Christmas with Pastor Alan

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I shared in someone else's joy. And I think that that's part of what this means, good news of great joy, that shall be for all the people. I think one of the giant secrets of the Christian life is that we can grow into a place where we discover joy, not just in something that's changed about our circumstances, but just in the joy of others. In other words, there's a place of self-forgetfulness where your soul finds delight in another's well-being.

And this is what happened with these shepherds. If you want your joy to increase, in a very real sense, what you need is for your love for others to increase, so that you share greater delight in every good thing that comes their way. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Merry Christmas, and 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 our Christmas Day morning titled, Joy to the World, as presented on a Christmas morning at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource available right now, and it can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we do today's special offer.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. More on this 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 on this Christmas Day? Joy to the world also means joy to you. What I mean is that you have a share in the joy of the world.

That joy is something that's not just meant to be shared, but as you learn to enjoy blessing, whether it is specifically something about your life or someone else, your joy increases. We've been talking about joy all Advent long, the joy of every longing heart, the joy of every longing heart, and it's fitting on Christmas Day to return to the familiar words of Luke and look at this joy that erupts in the shepherds. Luke 2, verse 8.

In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he's pleased. And when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that's happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste. They found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. And Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. Good news of great joy that will be for all the people, not just Mary, not just Joseph, and not just the shepherds, great news, great joy for all the people.

This is a message of shared joy. So I have been, I spent a lot of time downstairs in my home as I recoup from a COVID cold. And my wife, she just every now and then would throw some food down the stairs at me. And I now know what it feels like to be in solitary confinement where they just shove a little tray into your cell, you know, every now and then. So I'd been working from home, but when I wasn't working and trying to find something to do, I wound up for whatever reason, watching, get this, Wheel of Fortune reruns. Yeah.

I don't know. I like Wheel of Fortune. And I started just watching Wheel of Fortune. I don't know why, maybe it's because Wheel of Fortune is happy. Nobody gets too stressed on Wheel of Fortune Pat Sajak is always in a good mood. And he always, you're always pulling for everybody on the show. And even when people don't do well, I don't know, it's still kind of happy.

I've watched one episode in which the contestant, this man, not only did he not ever solve a puzzle, he never actually got a letter. It was bad. And at the end of the evening, Pat walked over to him and said, well, not your night, but we're going to send you home with a thousand dollars anyway. And hey, I hope you had fun. And I was like, yeah, I had fun.

So everybody's having fun. I watched one episode where I've learned a lot about Wheel of Fortune over the last week, but I watched one episode of this lady. She twice blurted out the answer when it wasn't her turn. And so the contestant to her left were able to just get the correct answer at the end.

Pat Sajak came where he said, well, maybe not your night tonight, but you sure were generous and I hope you had fun. Well, everybody has fun on Wheel of Fortune. And the amazing thing about it is that you can sit there and watch this show, 20 to 30 minute show, and you don't know a single person on there. You have no idea who these contestants are. You don't know if you sat down and had a meal with them, if you'd like them at all.

You don't know their theology, their ideologies. You don't know what they're like when they're in an everyday workplace. You have no idea, but you're pulling for them. And that's the thing that's so amazing about it is that in a very real sense, while I'm sitting there getting over my cold, that I'm sitting there and I'm pulling for them. And when somebody would win, I realized I wanted them to win. And when they did win, I felt a little bit of joy. I shared in someone else's joy. And I think that that's part of what this means, good news of great joy, that it shall be for all the people. I think one of the giant secrets of the Christian life is that we can grow into a place where we discover joy, not just in something that's changed about our circumstances, but just in the joy of others.

In other words, there's a place of self-forgetfulness where your soul finds delight in another's wellbeing. And this is what happened with these shepherds. Look again at verse 16, and they went with haste. That's what you do when you're excited about something. You run towards something when you have the energy of joy about it.

If there's something you dread or there's something you're not excited about, you don't run with haste towards it. And they told everyone about what they saw. Verse 17, when they saw it, after they'd seen baby Jesus, they went, made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child. They just started spontaneously sharing with others the joyful proclamation, the news that they'd been given, and how they'd witnessed it firsthand. They just started telling other people. When you're overjoyed with something that you've seen, you want to begin to tell others.

What I'm talking about here is shared joy. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Seeing is 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.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. So, back to my Wheel of Fortune expertise now. You can win a million dollars on the Wheel of Fortune. It's hard, because what has to happen is that during one of the regular rounds where you're solving a puzzle, you have to have landed on the million dollar card, and you have to take it, hold on to it, and then you got to solve that puzzle and never spin the wheel and land on bankrupt. And you have to be the big winner who goes to the final puzzle to try to win the jackpot. And you spin another wheel, and Pat pulls off a card of where the wheel lands, and it's hidden as to what the prize will be in the final puzzle. And you have to win the final puzzle, and he has to open it up, and it has to have happened to have been the million dollar winner.

And all that's got to take place. And so, I kept going, does anybody ever win the million dollars? I'm just sitting there like, I want to see somebody win a million dollars.

Well, finally, I just went on YouTube to look it up and see. And sure enough, it's happened only three times. Three times people won a million dollars.

And I'm like, I want to see somebody win in a million dollars. But what I found was an incredible montage of the greatest moments ever on Wheel of Fortune. And I just got to laughing out loud at some of the remarkable moments, which people have solved puzzles out of just left field, just nowhere. I mean, I remember watching this one, and this lady, she makes the first guess at the puzzle. She says, give me an L, and it's a phrase. So I think seven word phrase. And Pat says, yes, there's one L. Look it up there, seven words, and there's one L on the whole board. And she looked at it, and she said, I've got a good feeling about this. And solved the puzzle based on just that. Another guy was in the final jackpot round.

It's a thing. And it ended in ER, six letters. And that was only letters he got, ends in ER. And Pat looked at him and said, well, it's a thing. And unfortunately, a lot of things end in ER.

But you never know, sound it out, say some things, maybe you'll land on it. And the man just, first thing, he blurted out gopher, gopher. And it was gopher. I mean, it was just, you know, anyway, I'm sitting down there just, you know, watching this thing. And then I see the three times that people win a million dollars. I had to go upstairs, interrupt my wife and daughter from watching the great British baking show and say, you guys got to watch the Wheel of Fortune montage and see these incredible moments in these people's lives.

And we sat there and just, I said, is that unbelievable? I'm saying is that joy is designed by God to be something that is enriched as it is shared. So, so joy, joy comes in the shared experience of the well-being that is not just for you, but for others.

And then as that joy is shared, is it experienced together, it amplifies, it grows. That's what was happening with the shepherds. And they returned, they returned, verse 20, glorifying and praising God for all they'd seen. They were rejoicing, which means to have joy over and over again.

But don't miss this. The shepherds returned. I wonder what changed in the shepherd's lives.

They didn't get a multimillion dollar book contract out of the deal. They didn't become Instagram famous. They didn't suddenly become celebrities. They went back to their flocks. On the one hand, nothing had changed.

On the other hand, everything had changed. Some years ago, I was talking to Miriam Blackwell, who is the elder in our church, who's the director of our healing ministries. And some years ago, we were talking about the healing ministries. We're talking about the life ministry teams, people that pray for people after services, healing and hope ministers that give their time, volunteer, minister with people by appointment. And we were talking about what we love about this so much, what we love about giving ourselves away and being used by God to help someone else be healed. And I said, Miriam, what is it? What is it that we, when we're recruiting somebody to become a life minister, for example, what is it that we have to offer them?

Why would somebody want to do this? And I love what he said. He said, we get a front row seat to watch God heal and bless people. And that is a cause of great joy. The shepherds returned to their flocks.

I don't know if any of their circumstances really changed, but they were changed on the inside because they'd had a front row seat to see the goodness of God. They had personally received the message of joy to the world. If you want your joy to increase, in a very real sense, what you need is for your love for others to increase so that you share greater delight in every good thing that comes their way. I've mentioned before when Bennett was little, I mean, real little, and he would watch basketball on TV with me and he got, so he loved watching, he called it hoop ball. He loved to watch the hoop ball. And he would watch basketball on TV and I realized early on that little Bennett was celebrating every time the ball went through the hoop, not just for one team, but anytime anybody got it in the hoop, he'd jump up, twirl around, sometimes giggle and fall down in laughter. And I remember the first time I was watching a game with Carolina was playing somebody and there's Bennett and he's celebrating the hoop ball for anybody.

And I realized I got to start teaching this boy. No, we don't celebrate every time it goes through. We're only happy when it goes through our team. So I guess that's when I began to teach him how to be miserable if your team's not winning.

Somewhere on our journey to adulthood, we got the idea we can only celebrate if there's something that is specifically relevant to my particular circumstance. And what we do is we make our joy shrink. But the expansive grace of the gospel is a message that's for everybody. And I think that's why these shepherds were so happy. It wasn't just that something like some big grand prize had been given to the shepherds.

No, they were still shepherds, but they had experienced the grace of God up close. They had seen these things that had come to pass and their hearts were filled with a shared joy. All of this goes far to explain why I say joy to the world also means joy to you. Every place that you see joy, every place that you can delight in the well-being of another, and every aspect of the gospel, which is good news for all the world, every bit of it that you can embrace and delight in is going to increase your joy.

Joy to the world is joy to you. And that's the gospel. That's Pastor Alan Wright, our Good News message, Joy to the World, a Christmas Day message.

Stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here 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 in 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 in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day.

And I suppose we shall not tell a lie. We are at home enjoying our families right now, Pastor Alan. And when we are recording this, we know that when you're listening to it, it's likely Christmas Day. And we wish you a Merry Christmas. And not too long ago, you preached on Christmas morning. And this is the message you preach. Yes.

Yes. This was a Christmas Day message. And Merry Christmas, everyone. A very, very Merry Christmas.

I was closed down with getting through some COVID before Christmas last year and just sort of quarantined in my house basement. And I don't know, I was just watching Wheel of Fortune over. That's a good one.

I had them all recorded. It's educational. Yeah, it's educational. But you know, why do you watch something like that? You're pulling for people to win. You don't win something, they win it. And yet their joy becomes your joy. And like little Bennett when he was little and we'd watch basketball and he'd cheer every time anybody scored. And I'm like, wait a minute, we don't cheer for the other team. Well, who says?

And I just think this Christmas, I'll leave you with this thought. The more that you're able to celebrate with someone else and their victory becomes also a celebration to you, then your joy increases. Humble shepherds that are filled with joy. I don't know how their lives changed, Daniel.

I don't know. They got a book tour out of it or that there were any royalties on any works that they put together after that. They just had joy because Jesus had been born and it was joy to the whole world. And I love the angels announces unto you. This day is born in the city of David as savior.

And that is cause for joy. And it is again, this Christmas as well. Merry Christmas and joy to the world. 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.