Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The whole power of the Gospel is being unveiled in Galatians to say, here's the invitation.
Move out from a life under the law where there are works of the flesh and move into a system of grace where you're invited to walk in the Spirit. 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 Galatians as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month made to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, you can go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? You have Christians residing in you, the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit. And His presence in your life means that you are not only taken from one realm to another, to a whole new kingdom, but that your life, just by fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit, takes on a new character.
And so you will not gratify the flesh and all your sinful desires when you walk in the Spirit. That sure is good news. Boy, I've had a very interesting weekend. I'm really glad to be here this morning because I was in a high-speed accident on Friday afternoon. I was going down to Wrightsville Beach. I was headed towards the wedding rehearsal.
I was going to be officiating a wedding there this weekend. And so I was heading down that way. A lot of traffic on I-40 near Raleigh.
And everybody's moving along. This tractor-trailer truck started to come into my lane. I'm in the left lane. And I thought maybe he was moving in my lane.
So I think I'm slowing down. And all of a sudden, he jackknifed. And he just spun in front of me in my lane. And I'm slamming on the brakes and not realizing what's happening. And next thing you know, I'm pinned up against the guardrail. And I'm okay.
He's okay. Three fire trucks, ambulance, about four police cars, and the closing of four lanes of traffic on I-40 at 4.30 in the afternoon on Friday. For once in my life, instead of being sitting there trapped in the traffic, I was the cause of it. And somebody told me at the wedding rehearsal that had made the W-R-A-L-T-V news. So I was a little famous on Friday afternoon. I think you'll get a kick out of this, that the tractor-trailer truck that jackknifed in front of me was a Budweiser truck. And a big red Budweiser truck.
And so I thought about a title for today's message, This Bud's For You. But anyway, it was a nice young man who was driving it. I said to him, I said, did we hit each other? And he said, I thought we did, but I looked at the front of my car on the right-hand side and there was no evidence that I'd been hit. And when I finally, after all the, they towed the truck out of the way, got it out of the way, then I finally pulled off the guardrail and I was concerned I might not be able to drive the vehicle and it would be all crushed on that side and the door may not close and so forth. And I pulled off and the policeman said, well, you got like a scratch.
And all the way down my car is a big, long scratch mark, small dent at the front, and no other damage. And I was, as best I can tell, I was undamaged. So I'm very, very thankful. I suspect angels, don't you?
I suspect angels. I was really thankful. You're going 65 miles an hour in a truck, jackknifes in front of you. I was really glad nobody was behind me. How was there nobody behind me?
How was there nobody behind me to slam into me? And, and while I was, I was, I was, I was headed towards hitting this truck and headed towards the guardrail. It was like I said, a strange piece, like you're not going to die in this traffic accident. And, you know, amazing how many thoughts can go through your brain in less than a second. I mean, the thoughts that went through there were like, you're not going to die. You're going to be okay. And also was, I'm going to be really late for this wedding rehearsal.
That was going through my mind as well. But that piece that I experienced in that moment, where's that come from? The Bible says that what the Holy Spirit does is He produces fruit in your life. And what fruit is, it's, it's not something that you manufacture.
It comes as a product of something else. So there's no way in a moment like that, that your mind could think quick enough and say, okay, let me be sure and trust in the Lord here. And the Bible says, do not be afraid. And I'm always with you. And, and, and surely God wouldn't let me die by getting hit by a bud washer truck.
But it's too fast for that. Instead, there's something else that's taking place that is, that is the character of the life of Jesus in you. And the invitation of the Gospel is to walk in the Spirit.
That your life would be characterized by a fellowship with the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit of love, joy, and peace, patience, kindness, and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These things, if you try to accomplish them by your own human effort in an attempt to make yourself more acceptable to God, what we've been learning in Galatians is it'll backfire. That people that try hard to keep the law in order to make themselves acceptable wind up either becoming so condemned by that law that they want to run away in rebellion, or they just keep working harder and harder and become religious Pharisees filled with pride. And what we've been learning in the book of Galatians is that there are two systems for living.
And one is the system of the law, where there's a set of standards and you try by your effort to live up to it. And when you don't live up to it, what happens is that there is a voice that comes from an enemy of your soul. The Bible's name for him is Satan which means accuser. And what that voice is, always accusing you, look at you.
You have failed, you've fallen short, you don't deserve to be blessed, you have no reason to know that you're included in the family, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And that voice, with all of its accusations and condemnation, wants to lead you into one of two equal opposite errors. And that is to say, look at this, this is making you miserable trying to keep all this law, you might as well abandon it and run away from it all and just live a life of rebellion. Or the voice can tempt you and lure you to try harder and harder and harder and just live a life like the Pharisees of religiosity and legalism. But in either case, it keeps you trapped in this system that Paul calls being under the law. And the invitation we've been getting in Galatians is come out from under that whole system.
Don't try to correct it by addressing all these little sins in your life, don't try by human effort. Abandon that whole system and come under the system of grace. For this is the reason that Jesus came. He came because you couldn't keep the law and He could. He came because you could never obey all the rules, but He did. He came because He loves you and He took the penalty for your sin so that you could be justified in God's eyes. And what it means to be justified, we've learned, is that it's just as if I'd never sinned.
And it's more than that, it's just as if I had lived a meritorious life like Christ. So the extraordinary good news of the Gospel is that when you have simple childlike faith in Jesus Christ, you are saved by grace through faith, you are forgiven by grace through faith, and you are declared righteous by God according to your faith that comes to you only by God's grace. And the invitation that Paul has been making is you come out from under the law and you are under grace. Now here's what we're going to see today, that the system of the law is associated with the works of the flesh. And the system of grace, being under grace, is associated with walking in the Spirit. So there are two opposite forces that are not by any means equal, but they are opposing one another. The system of the law, the system of grace, the flesh, and the Spirit.
Galatians chapter 5 verse 16 is where we are. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. I don't want to pressure my kids, and I sure don't want to shame them, but I do want them to try hard and be all they can be.
That's the desire of every well-meaning parent. For over a decade, Alan Wright has been teaching all over the nation about the toxic effects of shame and the amazing power of the gospel of grace to heal and set free. Now, for the first time, Alan has been joined by his wife Anne to produce a video series about shame-free parenting. It's called Good News for Parents, Raising Grace-Filled Kids in a Pressure-Filled World. The eight DVD video sessions are chock full of humor, deep gospel insight, and loads of practical advice.
Use them for personal growth or with your spouse, and they're also perfect for use in your small group. The DVD album comes with a detailed step-by-step study guide as well. When you make your gift this month, we'll send you the DVD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and start raising kids by the power of the gospel. 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 hope you have loved studying Galatians. If you're new with us, either here in church or under the sound of my voice, we have been spending a long time in Galatians. I think about the seventeenth message or so, just exploring this exquisite defense of grace by the Apostle Paul, in which he was writing to the churches in the province of Galatia, and he was telling them, don't let any little bit of law get mixed into your gospel, for it will rob the gospel of its power. And by the time he gets to chapter five, Paul is now being very practical, and he's spoken to us about what real freedom is, and now he's going to actually list for us works of the flesh, and he's going to talk very specifically about what it means to walk by the Spirit. So verse sixteen of Galatians five. But I say walk by the Spirit, and you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
For these repose each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident.
Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
I just want to begin by reviewing a little bit of what I said last time about what real freedom really is. Because this is absolutely essential if we're going to grasp the gospel. Because people always say as soon as you announce grace and that God loves you and blesses you not according to your own righteousness. People say well if God's going to just forgive us anyway then that just gives people a license to sin. We've said the favorite preacher's line is well people are sinning without a license.
We began to learn last week what real freedom is. The gospel of grace is not a power to give you the freedom to sin. It is the power of God that frees you from sin. What we realized as we were talking some about sin last time is that to say that the gospel of grace just gives people a license to sin means that it implies that what people want to do is just sin, sin, sin.
That it's the most wonderful thing in the world. I used several examples last time to say is that really what people wake up in the morning wanting to do? We're just thinking about some of the Ten Commandments like stealing. I just made the point women don't wake up in the morning just hoping that they get a chance to shoplift that day.
Women wake up in the morning hoping they get a chance to shop, not shoplift. Who really wants to spend all their life lying? Nobody wakes up in the morning and says I can't wait to tell about five or ten good lies. I want to tell so many lies I get confused as to what I've told and what I hadn't told. I'd like to be wondering all day long what I've actually told a person. I'd like to hide behind a cloud of lies all day long.
That's really fun. Nobody thinks like that. Nobody says I just can't wait to covet all day long. I want to spend my whole day in misery thinking about what I don't have and what other people do have. Won't that be fun to look at what everybody else has? I'm going to covet their car, their houses, their wives, and their dogs.
I'm going to do everything I can to covet today because it's just so much fun. Isn't sin just so much fun? Nobody thinks like that, really. Why do people sin, we say? Because people aren't free from sin. It is the slavery to sin that makes us sin. People really have a deeper longing to not sin. What the gospel of grace is announcing is a freedom, not to sin, but a freedom from sin. You'll know you're free on the day in which the sins that have so often beset you no longer enslave you.
That would be one of the most exciting days of your life. The things you use to lust after, to be able to just move on past it. The things that you use to covet, to instead stop and count your blessings. Those are the signs of freedom in the Christian life. Paul has just been laying out this whole case saying this is for freedom that you've been set free and it comes by the gospel of grace.
You will overcome your sin not by trying to overcome your sin, but by being filled with the grace of God. This is the goodness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we learned about freedom is that real freedom is not measured by having all of these broad options all the time. That's the spirit of the age. Don't be fooled by the spirit and ideology of this age that says keep your options open and then you'll be more happy. It's not having lots and lots and lots and lots of options all the time that makes a person happy. It's not lots and lots and lots of choices that makes a person joyful.
It's making one good choice. I was able to officiate that wedding. I didn't get killed by the Budweiser truck and I got to stand there once again and watch a beautiful bride walk down the aisle of that little chapel at Wrightsville Beach and I always like to sneak a peek at the groom. We had a lot of fun with the groom because they've been dating each other forever. Seven years, nine months and twenty days to be exact.
It was brought up at the rehearsal a number of times until I memorized the seven years, nine months and twenty days. Everybody was like, why does it take you seven years, nine months, twenty days to pop the question? There he was after seven years, nine months and twenty days watching her come walking down the aisle.
I know this man and I love him and I got to spend time with him in premarital counseling conversations. I realized that he was not thinking on that wedding day. He was not thinking yesterday as she walked down the aisle, oh man, there go all my choices. That's not what a groom is thinking. He's not thinking, well, that's it. Can't date other women now.
Not that he had been for the last seven years, nine months and twenty days. But instead as they stood there and they exchanged their covenantal vows, what you saw on display was what Jesus was explaining when He said, narrow is the gate that leads to life. For despite the culture claiming that keep all your options open so you can always play the field, something better may come along, despite that message, the real truth is, and think about your own life, isn't this the case, the things that have blessed you the most are the things you've most committed to.
That in fact it is in the exclusive choice for my wife over against all other women, her exclusive choice of me, that in that very narrowness of making a lifelong commitment, it opened up a horizon of unprecedented blessing in my life. And there's an allure of the flesh and an ideology in this current generation that wants to pull us towards, no, don't get locked down. Go through a broad gate. But what the Bible is teaching about freedom is the way that seems such a broad opening with all of these different choices that once you step through and you get in and it just constricts you. I used the example previously of a young man who just decides he wants to experiment with drugs.
Nobody's going to tell me what to do. I'll do whatever drugs I want. And it looks like it's a broad gate.
And how many people I've talked to that once they first used crack cocaine said they felt addicted from the first moment. The broad gate suddenly becomes very narrow once you step through it. But the narrow gate, once you step through it, opens up a broadness of life. Also what we learned about freedom just by way of review, because it's so important to understand what Paul's saying in Galatians 5, is that real freedom, Christian freedom, is not the absence of responsibility.
It is the ability to respond. Alan Wright and today's teaching, Walking in the Spirit. It's from our series on Galatians and Alan Wright is back here in the studio in a moment with us for additional insight on how this applies to our lives and today's final words.
Stay with us. Over a decade, Alan Wright has been teaching all over the nation about the toxic effects of shame and the amazing power of the gospel of grace to heal and set free. Now, for the first time, Alan has been joined by his wife Anne to produce a video series about shame-free parenting. It's called Good News for Parents, raising grace-filled kids in a pressure-filled world. The eight DVD video sessions are chock full of humor, deep gospel insight, and loads of practical advice.
Use them for personal growth or with your spouse, and they're also perfect for use in your small group. The DVD album comes with a detailed step-by-step study guide as well. When you make your gift this month, we'll send you the DVD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and start raising kids by the power of the gospel. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website pastorallan.org. Is walking in the Spirit a difficult concept? I feel like some people kind of start thinking like imaginary friend kind of stuff.
Yeah, right. Well, I think that part of the problem, Daniel, is, you know, we're just not trained up in life and things of the Spirit, right? You know, and we see a lot of new age and Eastern mysticism and things that make us skeptical about anything that might look like it is, you know, has mystery to it. But what we're talking about here, when we talk about walking in the Spirit, we talk about the Holy Spirit, we're talking about the Spirit of Jesus. So in the same way, this is the way I envision it, the same way that Jesus actually walked with his disciples, and by walking, I don't mean just physically walking, but as a picture of doing life together. This is who the Holy Spirit is to us. He is the Spirit of Jesus, who is called a helper or the parakletos, who comes alongside of us. That's what he means to say the Holy Spirit is the parakletos, the helper, the encourager.
He comes alongside. And so the invitation, amazingly, in the Christian life is to continually grow in our awareness of the presence of God, who is with us all the time, just as he promised, and attune ourselves more and more to the leadings and promptings of the Holy Spirit. And so the walk in the Spirit, if you think of it as just some ethereal, unusual kind of imaginary friend or something, then that misses the whole point.
Instead, though, through all the things that we do in our relationship with God, we are walking in that sense, walking in the Spirit rather than being guided by the natural mind alone. 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.
