Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright. Who's got the real power in the end? Who's the one who's really in charge? It's a real important question of all of scripture. Who is the king?
But it's joined by a very important second question is, is that king good? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.
Merry Christmas. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, He Alone is Worthy, 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 to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org.
That's pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. More on this later in today's program. But now let's get started with the teaching for today.
Here is Allen Wright. Okay, my brothers and sisters, are you ready for some good news? That baby born in Bethlehem was born to be king. That's who the Magi came to visit, the newborn king, but not just any king. He came to be the king, the king of kings, the better king than David, the righteous branch of David. He came to be your king.
And as we'll see today, who your king is makes all the difference in your life. A lion woke up one day, decided he was going to roam about and make sure everybody in the domain knew that he was the king of the jungle. He came to a giraffe, said, hey, long neck, who's the king? The giraffe shook his head, said, oh, you are, oh, great lion, you are the king.
Lion said, good answer. Went and found a monkey, said, hey, tree swinger, who's the king? Monkey said, oh, you are, lion, you are the king.
Good answer, he said. He started going around all the different animals, getting the same answer until he came to an elephant who was splashing about in a pond, big enormous elephant. Lion said, hey, big ears, who's the king? And the elephant didn't respond, he just put out that enormous trunk and he wrapped it around the lion's neck and he picked him up and he whirled him around, banged him against the ground a few times, held his head under the water for about 30 seconds, spun him around again and threw him against a tree.
And as the lion and as the lion dusted himself off, he said, well, just cause you don't know the answer, there's no reason to be so mad about it. Who is the king? Who's got the real power in the end?
Who's the one who's really in charge? It's a real important question of all of scripture. Who is the king? But it's joined by a very important second question is, is that king good, righteous? And the most important question that you could in some ways say is the whole narrative of the Bible is who is your king? The story of the people of God throughout the old covenant was a series of kings and they had a lot of bad kings, but they had a king they loved despite his abhorrent sin with Bathsheba, this young man plucked from the fields of Bethlehem as a shepherd who defeats Goliath. And when he takes the throne, leads the nation to peace and prosperity, no one in the history of Israel was beloved like King David. And so there always was a yearning that we'd have another king like David who, yeah, he wasn't perfect, but that's what we need. Because when you have a bad king, it brings a lot of bad things in your life. When you have a good king, it brings a lot of good. Unrighteous sovereign leadership makes a lot of things not right for you.
And righteous governance over you makes a lot of things right for you. And so it comes a prophecy through Jeremiah. Behold, Jeremiah 23 five, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I'll raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness. And that's going to be the key word in our reflections today. Righteousness in the Hebrew, tzedek, or tzedek, or tzedekah.
And the image here is of a fallen tree with an enormous stump that though the tree has fallen from its glory, there's a green shoot that's coming up from the stump that could grow into something magnificent. The shoot of Jesse, the righteous branch of David. So the Davidic dynasty that has fallen, right? But the prophecy, middle of Babylon, deporting the people of God to Babylon in a faraway land. This word comes through Jeremiah, but there's going to be someone from David's family, like a righteous shoot.
There's going to be someone like David, but better. And that's the anticipation and hope of Israel. To say who's the king is to say who's in charge. And in Western culture, we're so individualistic and we want to be autonomous that we want to feel like we're in charge. And it creates a kind of dialectic or tension in our lives that we can't control. And so we have this tension in our lives where there's a lot that you are supposed to control and do something about. And what you think and what you say and what you do makes a big difference. But then there's also this big arena of stuff that you don't have any control over. And we live in that tension, don't we? So things have been pretty busy for us. The house season, all that. Well, this week, my wife, she says she's going to run some errands.
I'm working hard at my home office. And I said, all right, see you later and be safe out there. And within five minutes, I get a call from my sweet love. And she says, my car isn't running. I said, what? She said it just started losing power. And she said, I'm over the side of the road.
It won't go. She said, I thought maybe it was losing gas, but I got plenty of gas. She said, oh man. I was like, oh, I was just like, oh, I had visions of a tow truck and we don't got time for this. And I'm sorry, babe.
I mean, that was a bad thing. It was, that's our good car. Seated on the side of the road. I said, all right, sweet. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll get there.
Just be safe. And I get ready to hang up. And she says, wait a minute. She said, wait a minute.
Wait, hold on. She said, I said, what? She said, wait a second.
She said, might be that I'm in neutral. Let me see. Let me put it in a drive. Hey, wait, no, I'm going again. Okay. I'm good. Okay. See you later. Thank you, Jesus.
So my wife could get onto her errands and it was very good for our marriage for me not to leave a busy day and pull over to the side of the road and say, let's put it in drive. You know? Hey, here's the bottom line.
It's like, isn't this what kind of life is like? You don't make your own car. I don't even know how they work. I mean, I know a little bit about how an internal combustion engine works. Something's firing, pistons are moving, things like that. I have no idea how these electric cars work. I don't know.
Just get in. I just drive them. Right. So there's a maker. And if you've got a good maker, then car's probably going to do right by you. Got a bad maker and is not righteous, didn't do it right. And it's not going to go right for you.
So you're not in charge in a lot of ways. I mean, there are a lot of things that can make a car not go. I mean, I don't know much about cars, but a bad alternator can make you not go.
I've been through that one before. That's a tow situation. The alternator goes, electrical goes, you're out. If a fuel pump goes, you're out. Can't get fuel to the engine. You can't, you're out. If your engine gets too hot and melts, you're out.
I hadn't had that happen, but I'm close to it. All right. So a lot of things can make you not go. But the reason we laughed, and I had to beg Ann's permission to even tell that story, is that it's funny because at the very least we should be able to put it in drive.
We don't make it, but we do need to put it in gear and we do need to press the pedal and we do need to steer it. I'm just saying life is like, isn't it weird? It's like you live with this, what you can control and what you can't, and the stuff you can't control has a lot of bearing over whether your life's going well.
You got to admit that at some point. 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 Allen Wright Ministries. 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.
Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Allen Wright. So I've been trying not to say too much about our flood saga at our house because nobody wants to hear it. But here's what happened. In short, it was a clog because a broken pipe where roots had grown in, clogged it up, backed up water out of that septic line, flooded my hole downstairs. So the disaster company came and they said, we've got to pull up your entire hardwood floor, and then we've got to cut into all the walls and get the sheet rock out, and we've got to come in and we've got to dry it, and then we've got to dry it, and then we've got to treat it, and we've got to clean it, and we've got to dry it, and then you can start repairing it after that. And I was like, what do I do with all this stuff? They said, we're going to put it in two pods out in your driveway.
And so life's been dealing with that. But I told the disaster guy, I said, the great guy, Charles, I said, Charles, here's the thing. This was before Thanksgiving. I said, I got my kids and my grandbaby coming on December 17th today, and we're going to get all cleaned up, get a new floor in so that we can at least have them come because we got through it.
I said, it's the goal. He said, Mr. Wright, you're not going to be in by December 17th. I said, Charles, I rebuke that. I just absolutely rebuke that. And where's your faith?
Give me some faith. Anyway, I've been working this thing, right? The things that you can do. And I'm telling you one thing, if you've ever been at a project like this, you ever notice if you don't stay on top of it, nothing happens. It's like this whole, what's that principle of physics where everything tends towards disorder? Entropy. It's just like, everything is just fought.
If you don't stay active, weeds take over your garden. So you got to just be on this all the time. You call it, hey, plumber, I have four different cameras going down the pipe.
I look at that. You're just constantly, and if somebody doesn't show up, you got these dominoes lined up and they all got to be in place. Well, the most important domino was I ordered this beautiful floor and it said it'd be there in five to 10 days.
So the latest that it would show up would be Monday, it's past Monday. So I had floor installer lined up for Monday and Tuesday, small Christmas miracle to be able to get a floor installer that quickly, lined up for Monday and Tuesday. And the dominoes are in place.
They are falling one after the other. We are going to be in this house. I get an email from the floor provider saying, sorry, there's been a delay to your order. I'm like, no, no, there's no delay.
There will be no delays here. But there's a big company, I'm not in charge of that. I finally got somebody on the phone, took an hour, got somebody and I said, where is my floor? And they said, well, I can tell you this, it's in our distribution center in Savannah. I went in and told my wife, sweetie, babe, I said, bad news.
I said, got an email, said the floor is being delayed and this could just ruin all the dominoes. And she said, well, what do you know? I said, it's in Savannah. She said, can I drive down there and get it?
I said, that's not the way it works, baby. No, it's deep in a warehouse or something. You can't go get it. And so now all of a sudden, the one thing that's like, I can't control is getting this floor.
It's got to get here, but I can't control that. So I'm just, I got prayer records going out floor, you know, Hey, by the way, Wednesday afternoon during our Christmas staff party, I got a text from the floor provider. They said, the floor is in.
I moved my God to Thursday and Friday. We got a floor in now. So anyway, that's great. My point of that whole story is, isn't life kind of like this?
You do all you can do and what you do matters a lot. But if the floor provider is unrighteous, this whole project isn't going to be right. If the maker of the car's not righteous, the car's not going to run right. So in the end, there is someone or some thing that's higher than you that in the end, you're either benefiting from or suffering because of, and that's just the way it is. So in America, we have a hard time understanding how dire this is because we don't have a king. And we've got a really good system. Our founders were inspired to set up where there is checks and balance between these three branches of government. It's a good thing because we don't trust people enough to have a king. We revolted against a king and came here and started a new way of a democratic kind of government, a republic, right? So we don't, we get real worried about our election and all uptight, and the election's real important, but we don't have a king. And you know, we got Democrats, we got Republicans, they come and go, and you're not a king. But if you're in a monarchy, if you're in a monarchy and you get a tyrant and you get an unrighteous king, who's only selfish and goes after idols and it's bad for everybody.
That's what had happened to Israel. With one bright spot, King David. Here we are Jeremiah 23, one, listen to the word of the Lord. He's the one who's established things such that higher authorities in your life end up impacting you.
And he designed it for the principle of blessing to be able to flow. But look what he says, woe to the shepherds. That's the metaphor for kings. Woe to the kings, to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who care for my people, you have scattered my flock and driven them away.
And you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them. And I'll bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply. You've had bad kings, he said, so I myself am going to do what a king should do. That's what he's saying.
That's what he's saying. And it's going to cause you to be reunited and together and fruitful and multiplying, just like Adam and Eve were commissioned to do from the very beginning. Shepherd means king. It may be that when David said the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he meant a king. It could be that when Jesus looked out on the crowds and had compassion for them, because he said they look like sheep who don't have a shepherd. He could have been saying they are people who don't have a good king.
At verse one of that Jeremiah 23, the problem begins with the kings don't understand what the Lord is saying. They are sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. They're not really your sheep kings. They're mine. And you are my steward. You are my appointed one. You are my under shepherd. They're my sheep of my pasture. And he said at verse two that you have scattered the flock. You've driven them away and you've not attended to them. Bad leadership scatters drives away and is inattentive to the needs of the people.
That's what it looks like. So if we were to take time and go back and look at the chapter before our chapter, if we looked at Jeremiah 22, you'd see a litany of woes to the bad kings, because this is what Israel has had. Almost all have been bad kings. David is an exception. Josiah is an exception, but after Josiah, here comes all these bad kings and he, he names them. Like for example, in Jeremiah 22, 13, he says, this is son of Josiah Shalom. And he says, woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages.
You're using your people so you can have a fancier palace, detestable in the eyes of God. Alan Wright. Today's teaching, Worthy is the Righteous Branch of David from the series, He Alone is Worthy. Merry Christmas to you. I encourage you to stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for us all in just a moment. 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. Well, back now here sitting with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day is we place a bookmark here in this teaching that we've just gotten started. Worthy is the righteous branch of David. And it's here, Pastor Alan, in our Christmas series, He alone is worthy. Well, when you think of Christmas, you think of Bethlehem and you think of that being the home of David and can't be lost upon us that Jesus is born in the city of David. Well, the promise was made to David that someone from his lineage would be on the throne forever. And so Jesus, the son of David, because he comes from the lineage of David, is the fulfillment of that. And what we're talking about, Daniel, about the worthiness of Christ is the worthiness of Christ as the good shepherd, as the righteous branch of David. So there has been someone who's come from David who is fully worthy to reign forever and ever.
Nobody but Jesus is fully worthy. So there's great comfort in this. There's great strength in this.
And there is a huge, huge invitation. Make this righteous branch, make him the son of David, your king. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.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 PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
