Building Hope [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. From this flows then the capacity to rejoice not only in the hopes of the glory of God, but to rejoice even when life gets hard because something inside of you has changed and is fundamentally changing as you go through these challenges and bear up underneath them by the grace of God. Spiritual muscle is being formed inside of you, and you're changed, and you've become a person of godly character.

And you can see when this is emerging within you by the nature of your endurance in the hard times. 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 Rinaldo 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. Every January for two and a half days, for the last number of years, I joined other lead pastors from our denomination in a gathering in Orlando, Florida at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. We could go to Detroit in January, but we decided for Orlando. And we laugh and we tell senior pastor stories. You know, we let our hair down and we don't have much hair to let down, but we really enjoy each other and we learn a lot from one another and we talk about what we've been learning.

We ask questions of one another. And on Wednesday afternoon of this, 10 of us play golf. And it's one of my favorite days, not just of that week, but of the year. And it's just fun to play golf in Orlando in January. The first year I went, one of the pastors sliced his first tee shot and he said, oh, no, I think I'm under the palm trees. And somebody said, yeah, you're under the palm trees. So we rejoice in that. And so imagine my disappointment this year when I signed up for the golf, like always, and it came back and said, full, I called my buddy at first press Orlando.

I said, full. He said, yeah, we're playing a different golf course this year. And we're only allowed to take eight people.

And I was the ninth. The reason it's so disappointing is not just a fellowship with these guys, but there is a wealthy benefactor in first press Orlando. Who's been blessing our socks off now for years. He's a developer and he developed these premier golf communities that we would never be able to play.

Certainly never afford to be a part of. And he treats us to the whole afternoon and it's just luscious. And then he pays our golf and caddies and buys us dinner afterwards. And I was like, oh, I'm a miss this great afternoon. They said, listen, come on out. We're playing a different place. Same guys developed this other place at Lake Nona and said, it's just as nice. And I said, it's got this gorgeous practice facility and it'll be just come out, hit balls. And then afterwards join us for the big long dinner. We're going to have on the upper patio of the country. I said, well, that sounds good too.

You know, but I was still disappointed. We pull up to the gate and we say, we're here to play golf. And the guard looks down and he goes, uh, what's your name? We told him, he said, no, we said, we're here. I'll call the benefactor, Mr. Williams. I said, we're here as guests of Mr. Williams. The gate goes up, come right in Mr. Williams.

He built the whole place. And so we go in and my guys go off to play golf. It's a little bit sad, but it was the prettiest practice facility I'd ever seen.

I felt out of place. I didn't barely wanted to hit balls off such beautiful grass and mess it up and chopping around out there. I went over to get some golf balls to hit. And they said, what kind do you want to hit?

I said, what do you mean? I mean, terrible golf range balls. Isn't that what you hit?

No, they're going to be titleist golf balls. I go, I go down to the end and I'm feeling like, man, this is nice. And it was sunny. And there was a lady down at the very end. I went down next to her a few steps away from her and I was hitting, you know, chopping away at it. Hadn't played much golf laughing, you know, and looking at her, I mean, she is good. I mean, I just watch her swings. It's like, great.

Hit a couple more hacking at it. And then I look at her and she's like, she's got a perfect swing. And then I noticed she had one of these expensive track man devices that tracks the launch of your golf ball and all this. And I'm like, good and rich.

And then I, I'm feeling more and more out of place, you know, like, what am I doing here? And, uh, but I'm a guest of Mr. Williams. And then somebody came and spoke to her and she had an accent. And I realized after a while I was spending the afternoon hitting balls next to the undisputed greatest female golfer of all time, Annika Sorensen.

Was right there. And I was just like getting a free lesson, just watching her hit golf balls all afternoon. Then went over the putting green and watched how she practiced her putting because I was a guest of Mr. Williams. And the guys came off the golf course and they said, so sorry, you didn't get to play with us.

I said, that's all right. We went up and we had this dinner on this over private patio and, and, and, and everybody knew we were guests of Mr. Williams. So the general manager of the club came out and spoke to us. You know, he thought we were important.

It was kind of disappointed to find out we were Presbyterian pastors. You have been granted access. The justification gives you peace with God, no more enmity, but much more. Through Jesus, you have access into the riches of God's glory.

It is hard for me to believe this, but we must believe it. For me to believe this, but we must believe this because you're in Christ. And because your sin has been cast as far as the East is from the West. And because you have been credited with the righteousness of Jesus. So it is as if you lived his meritorious life because of our justification. You have every bit as much in God's eyes, right in his presence, as does the only begotten son of God. Only begotten son of God. Glory to God. We have a hard time with that.

Like I'm like, what am I doing hitting golf balls next to Annika Sorenstam at this posh place, Mr. Williams? Who am I to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies? You're in Jesus.

We make too little of our justification. He paid too dear a price for us not to enjoy our access to the Father. And at verse three, we begin to understand this process by which once you revel in your justification and have peace with God and access to all the riches of heaven, then you can begin to have this hope that is described as a process. Not only that, verse three, but also we rejoice in our sufferings. So we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. But also he's saying, we rejoice in the midst of our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. So I thought about giving you a lot of statistics about how hopeless society is, but you don't need those. I just give you one, a comprehensive study last year, one third of teenage girls in America considered suicide. What else do we need to say?

It's an epidemic. Hope is that thing that makes life worth living, that makes you want to get up in the morning. It makes it possible to sacrifice now to work towards a future. Hope is the thing that keeps us going. Interestingly, there's a process for hope. Hope is not described in the Bible just so much as a fruit like love, joy and peace or fruit of the Spirit.

Like if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you just automatically get these fruits. It's not described like a gift, like faith is. And hope is described biblically as something that is a process. It is an entirely different concept in the Bible than the way in English usage we use the word hope.

It's so different. I really think we need a different word for hope to translate the word hope in the Bible. Because we use in modern vernacular, we use hope to mean the same thing as wishful thinking.

So I say I hope Baylor wins it all in the national collegiate tournament going on right now, which is to say I'm not really sure they're going to make it by Creighton today, you know, but I wish they would. 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. It's very different to say, I hope I get the promotion when you don't really, you think it's 50-50. In other words, we use the word like, I wish it would be so, but I'm not so sure it will be. That is not at all the idea in the Bible. Instead, the idea in the Bible is a notion of certainty about future blessedness. We don't hope that we, we don't have hope of heaven in the sense that I don't know if I'm going to be in heaven one day or not, but I hope, I wish I would be, I can't say for certain, that is not the biblical image.

The biblical image is that you have an assurance of heaven, you have an assurance of your place in the kingdom of God, now and in a new heaven and a new earth, and you are assured by the deposit of the Holy Spirit within you, and that your life is rooted in this knowing for sure of the good that is to come. That's what hope is. So you might have a married couple who would like one day to have a baby, and they might say we hope to have a baby one day, and what they're saying is we're not sure that we will be able to have that blessing, but we sure would like to. We can't guarantee that we would, but, and that's the way we use the word hope, but biblically, that's not what hope is.

Biblically, hope is much more like a couple that's six months pregnant, and they're living in the hope of the baby. Let me tell you what happens when you know a baby's coming. It changes everything. You reorganize your life. You're preparing a nursery. You're learning about child care. You're going to childbirth classes. You're doing everything. You're reorganizing everything.

Why? Because of the hope of the baby. There's a joy and anticipation. There is a delight of the soul that happens when you know something wonderful is ahead of you. When you know something's wonderful ahead of you, doesn't it change everything about how you live now, right? I mean, it's amazing the sacrifices you could make knowing that a baby's going to come, and you don't make all those changes in your life.

You don't do all those things except for the inward sense of certainty that we are going to have this baby. You might find a little girl at Christmas and say, what do you want for Christmas? She says, I hope I get a pony, but she's not going to get one. But if you say, why are you so excited?

And she said, because Christmas is coming, you silly thing. Then you understand that the certainty of the coming of Christmas, though all the details of it are not sure, the coming of it is sure, and it changes your... So hope is an inward bliss that is rooted in certainty of future blessedness. Hope therefore strengthens us. Hope therefore changes us. Hope is therefore everything.

And there's a process. Look at this again at verse three, we rejoice in our sufferings. This is not to say that we're rejoicing for the sufferings.

I think Tim Keller again puts it very well. He says, Paul does not say we rejoice for our sufferings because that would be masochism. It actually is possible to rejoice for suffering. Some people need to feel punished in order to deal with their sense of unworthiness and guilt.

I've known many, many people like that. You know, if you feel like that you're guilty and you haven't really grasped your justification in Jesus, then you feel like I need to somehow level the playing field here and I need to be punished a bit. And maybe that's why I'm going through this difficult thing. That's never the picture in the Bible for the Christian. It's never, ever the picture for the Christian who has been justified that God is making you pay for something.

That would nullify the entirety of the gospel, wouldn't it? And so Keller continues, he says some feel a need to be punished in order to deal with their sense of unworthiness and others maintain a superior attitude toward people who have had an easier life. They see them as superficial or ungrateful. He said it's also possible to use suffering as a work, another form of justification by works. But listen to this, Christians, however, rejoice in suffering. That means there is no joy in the actual troubles themselves. God hates the pain and the troubles of this life and so should we. Rather, a Christian knows the suffering will have beneficial results.

That's what Paul's talking about here. And the suffering, he says, produces endurance and the word means to bear up underneath. This is a very, very close image to the idea of lifting weights. Back to my younger next year, back to our analogy of the human body, they say when you exercise fairly hard, you stress your muscles, you drain them of energy stores, you actually injure them slightly. The stress of exercise is good because it tears you down to build you back up a little stronger.

You wear out little bits that need to be replaced after its use, requiring lots of fine tuning and minor repairs. This type of entry is called adaptive micro trauma and is critical to your growth and health. It's a signal to your body that it needs to repair the damage and then some. It needs to make the muscle just a little stronger, to store a little more energy for tomorrow, to build a few more tiny blood vessels inside the muscle.

In other words, to get a little younger. So when you lift weights and the natural, they're micro tears in the muscle tissues. And when the body signals to do all the amazing stuff it does to rebuild, it rebuilds it stronger. Something like this is being said of what happens in the spirit. As you, as you, by the grace of God, endure, bear up under the weight of the great challenges and adversities of life, God is at work with a spiritual process inside of you. What I'm saying is that you can learn to reframe your thinking about the difficulties that you face and start going, man, this is hard and this is painful but I'm, I'm building some spiritual muscle. That's the difference between despair and hope.

God can get a great purpose out of all this. And that endurance, he says, produces character and character means testedness. So endurance is integrally related to the formation of a tested character.

So the aim of growing up in Christ is this character wherein we live in it and we abide in it. It's a beautiful thing to be gifted but you can be gifted and not have this character. You can have moments of brilliance and creativity and spiritual giftedness and anointed moments in your life and then have no real character that has been tested over time and been forged in the fires of adversity wherein, by the grace of God, you have endured up underneath it and put muscle down into your soul. That's why very gifted people who haven't had this sort of character emerge can have great falls and we go, wow, they were so gifted, how could they be blah, blah, blah?

Well, there's not a relationship between the giftedness and the character. This is the aim, this is what God's saying, is I want you to have such a rootedness in your justification in Christ so that you always know you have peace with God, you're changed and you've become a person of godly character. Pastor Alan Wright, our Good News message, Building Hope from the series It's All Right Now from Romans chapters 4 through 7.

Hey, stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio to share his parting Good News thought for us all for today in just a moment. 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 with Pastor Alan and his parting good news thought for the day as we continue our teaching, Building Hope. God wants every single Christian to have a deep assurance that the future is blessed. Hope is not wishful thinking the way we use the word. Hope is something much greater and better than that. Hope is something that fuels our life because we have an inward bliss that knows that we have a blessed future. And this is what God wants us to have.

And beloved, there's a process for this happening. And this helps bring meaning to the current challenges and sufferings that you face. Suffering can produce endurance, and endurance produces character and character, hope. God has made us to be a people of hope, and I'm praying for you today. I'm praying for the God of hope to fill you with his hope. 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.