Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. God created the planet with you in mind, that He created the vegetation that you would need and the vegetation that your livestock would need.
And He created the kind of atmosphere that you would need for your lungs to breathe the kind of oxygen that you need to breathe. 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 wanna 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.
Are you ready for some good news? The God, the creator, the omnipotent one who created everything that exists and then said, it is good, it is good, it is good. In a breathtaking action that surely stunned even the archangels who were watching, that creator, God himself, then turned to Adam and Eve, to the man and woman that he created, and he said, essentially, the world is yours. It is your garden to tend. Have dominion and subdue it, and invited them into a startling partnership with him, a stewardship of all.
It's astounding to even think of it. But when you really understand yourself as an heir, a co-heir with Christ himself, and understand Paul's words where he says, all things are yours, the world is yours. When you take that sense of ownership, it changes everything in your life. First conversation that I ever had with my predecessor, Pastor Dick Little, was a wonderful conversation. I had not ever met him before, but when I began to have interaction with the search committee from Reynolda, I thought it might be fitting to call the previous pastor, talk to him a little bit about the church, and we spoke of Reynolda, and the wonders and opportunities ahead for the church. And I think in a lot of ways, we hit it off in that phone call.
I was a very young man. And in the process of this conversation, Pastor Little told me a somewhat irreverent joke. It was my first conversation with him. And then when I later got to know him, I said, well, that kind of fit.
His personality was, he was a passionate Jesus lover. And he'd say whatever was on his mind also. And he told me, he said, well, what have you been doing? What's your ministry been like?
I was in Durham at the time. And so I told him, I'd been there nearly eight years. And I told him about our little church. It was 50 to 100 people when we arrived and how God's been good. And we had grown a good bit up to about 350 people. And we just built a new worship center.
And just to be sure, I made sure that I was being humble. And I said, so the Lord's really done a good thing. And that's when he told me the slightly irreverent joke. He said that he heard of a farmer who had been at work restoring an old farmhouse on his property. And he only went to church sporadically. And the pastor came to call on him one day and pay him a visit and see the work on the house. And when the pastor came, he was amazed.
A house that had once been so dilapidated was now a beautiful fresh paint, fresh roof, windows, and built a new front porch on it, all of this amazing stuff. And so the pastor said to the farmer, so the joke goes, pastor said to the farmer, wow, you and the Lord sure have done an amazing thing here. And the farmer sarcastically responded, yeah, you should have seen it when the Lord had it to himself.
I didn't know whether to laugh at Dick Little's joke or not. It seemed a little irreverent, but the point was clear. What he was saying essentially was, I appreciate you being humble and not taking the credit for the growth of the church that you've been serving there in Durham. He said, but on the other hand, what you do matters. And it was around the back way to say, that you've been doing good work there in partnership with God. It's one thing to say, I want God to get all the glory, but it's quite another to then believe that what it means is that you are somehow unimportant in the process. And as we are living out of a new year's blessing that came from Genesis 1 28, with this blessing, this command to Adam and Eve and to us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion in it.
We have this phrase and this blessing, the world is yours. Part of the reason that I put that there is because of the text that we're in today in 1 Corinthians 3. And there's something that is so important to realize in the sense of stewardship of that which has been entrusted to us, that your life and how you live your life and your partnership with God, it really, really matters. And what I really wanna get at today with you is why is it so important when Paul says, all things are yours? Why is that the antidote to all the division and pettiness that he was addressing in the Corinthian church?
And why might that make all the difference in our lives as well? Their issue in Corinth among many was that there had been a real division that had been happening because some people said they followed one teacher, another said they followed another and as is so common to humanity, they had developed little clicks and little factions and little divisions. We read about it in the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians, let's look there at verse 10. Paul said, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you'd be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
For it's been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each of you says, I follow Paul or I follow Apollos or I follow Cephas or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
So what's going on? Well, maybe people were just drawn to a particular preacher because of personality or style and some were like, I like Apollos, he gives line by line exposition. And some were like, I like Peter because he was there in the beginning and he really preached the Pentecost, he's fiery preacher.
Or I like Paul, he's the smartest and the clearest of them all. And they just were aligning themselves with these groups that were following. Maybe they were also doing that which we're so tempted to do and that is to find themselves feeling better about themselves because they're on some kind of inner circle, proud of being in a particular group. But whatever is happening, it is immaturity in the believer that's causing them to be enamored with the messenger rather than the message.
And honestly, don't we have too much of a celebrity culture even in the church in our own time as well where we tend to celebrate an individual and what God wants is for us to have unity around the message of the gospel. And so Paul's saying here, don't boast in humans. Don't boast in people.
Don't overstate their celebrated role. Don't feel like you need to align yourself with them as if you're a middle schooler trying to get in with the popular kids. You don't need to do that, Paul says. And why is it that the Corinthians and us, why should we be set free from that sort of folly and that sort of pettiness?
The answer is almost opposite from what you would think. You might think that God would say, don't boast in men because all things are God's and all glory is God's. So you need to think less of yourself and less of people. But instead, Paul gives these surprising words, don't boast in men for all things are yours.
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. Don't post in these people you're following and celebrate them, why? Because all things are already yours. He's saying that though we're tempted to attach ourselves to a personality, a celebrity, to be tempted to imitate someone else or piggyback on someone else's success or how tempted we are to feel insecure about our own unique role, that there's a way to overcome all of this kind of insecurity and temptation. And it's this truth, all things are yours. Paul's saying that when you feel disproportionately unimportant or insignificant in the face of others who have all kinds of worldly acclaim or success, and when our culture tries to teach you that you have to be linked to the right group or the right people and it causes all these divisions that we see in our world around us, don't do that.
You don't need to do that because when you feel like that and you feel like you need to pretend just a little bit or come across as someone that you're not really or that you need to impress people or you need to do it because of some insecurity inside of you, you don't have to do that, why? Because all things are yours. And when you think about maybe just giving up, maybe not caring anymore because you feel too small or you feel too little or you feel too unaccomplished and you feel that despair crouching at your door, then you have an antidote to that and it's this powerful word, all things are yours. It's not the answer or the antidote that you would have maybe expected, but it is what Paul says that is the solution to that sort of insecurity that breeds all these divisions. I was so taken by a sermon that John Piper preached on this text some years ago, the former pastor of the church at Bethlehem Baptist and well-known author. It's a gorgeous jewel of a sermon and every now and then, I just draw from something and this is one of those cases where I hardly know where his beautiful thought and where my own inspiration, where that line is, so I just wanna commend that sermon to you and say I'm drawing from it significantly. All things are yours, he titled his message. And I'm just taken by the fact that when God surprises you with a solution, surprises you with a solution, an answer that you don't expect that is worth really digging into it and going what does he mean by that and how could it possibly strengthen us, energize us, inspire us and transform us to hear God say to us all things are yours or to say as we have in our New Year's blessing, the world is yours. It is a garden given to you by God to master and to rule with him today so you can imagine how even your smallest plantings can grow so vast in the days to come.
That's what we've been thinking about. All things are yours, whether Apollos or Cephas and he begins to list these specific people and then he has a sort of litany of all the things that are yours and he even includes himself, Paul is yours. Listen to Piper's words about this. Paul is yours, your father in the faith, the one who betrothed you to Christ, the one who suffers countless hardships to build you up, the most prominent apostle outside Israel, the one who was called up into paradise, the writer of scripture. You are not his, he is yours. You don't need to scrape for a few minutes of his attention, every minute of his life, now and forever and everything that he does and says serves your greatest and lasting joy, he is yours. The empty place inside of you that makes you feel inferior, that place that makes you feel like you're inferior to Paul so you gotta cling to his inner circle, that part of you that makes him a celebrity in your eyes, that somehow is satisfying this inadequacy that you feel.
You don't need to feel that way because he's yours. God's given him to you, he's given him to the body of Christ and what Paul I think is saying here is, and listen strong to this, there's not some spiritual blessing that someone else has that you do not already also have in Christ. There's not some access to God that someone else has that you don't have. The great preachers, the teachers, neither they nor the people who follow them have some special pathway to intimacy with Christ and joy in Christ that you do not have. All these apostles, they were given to you.
Wow. And then he says, all things are yours, brother Paul, the apostles, Cephas, or the world. The world is yours, the world is yours. God made this world from the overflow of his own beauty and creativity and goodness. And then he entrusted it to humanity to have dominion in it. This means that the biblical worldview doesn't say, oh, how fortunate we are to have evolved from primordial sludge because there happened to be by chance a planet that had all the right conditions for life. No, this and all of the biblical narrative says the opposite, says that God created the planet with you in mind. That he created the vegetation that you would need and the vegetation that your livestock would need. And he created the kind of atmosphere that you would need for your lungs to breathe the kind of oxygen that you need to breathe and placed you in exactly the right spot in this particular solar system so that it would be the temperatures that your body could tolerate and need. He put all of this together because he has made it with humanity and mind.
Wow, this is what the Bible says. You didn't evolve because the planet just happened to fit. You were made by God in his own image. And then you were given all these things. I'm saying he gave you the mountains and the streams for you to go fishing for your trout. He gave us the green grass and the mini Bermuda variety to give us fast, nice golf greens. He made mountains for you to climb. He made oceans for you to swim in. He made rainbows for you to adore. He gave you light so your eyes could see. God has given you the world.
All things are yours. He owns it, he made it, but he's given it to you to enjoy and to subdue and to reign and to have mastery in. Why do you need to feel inadequate? Why do you need to feel small?
Why do you need to feel like the people that follow Apollos or Cephas are more blessed than you, Paul says, because God has given it all to you already. And life, Piper says, you are not attached to life. It is attached to you. Is it not extraordinary how life finds a way out of the cracks in the sidewalks, out of dry and barren places where still life emerges in the depths of the ocean where there is no light and yet they find life that is there, why? Because God has given life to you. Life itself and breath, just as he breathed life into Adam and Eve in the beginning and made them living souls. So he's breathed life into you. Life is yours and in Christ life eternal is yours.
All things are yours. He even lists death here and death. How is death yours rather than you belonging to death? It is said well in the famous poem of John Donne, death be not proud though some have called thee mighty and dreadful for thou art not so. For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow die not poor death nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep which but thy pictures be much pleasure then from thee much more must flow and soonest our best men with thee do go rest of their bones and souls delivery. One short sleep past and we wake eternally and death shall be no more. Death thou shalt die. We do not belong to death. Death is our gift to transport us into eternal life. Even in our death we are Paul says like a seed and he says in 1 Corinthians 15 what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
He says later in that chapter oh death where is your victory oh death where is your sting because death in the end serves the Christian by transporting us into the very presence of God. All things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present he said. Right here, right now, today, in your life all is yours or he says or the future. The future is yours. A future with God, a future of reigning with Christ. All is yours.
All are yours. What a statement. Alan Wright, today's good news message. The world is yours in our series Increase. Hey Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day.
Stick with us. 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. Thanks for being with us today. We're back in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day. So where do we go from here, Pastor Alan? We've started this new teaching on the world is yours.
So now what? I guess God says, go out there, subdue it and have dominion in it. The more that you have a feeling of ownership, it's not just about the delight of the soul and the joy that you have of knowing that, that you're an heir, but the more that you have ownership, the more you begin to take responsibility.
You act like that, right? So we only take promised lands that we believe we can take. In other words, that we really own as ours. So in the natural world, it doesn't look like we're in charge of much sometimes, but in the ultimate kingdom perspective and the kingdom where the head, not the tail. So I think it's an invitation to live like that.
Go and take the truth that the world's yours and live with that kind of confidence that God made all this for you. And he put you here to have spiritual authority. So that's how we say no to the devil. It's how we stand strong in the face of temptation.
And it's how we take new territory in this invisible kingdom. Thanks for listening today, visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 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.
