. Then what advantage has the Jew or what is the value of circumcision much in every way? To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. So Paul has previously talked about the outward sign of the covenant circumcision as something that some of his Jewish readers may have put trust in, that the outward and the external is some kind of guarantee of my relationship with God.

And he's made the point, he said, no, it's not the outside, it's the inside. And it's the work of God inside of us. And so now he turns it essentially, he said, well, is there an advantage if you were in the people, the Hebrew people? He said, yes, he says there is, because they were given the very revelation of God of the Torah and the prophets. They were given wisdom. So there's nothing bad, he says, about being given the good gift of God's word. And there's nothing bad about God. And so God never gives bad gifts.

And so the fact that the Jewish people had the law, it was a good gift. And this is important if you're going to understand everything he has to say in Romans by the time we get into chapters five and six and seven. Romans chapter three, verse three. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

By no means. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it's written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you're judged. So what Paul is saying here, if God was good and faithful in giving his word, giving his law, but people were unfaithful to the law, does that mean that God's gift wasn't faithful and good? Does in fact the unfaithfulness of the people mean that God somehow is unfaithful?

And Paul says no. In fact, the unfaithfulness of the people is actually accentuating the faithfulness of God. There's a way in which the sin of the people is making God's truth shine all the more. Verse five. But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?

I speak in a human way. By no means. For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

And why not do evil that good may come as some slanderously charge us with saying that their condemnation is just? So here Paul is saying, if you say that my unfaithfulness puts God's faithfulness on display, that in a sense my sin actually makes God's glory shine all the more, then God shouldn't judge me because of my sin, because it's actually serving to glorify God. And Paul says no, that's nonsense. It's utterly illogical to say that. So it's illogical to say that because God's word was righteous, but some people were unfaithful, that there's something unfaithful about God. And it's equally illogical to say that because your unfaithfulness puts God's faithfulness on display, that somehow you shouldn't need to be judged. Verse nine. What then? Are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it's written, none is righteous.

No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good.

Not even one. So what Paul is saying is to the Jewish people that if you think that you're under somehow a different relationship with God because you had the law or because you had circumcision, you say no, here's what he's been leading to in chapter 2 also. Every single person, he says, is under sin. All. It means that there are not some that have the capacity to in some way save themselves because they are better than other people. He's saying we're all in the exact same predicament. All are lost and need to be found. All are trapped and can't escape on their own.

All are stuck with their own selfishness and their own blinders and cannot escape except they have a rescuer. So what we're seeing here is that there really are two categories of person. There are those that are under sin and those that are under grace. And to be under sin is not really talking about the individual sins. Yeah, some people commit more heinous sins than other people. That's true. Not everybody lives an equally moral or immoral life.

That's true. But what Paul is saying here is this condition of sin, which you can think of is separation from God because of spiritual deadness on the inside of us. Spiritual blindness.

Can't see. We're all, he says, under sin. We're all in that condition.

And this goes far to explain, therefore, why in a deep sense, though we don't all live the same morally equivalent life, we're all in the same condition. So like these boys, 12 of them and a coach, and they were under a monsoon. They were under a flood. They were entrapped. It was dark. It was completely flooded. They had no oxygen mask.

They had no food. And I don't know if any of these boys were good swimmers. I don't know if some of them couldn't swim at all. But let's just say that they had varying abilities to swim. And maybe there's one boy who, he can't swim. And so if he starts to try to swim through the murky, heavy currents of the flood waters in the cave, then he might not make it 10 feet before he drowns because he can't swim. And let's say there's another boy, and he is a pretty good swimmer. He's spent time swimming in the surf and in the lakes, and he knows how to manage himself. And maybe he could probably swim 100 yards without being too exhausted if it was still water. But this is two and a half miles.

And so he tries to swim and can't make it more than 100 yards before he drowns. Alan Wright, our Good News message, the rescue from the series, O Bologna. It's a study of Romans chapters one through three, the first few chapters.

Hey, stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing his parting Good News thought for the day in just a moment. Seeing as Jesus sees, it's the title of Pastor Alan Wright's newest book just released, and it's the giant secret of real transformation. Followers of Christ tend to focus on doing, so we've been told to ask, what would Jesus do? But even our noblest efforts to be more like Jesus ultimately fail for the same reason that pledging to keep the law never works.

There's no gospel power in our self-striving. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing? Anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye-opening new book, 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 getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new beautiful hardcover book. And as an additional thank you for your support, 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. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life.

As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees, and you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When 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 here now, sitting with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day as we place the bookmark here on the teaching called The Rescue. Every single person has had the same predicament sin, which left an unapproachable, an impassable gulf between us and God.

Our sin actually put us at enmity with God. And so every single one of us, as though we had been trapped and the floods had come, and there's no way we could ever swim our way to safety. Every single one of us has faced the same need. We need to be rescued. And God came in the person of Jesus Christ for just such a rescue. So whether you're a Christian or whether you're yet to be a Christian, the same need, a rescuer. And if you've known him, then you can just praise him. And if you don't yet know him, trust him today and say, I need to be rescued. I could never overcome the great sea of sin that's kept me from God.

And say, yes, he came for you to rescue 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.