Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Because it was covenantal, it ran deep. Why did God insert this right into the middle of David's story?
I think it was so we would understand it when Jesus came, the son of David. 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. This relationship has very limited availability, so it would be very odd, wouldn't it, that if at dinner time tonight, it's be six o'clock and lunch has worn off and you start getting a little hungry, it'd be very odd if you called up the restaurant and said, could I speak to Joe? And Joe answered the phone and you said, hey Joe, it's Alan, I was over earlier today and you said you're gonna be taking care of me today.
I'm feeling kind of hungry now, if you don't mind running something over here. Joe, Joe's not that available to you. I tell you, it'd be also odd if you went out after you'd eaten your meal, left him a nice tip, go out to your car and imagine Joe comes up, knocks on your window and he rolled window down and Joe says, thank you for the nice tip, but I tell you, now that we're friends, could you give me 10 more bucks? I tell you, I just need a little help, I'm going through a tight spot right now. You'd be like, Joe, Joe, I'm not that available to you.
See, that's kind of low level availability. Now today, right after this service, I'm gonna rush out of here and scoot to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention is going on in Nashville. This is because we need to be there and continue to learn and grow and develop relationships within the broadcasting industry and so we have some people that we know well that we'll have real friendships with, but a lot of what happens, and you business folk know, it's a convention and there'll be thousands of people there from all over the world and everybody's there because they like Jesus too and they want to tell other people through broadcast.
So we already have something in common, so that's fun, but it's a convention. So what you do is you walk around, you got business cards in your pocket and you meet somebody you hadn't met. You're networking and you say, oh, what do you do? Oh, I just, oh yeah, I've got a radio program. Oh yeah, can you have a card? And I always go, no, I don't have one, but you know, I should, and then you exchange business cards and you talk a little bit and you say, you know, if I could help you some way, let me know. All right, let me know. Okay, I got your number. Good, okay, I'll look you up sometime. Yeah, let's have lunch sometime and then you go on to the next person.
What are you doing there? You're now in an availability that's a different level than you were with the server, but this level also has real limits on it, right? There are many different levels of availability, but then there's a kind of availability, and I got some people like this in my life, starting with my wife, but I also have friends like this. I'm available 24-7. If you're just going through a spiritual battle, you know, you can just call.
Just available, right? How available you are measures the depth of the covenantal nature of the relationship. This is what David and Jonathan agreed upon.
We're available to each other now. But what this does is it introduces this second component of every relationship, and that is vulnerability. As soon as David agrees to be Jonathan's covenant friend, well, David makes himself extremely vulnerable. This is the son of the man who's trying to kill him. If Jonathan ever wanted to betray David, he could in an instant have David killed.
He would know where David was when nobody else knew where David was, and David could betray Jonathan at any point in order for his own self-promotion. It made themselves quite vulnerable, but the vulnerability of a relationship is not just that we could do things to each other, but it is because the more that you love, the more it hurts when the other hurts. See, when you love somebody and they go through something sad, you're sad. You actually share that sadness. That's vulnerability. But I tell you that there's another vulnerability, and that is when someone you love is celebrating and you can't celebrate with them, that also will hurt.
It's just like that. So Abby, our 15-year-old, she had her first speech contest this weekend, and I've been telling her, nudging her, you can be good at this. Bennett, our son who's in college now, was into debate and speech, and we love this national league that they're in, and I said, I think Abby's speech. So she had three speeches, her first-ever speech contest, and it was huge because it was a national tournament, happened to be just right here up in our mountains, 500 contestants from all over the nation, and I've been telling her, I said, Abby, I said, you understand, there's a big learning curve on this, because I'm kind of preparing her.
I'm like, your brother did well in these things, but not till he was older, and this is a learning experience. You know those weird things, like you're not trying to take away their faith, but you're also trying to prepare for disappointment, and so she's texting me on Friday night. My wife's up there with her. I can't be there, and Abby's like, I think the speeches have gone well, but I don't think, you know, there's no chance of me making what basically are the playoff rounds where they suddenly narrow it down to 16 people, and she said, you know, because there's just too many people here, even though it's gone well, and I said, well, you know, the main thing is the learning experience, so forth. So Saturday, I'm in a meeting, and then I get out, and I look at the text, and all of a sudden, I had these three texts, boom, boom, boom, and she broke through to the playoff rounds, and every one of the speeches, and I was like, are you kidding me, and I'm just like, just, oh, it's just like hurting me that I can't be there, and then she made it in one of them to the final eight. She got into the final eight, and so I know she's going to be walking across this stage and be given three medals on Saturday night up at Ridgecrest Conference Center, and I'm just like, you know, so I just rearranged my preaching last night. We just did the whole thing different, did it earlier.
I just, this is crazy. I got in the car at 6.30. I drove up there, waited and watched her walk across the stage and get her medals, and then I drove back, and why? Because it's just too painful to not be there in the rejoicing time also. I don't know which is more painful, to not be there in a sad time or not be there in a rejoicing time.
Why? Because you're just in a covenant. You're all wrapped up. You love somebody like your own soul, you know, and I was like, Abby's like, don't come, Daddy. Not that big a deal, and I'm like, it is a big deal. I said, I'm coming. I said, because you love somebody like, it's like, she's walking across the stage, but it's like, I'm walking across the stage, and guess what? She came in sixth place, and guess what the speech was on?
Build your home on grace rather than shame. That's what it was. So anyway, she got it. It was fun. It was fun. But the vulnerability of a relationship runs so deep that there really are no words probably to express it better than the picture of a mother who loves her child.
I absolutely love the words of Dale Hanson Burke who wrote this years ago. She said she was sitting at lunch one day when a friend casually mentioned that she and her husband were thinking of starting a family. We're taking a survey, she says half jokingly.
Do you think I should have a baby? It'll change your life, I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral. I know, she says, no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations, but that is not what I meant at all. I look at my friend trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she'll never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of childbearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw she will forever be vulnerable. I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish clothes and think no matter how sophisticated she is, that becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a she bear protecting her cub. I want my friend to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine. Every decision she makes regarding the well-being and safety of her child will somehow feel like the most important decision she's ever made. However decisive she may be anywhere else, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive friend, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself, that her life now so important will be of less value to her once she has a child, that she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but she will also begin to hope and pray for more years not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her children accomplish theirs.
I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor, a visible trophy of motherhood. That's the vulnerability I'm talking about. I'm not just talking about David's life was in danger, I'm talking about something even deeper than that, his soul. You can measure how much of a covenant you're in with somebody by how much vulnerability there actually is. And then there is this third part to every relationship that I would call accountability. Now accountability is misunderstood and often misused. Accountability is not having a friend, an accountability partner, who will call you up and say to you, did you send again this week?
Yeah, I did. Okay, I'm putting a check by your name and I'm going to call you twice next week. That's not accountability. Accountability is somebody that gives you a list of laws that you're supposed to keep and calls you up to check and see if you're doing it. I think that's what a lot of people think, I just need an accountability partner. Oftentimes, and this happens so often, you know, and I'll watch wives, they're hurting because their husband is not being the kind of man they say, you know, he just needs an accountability partner. And I'm like, yes, but see, when there's just law that we're supposed to just check off, guess what?
Either we can't keep the law or we'll start lying about it. What accountability actually is, is when you get into a covenant friendship that's close enough and deep enough, if you got something like this, you love somebody as your own soul, what happens when you love somebody as your own soul? It's that you're accountable, not in this sense, I'm under a law and I better not do something or else they'll be upset with me, but in a much deeper sense, I love this person, so everything that I do impacts this person. See, so I'm in a built-in accountability relationship with my wife, for example, but it's not because that I have to say, well, I need to go and check with Ann and get her permission to do something. That's not what I mean.
It is instead, although sometimes that's the case, but I, what I want it to be, what it should be, it mostly is. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Got some giants to slay? Need some encouragement in the midst of a trial?
Wondering if God really cares? Meet David. Who can compare to him? He was the ruddy, handsome, youth-tending sheep riding psalms and worshiping God in the humble Bethlehem fields. He was the lone Israelite brave enough to decapitate Goliath and the sole warrior adept enough to cut off the scourge of the Philistines.
He was the stately king who established peace, expanded the borders, and reigned in prosperity for 40 years. Who else could be a gentle shepherd, a glorious hero, and a noble king? Would there ever be another leader like David? Yes, the son of David. His name is Jesus, and he is a better David than David could ever be. He came to be your shepherd, your hero, and your king. In a 12-message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the son of David.
Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution, and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. 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 love her my whole life long because she's my wife and therefore what I do impacts her and so I can't think about what I'm going to do without thinking about her. That's accountability. What I think about impacts her. What I read impacts her. What I look at impacts her. What I talk to other men about impacts her. What I do with my body impacts her. It does matter because in a real friendship, there is something so deep that we share that if you just think, well, you just make all your own decisions with no concern of the other, you're not really in a covenant, are you? It's at this point, at this point where our society is most confused, I think.
I think many people would like to have plenty of friends that have good friends. They might even be willing to have vulnerability and availability in those relationships, but the accountability part we run from mainly because we have been duped. Our culture has sold us a huge lie.
Huge. It is a vast and pervasive deception that most people in our culture are influenced by and don't even realize it. The lie says is simply this. Don't be accountable by being so committed because that'll tie you down and you'll be less blessed. What the lie says is that the less committed you are, the more blessed you will be.
Keep your options wide and you'll have more freedom. The problem with this is that Jesus says exactly the opposite. He says it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. That in the giving of your life away in a covenant friendship, you will open up blessings that you would never imagine otherwise. The scripture says that the gate is narrow and few enter by it that goes to abundant life.
Broad is the entrance that goes to destruction. Keep all your options open. Don't sacrifice too much. Don't get committed too much.
Just try things out. There might be a better lover that comes along. There might be a better person that comes along. There might be a better opportunity that comes along. Keep the door wide open because the more choices that you have, the more open it is, then the more you're going to have life.
But the Bible says exactly the opposite. Come in by a narrow way. Come in with some deep covenant relationships and step into it and see the riches of such love.
We've got people in this church that have been married more than 60 years and they'll tell you about the narrow gate. It's the pathway to blessedness. Every relationship, there is availability, there's vulnerability, and there's accountability.
And there's accountability. But in David and Jonathan's relationship, because it was covenantal, it ran deep. Why did God insert this right into the middle of David's story?
I think it was so we would understand it when Jesus came, the son of David. And what he did was he decided that the way that he was going to impact the world, he was going to get a few friends. And though they wouldn't know how to do it, he would make himself available to them. He would make himself vulnerable to the point of stretching his arms on a cross.
And he would even make himself accountable. And he would say this to them in John 15, in John 15, no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master's doing. The servant doesn't have the availability of his master. The servant doesn't have the vulnerability of his master.
The servant has no accountability to the master, for the master. But I have called you friends. If you could get a picture of David and Jonathan in a relationship where they loved each other as their own soul, if you could ever taste of such a friendship on this earth in a marriage or in an everyday friendship over a long period of time, over a long period of time, you've begun to get a glimpse of what Jesus wants most. It's what he wants.
It staggers our imagination and beggars our belief, but this is the truth. Jesus wants to be your friend and you can be his. What it means, he's available to you 24 seven and he wants you to be available to him. Every part of your life, the ugly parts, the good parts, the parts that are hidden from everybody else. And he is vulnerable to the point of dying on your behalf and he wants you to be vulnerable with him. Many different points in the spiritual journey where you say essentially, it feels risky to take another step of loving you. It takes some risk to do this, Lord, but I give you all of who I am. It's vulnerable. It might change some of the things that you want to do.
It might change some of the priorities in your life. And even in a relationship with Jesus, there's accountability. Not Jesus holding you accountable by being the lawgiver who's calling you up in the morning. Alan, did you sin yesterday?
I'm going to check. No, but because the relationship becomes so close that when you love somebody, every thought that you have, you also think of them. This is what Jesus wants, that every decision you make and every thought that you have, that just because you love him so much, you also think of him. But it also means this, that Jesus cares and loves you so much that he cares also what you want.
It's radical. He says, ask and you'll receive. I care about giving you the desires of your hearts. Did you know that? Did you know that what you want impacts God? That what you feel impacts God?
That's the way it is when you have a friend. The old hymn was right. What a friend we have in Jesus. That's the gospel. Got some giants to slay? Need some encouragement in the midst of a trial?
Wondering if God really cares? Meet David. Who can compare to him? He was the ruddy, handsome, youth-tending sheep riding psalms and worshiping God in the humble Bethlehem fields. He was the lone Israelite brave enough to decapitate Goliath and the sole warrior adept enough to cut off the scourge of the Philistines.
He was the stately king who established peace, expanded the borders and reigned in prosperity for 40 years. Who else could be a gentle shepherd, a glorious hero and a noble king? Would there ever be another leader like David? Yes, the son of David. His name is Jesus and he is a better David than David could ever be. He came to be your shepherd, your hero and your king. In a 12-message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the son of David.
Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. 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. So yeah, whether you look at some model relationships in the Bible, they really are pointing, especially as you look at David and Jonathan and you learn about covenant relationships, it really is looking at this relationship we have with Christ. And of course, we hear he's the king, he's our savior, he's our father, but he's also our friend. He's our friend. It's a beautiful thought, but for the lonely, for those that are feeling disconnected, you know, today is a day to just ask the Lord, Lord, I need to know your friendship. He is that available. He is that accessible. He is, if you've ever experienced, even for a moment, true good friendship, Jesus is more than that. And I pray for you to come to know him intimately and wonderfully.
