Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. And he said, abide in me like a branch on a vine so that the fruit will come, because God is happy when you're increasing.
He loves it when you're bearing this kind of fruit. 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 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.
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Here is Alan Wright. Okay beloved, are you ready for some good news? You are made for increase. Of everything good, it's God's design that increase in you and through you.
Boy, I want to convince you of that today. You are made for increase. It's quite related to where we started this year in our new year as a blessing that was taken from Genesis 1, 28, where the Lord blessed Adam and Eve. And then He said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Right? That's increased language. And so do it and have dominion in it because the world is yours. It's like a garden. It's given to you by God to master and to rule with Him today as you can imagine how vast small plantings, little seeds you plant today, can grow tomorrow.
And blessing. So that increase, it's pictured there right from the beginning with Adam and Eve. I was thinking of this cute story I heard years ago. Back in the day when fathers would sit in the waiting room while their wives were in labor giving birth, and then they'd come out and announce to the father, you know, back in the day. So these three expectant fathers are sitting in the waiting room and the first one suddenly is greeted by the doctor who comes out and says, congratulations. He said, but I got a surprise for you.
Turns out your wife just gave birth to twins. He was somewhat taken aback by it, but after he gathered his composure, he said, wow, that's great. He said, and the irony is, he said, I work for the organization of the Minnesota Twins.
So that's something that's ironic. So then a little while later, doctor comes out, speaks to the second man and says, congratulations. The man said, yay. And he said, I got a surprise for you though.
What? He said, your wife just gave birth to triplets. After a while, he composed himself. He said, wow. He said, well, what a blessing. He said, and the amazing thing is I work for the 3M corporation where upon the third man broke into a heavy sweat and nearly fainted. And the doctor said, are you okay? He said, no, I work for 7-Eleven.
I got to sit down. Y'all, when the Lord said to Adam and Eve, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, He didn't mean that they were going to do it all by themselves. He's talking about a plan of increase, right?
A multiplication plan, an exponential growth type of increase. And what I'm wanting you to see is that God made you in that sense like His seed, like something to be planted. And Jesus said as disciples, it's in my Father's glory that you bear much fruit. And He said, abide in me, you know, like a branch on a vine so that the fruit will come because God is happy when you're increasing.
He loves it when you're bearing this kind of fruit. And I want you to know that. I just want you to know the heart of God to bless your life. And hear Him say, may you have increase of everything good in your life. Because it's not a message you get from the world. The world wants you to decrease.
They're like, you know, if you get less salary, then maybe I can get more of it. If you get less popularity, maybe I'll be more, you know, it's opposite in the world, but not so with God. May you increase. I come to Psalm 115 because it feels so related to where we are in this season of blessedness as we start out a new year and think about how the nature of fruit is that it is good to the taste, it is nourishing for life, and then it contains within it more seed that then can become more plants and trees that produce fruit that's nourishing to taste and nourishing for life and has within it more seed. And that's where we've begun that sort of blessing in mind. And we've learned this, that God therefore thinks of great blessings as starting small. And He sees the long view of that blessing and that the promises and the blessings of God therefore don't ever run out and just run their course, but that He thinks about blessing a thousand generations. And if you want to think like God, then you're going to begin thinking more long term about all of that.
You know, that means thinking beyond yourself. And so we come to this Psalm and when the Psalmist sings out, may the Lord give you increase, it reminds us so much of be fruitful and multiply, of God saying that's good and He says let's make more of it. So everything good in your life. And so it means in the first place that by His very nature that God is a blessing God. He is a blesser.
He is, it's just who He is. The Psalms framed by this at our key verses, verses 12 to 15, look at this again, that the Lord has remembered us, He will bless the house of, He will bless us, He will bless the house of Israel, He will bless the house of Aaron, He will bless those who fear Him, small and great. May the Lord give you increase, may you be blessed by the Lord. So this is the heart of God. And you think about Genesis 1 28, the very first interaction with God. The people ever received any interaction with God from any recorded word that we have from this. Here's what the Lord chose to show us, is His very first interaction was not to warn them, He would do that later and say don't eat of that one tree. It was not even to instruct them, although He had lots of instructions for the people of God. It was not even to, you know, guide them or something. His first interaction, the Lord blessed them.
If you're new to us at Rinaldo, we talk about blessing all the time. It's one of our deepest core biblical values because this is the way of God. To speak a positive, life affirming, God inspired vision that is proclaimed over your life, that has inherent in it a kind of mystical transformational power because when you have an authority speak in love and truth over your life, who you really are, then out of that sense of identity you rise up to live it out. And that's the way of God. And He just, it's His nature. It's not God's nature to condemn you in order to inspire you. It is God's nature to love you, to affirm you, to bless you, to lead you on. The Bible even says it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance, even the things that we most need to repent from. You know, like well doesn't God need to talk to me more about my sin in my life? He does, but He wants to bless you into that kind of repentance. That's the nature of God. And I want you just to know that. That's who He is. You just sometimes have to think from human terms to try to even imagine who God is and what His heart is like. But you know what it's like when you love someone and you just want good for them.
You just want good for them. 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. I was just thinking about having an opportunity to see a young woman that I love very much who at age 13 went through a very traumatic emotional time in her life. And I got to be part of the prayer squad that would walk by her for years until she was healthy. She's healthy and married and beautiful. You get people like this. I'm going to do a message later on this, spiritual mothers and fathers.
And you have assignments. We all need a spiritual parent, at least one, and we all need to be a spiritual parent. And there's nothing quite like it when you have a spiritual son or daughter, but she was like a spiritual daughter and that's it. But I hadn't seen her in a while and I was out of town at a worship gathering and I thought it was where she lived. I thought she might be here. I texted her like, are you here? She says, I'm here. I was like, well, I'm sitting over here, you know, and we're just worshiping the Lord. I'm so full anyway, just worshiping the Lord.
I'm just trying to give you a little picture to help you think about the heart of God. But like when I saw her, you know, and I just stepped out of the row to go and I just wanted to just, I just wanted to just hold her. I just wanted to just, just bless her and just hardly let go of her, you know. And I went to have lunch last week with daughter-in-law and grand baby Mia.
Hadn't seen her in, might've been two whole weeks that I hadn't seen her. It was bad. It was bad. It was rough.
It was very rough. So we were meeting halfway between here and Charlotte for lunch and it was cold, it was chilly. And the little girl, she all bundled up in her little coat and she can walk now and she starts walking towards us smiling and I just want to grab her and like, you know, body block my wife so you don't get to touch her first and just grab her and just kiss her and kiss her face until you feel like you're about to kiss her cheeks off her face, you know, and you just, what is that? Well, that's, that's just, and then just, are you a beautiful, you are so special, so wonderful, what do you want to do?
When you love, what do you want to do? You just want to bless. Dallas Willard, who writes a lot about spiritual, wrote a lot about spiritual distance said, the blessing is the projection of good into the life of another. It isn't just words, it's actual putting forth of your will for the good of another person.
That's what we're trying to talk about here. It's like, if you want to bless someone, you want them to increase in everything good. I feel that way about you. I want you to increase in everything good. I've felt that from the day that I started here. I've never felt anything but that. And when you feel that kind of desire for someone else to have good increase in their life, you may not know exactly how to articulate it. You may not know exactly what to do about it, but you know there's something that is going forth from you towards them.
And sometimes it's almost just by osmosis. Sometimes it's just hard to even describe what's going forth, but it is something that's generated from the inside of you and it's going towards that person. I want you to understand the heart of God is like that, but infinitely so. Infinitely so. This is why the psalmist just keeps singing about the Lord will bless us. The Lord will bless us. The Lord remembers us. The Lord will bless us.
Oh, that's because who He is. One of the most beautiful pictures of this in the Bible is a story that I often reference that has to do with King David, who was described as a man after God's own heart. David had some big sin in his life, like every Bible hero, but there was something about David that the scriptures wants to record that there was something about his heart that was very kindred to God's own heart.
And I think it's pictured in this scene. David was told he was going to be king, but then he went through a long season of persecution. King Saul, who was on the throne, was so bitterly envious and honestly was just demonically set on killing David. And so David had to run for his life and hide in the caves of a dolom and hang out with a ragtag group of men and just survive for a long period of time until finally he takes the throne. And one of the ways that he was able to survive was a very unlikely alliance friendship with King Saul, his son, Jonathan. Very unlikely that the son of the reigning king who hated David would actually become best friends with David. And it's just a beautiful story. And the Bible said of David and Jonathan that they loved one another as their own souls.
That was the deepest sort of friendship you could have. And they made a covenant together. And Jonathan pledged that he would help David escape his father's rage.
And so he was sort of a spy and would let David know what was going on. And in return, Jonathan asked, would you show chesed, loving kindness, steadfast love, covenantal love, to my descendants, to my family in my absence if I'm no longer here? Because Jonathan knew that his life was fragile. And I mean, if you're the king's son and you're betraying your own father to befriend the one who's the heir apparent to the throne and all of that, Jonathan knew his life was on fragile terms. And so they made this covenant and Jonathan is killed. David was greatly sorrowful about that. But David was an amazing leader and he brought peace to the land.
He expanded the borders of Israel greatly, secured their borders and defeated their most pesky enemies. And people loved David, just loved him. And he's on his throne and all is well and the land is prospering. And one morning he wakes up and this is what he says in 2 Samuel 9 verse 1. David said, is there still anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? But there's a picture here of a king who can be so happy in and of himself and so satisfied and so grateful for all the blessings that he has in his life and so secure in and of himself that what he wakes up in the morning thinking about is I'd like to be a blessing to somebody today.
And I remember this covenant that I made with Jonathan, my dearest friend that I ever had, that I'd take care of his family, that I'd show love, I'd show extravagant grace to his family. And he said, I'm just wondering this morning, he says to his servants, is there anyone left that we could scrape around and find somebody for me to bless? There is a way in which your heart can be so full of gratitude and so full of blessing that your existence becomes defined by the search, the seeking out of someone to bless. It's honestly the abundant life. This is the picture of the spiritually abundant life would be to wake up in the morning and go, oh boy, who can I bless today? It's the heart of God. He's the king who just loves to bless.
Just want to put forth your will for the good of another person. That's what blessing, that's what David also do. They tell him there is somebody, he's Jonathan's son.
He's physically disabled. He's been hiding. He's been treating himself as if he's in exile because it was an ancient custom really that when a new king came to power, he would often search out the living descendants of the previous king and exile them or even execute them.
So you would eliminate any potential threat to the throne. So Jonathan's son Mephibosheth is hiding. Alan Wright. Today's good news message is titled Made for Increase.
It's in our series Increase. And Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio as he's 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 one hundred 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. We're back here now with Pastor Alan and sharing a parting good news thought for the day here as we place a bookmark in this teaching, Made for Increase. Well, I like the sound of that. Well, we're made for this. God didn't make things that are to remain stagnant. Life means increase and growth. And so that's first thing to say is that you, child of God, are made for increase. And the Lord blesses you into this. I love this Psalm 115 that we're in because it just begins. Our text begins with all this repetition of blessing. He will bless us, verse 12. He will bless those who fear him, verse 13. May you be blessed by the Lord, verse 15. So the interaction that God had in the beginning with Adam and Eve was to bless them, to speak a positive vision over their life that empowered them. The first words of God are not warning or teaching.
He didn't even ask for their worship first. Instead, he gave them a blessing and the blessing was for increase. And so God has this same thing in mind for you. God himself is so full and so complete. He is the picture of authentic, self-generating love that just blesses and blesses. And he is therefore always wanting to fulfill his heart's desire, and that is to bless your life. So you're on his mind because he wants to bless you.
And he remembers you and he thinks of you. That's what this psalm is getting at. And it means that you're made for more than meets the eye. You're made for an increase. And there's something in you that's so good that God wants to fill the earth with it.
You're made for increase. 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.
