Counting Stars [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. You're going to be the father and mother of the nation, and it's going to be a blessing.

It's going to be extended from generation to generation. He brings resurrection life into deadness. That's what God does. He brings blessing into where there is only hopelessness, and so that's what he does. He brings Abram, and he calls him such.

The whole irony of this, of course, is Abram's name means exalted father, and later God changes his name to Abraham, which means father of many, but he does this, and there's going to be 25 years, and Abram's had no kids, even after the promise. 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 It's All Right Now, from Romans chapters 4 through 7, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina.

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. Right. Okay, beloved, are you ready for some good news? When you're in Christ, a double miracle takes place. He takes away your sin, so it's as if you never sinned.

But more than that, he gives you his righteousness, so it is as if you lived Christ's meritorious life. That's breathtaking, but that's surely what we're going to learn today in Romans 4. We're going to learn about how you can be sure of this.

This is what God wants us to know through the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul, that you can know this for sure, like Abraham came to know for sure, that he was called the heir of the world. How could you ever know for sure these things? See, the thing that's so tricky about life and difficult about living in peace and joy and faith is there's so much uncertainty. You know, we don't know what tomorrow brings. We don't know what the bank account will look ten years from now. We don't know what it'll look like next month. We don't know about issues about health. We don't know if that family member that you love so much is going to be okay.

We don't know about this or that. There's just so much uncertainty all the time. And that's what's hard for us. It's hard to deal with that. And so how do you deal with it? Well, the way to deal with it is by meditating upon and living in the truths that you know for sure. You take the things that you're uncertain about and you put them into the context and under the shadow of the things you do know for sure.

And I want to talk to you today about those things that we know for sure. We were on a road trip here recently and not long into it, a truck threw a pebble up and hit the windshield. I was waiting to just see that crack, you know, seemed like we replaced the windshield.

But it hit the windshield real hard and didn't crack it. I'm like, oh, we escaped it. But you know what happened after that? Every single truck, I'm like, was they going to throw a rock too? You know, I mean, I was going to stay back from those dump trucks and construction trucks, you know, those things.

They'll throw a piece of lumber down on you if you don't watch it. But the whole time we're like, oh, there's another pebble going to come. And you know, it's this long road trip. And then all of a sudden here comes another pebble from another truck.

Kapow! And we look and there it is, just starts cracking about two inch crack. We're like, OK, we have to replace the windshield again. But as soon as it hit and it cracked the windshield, we just got quiet for a minute. And then I looked at Ed and I'm just like driving along like, phew, I'm glad that's over. And because it's like, well, now we know for sure we got to replace the windshield and I never worried about it the rest of the time. It's weird, but it's almost like I see people sometimes like even bad news sometimes feels good to them if now at least they're sure of something.

We just live with so much uncertainty. And now we come in here where Paul is saying, I want you to see how Abraham knew for sure that he was blessed so that you can understand for sure how you were blessed and have this guarantee in your soul to know it down, down deep. That's what we're going to be learning about in Romans chapter four. This chapter in Tim Keller's words is a master stroke for Paul who in writing to Jewish readers is wanting to bring home his point that in no way are you saved by your own works of obedience to the law, that it's never been, never been about your righteousness. And the way he does this is he hearkens to Abraham who lived 500 years before Moses who received the law.

500 years before the Ten Commandments, 500 years before God revealed all these laws that the Jewish people had spent so much energy trying to keep and to make themselves acceptable to God. And so what Paul's saying is that he's basically saying, are you children of Abraham? Yes. Was Abraham the great patriarch of the nation?

Yes. Did Abraham come before the law or after law? Well, before the law. So was he saved therefore by the law or by grace? Well, I guess it has to be grace. What essentially Paul's saying is he's always, always, always, always been the plan of God to credit you with righteousness as a gift. This week all throughout our readings in the Path to Easter we're going to be reading passages in Luke that are using one of Luke's favorite words, dei, in Greek it means it was necessary. It was necessary that the Son of Man had to suffer these things and he had to go to Jerusalem. Over and over you'll see this and we're going to look at those this week because it is to say that God has always, always, always had this plan and what you see in Christ is the unfolding of it.

But it's always been this way and that's the point that he's making here. So he calls Abram, God does, in Genesis 12 and we don't know much about him. He just called up from the earth of Chaldees and God just meets with this man Abram whose name means exalted father and says you're going to be blessed and through you all the nations of the world are going to be blessed and he just blesses him and this is the nature of God. He doesn't wait for someone like Abraham and Sarah to be productive, have a family, live a righteous life and then say wow you are really doing a great job and so I'm going to bless you now and really use you. That's not the way of God. He calls this old man and this wife who is old and childless and have no natural hope of having a child and says I'm going to make you parents and you're going to be the father and mother of the nation and it's going to be a blessing, it's going to be extended from generation to generation. He brings resurrection life into deadness. That's what God does.

He brings blessing into where there is only hopelessness and so that's what he does. He brings Abram and he calls him such. The whole irony of this of course is Abram's name means exalted father and later God changes his name to Abraham which means father of many but he does this and there's going to be 25 years and Abram's had no kids even after the promise.

Max Lucado says of this, do you think the conversation became dreadfully routine for Abraham? What's your name? Abraham. Oh beautiful name means father of many. How many children do you have?

None. So the Lord knows that Abraham needs reassurance and he comes to him again in Genesis chapter 15. He's spoken to him in Genesis 12. He's given him the promises.

He said consider, look at the sands of the beaches. He's appeared to him a second time and now he knows Abraham needs reassurance and so he comes in Genesis 15. This is what Paul's referencing from Romans 4.

Genesis 15 verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not Abram. I am your shield. Your ward shall be very great.

Your ward shall be very great. And it just makes you pause to go well what has Abram done that deserves being rewarded? He's not done anything that we know of but your reward shall be very great. But Abram said oh Lord God what would you give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus and a second complaint Abram said behold you've given me no offspring. A member of my household will be my heir. So Abram is referencing here the common ancient practice of a childless couple who is approaching death and has a nice estate and no one to pass it on to and so a common practice would be to adopt an adult male servant in the household to then pass the estate on. Maybe you got a favorite servant favorite somebody worked in the household they adopt him and he and that's what he's saying he said Eliezer he's going to be my heir because you know you said you gave child there's been no child and the Lord is very patient with him in a beautiful way.

He says at verse 4 behold the word of the Lord came to him this man shall not be your heir your very own son shall be your heir and he brought him outside and he said look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them and he said to him so shall your offspring be and he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. Something powerful happened in that moment of looking to the stars. Transcendent powerful moment it leads me wondering what what happened.

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 ourself 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 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 gonna 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 know I'm mainly a church all the time person Christian worship on my radio all the time you know just everything but I do have some some awareness of a few secular bands one of which that I really like is called One Republic they're actually one of the most popular bands in the world and not everybody knows this but Ryan Tedder the lead lead singer this band's been around for a long time with many many hits is a Christian he went to a Christian university I think his grandfather was a preacher in fact I think he's got a song about that and I love that song said my grandfather was a preacher he talked about God he was something like a teacher and I like that song but they did the song one of those hit songs it was in the recent Top Gun movie ain't worried about it right now it's a playful song it's been a big hit but maybe their biggest song ever was a song called Counting Stars and it's so interesting to go online and read what people think the song means you know artists don't say much about their songs because they'd rather them be art and take on a life of their own so people go on a blog and they talk about what the songs mean you know and I was looking I was reading about that this week what everybody say about counting stars and and a lot of people say what they say about every song they say I think it's about drugs I think about drugs you know that's the thing it's like every rock song is about drugs it's always about the drugs you know and the struggle with drugs and trying to get off drugs and all like that but Ryan Tedder himself said some things about this song Counting Stars and let me give you the the refrain of the of the song is lately I've been I've been losing sleep dreaming about the things that we could be but maybe I've been I've been praying hard said no more counting dollars we'll be counting stars yeah we'll be counting stars now just as a side point if you were to go on in the song and see some of the lyrics and if you think about this a little bit later when we get to Romans six and seven here's here here it is I feel something so right doing the wrong thing and I feel something so wrong doing the right thing I couldn't lie I couldn't lie I couldn't lie everything that kills me makes me feel alive we'll get back to that in Romans seven so but Ryan Tedder has said some things about this song and he said this is a couple of different interviews but he said I had the idea for Counting Stars originally in the summer of 2012 when I was in the Hamptons and I was working in the largest house I've ever stepped foot in which was being rented by Beyonce and he said I was looking through the internet and I came upon a song that I didn't like but there was something in the feel of it that ended up inspiring me to start thinking about the song Counting Stars so he is he got his first idea when he was in the most opulent material thing imaginable and the biggest house he'd ever been in that's where he got so there's the first clue but then he right he he said this in a billboard magazine interview I felt a responsibility to actually write and sing about things that have a level of human gravity to them if everybody else sings about sex and love and lust and money then somebody's got to be singing about life and faith and hope he said elsewhere a lot of time I just lay in bed awake stressing out everybody does it and I just thought I can't wait until I'm counting stars and not counting dollars anymore things will be much better and and and as I read everybody thinks what this is all about and I know what this is about because I guarantee you this Oral Roberts University graduate knows Genesis 15. Abram you need to look to the stars right now and quit counting your own righteousness and quit counting any of your own works and quit thinking about Eliezer your servant and quit thinking about how you're going to pull it off and quit thinking about the worries of your life and your old age I want you right now to forget all of that and I want you to just pause and try to count all the stars on this beautiful clear night and something in that transcendent moment of contemplating the majesty of the heavens the innumerable stars of unspeakable glory in the consideration of the handiwork of the creator who had flung all those stars in their place and had assembled this cosmos and how small he was and how little his problem compared to the magnitude of this God and as he's trying to count the stars and forgetting about himself he believed God he didn't believe in God he already had believed in God now he believed God he believed God could do what God said he was going to do he believed God had blessed him he believed God and in that simple belief of self-forgetfulness of abandonment of human righteousness and solely thinking of the majesty and wonder and goodness of God he believed God and in that belief that simple belief it was credited to him as righteousness this back in Romans 4-5 is what Paul is referencing and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly in the same way it happened for Abraham's what he's saying his faith is counted as righteousness this word counted as is of massive importance in the New Testament it is a Greek word logizimai it means counted as or considered as or looked upon as if you could use the translation reckoned and this word logizimai occurs in Romans chapter 4 in verse 2 verse 4 verse 5 6 8 9 10 11 22 23 and 24 so Romans 4 is about logizimai Romans 4 is about logizimai Romans 4 is about this idea of this being counted to you credited to you reckoned unto you or looked upon in coming weeks in our study of Romans we're going to see this word in two more important texts we're going to see it in Romans 6 11 where Paul says you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God we're going to see it in Romans 8 18 where we read for I consider there it is I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that's to be revealed so this gives you insight into what this word means it is to say consider yourselves dead to sin it doesn't mean that you don't sin anymore that doesn't happen until you're glorified that doesn't happen till heaven but to consider yourself dead to sin means to look on your life in a whole new way to see that your sin was crucified with Christ to see that you're no longer a slave to that sin it is to say that when you think about your life in the context of what Jesus has done for you you need to consider yourself as if you are dead to all that look on yourself that way and and in Romans 8 what he's saying is that this world does have trouble and there's going to be sufferings in this world he references that in Romans 8 he said but I consider these present sufferings of nothing compared to the world that I'm in compared to the glory that's to come it doesn't mean there aren't present sufferings he just says there's nothing in the way I look upon them so logism I decide to be credited with or reckoned as it means to be looked upon as if and this goes very far because this is saying that Abram was not intrinsically righteous he was not called and blessed because he was better than other people there are a lot of good things about him but that's not what it was about he was called and he was blessed and when Abram believed that it was credited to him as righteousness Allen Wright our good news message counting stars it's from the series it's all right now from Romans chapters four through seven please stay with us Pastor Alan is back here 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 ourselves 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 the situation knows that fresh vision changes everything in his eye-opening new book Allen 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 Allen 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 Allen 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 Allen Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastorallen.org Back here now with Pastor Alan Wright and our parting good news thought for the day as we kick off this series on Romans specifically chapters four through seven in this portion we're calling it counting stars and excited to jump in to this series Pastor Alan.

Well Romans one through three we call that old baloney because that's right remember that and and it was because the opening chapters of Romans Paul's telling us why everything went wrong the problem of sin yeah but now in chapters four through seven we're starting to see in a beautiful majestic way what God did in Jesus to make everything all right so that we can be in right standing with God so it's about the move from being lost and trapped in our sin to through Christ alone being put into right standing with God and so we're going to learn about justification and about imputed righteousness and to do so Paul first turns our attention to Abraham who God said look to the stars of the heavens and count them if you can yeah yeah and he credited Abraham's belief as righteousness so we're turning our attention towards the unmerited blessings of God and in that sense counting stars. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.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 pastorallen.org that's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.