Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Because of what you've done for me in Jesus Christ, I am in the covenant, and therefore, though I don't deserve it, I come to you as your child and an heir, indeed a co-heir with Christ Himself.
When you begin to pray as a child of the covenant, when you make your appeal based upon God's solid, eternal, covenantal promises, your prayer life now shifts all the attention away from yourself and to the finished work of Jesus. 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 Rinaldo 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. Immediately after appealing to God's goodness, that David appealed to the covenant of God with his people. Look at verse 23.
This is the language of covenant, which means it is the language of the gospel. He is reminding in prayer his own soul and lifting up in adoration to God that the nature of God is that he is a covenant maker and keeper. And that David is speaking from the position of one who is firmly in the covenant.
He is acknowledging that the only reason that this favor of me becoming king and of this people having been delivered out of Egypt and of all of the blessings that have ever come. They have come for one reason, not because of the righteousness of this people, but because of a covenant that you made. And this covenant is firm and therefore I come to you, Lord, in the posture of a child of the covenant. I am one of the heirs of the promises that were spoken to Abraham, that were delivered unto the people through the exodus. And now, as I come into your presence, O Lord God, I come as such as one who is confident in the covenant that you have made.
You see, what has happened for us Christians is something that is just so marvelous that it staggers my imagination every time I think of it that there is a new covenant that has been made. The old covenant was temporary and the old covenant was only pointing to the need for a new covenant. The old covenant of works essentially said, if you will be obedient, then you will receive all of these blessings.
But no one could ever be obedient. And so there was a temporary sacrificial system that was set up through the temple sacrifices that people's sin was temporarily paid for. But there was always an uncertainty about the fullness of God's blessing because two things were going on.
God is love and He's good and He wants to pour out His blessing, but He also had said that there's justice in this earth. And therefore, that sin must be punished and good must be rewarded. But people kept sinning and so the old covenant was insufficient. And Jesus came and He held up the cup on the Passover night and He said, this is the cup of the new covenant.
And He said, it's My blood that's poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. What was it that made the new covenant so new? It's that no longer is it really between us and God. Instead, it is between our representative and God. Jesus is the human representative and He is the divine representative because He's both God and man. The covenant was between the Father and the Son. If the Son would be perfectly obedient on behalf of all of humanity, then the Father would have the right to be just in pouring out blessing and forgiveness and mercy upon this people. And so it was that Jesus never once denied His Father or disobeyed His Father, but He lived a sinless life and then the Father did the unthinkable.
He took the sin of humanity and put it literally into the body of Jesus on the cross so that in Christ, a covenant was made and a covenant was kept. And when you, Christian, accepted Jesus Christ, you came into covenant by being in Christ. The reason you're in covenant with God is not because you've kept up your end of the bargain, but because Jesus did and you're in Christ.
And this is why Paul says in Christ, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. It's covenant language. Oh, God, because of what you've done for me in Jesus Christ, I am in the covenant. And therefore, though I don't deserve it, I come to you as your child and an heir indeed, a co-heir with Christ Himself. When you begin to pray as a child of the covenant, when you make your appeal based upon God's solid, eternal, covenantal promises, your prayer life now shifts all the attention away from yourself and to the finished work of Jesus.
That's the way to pray. So we understand covenant. It's in everyday life. Sometimes it's not spoken or written down, but it's there.
It's like any loving parent has with his or her child. I was reminded this week of a moving story back from the 1989 earthquake that decimated Armenia, the deadly tremor in its initial quake and its aftershocks killed 30,000 people. And in the midst of all the confusion of that earthquake, there was a father. And it made national and international headlines because this father went to his son's school and he saw the rubble. And that there were no survivors. And he knew where his son's classroom was. And he went to that area of the rubble and he began to remove stone after stone. Other grieving parents came and tried to pull him away and said, you're going to hurt yourself.
You're going to exhaust yourself. The firefighters, the paramedics tried to get him to just leave and to go get some rest. There was no hope.
But he refused. Two hours went by. Four hours went by.
He continued to move stone after stone. Ten hours went by. Twenty hours went by. Twenty four hours.
Thirty six hours. He was still pulling stones away. He wouldn't leave. And in the 38th hour, he pulled away a stone.
And there was a cavernous spot that had been entombed by all these stones. And he heard the voice of a child. And it was his boy. One of the things that made the news was the boy quickly informed him, there are 14 of us.
Fourteen of this class of 30 that had survived. And later the boy said, I told all of my friends, don't worry, my dad's going to come save me. And when he does, he'll save you too. It's just a covenant. I'm just I'm just talking about why is the father doing that? Because it's just a it's just an unwritten covenant of chesed, of steadfast love.
If you've ever tasted of that, even for a moment, you know what I'm talking about. It's an invisible bond that cannot be broken. It is a love that's stronger than death.
And what I want you to know is if that father had that commitment to his son. The Lord God has a greater commitment to your well-being. You're in covenant with God. When you pray, pray as a recipient of covenantal blessings.
My father. David appealed to the goodness of God and then he appealed to the covenant nature of God. And then thirdly, he appealed to the ultimate glory of God. This is something that is so important, not because God is needy and he needs us, therefore, to glorify him, but it is because God is enthroned in our praises. And it is because that when you recognize that God is so committed to his own glory, that he will not let his word fail, you have a greater confidence in the way that you make your appeal to God. Look at verse 26 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.
This is David who comes into a gospel revelation, a gospel revelation a thousand years before Christ. And what he realizes is that God is highly glorified when we are highly blessed. God is most glorified when you are most blessed.
God does not revel in the sufferings and in the failures of his children. He revels in his redemptive, powerful mercy that moves his children into the place of the promised land. God is glorified when his promises of redemption and healing and deliverance are coming to pass in his children. And so you can have this confidence that not only is God good, not only are you in covenant with God through Jesus Christ, but God is so committed to his own glory that when you are blessed, God is glorified, so how much more therefore is God inclined to bless you.
Fourthly, here's what I observe. David simply put prayed God's word right back to God. I can't think of anything more important to say about prayer than prayer is agreement with God's promises. Prayer is agreeing with what God has said. The Christian life is not built upon my promises to God. The Christian life is empowered by God's promises to me.
Look at verse 28. 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. You have made this promise to never remove your steadfast love and to always put someone on the throne from my household. And therefore, God, I bring this promise to you and I agree with you that it shall be done. Thank you, God.
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 worshipping 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. Pastor Chris, our executive pastor, is part of this family.
Tom Wolfe is his father-in-law. And understand that these two physicians are such wonderful brothers, just great men of God. They're just the kind of people, you know, whatever your profession is, and if it happens to be medicine, for example. You know, there's what you learn with your mind.
There's the skills you gain over the years, and all of that's so important. But there are also, I think, there's spiritual gifting that comes alongside. And I see that in both these physicians.
And you also should know about these two physicians, by the way, that both of them have structured much of their personal and professional life in order to do medical missions. That's just part of the background of this story. So what happened was that the law sense, Pastor Chris and Mary Elizabeth, they were having a birthday party for their son, Adam. And it was one of those snowy times. And that's an important part of the story, because if it hadn't been snowing, then Dr. Tom Wolfe would not have needed to drive his wife, Mary and June, to take June, who June Michael is the great-grandmother of Adam, Tom's mother-in-law, Mary's mom, to take her back home. Now the reason that was important was because it put Tom in a position where he overheard a conversation that was going on between his wife and his mother-in-law. And as Mary was talking to June, and June was telling Mary about how sick Berta was. Berta is June's good friend, and she was describing some of her nausea, some of the symptoms that she'd been having. And Tom's just driving, and he, a little part of his brain, registers, so he overhears this.
This is part of the miracle. The next day, it so happened that Tom had agreed to have a medical student shadow him. And so after he made his rounds, he went down and said, let's go to the emergency room and see if there's anything eventful happening there that would be a good learning experience for you. And he took the young medical student with him. And when we got down there, he was notified by the nurse in charge that there was a case of cardiac arrest. It was what we call code, and so they stepped into that room, and it was Dr. Montgomery that was attending to this patient.
Tom was just politely standing to the side with the student. He picked up the chart, and he looked, and he said, oh, I know this woman. This is my mother-in-law's dear friend, Berta. Berta had become increasingly sick, and she had gone to prime care. And there, her daughter told me later, what happened was she began to feel so bad. She stepped into the restroom, and thankfully there was a friend there who caught her when she went unconscious. And her heart stopped, and they sent her to the emergency room. And as Dr. Montgomery was later explaining to me, he had been working with her, doing all of the different protocols for, and she had been without a heartbeat with no activity, she'd been flat-lined for 25 minutes. And Dr. Montgomery told me, he said he'd only seen one or two times that somebody had come back from a flat-lined situation like that, and that was only after maybe they'd been no heartbeat for like five minutes.
But for whatever reason, he had purposed in his heart that he would just continue these efforts for 30 minutes. And I suppose it was sometime during that period of time that Tom Wolfe stepped in. And it just so happened that these two men are friends, and so there was immediately not only a professional relationship there, but a friendship there. And as Tom picked up the chart and he saw it was Berta, he remembered hearing the conversation between his wife and his mother-in-law about Berta's symptoms, which Dr. Montgomery wouldn't have had any of that information. And what it did was it just triggered a thought in Dr. Wolfe, and he just stepped up to Dr. Montgomery and said, is there any chance that this is renal failure?
And Dr. Montgomery says, well, it was worth trying everything. They administered the antidote, and immediately her heartbeat came back. Now, what you also need to know is that the neurologist said that she won't be able to have any brain activity after 30 minutes of being dead. She was dead for 30 minutes. But two days later, they took the ventilator tube out, and she began calling people by name. And she is recuperating, and her short-term memory is getting better and better. And I'm just believing God for a complete and full recovery for Berta. Now, two other pieces that I want you to know about this story that I'm just talking, I'm just showing you this.
This is the way of God. The day before all this happened was this snowy day that Tom was in the car with his wife and mother-in-law. But the day before that, Tom said, he fixed a couple pieces of toast.
It took a couple minutes. He was standing there with nothing to do while he fixed the toast, and so he picked up a medical journal that was kind of a throwaway journal that he was going to throw away. But his eyes happened upon a story of a case of someone who had gone into cardiac arrest because of renal failure.
Who had, as it turned out, the exact EKG that Berta had two days before this. And Tom said, the other thing is that, he said, I didn't ever know Berta very well. Tom's meant a few words. He said, I've probably spoken a hundred words with her. He said, but every time that I've seen her over the last ten years, she has not failed to tell me, Tom, I pray for you every day.
I like that. She prayed every day for one of the men that would be involved in saving her life who would be part of a divine setup. I talked to Berta's daughter, Marissa, yesterday, and she said that recently after these events that Berta had a birthday. And so Marissa took her a little cake and it had one candle on it.
In real ways, she's now one year old. She was resurrected because somebody had been praying. God has ordained it that through our agreement with his precious gospel promises, he will release covenantal blessings.
He could have set it up a different way. I can't explain to you all the mysteries of this except to say that our prayers need not be pitiful nor presumptuous. But when they're gospel-centered, your prayer is powerful more than you know. And that's the gospel.
Alan Wright. And today's teaching on the secret to powerful prayer. 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. Alan, for those of us who feel like God's gone away on vacation somewhere, he's not listening, he's concerned with other things, or for those of us who come and we really feel like that we're demanding a lot, it's important to understand that he's there, understand the promises of God, and put it in perspective. There's been a new covenant that's been established in Christ Jesus, and so we're praying out of the solid foundation of that covenant. We're in Christ. So when we're praying in Jesus' name, we're invoking the entirety of what it means to be people of a new covenant. And what this means, Daniel, is that therefore, as we've been saying, is that we don't come to God in some pitiful compassion, you know, just dwelling upon all of how pitiful and how cynical, but we're not being presumptuous either as though he's a magic genie in a bottle. But we're in a relationship with God our Father, and he has ordained it.
This is all we can say to this. He has ordained it that he is going to move through our prayers. It's his choice.
He designed it this way. And for every listener that's in a need right now, in a need maybe of a great miracle, come to God in his throne of grace with confidence, and all of the power is in Christ himself. Let your prayer life be centered in the gospel. It's not centered in your righteousness. It's centered in God's word and in his righteousness, and God moves through people that pray that way. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
