Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I think becoming a Christian is a whole lot like that. It's like discovering you have a father who loves you and you didn't know it because you'd been misinterpreting all the events of your life.
And then you find out that he has laid up an inheritance for you in Jesus Christ. 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 Rinaldo 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. I'd never told them. My parents met because they were both on the Lenora and College debate team. I'd never debated. But now here's a son who loved it.
Probably part of the reason he decided to go to law school in the end was he enjoyed all of that. And it had lived on before them. They didn't know about it. You see, most of the generational blessing has come down to you.
You have no idea about it. Sometimes you just got to drink from a sister and go, somebody dug it. I don't know who dug it.
Thank you, God, for whoever dug this. It's come down to me, Abby, who was young and overheard that conversation between Bennett and Nana. She said, well, she said, that doesn't always apply. She said, you know, she said, because I love riding horses and nobody in the family, you know, the horse rider. And I just looked at her, I said, oh, don't be so fast, baby girl.
I said, it wasn't that many years ago. Everybody in your family rode a horse. So I wish you could have met my grandfather. I wish you could have met my grandfather. He was, he was one of a kind, dropped out of school.
He's in the fourth grade. But every time that I saw him, he said, get all the education you can get. I mean, it was just like every, I mean, I, okay, granddaddy, every time I get all the education you can get. He built up businesses, had men's clothing stores, had such a hard work ethic. He outworked everybody. He was there before I'm left out from probably I get most of my work ethic coming down through there.
You know, it's so interesting. He loved golf and I hated golf when I was a kid. I thought it was the most boring sport in the world.
Why would anybody stand there? Hit a little ball, much less watch it on TV. Every Sunday, we'd go over to my grandparents' house and we'd eat and we'd watch the wonderful world of Disney and we'd go home. And the first thing that would happen is I'd sit there and my grandfather was in his brown recliner, watching the end of the golf tournament, trying to sort of talk to us, but wanting to see, really wanting to see the end of the golf tournament every time. And I remember looking at it going, why would anybody want to watch the golf?
Much less play it as a sport. Isn't that something? He was the Greensboro city champion number of times. He was about a scratch golfer, president of the country club. He would have done anything to introduce me to golf. I didn't care a thing about it. And here I am now thinking about watching some golf today. Isn't that something? Isn't it odd how things that have gone before you, you don't think about it.
You just are doing what you're doing and you don't think about what's gone before you, about the cisterns that have been dug. All this has led me to think about my mom's dad that I didn't really know. He was a preacher, but he wasn't just a preacher. He was a Methodist pastor in small churches all over the Western Conference.
But I remember so much mom talking about going to visit parishioners with her dad. He loved his people. He was a pastor. He died when I was six.
I didn't really know him. It's got me thinking about the history of this church this week. So I went back and read Jim Lewis's history of Reynolds church that runs up through 1995. You can get that and read that.
Somebody needs to start writing the history that started in 1996. Catherine Reynolds pledged to the worshipers of Mission Sunday School from First Prez, Winston-Salem that if they would keep a pastor and at least 20 functioning members, she said she'd build and maintain a chapel for them on the Renolda Village property. And they did. And so they petitioned presbytery to become a church, 27 of those people from First Prez, Winston. And then they, I'm proud of them, they did some evangelism and they got five others to join in with them. So there were 32 that asked presbytery to become official church members. Presbytery to become officially a church. And the presbytery granted it. And the Reverend Melton Clark of Greensboro came over and preached the sermon for that commissioning of this church from Psalm 48 verse 12.
Here's a cistern we didn't dig. This word got proclaimed over us all those years ago. Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is God. That you may tell the next generation, we're not the next generation, we're the next generation after the next generation. That this is our God forever and ever, He'll guide us.
Wow, a lot of faith. You know the bigger step of faith probably was in 1957 when that congregation decided to expand. They considered two options in 1957.
Remember, if you understand they were meeting in the little chapel that you go out to and get your cup of coffee in today. But they wanted to expand. They had two options. One was to build this sanctuary and to build some educational space. But the second was a bigger dream and that was build this, build some educational space and a fellowship hall, which we now have.
And they met together in 1958 and decided option two, the bigger ones, what they were going to go for. Wow, I mean some faith. We met this week with some consultants of a design build firm called Visioneering and they looked at our campus in Clemens and in King and in here as we're thinking about our next dreams. We want to have more permanent presence at our campuses and we want to do all we can to update here and we want to have world-class student space and we want to think about how we can. There's a lot of things we'll be telling you a lot about that this coming spring. But I was just thinking about that group that had a vision for this.
Wow. Jim Lewis's words in that section of the history, it's rather interesting that Rinaldo Church went heavily into debt for a building program when it was having financial trouble meeting its current budget. Deacon Hubert Klein said he was only given two dollars a week to the church and Treasurer Bull told him he was the top contributor. I like Jim Lewis's words here, with this kind of congregational giving, Reverend Shorty Smith and Rinaldo Church stepped out in faith to build the new sanctuary or you could have said to dig a new cistern from which we all would drink and drink and drink and drink. I've been thinking about Pastor Shorty Smith who was tall about his faith and I've been thinking about Perry Mobley and about his widow Jean who was sitting over here this morning early and about how Perry Mobley dared to welcome the move of the Holy Spirit in this church in the 70s. And it takes some daring to let God move in your midst in new fresh ways.
I'm so thankful for that. And about Pastor Dick Little and how he led us into this denomination and advanced our evangelism and missions efforts so boldly. I've been thinking about all these things.
I'm saying all this to you to just model for you, just to show you, you can do this, you can think about that. Every drink you take from a cistern you can pause for even a moment and think about why it is that you get to drink the fresh water, why it is you get to experience the living water because someone had been digging before you got there. And what it does for you is remarkable in your Christian journey. Again, remember, the reason God wants you to live like this is because, verse 3 again, that it may go well with you and that you may multiply. And what he wants for you is to experience the elation of soul, the delight of heart that comes with self-forgetful worship and exaltation of God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your might. Anyone who is embittered and feels unblessed and neglected and only can think about the wounds of the past cannot worship God like that. But when you think about his goodness, when you think about his love, when you think about the ways that he positioned people in your history to dig cisterns so that you could drink, how can you be anything less than just grateful and it makes you fall in love with God? And he wants you to know that you're part of this story so that in the growing gratitude of your heart, you, verse 6 and 7, you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your houses and when you walk, by the way, it's about the generation after you.
This is God's plan. You grow in gratitude, which makes you grow in joy, which makes you grow in strength. Gratitude, joy, strength, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. 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. When you do the opposite in gratitude leads to discouragement and depression. And therefore our lives become void of the energy for the mission. Gratitude.
Wow. You can do it every time you take a sip of the water. Every cup of the living water you just drink it and you thank God for it.
Somebody dug it. The rain came and you drink of it. It is especially important if you're here today or under the sound of my voice and you say, but Pastor, you don't know how hard my life has been. You don't know the abuse that I suffered.
You don't know the challenges and the abandonment and rejections I've experienced. I am having a hard time thinking of a way to be thankful for those who've gone before me, especially when it comes to so-and-so. But one of the things you'll find is that, of course, God's never asking you to excuse the sin of the generations before you. No, we acknowledge it, we reject it, and we take the blood of Jesus over it.
But what we're not to do is to wholeheartedly in a blanket way think that there was no blessing that could come. Which made me think of Hannah. Hannah, who had given me permission for this story many, many years ago when I put it in a book called God Moments, and I'll never forget that day.
That was precious Hannah. She was single at the time, married now. She's a lawyer. And she's a beautiful person, beautiful spirit, and lovely in every way. And I had spoken with her before, because I had prayed with her before about some of the issues of her upbringing that had been so difficult. But she was meeting with me after she had come back from her father's funeral. And she said, Pastor, I just want to thank you for your time. And she said, Pastor, I just got a call out of the blue, just out of the blue. Just a voice said, is this Hannah?
I said, yes. And just this start, the voice said, I'm sorry to tell you that your father has died. He's here in our morgue. She said, just like that, nobody's with me. I had no indication of where this is coming from, just like that. She said, and then it just dumped on me. She said, I didn't know what to do. I had no details.
And so I had to begin trying to think about a burial. She said, he just didn't love us. He said, he hated my mother.
He didn't want to be with her. When my parents split up, she said, neither of them wanted me. And she said, I always believe my father just hated me. She said, he never provided for me, never. And now she's a little bit angry about it.
Said he couldn't save any money, never gave me or mom anything. And she, when I began to make provisions for his burial, I called his girlfriend to see if there was any provision. She said, no. And she said, there it was, the pain of realizing that even in his death, he was selfish.
Even his death, I'm going to have to cover all of this. She said, but he's my father and I needed to give him a proper burial. And then her voice changed. And she said, but pastor, I found out that in my preparation, that he had a safe deposit box at the bank.
And after some effort, I was able to get into it. And she grew quiet and she said, I'm confused. She said, pastor, there was a little life insurance policy. It wasn't much, but I was a sole beneficiary. And she said there were a few thousand dollars in cash in there with a note that said that the cash was for me. And what's more, he had a prized coin collection. That was his prize. And it was in the safe deposit box.
And it was for me. He could have left it to his girlfriend. He could have left it to anybody else. He left it all to me. She said, I don't know what to do with that.
And what does that mean? I forget it. We just sat there in the silence of that until finally I dared to say it. I said, Hannah, I think what it means is your father loved you. He may not have known how to show it.
He may have made many, many mistakes, but you do not leave your treasures to someone you hate. You just don't just had to sit there and let that sink in and walk out of the room, shaking your head, going, my father loved me. I'm going to have to rethink everything. I'm more blessed than I realized. You know, I think becoming a Christian is a whole lot like that. It's like discovering you have a father who loves you and you didn't know it because you'd been misinterpreting all the events of your life. And then you find out that he has laid up an inheritance for you in Jesus Christ. And you have to just shake off the disbelief and finally accept it that I'm loved. I may have been rejected by many people, but I'm loved by God.
If you don't know him, it's just that simple. You have an inheritance in Jesus Christ only by his merits. Can the forgiving love of God come and cleanse us from our sins and pay off our sin debt? And you just say, thank you, God, for the sister and I did not dig. Jesus said, I came to give to you living water.
And through the cross, he did the hardest work, the deepest digging, the greatest sweat that any human has ever expended. What if you're more blessed than you know? And what if you got more to be thankful for than you've ever realized? And what if the simple practice of pausing before you take your next sip of living water, you say, thank you for those that dug you up. And you say, thank you, God, for the good work that you've done.
And you say, of living water, you say, thank you for those that dug this cistern. I'll tell you what it'll do. It'll make you thankful. And the more thankful you become, the more joyful you'll be. And the more joyful you are, well, everything in your life gets energized.
And that's the gospel. Allen Wright, today's good news message titled Drinking from Cisterns You Didn't Dig in our series Increase. Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. 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 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 in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day as we come to the conclusion of drinking from cisterns you didn't dig. And part of this was also looking back at the steps that brought you to where you are today, Pastor Alan, including, as we heard, even the seeds of radio, communication, sharing news, and maybe even being a weatherman. It really is, you know. It's so interesting. I mean, I had to, like most people, I've had to spend some time getting healed of some wrong things.
And, you know, when you come from a home that's been broken as mine was and things that I wish I'd had from my dad that I didn't in some critical years of growing up. But also just, you know, it's nourishing, empowering, and overall, it is helpful to one's direction of life to think on the blessings that have been there that some of them just kind of sneak into your life. You don't even know how it got there. It just got there, right? It's like drinking from a cistern you didn't dig.
Most times you don't even think about it. And it is. My dad, he was, he started in radio and here we are on the radio. And he was a radio man. And then he was a TV and he was the weatherman.
And he ended every broadcast. This is Dave Wright. Good night. And I grew up there by all go around. They're talking about Dave Wright.
Good night. They knew my father. And, and I always thought he was a, he was a newsman. I'm a good news man. And he was a weatherman.
And some, as Laura, my assistant once pointed out, said, you're a weatherman, w-h-e-t-h-e-r, weather and plenty are in watch, you know. Paul says, I've learned to be content. And whether I live, whether I die, I belong to Christ. So, you know, you look back in your life and, you know, maybe, maybe you never even knew your own biological parents.
Maybe you did. Maybe, you know, maybe you've done a lot of Ancestry.com and you can go way back. But either way, you've got, you've got, you have a heritage, you have people, you have, there's been legacy building, generational blessing that's come down to you. And no matter how much pain you've been through in your life, look for the good, claim it, call it your own. Call it your own. Say that came into my life. That was, that was dug before I ever got here. And I drink from it and enjoy it and thank God for it. And the more that you see it and hold onto it, then the more it really becomes yours and God blesses others through your life. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
