Who Will Deliver Me? [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

The law is good, Paul's saying, but trying to keep it is deathly. 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 four through seven, 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. Beloved, are you ready for some good news? Jesus didn't just come to take away the penalty due our sin.

He came to give us power over our sin. I think I finally found a household chore that I sort of a little bit like. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't like it like more than golf or something like that, but I kind of like pressure washing. So years ago we lived in a house that has slate patio and a slate sidewalk that was constantly being mildewed and that mildew became a little wet. It was like ice. It was just always worried that someone was going to slip on that sidewalk and sue me.

The only person ever slipped on it though was me. I nearly broke my finger, had to have months of therapy for that, but I decided I would, I would, I would get a little pressure washer. So I got the cheapest little electric pressure washer that you could get and it was pitiful and it would work like, you know, you'd spend like five minutes on a six square inch thing. I mean, by the time I'd finished pressure washing that slate patio, more mildew had grown at that where I started.

And so eventually I decided to get a little bit better, a better electric one that had a little bit better strength to it. We moved and we had some mildew up on some of the vinyl trim around the upper part and my new one wasn't powerful enough to get up there. And said, how about we hire somebody to come and pressure wash the house? I said, hire somebody hire somebody to power wash this house.

No. So I went to the store and I bought finally a gas powered 3,300 PSI and now we're talking, now we're talking and this baby, it can do my stuff. It can, it can clean.

This is good for residential use 3,300 PSI. You got that. You can do some stuff.

I was amazed. Like, why did I have that cheap stuff? This stuff can cover a big area. So, and so it was time to do some power washing on the back deck.

So I did, and I decided to do the front brick patio. It was in need. You can see how black it was and look at, look at that beautiful, beautiful, uh, how that was doing. And I'm just using that power wash like this. And I decided, I've been thinking for six years, wanted to do the driveway because my driveway had become, it had become so Brown and so dark.

It just barely looked like cement anymore. And I just, but we've got a bunch, we've got a circular drive. It goes down, we've got a basketball goal down there and all that. And I like, but I had this dream of doing it. And so I was supposed to play golf, had a couple of days off and I was supposed to play golf on Thursday and it rained all day.

And I said, but you know what? I can power wash in the rain and no thunder. And so I got ready to try to do the whole driveway with that little wand. And I decided to YouTube this and make sure this is the best way. No, there is a device you can attach to the wand that is a surface cleaner and y'all it's like magic.

It's just fantastic. Look at that, all that dirt going away. And so over a day and a half, I have successfully power wash my entire driveway, most of it in the rain. Again, I sorta like this. If you have to do a household chore and I thought, why do I like power washing?

And uh, it occurred to me, well, in the first place it feels kind of powerful, kind of manly. Uh, but the main reason is unlike my pastoral vocation, pressure washing gets things clean fast and that's what I don't get to do very often. It's just, let's get this marriage cleaned up fast.

Let's get this person's addiction cleaned up really fast. Let's get this problem. No life as a disciple every now and then there's something that's just powerful in an instant and it's gone, never to be seen again. But more often it's a, it's a, it's a couple of steps forward, maybe a step back, a struggle, a battle that's going on. It's kind of like taking the promised lamb for the people of God.

It was theirs for the taken, but it was battle after battle. Today in Romans seven, we come to this famous passage where the apostle Paul talks about a struggle, a struggle between what you might call the sin nature and the new nature in the spirit of Christ. You might call it the old and the new. You might call it the, the, the flesh battling against the spirit within us.

You might call it any of those things. But this text is one of the most debated and discussed texts in the New Testament. And it's because when we get to verses 14 through 25 that we're going to look at section by section when he talks about this great struggle going on and he's speaking autobiographically. The question is, is he talking about his life as a Christian or is he talking about a pre-Christian life because some of the things we're going to read today kind of don't sound like Paul, the St. Paul who says we're more than conquerors through Christ, the St. Paul who's already told us that we are under no bondage to sin and sin shall not be your master is now going to say, oh, there's a struggle between the carnal and the spirit.

And I just, you know, rarely would I ever say this of a text, but I just need to say up front, I'm just not totally sure. And there are just some great arguments on both sides of is he speaking about his pre-Christian life or his Christian life. The majority of interpreters and where I land on this in terms of helping teach this to you today is that I think he's talking about a Christian life, but I don't think he's talking about, hey, this is just my normal everyday reality. It sounds almost too defeated for that, but I think he's saying here's something that is universal that goes on even in a spirit-filled Christian's life, beloved, there's still a struggle and don't be ignorant of it.

And it leads us to something that's a very, very powerful moment at the end of the text. The first section that we're going to deal with, clearly he's talking about pre-Christian up through verse 13, but then it shifts into the present tense at verse 14. Let's dive into the text at verse seven. What then shall we say that the law is sin by no means, yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet. But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment, through the law produced in me all kinds of covetousness, for apart from the law sin lies dead. So everything Paul has been saying in the earlier part of Romans 7 where he says you're a widow to the law, you're not in relationship with the law, it's as if you died to that, you're now under grace and he has already said that law has a way of inciting sin such that some people might have asked him, are you saying therefore that the law was sinful? And he says here emphatically by no means.

The law is good. We're going to see more about that in our text today. But he says that if I'd never really seen do not covet, that there's a way in which a lot of my covetousness would never have been exposed or amplified. Some scholars think the reason he highlighted coveting is that it is sort of the capsulation in some ancient rabbis thinking of all of the 10 commandments.

And if you think about it, it sort of is. And the thing that's different also from thou shalt not lie or steal or murder or make idols is it coveting something that's internal that really no one else could see necessarily. And maybe what Paul's saying is that as a Pharisee, I kept all of the laws, but there was something about coveting that I want to highlight because in a sense he was coveting being able to keep the law better than others.

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, 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. He was coveting things, and people wouldn't know that about a Pharisee's heart. He says, the fact that says, thou shalt not covet, and the internal attitudes of the heart count as much. He said, it exposed all the sin in me.

That's essentially what he's saying. So Paul has been arguing, not just here but previously, that the law has this way of, in some kind of bizarre counterintuitive way, drawing sin out of us. St. Augustine has a famous text in his writings called the Confessions, in which he says, near our vineyard there was a pear tree loaded with fruit. Though the fruit was not particularly attractive, either in color or taste, I and some other youths conceived the idea of shaking the pears off the tree and carrying them away. We set out late at night and stole all the fruit that we could carry. And this was not to feed ourselves. We may have tasted a few, but then we threw the rest to the pigs. Our real pleasure was simply in doing something that was not allowed.

I had plenty better pears of my own. I only took these ones in order that I might be a thief. And once I'd taken them, I threw them away, and all I tasted in them was my own iniquity, which I enjoyed very much. Everybody can understand something about this, that there is a way in which telling someone don't do this gives temptation to do that very thing. That there's something in the sin nature, in the sin nature, that takes pleasure in doing the forbidden thing. This is the etymology of the word perverse. It is the turning of something that you might not otherwise even want to do except for the fact that you're not supposed to do it.

Interesting. So the law is good, Paul's saying, but trying to keep it is deathly. Here's verse 9. I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, and here he personifies sin as if it's its own power and personality, for sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Sounds a whole lot like Adam in the garden, doesn't it?

Adam and Eve. Freedom and grace everywhere don't eat that one tree in the middle and what did the serpent use but that one commandment to lure them into sin? But the law was good because the law is God's revelation. You learn something about God from the law. If the Lord says be holy because I'm holy, if the Lord says don't commit adultery, if the Lord says do not lie, you're learning something about God.

God's for monogamous covenant. God is for honesty and transparency and integrity. You can see something about God and his law. It's revelation of God.

It's good. And God spoke it and so it's God-breathed so it's got to be good. But the devil has used the good law of God to starting with Adam lure people into something that leads to death. That's what Paul's saying.

And so these two things are true at the same time. The law is good and holy and just but the law if you try to keep it will make your sin worse. Some years ago I shared this testimony that I received from a very wonderful brother in our fellowship who was describing some new freedom he had experienced and he said, he wrote me, he said when I was 13 years old, so I was riding my bicycle to go see a friend and coming back I got curious about an old abandoned house and he said I went in to explore it and I found a magazine in there that I shouldn't have looked at that somebody had left behind. And so I was 13 he said I did what young guys do, I picked it up, I looked through it and then a surprise thunderstorm blew in so fast that it startled me.

I had not long before given my life to Christ and been baptized. So my conscience was screaming at me almost as loudly as my lusty curiosity had been. And I just I just hopped on my bicycle and raced home as fast as I could in this blinding rain. And just as I passed, you can't make this stuff up, just as I passed under a telephone pole a bolt of lightning hit the power transformer above me and a 20 foot circle of sparks came down around me. The light was blinding and a crack of thunder almost stopped my heart. White with fear I was off the bicycle and on my knees and an instant praying as fast as I could and I swore to God I would never do that again.

Just please don't kill me now. Listen to this, this is this is profound. Well the oath lasted about a month. It did little to deter my lusty curiosity, but it served well at increasing my shame and causing me to fear God, to be afraid of God. I knew this brother and I'd prayed with him before he'd been on a decades long struggle with this addiction that had been threatening his marriage and detracting from everything in his life. He was throwing himself into immersing himself into the gospel of grace. One Sunday I preached a sermon about God swears to God from Hebrews and how it's not our vows to God that delivers us as God's vows to us. And he said I was listening to that in the car and he said about 28 minutes into the sermon you began to prophesy over the congregation and I sobbed and I cried out loud and pulled over on the side of the road and he went on to tell me that the harder I tried the more deeply I was ashamed of my failure and assured of a seat at the extreme far end of the table by the door where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. But now in this good news I've told all those lying demons where to go to the foot of cross and he said I'm better at the time of writing this. He said nine months sexually sober his addiction was broken by the grace of God, but it was heightened by trying to keep the law. That's what Paul's talking about. Trying to keep the law made things worse verse 13 did that which is good then bring death to me by no means. So he's just reiterating that though I'm saying that the trying to keep it just exposed and heightened my sin by making me more ashamed that I couldn't keep it.

I'm not saying that the law was bad. You have to understand both those things at the same time Alan Wright and our good news message who will deliver me from the series. It's all right now. It's from Romans chapters 4 through 7 and an in-depth study of these great words of the Apostle Paul. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining us in the studio and a parting good news thought coming your way in just a moment. 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 the 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 will 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 back now with Pastor Alan in the studio and our parting good news thought for the days we place the bookmark here pick back up next time on this teaching who will deliver me well to our listeners if you were with us at the beginning of this message and heard me tell me about my new power washer yeah yeah then I'm sorry I couldn't show you the pictures the images that I'd like to show you you can always go to our website you can find the video of this sermon just because I know you want to see the before and after of my power washing the only the only chore around the house I think I actually like but it's it's fun it's fun to watch something get clean yeah and a powerful way and I just know that the discipleship has this aim that we are being changed by God but all of us if we're honest there is a there's a there's a struggle that like this in Romans 7 where we know what Paul means by I want to do good and sometimes I don't and sometimes I don't want to do the bad but I get drawn towards it and there's a struggle that's going on but what we're seeing is thanks be to God he is committed to delivering us so that's ultimately through his his power more on that in coming days thanks for listening today visit us online at pastor Alan 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 pastor Alan org that's pastor Alan dot o-r-g today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries