Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. If you love someone, their blessedness is your blessedness.
This is the very heart of God, and this explains Jesus. 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 Increase as presented at Reynolda 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 right now available to you for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.
As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. 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 right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. He gathered the people of God, and tribe by tribe, he blessed them. Deuteronomy 33 1, this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the people of Israel before his death.
And then it tells us, Let Reuben live and not die. Of Levi, bless, O Lord, his substance, and accept the word of his hands. Of Benjamin, the beloved Lord, let him dwell in safety. The high God surrounds him. Of Joseph, bless by the Lord, be his land with the choicest gifts of heaven.
And of Zebulun, rejoice in your going out, and Issachar in your tents. And Naphtali, O Naphtali, sated with favor and full of the blessing of the Lord, possess the lake. And most blessed of all, sons of Asher, let him be the favorite of his brothers, and let him dip his foot in all. And so the man who was not allowed to go into Canaan, but only to see it, gathered up the people that he had led to the brink of the promised land.
And instead of being embittered against them, there was a great swelling up, like a pressure of a geyser that couldn't keep itself within. And he began to bless, because if blessing is what is in you, then it's blessing that you give. Wow.
Oh, God make us like that. That in our hour of deepest disappointment, what grows in us is not bitter roots destined to defile, but the well of gratitude and love that gushes forth for the wellbeing of others. Oh wow. To love like that. To want someone else to experience the very blessing that you've been denied.
Oh wow. Can you imagine? And I say to you, that is the abundant life. This is the great joy. The great joy is not in the taste of Canaan's fruit, but in the spiritual fruit of love and joy and peace that defies all circumstances. The great joy is not in the attaining of Canaan, but in the giving of it. The great joy, the higher joy is determined not by what you have in hand, but what you have to hand off. To him who has ears here, it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.
And when you discover it, you have come to the heart of God. All who bitterly ruminate over the missing of their Canaan's miss the greater inheritance, the joy of self-giving, the contentment of soul that is found in Christ alone. Canaan wasn't Moses' hope, God is. There's no earthly blessing that is our hope.
Christ is our hope and our hope is in him alone. Give thanks to him and praise his name for whether or not we have good experiences or hard experiences, God is good. Whether we stand on Nebo's peak and only see the land or whether we march around Jericho's walls, God is good and we're most blessed. And there are, don't forget it, plenty of people who walk in the shade of Canaan's olive gardens and have no peace while there are those that peer from the pinnacle of Nebo and don't ever enter the land and yet still rejoice and bless everybody and bless everybody in their lives. And Moses does another thing before his death. Not only does he bless the tribes, but it is mentioned offhandedly, Deuteronomy 34, 9, and Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom.
Why? For Moses, he laid his hands on him. Moses blessed the people and then he went to his beloved spiritual son, his protege Joshua, and validated him in the eyes of the people and blessed him and imparted an anointing to his life. And then Moses went up to the top of Nebo. Here are the words again from 34, verse 1, Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead, as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah.
Do you see what he's reading out here? All the tribes are the people that will be in the land and all he's going to do is look. And he shows it all to him, the Negeb and the plain, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as they are.
You can go there today up top this 2,500 foot hill and look out to the north, the south, the east, and the west. In some panorama, you can see there the salt sea, the Dead Sea. You can look in another direction and not only see the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, but you can look and you can see on a clear day, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the house of bread. And don't you think that as Moses was atop Mount Nebo and looking at the panorama that he also began to see in the spirit. He began to see further than the natural eye could see. He was seeing with faith all that could happen for the people of God that he'd given his life to lead to the brink of the waters of the Jordan and now he looked at it and felt joy.
And felt joy. Did God break a promise to Moses? No, a close reading of the text shows that God never specifically promised Moses that he'd enter the land.
He had a call to get people there, but he wasn't called to be in it. Charles Spurgeon says Canaan was Moses's wish but not his work. So it wasn't a broken promise. But the matter of Moses's blessedness and ours is so much deeper than just whether God kept a promise or not. It's all we've been learning this year if you've been with us that blessedness is generational and blessedness goes beyond what we have and what we get that starts with a dream that God has of through one man Abraham blessing all the peoples of the earth and God the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob says there's a limit to the curse and to the patterns of generational sin but that the steadfast chesed love of God goes on to a thousand generations on and on and on. And when you discover your call and your purpose in this world you will not have every wish fulfilled but if you walk in the ways of God there is a blessedness and an abundance in the giving over of your life for the very cause that God had made you. And you can discover in your life beloved a kind of spiritual maturity in which you are no longer like a child who is simply wanting to get things for yourself but instead you can discover the joy of a parent. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.
You're made for more than your span of years on this earth. What might happen if you start taking the long view of your impact? We need to know what matters most to us so we can pass down our values on purpose. In Pastor Alan Wright's brand new six-week video series called Made for More you'll discover the power of your lasting legacy as he leads you through a simple process to clarify your family core values and God-given purpose in the world. Pastor Alan will also help you dream to imagine your 100-year impact.
The video series is accompanied by a practical study guide with templates and worksheets. You'll also receive the full-length preaching series Increase that exposes the biblical principle of generational blessing. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your Made for More audio video bundle as our thank you for your partnership. Contact us today and discover the power of your lasting legacy. 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. A parent is someone God's designed is like Father God who gets more joy in seeing a child blessed than anything of his own. As you learn and you think about being a spiritual parent and you think about being a blessing to others the image of parenthood is the one that comes to mind because this is what parents want.
They want it better for their kids you hear it said. When Bennett and I were uh when he was little and we played golf together and he was so frustrated he couldn't beat me and so we we played a game where we're playing against the course and we say okay today we need to break two over par that's our goal today you know because he was too frustrated that he couldn't beat me then he got older and bigger and better than I and I was frustrated I couldn't beat him so we played a little game against the course. But the truth was that he didn't know when he was eight years old when he couldn't hit the ball as far as me. He didn't know that I really wasn't that good of a golfer and he also didn't know that I couldn't wait for the day that he could beat me.
I couldn't wait till you could hit it farther and I can hit it. It's what you dream of if you love someone if you love someone if you love someone with God's kind of love you want it to be better for them than ever for you. Moses his life calling to get him to a promised land and he did. And if he had turned bitter would it not have undone the whole nobility of his life and made a hypocrite of him? How could he plead for this wayward people to be spared from the wrath of God even to the point of saying blot out my life if need be.
How could he suddenly get small in heart just because he didn't get to experience the land. The reason that Moses could bless the tribes and impart to Joshua was that Moses knew he was no less blessed for not getting to enter the land than if he had. He knew himself attached to God intimate with the Creator glowed with the glories of God and he was therefore disappointed but not bitter disappointed but still full of blessing. And so beloved you're invited to make your own trek up your own Mount Nebo and look out upon the vista the panorama of future glories that maybe other generations will see.
Look upon the salty sea and the river Jordan and the Jericho whose walls will fall to the trumpet. See the city of bread and look up to the hill of Jerusalem and put your life in the perspective of God himself. We have some wishes that are fulfilled and some that are not but beloved we have God. We have the word of God and all he's given us to do and we will prevail in our call and our blessedness does not come from what we now have in hand. If you love someone their blessedness is your blessedness. This is the very heart of God and this explains Jesus and the answer to that is the very heart of God is the very heart of God.
Their blessedness is your blessedness. This is the very heart of God and this explains Jesus and there is no other way to understand Jesus but this. The New Testament says of the old that the old is full of shadows and types that have found their fulfillment in Christ and no old covenant saint more aptly prefigures Jesus than Moses. Jesus is our greater Moses. He also was born under an edict.
Do you know that? For all the Hebrew baby boys to be killed but he was spared and interestingly spent his early years in Egypt like Moses. Jesus visited by Magi the kingmakers from the east but also by shepherds who were lowly and Jesus himself called himself a shepherd and a king.
He was royalty who became one of us. He didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. Moses aligned himself with his people but oh how Jesus aligned himself with us.
He came our mediator. Moses Egyptian in Hebrew but Christ both God and man. Jesus our deliverer our Moses the one who saves us who frees us frees us delivers us from the ravages of sin from oppression of the devil the one who brings us out and sets us free our greater Moses and our true miracle worker praise him. Praise him he didn't just hold a staff over a sea he spoke to oceans. He didn't just face down Pharaoh he sent out demons and he stood up for the oppressed and he fed the hungry and he healed the sick and he awakened the dead and Jesus is our true intercessor greater than Moses ever could be. He is the great high priest who has gone into the heavenlies where once and for all he shed his blood for us and become to us our advocate who now intercedes for us. Moses revealed God's word but Jesus is God's word. Moses glowed with the glory of God but Jesus is the glory of God and on that Palm Sunday when the crowd shouted Hosanna to the son of David they were in their minds shouting for a messianic leader who would take up an earthly throne and conquer Rome for them not knowing that this son of David came instead to go to a cross for them and we'll relive it this week and you can't skip by it. Luke 19 when he drew near and he saw the city he wept over it there shouting hi yay and he weeps saying would that you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace. He was the greatest leader, Jesus the sinless son of God, the one and only one who deserved nothing but the promised land and he wanted it.
And he wanted it. See him amongst the gnarled olive trees of Gethsemane clawing at the ground and sweating blood and saying father could this cup pass from me? Is there another way? Could I just go on into the promised land? Could I skip this execution?
Could we just move into the land of milk and honey? And while he sweat blood the friends he asked to pray for him fell asleep and the father said no. As surely as God said to Moses climb up Mount Nebo and look at the land and then die the father turned to the son and said climb up the cross and look at those you came to save and give up your life. And so Jesus took his cross and from his place lifted up what spilled forth from his soul was not bitterness towards those who murdered him but instead he said father forgive them. Bless them.
Bless them all. This was the mission. I came to bring them to the brink of the promised land. And in a final breath he said tetelestai.
It is finished. And he died. That you and I and anyone who trusts in Jesus Christ would have free entry into the promised land. So you can climb up top of Mount Nebo beloved and you can look out over the lands that you won't enter and you can take joy because you have the Spirit of Jesus in you. And next Sunday when we shout for joy that Christ is risen and He's risen indeed we'll remember that He once told us we'd do what He did and even greater things that we would do.
Wow. And then we'll remember that when He ascended to heaven He lifted up His hands and He blessed His disciples and we shall recall that the promise was if you wait in Jerusalem you'll be clothed with power. And all the assurances of Jesus came to pass when He had once promised it's better that I go because then the Helper will come and the body of Christ the church of Jesus was born. So climb up Nebo in the power of the Spirit and in faith see what God will do through the lives of those who live beyond you. Think of those that you've prayed for supported and blessed and encouraged and imparted to and remember that God has done this for you and take joy in all that will live on beyond you. You have life to give and in that giving you have found the truest and best promised land and that's the gospel. That's Pastor Alan Wright and today's teaching The View from Mount Nebo from the series Increase and we've got more with Pastor Alan coming up here in just a few moments with a final word.
You're made for more than your span of years on this earth. What might happen if you start taking the long view of your impact? We need to know what matters most to us so we can pass down our values on purpose. In Pastor Alan Wright's brand new six-week video series called Made for More you'll discover the power of your lasting legacy as he leads you through a simple process to clarify your family core values and God-given purpose in the world. Pastor Alan will also help you dream to imagine your 100-year impact.
The video series is accompanied by a practical study guide with templates and worksheets. You'll also receive the full-length preaching series Increase that exposes the biblical principle of generational blessing. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your Made for More audio video bundle as our thank you for your partnership. Contact us today and discover the power of your lasting legacy. 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. Thank you now with Pastor Alan and the view from Mount Nebo. This comes to the conclusion of this message and the series and of course, many takeaways from this, but you could also draw the broad conclusion about legacy right in future generations. Well, the whole thing we've been learning about throughout the whole Increase as we've been thinking about all the cisterns that have been dug that we drink from it now and we didn't dig them and we think of all that's gone before us. It makes us turn our attention to think of what comes after us and the great Increase, the plan of God is for blessing to go on and on for a thousand generations to never stop. And I just think the picture of Moses who lived his life to the full and there comes a time that he's going to die and what he has imparted is what lives on.
And I think that's a lesson to us all. And I think that's, you know, I don't know if it's my stage of life or it's just God's put on my heart right now, but I think for many of our listeners they could identify the thing that matters to you right now is what you're going to leave behind. And you are leaving a legacy and I'm praying and I'm praying and blessing that that legacy of grace and love will go on and on.
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.
