God in You [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Think of your sin problem as being like our problem of not being able to get very near the sun. But the problem was not just that we couldn't be connected in fellowship with this glorious God, but in one way of thinking, our sin was a problem for God.

Because God is love. 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, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, More Than Conquerors, a study of Romans 8 as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I 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. Just contact us at pastoralan.org. That's pastoralan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. I reap. I reap every time I'm with you. I've been reaping today.

I about preached myself giddy at the first service and I'm feeling it's already coming on me now. It's just there is a way, right? But if you just sow to the flesh and you get that flesh telling you all the things that aren't true and all the things that are bad and you choose to meditate on those things and you think on those things and you choose activities that are just flesh activities, well, you reap from that. But you reap in a way that is corrosive.

That's what he's saying, I think. At verse 6 of Romans 8, to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. I want life and peace, don't you? And as much as Pastor Munger's little sermon in that little booklet has impacted millions with the image of Jesus moving from room to room in our heart, the idea that Paul shares here is something that is much more breathtaking. And that's what I want to contemplate with you. In order to think about the idea of God being in you and how unspeakably awesome this is, I want to take you back to the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant, a covenant in which the people of God were given the law by God, but as Paul explained in Romans 1 through 7, they couldn't keep the law. The law is good and holy and right because it comes from God, everything God says. If He says you shall not kill, then God is saying that He Himself is not a murderer.

If He says you shall not lie, He's saying He is truth and honest, this is the nature of God. But the law came alongside of sinful people and it didn't help them. It just highlighted how sinful they were and in some ways it exacerbated the problem of sin. That's what Romans 1 through 7 teaches us.

But when they got the law, it was so glorious. Well, let's look in Exodus chapter 19 where we see some pieces of this narrative. Exodus 19 10, the Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them, that is to set them apart in holy ritual, consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments. Symbolizing, you're doing all you can to set yourself apart for something very holy and to be ready for the third day.

For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai and the sight of all the people. Verse 16, on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled. So here is the awesome glory of God that is being manifest in a way that the people had not encountered before and the presence of God is so glorious that things happen. Thunders and lightning and a cloud and a trumpet blast and the people were terrified.

Rightly so. Verse 20, the Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain and the Lord called Moses, his mediator, to the top of the mountain and Moses went up and the Lord said to Moses, go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish and also let the priests who come near the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them. I think that's an odd phrase, the Lord break out against them. I don't even know what it means, but I don't think you want the Lord to break out against you. You see what he's saying here. He's saying, I'm going to come and I'm going to appear in my glory, at least in part, and you got to warn the people. They can't even look.

It will, it will be too much for them, you say. Moses was unlike any other person who'd ever lived because he had met with God so up close, but there was still a great limit to it. And Moses yearned to know more of God, yearned to see more of the glory of God. In Exodus 33, Moses said, please show me your glory. And the Lord said, I'll make all my goodness pass before you. And I will proclaim to you, my name, the Lord Yahweh. And I will be gracious to whom I'll be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But the Lord said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live the boldness of Moses to ask for the presence of God and to see the glory of God, but not even Moses would have dared to ask God, would you come and take up a residence in me?

Maybe hide me in the cleft of a rock and see part of your glory. And Moses would be near God on the mountain. And when he would come down to share with the people, what God had been saying, his face was literally radiantly glowing so brightly that the people were afraid of Moses.

Eventually he just started putting a veil over his face so that the people wouldn't be scared and be blinded by the radiance of his face, just a reflection of God's glory. God wanted to meet with his people and he gave instructions to establish a tabernacle, which was a tent of meeting, a mobile meeting place with God, could move with the people. And he gave specifications that there would be an outer court and then there would be an inner court called the holy place. And in that court there the priests could minister and they could wash and they could wash things and they could burn sacrifices and minister. And then there was a thick curtain and behind that thick curtain was a little room called the Holy of Holies. And in there was the Ark of the Covenant, which was a big box that contained the Ten Commandments and had a golden lid, solid gold lid with gold cherubim that had been crafted onto it that were facing one another. And God said once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest and only the high priest will be allowed to come in on that one day in this high holy moment in the life of Israel in the fall. And we'll be able to bring in the blood of an innocent animal as a mark of payment in part for the sin of the people and sprinkle that blood on that golden lid.

And that is called the mercy seat. And this is what God said about it in Exodus 25 22. Therefore there I will meet with you there on that mercy seat and from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubim that are on the Ark of the Testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you. I say all of this because I'm wanting you to lead you towards the jaw-dropping and breathtaking news that a Christian is a person in whom the Spirit of God dwells. Because there's nobody in the Old Covenant that any such thought that you couldn't even get near God is too sinful. People can't get near God because he's too holy and too glorious.

There's a picture of it, you see, and I don't know how to explain it except that, you know, think about the sun. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. It has been called the most influential letter ever written. Every word written by the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans is dripping with the astounding news of what God has done for you in Jesus answering the two biggest questions of life.

What went wrong and how has God made it right? Discover the richness of those answers and enhance your Bible journey today. Make a donation to Alan Wright Ministries this month and unlock our Romans reading guide paired with the ESV Scripture Journal. Immerse yourself in the Word and capture personal insights, prayers, prayers, and reflections directly alongside the powerful text.

These sleek portable journals amplify your study, enrich group sessions, and deepen personal reflections. Elevate your spiritual odyssey and forge a stronger connection with the Scriptures. Help Alan Wright Ministries reach the world with the good news of the Gospel with your gift today and receive these essential tools that will elevate your study, enrich your prayer life, and deepen your understanding of the Book of Romans. 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. I remember in 2017 there was a solar eclipse. Anybody try to see the solar eclipse in 2008? That's for some reason it was supposed to be more visible in the mountains. So we drove the Black Mountain and we got the proper, you know, there was a certain thing, there was a lot about you got to wear the proper glasses. You can't look at a solar eclipse because you can't look at the sun for more than a second without it damaging your cornea and your retina and causing permanent damage to your eye. You can't look at the sun for more than a couple seconds without risking going blind. So I remember that we thought like, I'm scared. I was like, I'm off. Look at the scene. Are these really got the right filters?

Are these? It makes you think about it a little bit. The sun's a huge burning ball of gas, mainly hydrogen. It's 864,000 miles in diameter.

864,000 miles in diameter. And at its core, scientists believe the temperature is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. Do you have any idea how hot that is?

I don't. What's 27 million degrees Fahrenheit? That's a kind of hot that I don't even know. I don't know how to describe that kind of hot. I don't know how to describe that kind of hot to me. Hot is 90 degrees in August with 95 percent humidity.

It's coming, folks. We're so we can't it gets a little hot outside and we're like air conditioning. The temperature, you know, gets a little bit above 72 or like, you know, it's kind of hot today.

The sun is burning on the inside of itself. Millions and millions and millions of degrees Fahrenheit. And I don't know what this means, but every one point five millionths of a second. What's one and a half millionth of a second? What's that?

I don't know a way of thinking what that is. I didn't know that seconds could be divided into millionths. But every one and a half millionths of a second, scientists say the sun releases more energy than all humans consume in an entire year. The sun has an inner convective zone that stretches one hundred and twenty thousand miles.

What? In the convective zone, the temperatures are a mere four million degrees. The core so hot and it cools off for the next hundred and twenty thousand miles to just four million degrees. The outermost part of the sun has an atmosphere and there's several layers to its atmosphere and things kind of cool down on the surface of the sun. It's only ten thousand degrees. And then the atmosphere cools. But for some reason, the outermost part of its atmosphere that scientists don't understand why, but that outermost, the corona, it it's thousands of miles above the visible surface of the sun and temperatures there are between two and four million degrees. We don't know why.

It's really hot. So what all this means and I go into this to give you just one image to think about is that we humans literally can't get within a million miles of the sun, which can't. We don't have the equipment. There is no astronaut suit.

There is no kind of metal shield or anything that we can even get within a million miles of the sun. It's too glorious. It's too hot. It's too bright. God wasn't telling the people to stay away because he didn't love the people.

He's telling them to stay away because he loved them. He's helping people not get blinded by the sun. And let me ask you, when you think about the glory of our sun, you know it's a relatively small star.

It's pretty small compared to like Canis Majoris and the Big Dog Star and some of those that I think could fit millions and maybe even a quadrillion of our suns. It just, it immediately is the immensity of all this. But our sun, pretty glorious, pretty hot, pretty bright. And let me ask you this, do you think there's a chance that God made something that's more glorious than he is? Do you think that when God said, let there be light, that he brought into existence something brighter and more energized than he is?

In other words, who is greater, the creator or the creation? Which is more glorious, the one who made the stars or the stars themselves? All this is to say God's glory is beyond description. I can't even describe the sun, but I can't describe the glory of God to you. He's light, glorious light, spiritual light. And everything we learned in Romans 1 through 7 is that fallen sinful human beings cannot look upon such glory, much less be inhabited by it, as much as our physical eyes can't stare into the sun, our physical bodies can't get too near its heat.

So it is that there was a problem. But God had made promises and prophecies of something that would change. Like Isaiah 7 14, the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Eight centuries before Jesus, Isaiah was prophesying, one's going to come and God's going to be with us, not in a terrifying way, but some way. Ezekiel 36, the Lord said, I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I'll cleanse you.

Such a beautiful word. He's not saying you're going to get yourself clean. He said, I'm going to do what is needed to clean you so that there won't be any condemnation left in your life. And he said at verse 26, and I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit I'll put within you. And I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh. And I'll give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

The promise, the prophecy must have been baffling, but God had given us glimpses that this was what he was going to do. So the reason that Romans one through seven has to come before you get to Romans eight is that there was a problem, a sin problem for us. Think of your sin problem as being like our problem of not being able to get very near the sun. But the problem was not just that we couldn't be connected in fellowship with this glorious God, but in one way of thinking sin was a problem.

Our sin was a problem for God. Because God is love. Is love.

At the center core of the sun burning at millions of degrees is mainly hydrogen. But if you were to ask me what is burning in the innermost core of the heart of this brilliant and glorious God, you would have to say love. A unfathomable, unquenchable, burning love.

We can't understand it with our minds. That's why Paul just prays that you would know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God. I wish I had better words to tell you about the love of God. I have felt his burning love in little glimpses and moments. His love is furious. It is passionate.

It is awesome. How could we even think of it? You might get a tiny glimpse of it in the groom's eyes that I watched last night as his bride walked down the aisle. You might get a little picture of it when you see a mother, my daughter-in-law, responding to Mia's cry. You might get a little picture of love that is God's kind of love if you see a father standing up for his family or a friend sacrificing for another.

But I can't describe to you this any more than I could describe to you what 47 million degrees is like in the center of the sun. But at the center of God's being is love. It's unspeakable love.

I can't even tell you how much he loves you. Alan Wright, our good news message, God in you from the series More Than Conquers, an unhurried study through Romans 8. Stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in the studio, learning good news thought for you for today in just a moment. Our Romans reading guide paired with the ESV scripture journal, immerse yourself in the word and capture personal insights, prayers and reflections directly alongside the powerful text.

These sleek portable journals amplify your study in rich group sessions and deepen personal reflections. Elevate your spiritual odyssey and forge a stronger connection with the scriptures. Help Alan Wright Ministries reach the world with the good news of the gospel with your gift today and receive these essential tools that will elevate your study, enrich your prayer life and deepen your understanding of the book of Romans. 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 in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day. Here's Pastor Alan as we place a bookmark this teaching God in you. It's just utterly incredible, but it certainly is the teaching of the New Testament. And it's what Paul has to say to us in Romans 8 is that the very creator of the cosmos, God himself, indwells every Christian. That's what he's saying is that the spirit of God dwells in you, Romans 8, 9. And if Christ is in you, Romans 8, verse 10, and the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. And also at verse 11, the spirit who dwells in you. The thing that no one could have ever conceived of or believed or dared to even think of that God, who was too awesome and holy to even approach in the Old Testament, now is not only approachable, but has taken up residence within us. And everything that Paul has to say in Romans 1 through 7 about our justification is essential. Because if we don't really understand that and grab hold of that, that there is completeness to the work of Jesus and our forgiveness, and that we have been counted as righteousness, then we would never ever be able to believe that God, as holy as He is, could live in us. But this is the good news of the gospel, God in you. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.