Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
These unconditional, irrevocable promises came as a pronouncement from the Lord Most High, and David then prayed. 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. So there's an elderly woman, and she is in her home alone. And unfortunately, a burglar intrudes to her home, and she finds herself face to face with the would-be thief. She's a woman of prayer, and she just quickly, under her breath, says, Lord, what do I say?
What do I do? And the Holy Spirit just prompted in her heart, just like that, she thought of one of her favorite verses, all about repentance. And so she just boldly held out her hand, and she said, Acts 2 38. Surprisingly, the thief was frozen in his tracks and waited there until the police came after the woman called 911. And when the authorities were interrogating the burglar, they said, why did you not run away? And she said, man, that woman was packing.
She had an ax and two 38s. Are you ready for some good news today? Prayer, according to the great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, is not us overcoming God's reluctance, but us laying hold of his willingness. I want to talk to you about the life of a powerful prayer warrior, but powerful prayer is really all about. And in doing so, I want to contrast the powerful prayer with the pitiful prayer and the presumptuous prayer.
Caricature these by saying the pitiful prayers, the one that is all about, Lord, I am a worm and I am undeserving. I come to you with all contrition, and I list before you all of my sins as best I know them. And I pray that you would help me to list more sins before you so that there would be none of them that are unlisted. And I'm willing to spend all day listing my sins before you in hopes that you would have mercy on a wretched sinner such as I. I deserve no good thing from you. And Lord, I know that I probably won't receive much from you because I don't deserve anything.
And that's probably what I'll expect. And that's the kind of pitiful prayer as rooted in something that is true. And that is that we come to God with utmost humility, knowing that we deserve no good thing from him. It is strong on contrition, but it's weak on bold expectancy of divine favor. But then there's a kind of the other extreme also, and I would call it the presumptuous prayer. And this is the prayer that essentially says to God, I want one of everything, you know, not just the big house and the nice car, but it also starts to presume that God is like a genie in a bottle that we can just, you know, bring him out and give him our three wishes whenever we want, as if God existed for our glory rather than we for his. And because God it becomes presumptuous when we begin to try to claim things that we've not really been promised. You know, we can ask God for a trouble-free life, but we haven't been promised a trouble-free life, really.
So there are some things that, you know, you can't rebuke. And that would include like, you know, the man who prayed to the Lord, said, Lord, I'm going to drive by Krispy Kreme donuts as usual, get my chocolate-covered cream-filled donut as usual. But if you would like for me to skip that, then just don't let there be a parking place in front. But if there is a parking place in front, I'll take it that you want me to eat one of those chocolate donuts again this morning.
And the man drives by and sure enough, the fifth time around the block, there was a place right out front and he got the chocolate cream-filled donut and put it down in front of him and said, Lord, I thank you that you have wanted me to have this donut and then laid a hand on it and said, I rebuke all the calories in this donut to not have any. You see, the problem with the presumptuous prayer is it is strong on expected favor, but it's weak on acknowledgement that God is still God. We don't control God, right?
God is control of all things. And so there is some need for a synthesis, a wedding of both the humility and the boldness that comprises a true heart of prayer. And there's no better example of that than in 2 Samuel 7. In fact, it is, I think, one of the best examples of powerful prayer that occurs anywhere in the scripture. And it is so instructive to us, which should not be surprising because after all, this is David. This is the king of Israel.
And this is Israel's chief worshiper who had penned most of the songs and poems and worship songs of Israel. This is David who saw into the gospel a thousand years before Jesus, who understood and apprehended the good news of the gospel as God had announced it to him. Interestingly enough, it's in 2 Samuel 7 where we began this journey in the study of David some 10 or 11 weeks ago.
And we began here because this was the word the Lord put in my spirit to bless this congregation and all who came under the sound of my voice this year, that the Lord had come to David and promised David two extraordinary things. One, he told David, I'll never remove my steadfast love from you and your family. And the word for steadfast love is chesed, which means God's covenantal love. That is the word that is associated with the kind of love that is seated in a choice and rooted in a covenant. And he said, I'll never ever take that away. And this is not a covenant that is like the covenant that was made with Moses, where that the people obeyed, then God would bless them. This is something that is unconditional. This is something that has come from God and it is forever.
And this is not amazing enough. Then he said to him, and someone from your family, from your lineage will dwell on the throne of Israel forever. You know, what Lord was announcing to David is that the Messiah would come from his family. And this extraordinary promise was prompted because David, once he had finally come into his position of power over all of Israel and the Ark of the Covenant, which was the the symbol of the presence of God and the center place of the highest worship of Israel, the Ark of the Covenant had been finally brought back into Jerusalem.
And David looked around. And now that he was king over all of Israel and he saw that he himself was in this beautiful palace of cedar. And he said to the prophet Nathan, he said, I want to build a beautiful house for God. He wanted to build a temple. He wanted to do something great for God. And the Lord came to David and said, Are you going to build me a house?
And instead, with this beautiful play, paradoxically on the word, the Lord turned it all upside down. And he said to David, you want to build me a house, but I tell you, I'm going to build you a house. And the Lord wasn't speaking about a physical house.
He was speaking about a dynasty. And he was speaking prophetically into the future in which all of us who are in Christ, Jesus would become the very house of God. The Lord will make you into a house. And so the Lord spoke this great promise to David. You think that it's about you doing something great for me. But what I want to show you is the gospel, that it really is about me doing something great for you. I will make you a house.
I will never remove my steadfast love from you. And someone of your lineage will be on the throne forever. These unconditional, irrevocable promises came as a pronouncement from the Lord most high. And David then prayed.
And how he responded in prayer is simply put one of the best models of how you also can pray. It's in 2 Samuel chapter 7 at verse 18. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God, you have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come. And this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God. And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God, because of your promise. And according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it. Therefore, you are great, O Lord God.
For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people, Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people whom you redeem for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods. And you established for yourself your people, Israel, to be your people forever.
And you, O Lord, became their God. And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house. And do as you've spoken, and your name will be magnified forever, saying, The Lord of Hosts is God over Israel, and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, O Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, I will build you a house. Therefore, your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true. And you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever. Now, that is a prayer.
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 writing 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. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org.
Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. David is, even in his posture, is typifying this magnificent wedding of grace and truth, of boldness and humility into his heart, because the text begins by saying he went and he sat before the Lord. Now this is a position almost like a little child. In fact, at one instance, David just speaks like a child would. What more can David say to you? But most scholars agree that what this language conveys in saying he sat before the presence of the Lord was to say that he went in and sat in front of the ark of the covenant.
He wasn't even a priest and he went into the place that was reserved for the high priest of Israel. He had in him such a confidence of the love of God towards him that he had the boldness to go to the throne room of grace. And there he sat and he prayed. And as he did, what you see, simply put, is a man who acknowledges I deserve no good thing from you and yet acknowledges that you have made precious promises to me that are extraordinary and therefore accepts them. He essentially says to God, who am I and who is my house, my family, that I should receive such a promise from you? But since you've made this promise, I gladly accept it. In other words, he accepts that you have made such a promise. In other words, he agreed with God. And what he did, in a sense, was to say, Lord, you probably shouldn't even made a promise so great to me.
But since you have, I expect it to be fulfilled. That's the substance of the powerful prayer life. But it involves is a dynamic or a dialectic, a contrast between what can take us to extremes and prayer.
And that's what I want to show you in this prayer, how that comes together. Well, I just chuckle when you see the all the funny things about how many people does it take to change a light bulb. And one of the funniest is there are long lists of this for different Christian denominations and such. And I get kind of tickled because honestly, I've got a little piece of all these different things.
No one group's got the angle on just everything. Right. And so it's pretty funny. But how many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb? One hundred and one. One to change it. One hundred to vote on whether it should be changed.
You got to remember, I'm on the radio so I can I can make fun of this, too, because I say this all the time. How many TV evangelists does it take to change a light bulb? One.
But we need you to pick up the phone right now and make your donation in order to keep it on in your area. How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb? We choose not to make a statement in favor or against the change of a light bulb. How if you have found in your personal journey that a light bulb works for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your experience of the light bulb and presented in next month at our annual blessing the light bulbs service incandescent fluorescent three way and tinted bulbs are welcome. How many Pentecostals does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to cast out the old bulb, one to catch it when it falls and one to lay hands on the new bulb. And then finally, how many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? And there are two different responses that are given to how many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? And the first is change.
The second, the more dominant answer is none. Almighty and sovereign God has predetermined when and on whom the light will shine or not. See, I've got so many friends in different theological schools and it's made me richer for it actually. I really believe that. I think that it's a rich thing to know people in different traditions. They all love Jesus, right? So I have many Pentecostal friends. Of course, I have many Presbyterian friends. I have people that have more friends that have much more word of faith kind of theology more directly than I do. And I have Presbyterian friends that are more Presbyterian than I am. And I remember one occasion some years ago, there was one individual who was a good brother and he had a more word of faith theology.
And there was one who had more of a kind of Presbyterian slash reformed Calvinistic theology. And they were talking to each other about prayer. They were talking about how we're to talk to God. And essentially, I remember the conversation like this.
I just kind of stepped back to just see how's this thing going to unfold here? And so the Presbyterian was essentially saying to the more word of faith guy, he said, you know, your problem is that you act presumptuous before God, you act like you can just just because you name it, you can claim it. And he said, the fact of the matter is, he says, God tells us to pray. He doesn't tell us just to claim something. He said in James five, he said, if one of you sick, then to call the elders, anointing with all and pray.
It doesn't say if somebody is sick, just send them a memo and tell them that they need to claim their healing. He said, you need to pray about things. And sometimes the way you talk, you make it sound like, yeah, you're bold, but you just it doesn't even involve asking God.
And he just said, what is it? Do we tell God to do things or do we ask God to do things? And I was like, well, that's a good point.
That's a good point. And then in the word of faith guy, he started talking. He said, yeah, he said, but I feel like that the shortcoming of the way you look on it is that that you're strong about God's sovereignty, but God tells us to ask and we'll receive to seek and we will find to knock and the door will be open. And the Lord says that as much as two or three of you agree on something in my name, it'll be done for them. He said, we need to be bold in claiming all that God has done for us. He said, the problem is that you tend to look at things and say, well, God's in charge and therefore we just need to trust whatever he's going to do. But God's wanting us to come into powerful prayer agreement. Then eventually he came down and he said, the point is, he said, if God's in charge of everything and he's just going to do everything anyway, why pray at all? And I was like, that's a good point. And so this kind of conversation went on, but you'll see what it does is it identifies what the tension is in prayer.
What really is the nature of prayer? One of my favorite Abby stories, our little Abigail, who's now got her learner's permit, but when she was two years old and she had just recently learned the beloved children's song, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. And she had also recently learned that she loved French fries. And we were at a restaurant and there were French fries on the table. That was our first mistake because Abby began to say that she wanted French fries and we wanted her to have grapes or apple slices or such. And she said, I want French fries. And we said, you have some grapes. She said, I want French fries. And we said, have some apple slices. And finally she said, I want French fry right now for the Bible tells me so. And I think we might've given her some French fries because we were so laughing so hard that she had discovered at the tender young age of two that if you just tag on for the Bible tells me so that that gets you somewhere in our family. And the only problem with her request, of course, is that the Bible doesn't tell a two year old that she is entitled to French fries. In fact, you could make an interpretive case in exactly the opposite, that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
You shouldn't probably put French fries into it and so forth and so on. But the point being that in our prayer life, it becomes presumptuous if we start laying claim to promises that have not been given to us. And it becomes powerful when we come into agreement with promises that have been given to us. And what David does is he takes in the Word of God. He takes into his being the gospel. Alan Wright and today's teaching the secret to powerful prayer.
It's from our series Son of David. And Alan is back with us in the studio as he shares his parting good news thought for the day. Stick with us. 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. Back in the studio here, Alan, you've got a parting good news thought for the day, and this is really about the power of prayer, which is our secret weapon in the world. Here's the good news thought for today from Martin Luther, the great reformer, who said, Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness. Our prayer life is not to try to coerce God or influence Him towards doing good towards His children. He already is utterly for you, and He came in the person of Jesus. So your prayer life doesn't need to be pitiful. Oh, I'm a worm.
I don't deserve anything. But it doesn't need to be presumptuous on the other end as if somehow God's your magic genie. Instead, what we're going to be learning is to pray in the way that David did, to hear what God says, and then we bring it back to Him in agreement. We're really learning that. Pray, like David, is to pray the scripture. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
