Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing—a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. The Pevensey children stumbled into snowy Narnia as children, unaware of the ancient prophecy that sons and daughters of Adam would one day dethrone the White Witch and reign on thrones at Cair Paravel, unaware of their true identity, unaware of their true destiny. Who were they? In England, unnoticed miners; in Narnia, exalted majesties. Who are you, child of God?
In this world, ordinary sojourners; in God's kingdom, royal heirs.
So I bless you, elect exile, to live from your deeper, truer self, your majestic self. And when the world mistakes you or treats you as a misfit, remember who you are. May you now and forever remember who you are, Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. It's real. God loves it.
You should build it into your life. But the meticulous. Keeping of a day when you didn't work according to the law of God was a shadow of the real rest that it was always pointing to, and that there is a Messiah would come who would give you that rest and be your Sabbath rest. 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 "Gateways to Grace" as presented at Renolda 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, which 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 dot org.
That's pastorallen dot o r g, or call eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. While at our website, please let us know how we may pray for you. Submit your prayer request to our prayer wall and be uplifted and encouraged as the community around this ministry starts praying for you and receive notifications as your. Request is prayed for.
That's the prayer wall at Pastor Alan dot org. We're honored to stand with you in prayer. More on all of this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Allen Wright. The slave master says, "I value you for what you can produce for me," but the father says, "I value you." For your love, could we spend the day together?
This goes far in my mind to explain the mysterious meaning of the famous mark of the beast in Revelation, the mark of the antichrist that is so famously debated six six six. And of course, we can't say for sure. But I know this: the number seven is a beautiful number to God. He just created a seven-day week, and seven everywhere in Scripture is like it's complete. It's complete.
That's what's so beautiful about Sabbath: it is complete. That workweek's complete, and now we're resting. Seventh day is the day of rest. It's the Sabbath day.
So what's six? It's one less than seven. What what is six? Six is never getting to seven. Six is getting gold that says if you'll just be a little bit more productive, I'll love you.
If you'll just make more A's, I'll accept you more. If you'll just be more than you are now, then maybe you can fit in. That's what six is. It's never getting to seven. It's never getting to the moment of liberty where you can just relax because you're loved.
I'm saying that six six six means never seven, never seven, never seven. It means never rest, never rest, never rest, never Sabbath, never Sabbath, never Sabbath. Never, never, never be loved just for who you are. That's why six six six is anti-Christ, because Christ came to be your Sabbath. He's your seven.
He's the completion. It's beautiful, sweet rest in Jesus. Let me say it as pointedly as I can, beloved. With God, it's not about how many bricks you can make. You are His child.
And he loves to fellowship with you, and laugh with you, and bless you, and enjoy your presence. Again, the words of Brueggemann, my professor: Yahweh nullifies the entire system of anxious production. And I would like for whatever system of anxious production might be at work in your heart, under the tyranny of the lies of hell, for it to be broken off of you today as well. Sabbath in Christ.
So, in some, in Exodus, you see the Sabbath is related to God finished His work and rested. In Deuteronomy, it is related to God had pity and compassion upon the slaves, and He liberated them and brought them into freedom from their drudgery. And these are the reasons. But when we come to thinking about Sabbath and thinking about how we might structure it in our lives, it becomes Problematic, I think, because either we have perhaps been under a kind of religious notion that felt legalistic. I got to speak to a woman this morning after the first service who's wept and said, "I never had known that before." Thank you.
She had grown up in a highly legalistic type of cult that. Never could she break out of it, and then when she became Christian, Sabbath still felt burden. It's like oh, and then there are others that just we're just in a driven society, and it's just hard to find rhythms where we could give ourselves the permission. How can you ever do that? And what I'm trying to say about spiritual disciplines, beloved, I hope we'll just try to say it every week.
The disciplines are not laws, and they're not the thing unto themselves. They're they're not the fruit. They're they're pathways, gateways, structures, habits, rhythms, for appropriating the very gifts that God wants to give us. They are. The kind of structures that we can build into our life, so that we can enjoy God and the fruit of the Spirit.
I know you guys are wanting to know how my tomatoes turned out. If you missed the sermon about how I heard from my sister in law at the beginning of the summer, there is just nothing like picking your own homegrown tomato, and so. With some kind of crazy notion, I planted some tomato plants myself, having no green thumb and not planted anything in years. And at first, the drought bout killed them, and then something called blossom end rot came upon them, and they all rotted on the bottom side. And I had to apply calcium treatments twice, five days apart at dusk.
And then, just when I thought I was making progress, the green hornworm showed up, and was trying to devour the plants. And they have to be hand plucked. And then the problem I ran into is y'all, I didn't understand that the tomatoes outgrow their cages. I got the cage because the plant needs structure. And they've outgrown it, and now they're just flopping all over the place.
This was what it looked like young, but I don't have a picture when they got mature, and they're just all sprawled out. The cage provides the structure for the fruit.
Okay, you need structure for the fruit in your life, and for some, it means not making it a law. But I think Anne and I are like when our kids were little, we were we were we were strict. Our lives are full, and we had kids. We're like Monday is going to be our day off, and unless somebody's dying or died or there's we're and the kids knew it. They like see me on the phone, Dad.
It's Sabbath, you know. I don't know. I don't know if you need to what to do in this world. I know some people that's like we're going to take our phones, put them in a box, and throw them in the closet for a day, you know. But you you need some structure.
And that's kind of like saying that tomatoes need a cage. You got to have something to hold this together and hold it up. But how? Here's my big one. How are you going to get to the place that you could give your soul that kind of permission?
That's the that's the challenge. Yeah. And here's the secret. Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews.
Tells us in Hebrews chapter four, verse nine.
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. Oh my. Hallelujah. Whoever enters God's rest, here's what it means: you've rested from your works. What's he talking about?
Hebrews. If you're new to your Bible, Hebrews might seem kind of complicated at first, because it's all these references to Old Testament principles, practices, real life events, and often the writer of Hebrews refers to those as shadows. A shadow.
Well, if the sun were shining and you were standing there, and your shadow was cast up on the sidewalk, and someone was standing around a corner, and all they could see was your shadow, they would know the shadow proves there's a real person there. But they just wouldn't be seeing the person yet. And the writer Hebrews says that many of these things we see in the Old Testament are shadows of the reality that has now come in Jesus Christ. They were letting you know the reality exists, but it's not yet face to face with you.
So, for example, every spring, every Hebrew family would take a lamb. And it had to be an unblemished lamb, fourteenth day of Nissan, and there would be at a Passover ritual in which they bring their lamb to the temple for the priests to inspect the lamb, to make sure it was satisfactory as the Passover lamb, and they would offer it as the Passover sacrifice lamb, and then they'd eat the lamb. And this was happening, thousands and millions of lambs. But when John the Baptizer came and he saw Jesus, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God." And the writer of Hebrews is telling us that so much in the old, like the Passover Lamb, was a shadow. It was real.
It was a gift of a sacrificial system, but it was just a shadow. The reality. Didn't come until Jesus appeared and the Word became flesh. And now the writer Hebrews is saying the same of Sabbath. It's real.
God loves it. You should build it into your life. But the meticulous. Keeping of a day when you didn't work according to the law of God was a shadow of the real rest that it was always pointing to, and that as a Messiah would come who would give you that rest and be your Sabbath rest.
Now, stay with me on this. What did Jesus do? Jesus came and he lived a sinless life as the only human being, the only human representative who could ever live a sinless life, and therefore pay and purchase salvation for others who couldn't keep the law. And Jesus, the sinless one, goes to the cross, and there he hangs. In excruciating pain, bearing upon himself the whole weight of the sin of the world, and bearing my shame and yours, and as he came near to breathe his last, he breathed out and said, "Tetelestai." One word.
It is finished. He finished the work of salvation, like God in the beginning finished His work and said, "I like it. It's done, and I'm going to rest in it on the seventh day." Jesus hung. On the Friday leading up to the 6 p.m. Sabbath that would begin, and as it began, he said, "It's finished." And when he did, it grew dark, and the earth shook.
And the veil in the temple was torn asunder, and the cosmos changed. And anyone who accepts His saving works, anyone who trusts in Jesus, is liberated from the tyranny of trying to work to earn God's favor. And He who knew no sin, when you trust Him. Becomes your sin, and He gives you His righteousness, so that we who have no merit of our own are regarded by God as if we had lived the meritorious life of Jesus, and thus we are justified. And justice, therefore, is now on our side.
It means that the accuser of the brethren, Satan himself, has nothing left to accuse the Christian of, because the whole accusation of hell was: you need to make more bricks, you need to be better, you need to do more, you need to do more, you need to do more. You're not loved yet. You're not accepted yet. And when the accuser comes and says, "Why do you deserve to be loved by God? You haven't done enough," we say, "I don't need." To do it because Jesus said it is finished, and we rest in that.
And remember the other reason God said to keep the seventh, because I'm the God who brought you out of Egypt. I'm the God who liberates slaves. I am the God who breaks the tyranny of Pharaoh and drowns up oppressors in the sea. I am the God of victorious liberation, and you are no longer slaves. And do you know the Bible says when Jesus breathed his last on that cross, it right about that moment when he was open season for every demon in hell to taunt him.
Look, he saved others; he can't save himself. If you really God, come down from that cross, and every demon trying to taunt him, and he breathed his last, and suddenly something shifted in the heavenlies. And Satan and all his minions began to realize they were being defeated by this great work of salvation. And the Bible says that in his death and resurrection, he made a public spectacle of demons in the heavenlies, because he was by his blood liberating the captives. And so, when he breathed his last, it not only meant the work is finished; it meant all the slaves get to go free.
Sabbath is therefore the pointing towards Jesus, who is the finisher of the work and the liberator of the slaves. And when I have a hard time, just giving myself permission to do the very thing that God said do, and decompress. Just don't worry about being productive on this day, and just be loved. And when I have a hard time with that, I just preach the gospel to myself and remind myself that He finished the work, and if God rested, then so can I. And if Jesus has finished it, there's nothing less for me to do.
And then I remember, I am no longer a slave, and there shall be no tyrant that tells me I've got to do more in order to be loved. Because, beloved, we are already fully loved. You matter to God, not because you can make a lot of bricks. You matter to God because He's your Father, and He loves being with you. Sabbath is a delight, and that's the gospel.
Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message, Sabbath rest from the series, The Gateways of Grace. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back, joining me in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day. In just a moment, what if growing closer to God isn't about trying harder?
So often, we approach spiritual growth with a list of things we need to do: pray more, read more, be better. But what if the secret to spiritual transformation isn't found in greater effort, but in experiencing more of God's grace? In his book *The Gateways of Grace*, Pastor Alan Wright invites you to discover a fresh perspective on spiritual growth through timeless practices like Scripture, prayer, meditation, wonder, and rest. You'll discover how to create space for the Holy Spirit to work in your life. These spiritual disciplines aren't obligations that earn God's favor; they're gateways that open our hearts to experience more of God's goodness, peace, and transforming grace.
When you give to Allenwright Ministries, you help share the gospel with listeners around the world. And when you give today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's book, The Gateways of Grace, as our thanks to discover these aren't just disciplines; they're gateways. Step through them and discover the grace that's been waiting for you. 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' special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty, or come to our website pastorallen dot org. Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of the Sabbath rest teaching, and Pastor Alan, you've you rest your case with that final amen there.
So as people pillow their head tonight and rest on on this, what's the what's the word you want them to rest with? I like to say, pressures off. In a world that has told us perform, perform, perform, produce, produce, produce, that turns us into a human doing, I want to say, pressure's off. You are not a human doing; you are a human being, and you can rest. You can truly pillow your head on the assurance that Jesus has finished the work of salvation.
Rest in that. Rest in His love. Rest in His grace. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen dot org or call eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. 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 pastorallen dot org. That's pastorallen dot o r g. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
