Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. He spoke plainly to Moses. Here it is in our text from today, Deuteronomy 32, 49. He said it as starkly as it could be said, go up this mountain of the Abirim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the people of Israel for possession, and die on the mountain which you go up.
Can you imagine a greater disappointment than that? 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 this 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 pastorallan.org. That's pastorallan.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. Okay, family of God, are you ready for some good news? It's not what you have in hand that matters most, it's what you have to hand off. If you really get this, which is what happens with the spiritually mature, the spiritual moms and dads, they figure it out, that there's something that you have come to this earth to impart to a generation that follows you and to others in your life. And when you really see it and you get it, it's the greatest news because you know what it means?
You don't have to have it all, get it all, do it all, watch it all, figure it all out. You're here to live out a calling that God has for you and you're giving something. And when you really discover that, it becomes a tremendous joy to find out that there is a great blessing in helping someone else make it to a promised land to some fruitfulness that you may not even experience yourself. So come to the end of this series called Increase in which we've thought a lot about the blessing of God that goes on from generation to generation. He is after all the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He thinks generationally.
He sees the end from the beginning. And we saw this starting in Genesis 1 28 where the first and primal and foundational blessing to all of humanity from God is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. And Adam and Eve weren't going to fill the earth in a day and neither shall we. But there's a seed principle. There's a process that's going on.
And when you discover it, you can rejoice in it. And so we come today to a text that at first it seems sobering. Like why that text? Pastor Alan, Moses go up on the mountain and die.
That's our text for Palm Sunday. But I want you to see something beautiful in this great deliverer of the people of God, Moses. I want you to see how he responds to the disappointment of leading people to a promised land that he himself doesn't go into. But I want you to see more than that.
Of course, I want you to see Jesus who is our truer and better Moses. March Madness is here. The deacons deserve to be in it.
I'm very sad about that. The heels are still in it, which is good because I chose a basketball illustration to start the sermon and it wouldn't have been as good had they lost yesterday when they got down by 12 points at the beginning of the game. In 2021, Roy Williams, head coach at Carolina retired, kind of surprisingly, though it was about time for him to. But he was by every standard one of the most heralded college basketball coaches ever. He won the second most NCAA tournament games of any coach in history. Second only to coach Mike. Nine final four appearances, fourth most ever.
Three national championships tied for fourth most ever. So he's famous, thought to be one of the best coaches ever. And when they decided to make assistant coach, UNC assistant coach Hubert Davis, head coach, Roy Williams gave a short speech. He said, Hi, this is Roy Williams. I used to be the head basketball coach of the University of North Carolina. And now I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled to be here to see Hubert Davis named as a head basketball coach at North Carolina. He went on to say that in 1987 and eight, he went to recruit Hubert Davis with coach Dean Smith and coach Smith after talking to Hubert said, Hubert, I'm afraid you won't play much at Carolina.
I don't really want to do this. And so they were about to leave. And Hubert said to coach Smith, coach, I think he'll play more than you might think because he's so competitive. He's got such a drive about him. And Hubert Davis, young Hubert Davis high schooler said to coach Smith, how will you know if you don't give me a chance? Two days later, coach Smith changed his mind, called him up and said, Hubert, I want to offer your scholarship to the University of North Carolina.
And so he came in his little speech. Roy Williams said Hubert Davis was an overachiever as a basketball player. He was a Ronald McDonald, all American. He ended up scoring 1600 points here at North Carolina. He was a first round draft choice.
He played 12 years in the NBA. And he said this, I've never known a finer person in my entire life who has a switch he turns on and can be as competitive as anybody around. And he says, Hubert Davis is going to be a great coach.
Hubert welcome to the seat as the head basketball coach at North Carolina. You will love it. Williams said, I will love you sitting there. I will be here cheering. I won't ever criticize you.
I will blame it on the officials. And he said this, listen, I said, I'm talking about, this is the way a spiritual father talks. This is the way he said, after that, he said, you're the finest young man I've ever known in my life.
This is hard. He said, because I love this program, but you love this program and have the same passion that I do. And listen to this, he said, and you'll be better than me. That's something when a hall of fame coach says it, you'll be better than me. His first year as head coach, it started a little rocky. There were naysayers about Hubert Davis, but by the time they got to the NCAA tournament, they caught fire. In fact, they made it all the way to the national title game and were runner up. They should have probably won that game. It looked like he was going to win a national championship in his very first season as head coach. But after they won the Eastern regional, which is the thing that you get to then after that, the final four, which is all the big to do.
And they just won the Eastern regional and they're going to the final four and everybody's going crazy. And Roy Williams was there at the game and someone caught him on camera afterwards. And listen to what the famous hall of fame coach Roy Williams had to say. He said, it is perhaps for me the greatest moment in my basketball career. He was just sitting in the stands. And he said, I've never had any more faith and love for one man and to think that he's just won it.
He said, he's better than I was already. You know, it's one thing to make well strategized plan of succession for a business or an organization, and that's important, but it's quite another to be able to have authentic joy, authentic joy for someone who follows after you to experience even more fruit than you did. But that is the heart of God. So I'm drawn to this text about the great mediator and covenant maker and deliverer of the people of God, Moses, who leads them to a promised land that he himself never goes into. By God's providence, Moses was scooped up from the Nile as a baby and raised in Pharaoh's court because there had been an edict that all the Hebrew baby boys would be killed. So he was raised like a prince in Egypt, but he was a Hebrew in his blood.
And probably those second in line to become the king of the greatest nation in the known world of his day. One afternoon, he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave. And though Moses was wearing the garb of royalty, his blood coursing through his veins was too Hebrew to not do anything.
And he rose up and he struck down the Egyptian slave master. And in so doing, he aligned himself with God's people and had to impose upon himself an exile, a hiding period in Midian where he would just tend to a few sheep. The writer of Hebrews looks back on this in Hebrews 11 and says, by faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
It is interpreted like this. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. Moses did not count his position of royalty a thing to be grasped and held onto when it came to comparing it to the oppression and suffering of his own people. And it started something in Moses' life, this risky, costly self-identification with the Hebrew people, his own people. And word got out about it.
And Moses had to hide. And God, though, had plans for this man. 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. Though he was in obscurity and tending a few sheep, he had a much bigger plan for this shepherd appeared to him in a burning bush. And from that time on, there was something inside of Moses that began to attach to God and God attached to Moses. And he was a man like no other man.
The Bible said if God spoke to Moses as if you'd speak to a person face to face, this is a man who God allowed to see his glory in a way that no one else had. This is the man who fellowshiped with God on the mountain top, the man who was entrusted with giving the revelation of God to the people. And he was God's miracle man. It started with the plagues and the Passover and the parted Red Sea.
And then it was manor raining down on the ground and water from a rock. And all throughout it, God gave him wisdom and leadership savvy and he was full of faith and he was a great intercessor, a man of prayer that moved the heart of God. Nobody was like Moses. And his task, his assignment was to lead the people out of their bondage and lead them to the promised land and he devoted everything he had to it. The promised land flowing with milk and honey, a place of fruitfulness, abundance, rest, the dream. But the journey for Moses was not easy. It was grueling, disappointing. Not only did Pharaoh want to kill him, but his own people grumbled incessantly against him.
You can't miss that part of the story. It happens over and over. They doubt him. They question him. They persecute him.
They want to get away from him. More than once, Moses had to plead with God to not wipe out all the people. Like after they made the golden calf, Moses cries before God in Exodus 32, 31. Alas, this people have sinned a great sin. They've made for themselves gods of gold, but now if you will forgive their sin. But if not, let's get this.
Please block me out of your book that you've read. Could they have had a greater intercessor? Could they have had a shepherd more noble, willing to lay his life down for the sheep? Could there have been a man who would sacrifice more for a rebellious people who didn't deserve a promised land? Moses gave his life for this calling. He resolutely set his face like flint towards this land flowing with milk and honey. He wanted to get there, and he wanted to go in it.
He wanted to go in that land to drink of its pure streams, to taste of its grapes, and savor the figs, and walk in its beauty. And he asked the Lord for it. In Deuteronomy 3, 23, I pleaded with the Lord at that time saying, O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness in your mighty hand. For what God is there in heaven or on earth, he can do such works and mighty acts as yours.
Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country in Lebanon. He'd asked greater things of God. He'd asked to see God's glory, and the Lord had said yes. He put him in a cleft of a rock. He'd asked for the presence of the Lord, and he'd receive a divine yes.
He'd held his staff over a sea and watched it part. He'd raised his hands to win wars. He had beseeched God for the pardon of the people and been granted it. And now it seems a simple enough request, and it seems like if anybody deserved to go in the land, it was Moses. He wasn't the one who grumbled all the way over there. This is Moses.
He deserved it, surely. Let me see the land. Let me walk in it.
Let me taste of it. He wasn't asking to rule the land. He wasn't asking for a throne to reign upon.
He just wanted to be in it and to experience it. Let this dream of mine come true, please, Lord. Let me enter the promised land. And God said no. Deuteronomy 3.26, the Lord said to me, enough from you. Do not speak to me of this matter again. I've dwelt upon that and trying to think, has there ever been a time I think the Lord said, Alan, don't speak to me of this again. Most of the time he says, keep on knocking, keep on seeking.
But he says, don't talk to me anymore about this. But instead he said, verse 27, go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward and look at it with your eyes for you shall not go over this Jordan. There had been only one little infraction that was held against Moses as the reason for not going into the promised land, an occasion where God said, speak to the rock and it'll give you water. And instead he struck it with his stick like he had done a previous time. It seemed like a really small deal. Like almost God, you're keeping him from the promised land on a technicality.
He had one, this is the best you could come up with, Lord, is he had this one moment where he struck the rock with his stick rather than speak to it. It just reminds us of the biblical view, right? It's hard if you don't know this heart of God as so holy, it's hard to understand at first, but there's no grading on a curve with God. There's no, hey, Moses is really righteous so he deserves the promised land, but then there's these Pharaoh and he's awful so he doesn't.
It's not the way it is. Instead the Bible says all have fallen short of the glory of God and therefore all have sinned and all are justly deserving of God's displeasure and all are deserving of punishment. It's a hard thing, but it only makes sense when you think of it that God is perfectly holy and perfectly just.
And so any debt against him is an infinite debt. So though it would be one little thing, Moses wasn't going in and there's some deeper symbolism of that, but we don't have time to go into it. But the point of it being there's no big infraction in Moses' life and God said, you're not going in. That was it.
You can look at it. But the Lord also had a further word of instruction for Moses in Deuteronomy 3 verse 28, but charge Joshua. He said, you don't go in the promised land, but here's what I do want you to do. Charge Joshua and encourage and strengthen him for he shall go over at the head of this people and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see. He spoke plainly to Moses. Here it is in our text from today, Deuteronomy 32, 49. He said it as starkly as it could be said, go up this mountain of the Abirim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho and view the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the people of Israel for possession and die on the mountain which you go up. Can you imagine a greater disappointment than that?
Spend your whole life with this call to lead a people to the promised land and not be allowed to go in yourself. That's disappointment. What would he do with such a disappointment? Is he wine and whimper? We have no evidence of that in the text.
Does he become bitter? There's no such thing in this narrative. 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. Back now with Pastor Alan here as we are at the conclusion of the series. Got a couple more days left on the teaching here, but the message, and I have to admit, Pastor Alan, I'm not critical of your teaching, but sitting in that message, you're scratching your head at one point saying this could become a depressing sermon if we're not careful.
The view from Mount Nebo wasn't exactly the view we thought it was going to be. And I think that's the key is like, you know, I love the Bible in every way, the word of God, but I love how real it is that Moses gets to have a view of the Promised Land from Nebo, but he doesn't, he never gets to go in and something powerful in God telling Moses, no, it's time come for you to die. And yet there's something I have for you to do still. And, and he validates Joshua. So it's, it's a story about the ultimate increase that comes. And I think it points us to Jesus as well. So a lot of rich, good news.
And what otherwise is sad, Moses doesn't go into the land, but there will be a people who do. 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.
