Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
It is about a big house that he's already established, and you are that house. You are, Peter says, being built together with Jesus as the cornerstone, and you're like living stones, all connected. 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 Son of David, as presented at Rinaldin 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. It can be yours 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. Now more on this later in the program, but now let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. I just want to return for a third time to 2 Samuel 7 and show you something wonderful about how this promise to David is fulfilled in the body of Christ. 2 Samuel 7, this is where David has become king.
Israel is now at peace, and it's a wonderful prosperous time. This is the Camelot time for the nation of Israel. This is the time in which they just, this is what they remember of King David and the best. And David looks around, he sees that he's in this beautiful palace, but the Ark of the Covenant, which is the symbol of the presence of God, is still in an old tent. And David says, we need to build a big temple for the Lord. And the Lord comes back to David, and this is what he says at verse 4 of 2 Samuel 7. That same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan. Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in?
I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I've been moving about. And then at verse 10, I pick up reading the great promises of God that then begin to just be poured out upon David. Instead of God saying, yes, you need to do something great for me, David, God says, I want to tell you about the great things I will do for you. Verse 10, I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel.
And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. So David says, I'm gonna make you a house.
And the Lord says, no, I want you to understand the gospel. This is not about something you're doing for me. This is about something I'm doing for you. I will make you a house.
And what we've seen in this are two, two, a double meaning. I'll make a house for you. David in his family would be a dynasty. So David receives this and he wouldn't have any way of seeing the fullness of what God meant here, but he would receive it as that someone from your family is going to be on the throne forever. Later in this chapter, God says, I'll never take my steadfast love from you. In other words, he's speaking of house, like a dynasty that is made for David.
But there also is a meaning here. The Lord will make you a house is fulfilled in what happens in Jesus Christ, because we have become together the household, the house of God, the inhabitation of God. This is first Peter chapter two, one of the most beautiful statements in the scripture about who you are people of God. So just listen to this literally for you, every single person who accepts Christ, whether you feel it or not, this is who you are. And this is, this is an encouragement that Peter brings to a church that would suffer many things in his day. Verse four, first Peter chapter two, as you come to him, a living stone, speaking of Jesus, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Verse nine, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. You ready for some good news today? Because you are God's house, it means that God is forever with you and you like living stones together making up this house are forever with everyone else in the body of Christ. I want to say some really important and pointed things today about the absolute necessity of being integrally intimately connected in the body of Christ.
CCM magazine gave this their song of the decade in the 90s to the audio adrenaline hit Big House. Maybe you know it, I don't know where you lay your head or where you call your home. I don't know where you eat your meals or where you talk on the phone. I don't know if you've got a cook, a butler, or a maid. I don't know if you've got a yard with a hammock in the shade. I don't know if you've got some shelter, say a place to hide. I don't know if you live with friends in whom you can confide. I don't know if you've got a family, say a mom or dad.
I don't know if you feel love at all, but I bet you wish you had. Come and go with me to my Father's house. Come and go with me to my Father's house. It's a big, big house. I feel like singing this song.
I ain't going to ruin it for you. With lots and lots of room. A big, big table with lots and lots of food. A big, big yard where we can play football. A big, big house.
It's my Father's house. It was a song of the decade according to CCM magazine in the 1990s. It's got a great tune to it.
It's fun. And also, who wouldn't want to be in a big old house like that and it conveys all the best images of kids in the backyard playing and being around a table and so forth. But maybe this is why that song became so, so popular. It speaks to the deepest longing we have of just a sense of wanting to be accepted and belong in a household.
Yeah. And here's what's astounding is that while yes, is that song I'm sure derives its meaning from Jesus saying, I go to prepare a place for you. My Father's house, there are many rooms.
But here is the thing that's mind bending. The gospel is not just about a big house that God has for you in heaven one day. It is about a big house that He's already established and you are that house. You are, Peter says, being built together with Jesus as a cornerstone and you're like living stones all connected. You are with God. You are with one another. This is one of the most beautiful, beautiful and powerful demonstrations of the gospel as the psalmist said, how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity.
The design of God is such that very diverse people are united by the presence of the Holy Spirit together. And our culture in this era is in a major predicament of one of the great destructive forces that is taking place. And I want to speak pretty directly about this as we begin today. Loneliness. This is by most sociological standards now an epidemic in America. I'm going to give you, I don't want to overwhelm you with a bunch of statistics. I have immersed myself in some of the newest body of research about loneliness and as I began to learn about this, I was literally overwhelmed.
I want to give you enough of a dose of this for this to be real to you individually but also as a church in this culture at this time. A CBS article said that the American Sociological Review may have just published the social health equivalent of the 1964 Surgeon General's report that declared smoking causes cancer. In other words, some of the recent findings about loneliness are so dramatic and telling about the emotional and physical health that this article begins by comparing it to the time that we first began to say watch out for smoking, it causes cancer. The unpleasant but long suspected discovery in this case is that social isolation in America has grown dramatically in the past 20 years. And here's the bottom line, I quote, the number of people who have someone to talk to about matters that are important to them has declined dramatically. We've gone from a quarter of the American population being isolated to almost half of the population falling into that category. From 1985 to 2004, the number of people saying that there's no one with whom they discuss important matters, that number has nearly tripled.
So now 20, roughly 25 percent of people in America say they have no confidant, they have zero people with whom they can share what's going on with them. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. In a world that often feels overwhelming, we all seek moments of encouragement and hope. As a heartfelt thank you for becoming a monthly partner with Alan Wright Ministries, we're excited to send you our blessing box featuring 24 beautifully crafted cards filled with encouraging blessings from Pastor Alan. Each card offers daily inspiration and scripture on themes such as hope, strength, your identity in Christ, Thanksgiving, and much more.
These blessings are designed to uplift your spirit, providing encouragement whenever you need a boost. This unique resource can be yours with our thanks as we welcome new monthly partners to the support family of Alan Wright Ministries. 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. In addition to that, about another 20% say they have just one confidant. What this means is that about 45% of people in America today have one or none, no people that they can actually share confidentially with. See, loneliness is not defined by being in a position where you're never around people. Loneliness is defined by a lack of intimacy. No people that you can actually actually talk to.
There's a link, and I'm kind of pointing out some of the stark things, but I just want to get this across as clear as I can. There is a very strong link in the research between loneliness and suicide. The suicide rate for Americans, 35 to 54, increased nearly 30% between 1999 and 2010.
And for men in their 50s, that figure rose 50%. What researchers point to, like University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox, is that there's a strong link between suicide and weakened social ties. And this references, and I quote this, when they get disconnected from society's core institutions, for example marriage or religion, or when their economic prospects take a dive. And so the reason they would say that in men in their 50s, suicide rate went up 50% during that short time period, is people are more disconnected, and then with the fragile times in the economy, the things that you had relied upon, that the loneliness becomes overwhelming. Loneliness, in this growing body of research, we now realize can make you physically sick. In their book Loneliness, authors John Casciopo and William Patrick document these risks of loneliness, health risks, depresses the immune system, which in turn links to high blood pressure, stress, hormones, impaired sleep, impaired decision making, obesity, mental illness, substance abuse, and even dementia.
Ohio State University researchers linked type 2 diabetes, inflammation, heart disease, arthritis, frailty, and what they call functional decline. All of that they found statistical linkages to people that would be identified as lonely or isolated. People that are lonely are more likely to die sooner than others.
Andrew Steptoe, a professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, followed 6,500 British people over age 52 from 2004 until 2012. The most socially isolated in this group were 26% more likely to die during the study period than those that had active social connections. And that's a lot of statistics, and it's very sobering.
But I say this to make two really, really important points. Number one, the decisions that you make, and we're going to be asking you today to think about where you're linked and how can we help you, but the decisions you make in your life about finding places of real connection in the body of Christ, caring for one another, learning, studying the Scripture together, or serving together, those decisions that you make about being connected or not may be the most important decisions that you're making about your personal health. That's the order of magnitude that this body of research is showing, that you being disconnected and not having real relationships is a serious impairment to your total health. It's hugely, hugely important. Secondly, it is to say that, and I mean this literally, that inviting someone to talk to you that inviting someone into your group, inviting someone into a relationship into the body of Christ can literally save somebody's life.
That's what the research is showing. This is not new information, of course, to us in the body of Christ because from the beginning God said it's not good for man to be alone. He designed us to be not just social creatures. We're social. We need other people. But we need close relationships.
You need at least several people in your life that you can talk to just openly. You can laugh with, you can cry with, you can work with, you can... And I'll just tell you a couple of stories. They're both dramatic. And I know that, you know, sometimes you do a sermon illustration, you tell the dramatic story and you run the risk of people don't identify with it because you say, well, I don't feel like that, so I don't need that. But I just want to tell the dramatic with the hope that you would go, well, if that dramatic thing is true, then how much more so my situation, how much more so would I be blessed? The first story is years and years ago, I got a voicemail from a young man, lived in a different city, and he had heard that my wife and I had started a home group Bible study for young adults. I don't know how you got in that word, but he just boldly called me up and said, I have a sister that lives there in Winston-Salem and I really want her to be connected in church and she needs some people. And I'm wondering if you would call her and invite her to your home group.
And I didn't get many phone calls like that. And I thought it was pretty cool that a big brother would do that behind his sister's back. And so I just, I called the young lady and she, without hesitation, she came to the group and she started coming to church and she's just delightful and wonderful and she grew spiritually and she's a blessing to us and just love her so much, became a dear friend. But I want to just tell you this story that after about a year of being in the home group together, one night at our home, there was just a time it was not many of us there and it was kind of the afterglow and everybody knew each other really well. Where, you know, we were being honest, but then we got more honest and we said, let's share some of our stories. And so she said, I want to share my story. And she said that she had come into a very lonely time in her life, that she had had some real immorality in her life. She had dabbled in some same sex relationships. And since she'd been through a couple of disappointing relationships with guys, I think. And she says, she just got really sad and she was really lonely.
This is her own words. And she said, I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon and she said, I had just decided to myself, I'm just, I'm just going to be a lesbian. And she said, you called me that afternoon.
I mean, don't say how good God is. She came that week. She came that week and got into community. And she, she, she wasn't, she wasn't homosexual. She wasn't looking to live a life. She was, she, she was just, she just lonely. And then her life was totally transformed.
I'm going to tell you another true story of the young woman. Years ago, in the middle of when we had, we had about seven or eight years, we had a ministry on Saturday night called Verge. And Verge met right here in this worship center, but we wanted to make it like a coffee house environment. And so one of the things we would do is every Saturday night groups would come in and they would serve by taking about six or eight pews on each side, taking them out of the sanctuary and moving them. So we could come and set cafe tables up all in here. And we put lamps around to make it more like a coffee house in here.
Well, it's a lot of work. These pews are really heavy. So we had to develop this little hydraulic lift system on this little thing that somebody designed. And, and then we'd, we'd put the pew up on it and I say we liberally there. And, and these, these teams that we called pew crew would come in and move them out. And so we'd have, you know, 12 or 14 or whatever, you know, pews all up and down the hallways back then we'd come and then we'd set up in here. And so we had a rotating teams of pew crew.
And, and, and they worked hard at this. I mean, you'd had to be over here like at five and you'd leaving at 11 after you, you know, cause you got to come back and then bolt them back in place, you know, so they'd be here on Sunday morning. And one evening at Verge at our, at our prayer time, I was, I got to talk into a young woman and, and she, she was wanting prayer and then she just opened up with me. And she said, I just need to tell you this. She said, I have been really depressed lately. And she said, I was just so, so down this week. And this afternoon she said, I was so low. I seriously thought about taking my own life. And then I remembered I was on pew crew tonight.
And she said, at least somebody needs me. Alan Wright. And that's part of our teaching today. The difference between being in God's house and being God's house. Alan is back in the studio with us in a moment as he shares his parting good news thought for the day stick with us. In a world that often feels overwhelming. We all seek moments of encouragement and hope as a heartfelt. Thank you for becoming a monthly partner with Alan Wright Ministries. We're excited to send you our blessing box featuring 24 beautifully crafted cards filled with encouraging blessings from pastor Alan. Each card offers daily inspiration and scripture on themes such as hope, strength, your identity in Christ, Thanksgiving, and much more.
These blessings are designed to uplift your spirit, providing encouragement whenever you need a boost. This unique resource can be yours with our thanks as we welcome new monthly partners to the support family of Alan Wright Ministries. 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 here in the studio this year, Alan's parting good news thought for the day. And Alan, that's both heartbreaking, but also praise God.
It is an experience I'll never forget. The loneliness of America has reached epidemic portions. And to any listener that you are feeling and experiencing that sense of isolation, the first encouragement is to say God is with you. And secondly is to say that God longs for you to be able to come out of that isolation. And so begin by today saying, God, show me and give me the grace and courage to take the next steps. Every single one of us needs the body of Christ. God bless you. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
