When Will I Be Loved? [Part 2]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher Alan Wright. You get more convinced of the love of God when all of your self-righteousness is quieted and put to the side.

As long as you think that your righteousness and your performance is somehow meriting the love of God, you're not experiencing the love of God. 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 Rinaldo 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. Sometimes the threat of someone abandoning you or leaving you or dangling their love in front of you is worse than if you hadn't been loved. And the problem is that, of course, it's good to set goals. It's good to put incentives out in front of ourselves and others, right?

It is. Nothing wrong with saying, hey, you study every day, and you make straight A's this semester, and you're going to get a such and such. Or as soon as I lose 10 pounds, I'm going to get that new outfit.

Or, excuse me, if the coach says, go into training, and if you can run a mile under six minutes, you can make the team. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that when people use love as the incentive, it turns to shame. In other words, authorities, people that might even want the best for you in their confusion would take love, dangle it like the carrot.

And if you perform better, then you'll get the love. The problem with that is that that's not love. God's love is altogether different than that. In order for love to be love, to be God's kind of love, it must be self-generating.

It must be unconditional. It must be invincible. There's faith, there's hope, and there's love. The greatest of these is love because it never fails.

It never ends. And Paul had become convinced of this. That's what the joy of this crescendo is. Verse 38 says, For I am sure. And that little word for, little Greek word gar, is saying that this, that I'm getting ready to say is tied into what I just said. And what he just said was where we reveled last week at verse 37. And all these things were more than conquerors through him who loved us. So he's saying for, because of that fact, this is the reason that you can know your a conqueror. This is the invincibility of God's love. This is what God wants for us.

He wants us to know for sure. I love that. I know. I'm convinced. I know it for sure.

I'm down to the very fiber of my being. I'm sure of this, you see. When in probably the most important moment of self revelation in the Old Testament, God appeared to Moses and Moses has said, show me your glory. We think of glory as brilliance and holiness and the heavy weighted power of God.

And it is all of that. But it's fascinating that when Moses said, would you show me your glory? And the Lord put Moses into the cleft of Iraq and the Lord came and in a moment of self revelation, self declaration, self definition, he came to say, this is who I am.

And this is what my glory looks like. This is what he said in Exodus 34, six, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord that's God's covenantal name. Yahweh Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious.

This is his glory, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. The word for steadfast love is my favorite Old Testament word, chesed. It is covenantal love. It is God's kind of love. It's a no strings attached love. It's a self-generating love. It is a permanent love. It is steadfast love, chesed.

This is who I am, the Lord, the Lord abounding and chesed, keeping chesed for thousands. And it doesn't mean that for a thousand generations, God has love and then after that he quits loving. What he's saying is this an expression to say forever and forever, but evil will have its limits and the power of curse will have a limitation on it. It will run out as time is limited, but the boundless love of God is without limits. It's covenantal love. It's unconditional love.

He's absolutely just and he doesn't sweep sin under the rug. His love is not such that it displaces his holiness, but it is an expression of his holiness. There is a way that God loves that is so permanent and so full and so free and so glorious that he says, if you want to see my glory, see my love. God is love. And Paul has become convinced of it. For I'm sure I'm totally convinced of this.

He's saying if you couldn't hear anything else, I'm saying hear this. I am sure that nothing can separate a child of God from the love of God in Christ. He began in Romans with what one commentator called logic on fire, showing us logically, theologically how if God is for us, if you believe he died for you, how then would he not also give us all these other good things? And if God loved us while we are still in our sin, then you could become intellectually aware that for sure he would continue to love you. He has proven to us throughout Romans like in chapter five, verse six, while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Scarcely will one die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So it's the logic of it is that he must love you now because he loved you so much that he died for you while you were still in your sin. What you were, James says, as an enemy of God, whether you were feeling like you were rebellious or whether you were a religious person, you still were running away from God and then God came to you and he loved you in Jesus Christ. So that's the theology of it.

That's the logic of it. But what Paul's talking about here at the end of Romans is something that transcends the mere logic. He's gone beyond the intellect and now we're into the heart. He's saying, I, down deep in my being, I'm sure of this. And he's saying, I want you to be sure of it. I want you to be sure of this, the love of God. I'm convinced of the love of God and my best days are when I'm most convinced and my worst days are when I'm least convinced. And the love of God will change everything in your life. Spiritual maturity is not you trying to mimic Christ. It is you knowing Christ.

He's talking now about the heart of God. It's very hard to talk about someone's heart. And I could tell you about my wife. I could tell you about attributes. I could tell you about the spirit of celebration that lives in her. I could tell you about the amazing wife and parent that I've observed her to be. But what I can't very well describe to you is what I've just come to know through 38 years of marriage, the way that she smiles or giggles with her grandbaby, the way that she gets excited about giving someone a gift.

What's hard to describe is what's actually her heart. That's something you experience, you know by experience. You know the heart of God, not just through the theology or the logic of all that Paul has taught us, but you know Him. And Paul has experienced the heart of God.

And that's why he just uses the most expansive language imaginable to describe how there can be no threat in the end to God's love because it's the nature of God. Neither death nor life. That's to say nothing in all of the human realm. Neither death nor life. Not death. Death isn't a separation from God. Death is an entry into a greater revelation of God's love.

Death isn't an exit, isn't an entrance. 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, prayer, 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 got stunned at a moment in our annual denominational meeting.

We call it General Assembly, which convened this year in Colorado. And we were just going through various business and so forth. And then it came a moment in time for us to commission what we call global mission workers, missionaries that are going to be spread around the world, some of them to areas that are hostile to the gospel.

We shut off the recorders during this time because some are going to dangerous places. We say don't take pictures of these missionaries and don't mention them. They're going to be global workers and some of them are going to places where the gospel is not allowed. Looking at all these beautiful couples and families that in a moment we're going to kneel and commissioners would lay hands on them and pray for them.

And then we as an assembly would declare them to be commissioned by our denomination, commissioned global workers. And so as Presbyterians are want to do, we ask them questions. And I answered similar questions when I was ordained in this denomination. Do you affirm your faith in Lord Jesus Christ, your personal savior and Lord? Do you accept and adopt the essentials of our faith without exception?

Do you believe in the reformed essentials of the Westminster? And all on, you know, we go with always, do you promise to live the lives of becomes a follower of Christ and all these questions, you know, we ask. And so we're asking, they're asking the missionaries these questions before we, they're going to lay hands on them and send them out.

And I'm just kind of, you know, we're just kind of going through it and I'm like, let's go. So I'm excited for these missionaries, but not thinking that much about it until the last question. And suddenly I just kind of took my breath away because the last question was, and do you promise to remain faithful regardless of what suffering or even martyrdom might come? And they said, we do. I wasn't asked that question. I wouldn't ask you remain faithful even if you're martyred for being a minister of Jesus Christ.

We asked them, they said, we do. They said, Neil, we're going to lay hands on you and send you to the far flung reaches of the globe. No, nothing can separate you from the love of God and Christ. Death nor life, nothing in the human realm, nor angels, nor rulers, nothing in the spiritual realm. And remember Paul had encountered the strongest of demonic opposition imaginable. It is what I think he called a thorn in the flesh because text tells us it was a demonic messenger.

I think he, the apostle was the biggest target of his day, of course, for all of hell's resources. And he was, he was facing demons and no angels, no demons can separate me from God nor things present nor things to come, nothing in the realm of time, nor powers, nothing in the realm of that which opposes God, nor height, nor depth, nothing in the realm of space, nor anything else in all creation. It's just like saying, and if there's something I've left out, let me just say it here, nothing else in all of creation, nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus. He's just convinced of it. And I want to be more convinced of it, don't you?

I just want to be convinced of that. You imagine how everything in your life changes, how different it is when you face the disappointments of life and yet you're convinced of the love of God. How different it is when you, when you don't achieve your goal or someone who lets you down, how different it is when you have the love of God and Christ, how, how different everything is. It's the very thing that casts out our fear and builds us faith within us, the love of God. I want to be more convinced. And so I think about when I'm most convinced and I think it's like Paul. I think in the first place that we feel most convinced of the love of God when we are at our least, when we least have the compulsion or capacity to prove ourselves or to put ourselves forward.

When all of that is diminished, you can all of that is diminished. You can experience the love of God. You know, Paul was so accomplished, so works oriented in his former life as a Pharisee, but none of that convinced him of the love of God. In fact, he later spoke of this in Philippians three. He said, I have myself reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee, as the zeal of the persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, my Christ Jesus, my Lord, for his sake, I've suffered the loss of all things. I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ himself.

You see what he's saying? He's saying I was highly accomplished. And when I thought that my religious accomplishment and personal righteousness was going to make God love me more, I really didn't know the love of God.

But now I realize that all of that is like rubbish. Stack together all of my religious performance for God. And he says, in terms of knowing the love of God is completely worthless to me and doesn't mean anything compared to simply knowing the heart of God. What I'm saying is that beloved, let God use you, excel in this world, do everything he's called you to. He's prepared you for good works from the foundation of creation itself. And by no means does any of this mean that you're not supposed to be doing all that God calls you to do. Do it all with joy. But know this, not one bit of that contributes to the love of God in your life.

And sometimes it's until all of that is quieted and you in some way come to the end of yourself that you can really experience the love of God. Thirteen years ago, we were granted a delicious sabbatical. It came at a very needed time in our lives.

Things had been very, very busy and stress had mounted. And it was a good time for us. And part of what we did, as you've heard me mention over the years, was we took a trip out west and back. We rented a van and we drove across the country and back. Bennett, our son, was 15.

Abby, our daughter, was 11. And we'll remember that as some of the sweetest memories we ever had during our lives. I remember before we went on the trip, a group one evening at church, after some service or some gathering, had gathered around me to pray for me and praying for the benefit of this sabbatical time and praying for refreshing and praying all of the things, you know. And then one man began to prophesy over me. And it was the strangest word that at the time, it just didn't mean anything really to me. And I never thought of it again.

But he said, I just pray you'll be so refreshed and you'll get away so much that you'll just find yourself just being free to, I don't know, I see a picture of you just praying for some little old man, you know. It kind of went on like this. And I was like, okay. At the time, it was so good and it was so good about that, you know, but I've received it. And anyway, I didn't think about it again. And then sometime three or four weeks into this glorious trip, by this time, I've just been so relaxed.

I don't even remember what day of the week it is or anything. We're just traveling. And I'm in the middle of sitting in a coffee shop. I got a cup of coffee, sat down, and I didn't have anything to do. I'm just sitting there drinking a cup of coffee, watching the people go in and I would be thinking about them. And then I saw a little old couple come in and she was more able-bodied than he.

He had a cane and he came and sat down in the coffee shop. Alan Wright, today's good news message titled, When Will I Be Loved? in our series More Than Cocklers. They stay with us. Pastor Alan is back in the studio here sharing his parting good news thoughts for the day in just a moment. It has been called the most influential letter ever written. Every word written by the apostle Paul and 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 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. Pastor Alan is back now here in the studio with us, sharing his parting good news thoughts for the day as we place the bookmark here and come back for the conclusion of the teaching, When Will I Be Loved?

Pastor Alan. In order to be convinced, as Paul was, to be able to say I'm sure that nothing could separate us from the love of God, in order for that to happen, there has to be the kind of grace that removes the compulsion we have to prove ourselves or to, in some way, feel like we have to impress God. It means to understand that God has already seen us at our very worst and loved us perfectly. When you see it that way, you realize, I can't do anything now that's going to disillusion God about me.

He already knows the worst about me and has loved me. That's the love of God. That's how you can be sure is that the love is rooted in God, not in your efforts. 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.