Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing—a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. I bless you today to know how little you know about the people you think you know. When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, it was a bigger scandal than her five broken marriages. A Jewish holy man talking to a woman in public. A Jewish holy man talking to a Samaritan, a Jewish holy man talking to a scandalous sinner.
Everyone else assumed they knew all about her, her failures, her sins, her follies. No one else could have imagined her to be the catalyst of a revival in her town. No one, but Jesus. Ironically, while others thought they knew the woman they had seen, Jesus actually knew the woman he had never seen. He saw in the spirit.
He saw the deep design and the human soul. He saw the hope. May you see others today as Jesus does. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Allen Wright. Your gospel is marvelous.
Your Son is exalted, and your holiness is beautiful. Let my soul be wrapped with wonder at who you are. You will never be bored because His wisdom and beauty is without end. It's bottomless. It's too wide to comprehend.
Think on these things. What I'm saying is, put into practice every day a little bit of wonder. It's not far off. It's right here. 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.
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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.
In Job thirty-eight, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. This huge whirlwind—it's like a tornado. It'll get your attention. You don't see that every day. And then God starts speaking.
Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dressed for action like a man, and I'll question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of this? Tell me, tell me, Job, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurement?
Surely you know, Job. Who stretched the line upon it, or what were its basis sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? He goes on like this throughout the whole chapter, because it's an invitation to wonder, is an invitation to healing of deception, and peace comes in when we let go of pride and just wonder at the nature of God. There's something that's calming about enjoying what you can't understand, of being satisfied by what makes you marvel.
Psalm one thirty-one: Oh Lord, my heart's not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous. He's saying, I just got a lot of things. I just have to go. That's marvelous, and I'm just full of wonder about it.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. I'm just nourished by being in your presence, God. And I don't understand it all, but I'm really quieted by thinking of it. The famous words of Psalm one thirty nine, O Lord, you have searched me and know me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path, am I lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways? Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before.
Lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge. Is too wonderful for me. It's high. I can't detain it.
I think all this is saying is that, beloved, what wonder does is keeps you from the agony of idolatry. A. W. Tozer says that the essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. What wonder does is it thinks about.
The amazing intricacies of God's design and His grace, and ultimately, it takes us out of idolatry and wonder, sends us into doxology, into praise. That's what Paul's doing here, into adoration. This is what he's expressing here. Oh. Verse thirty-three: The depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are His judgments and inscrutable His ways.
So, if wonder is that powerful, and if a lack of wonder makes the soul wither, isn't it an enterprise worth undertaking to make space in your life every day for wonder? You can put this into practice. I would suggest thinking about big things. You know, think about that which is bigger than you, and just marvel at it. I like to think about it: our sun, our star, ordinary size star, ninety-three million miles from Earth, ten thousand degrees on its surface, vast, vast compared to the Earth.
It's just so much bigger than the Earth. We think the Earth's big, but it just—you could put a million Earths into the Sun. It's just hard to wrap your mind around that. But if the Earth were like a golf ball, then the Sun would be like a school bus. You'd have to fill up a whole school bus with golf balls.
As large as our Sun seems to be, it's only a medium-sized star. And the scientists through the Hubble telescope have discovered much larger stars, like the Canis Majoris, the Big Dog Star, the Great Dog. It's so massive. Listen to this. Can you just wonder about this for a moment?
It would take not a million Earths to fill it up, like our sun, but it would take seven quadrillion Earths to fill it up. That's by comparison to be like a golf ball, and filling up the entirety of Mount Everest in its full six miles above sea level. Or think about things that are small. Think about things that are really small. I'm no scientist, but I'm fascinated by it.
I've learned that a mole is not a furry, gray, burrowing animal. A mole, to chemists, is a standard unit of measure, six point oh two two five times ten to the twenty third.
Now, I don't really know why that number is so important, but I know this: it's very difficult to wrap your mind around. But what this means is, if I were to take a dropper of and drop a little bit of water, like eighteen milliliters, about three point six teaspoons, into a little cup, like little Three teaspoons. That's one mole of water, and in that one mole, that 18 milliliters, are six times ten to the twenty-third molecules of molecules of H2O. That much. I don't.
I don't. You remember how you could fit seven quadrillion Earths into the Big Dog Star?
Well, a quadrillion's only ten to the fifteenth.
So, ten to the twenty-third times six—it's six hundred sextillion. I just—there's no way you can think about this. I remember years ago, there was an elder in our church in heaven now, who I loved him so much. Bill Rice was a chemist, and I was like, try to give me an image for this. He said, okay, go stand on the beach at the Grand Strand.
Between North Carolina and South Carolina, and look as far as you can see, and imagine all the beaches that go on the whole Grand Strand. Say, can you imagine that? I said, okay, I'm imagined. He said, if you could count every single grain of sand on all those beaches, you still wouldn't be at this number. And it's in that much water of molecules, and I don't even understand.
But inside the molecules, there are two hydrogens and one oxygen, and then I don't even—it's marvelous! It's marvelous! Wow! I don't even know. Think about what's big.
Think about what's tiny. Think about what's beautiful. The old English major in me sometimes just has to bring out a poem, even if you don't understand what all these words are saying. Just marvel at the opening line of Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur." For he says in the opening line, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." I love this. The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out like shining from shook foil. It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil crushed. Why the men then now now not wreck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod, and all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil, and where is man's smudge and shares man's smell? The soil is bare now; nor can foot feel being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent; the beauty never runs out. There lives the dearest freshness deep down things, and though the last lights off the black west went, oh, morning at the brown brink eastward springs, because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and ah, bright wings. He's saying there's something beautiful around you all the time. You can look at it and marvel at it, and pause and think about it. I'm saying it's a powerful enterprise to look at a changing leaf, or a canopy of trees, or the brightness of a fall blue sky.
It's a it's a powerful thing to look at a small bird and flight. I'm saying that wonder. Does something for the upbuilding of your soul, and if you have any problem developing the practice of wonder, I suggest this: let the boredom of the world and the burden with the world draw you into the endless mystery of God's mercy and grace. This is what a worshipper is. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments! I like what Sam Storms has said about this verse: that the the most important word is not riches or wisdom or knowledge or glory or even God, but perhaps it's the word that gets your attention least, and that is "Oh," a single letter in the Greek omega. Oh, just an exclamation of wonder, an interjection of joy. Oh. This is Paul, who has more clearly than anybody ever penned explained how the gospel works, and yet he just concludes from it, "Oh, the depths, the depths!
It's fathomless. I can't go into it deep enough because I'll never, ever be able to get to the bottom of it. God's mercy is so rich, the depth of His riches of wisdom and knowledge." Unsearchable, he says, and inscrutable. Meaning, I just can't wrap my mind around this. I've tried to tell you everything I can tell you about God and about His gospel and about the grace of Jesus Christ, but I just come to this place, and I have to say, oh, it's all unsearchable.
It's un, it's inscrutable. I'm just going to be left wrapped with wonder at it all. And he says, "Who's known the mind of the Lord?" Instead of saying I I know everything about him, he's like, who even understands all of these things? We're just left to marvel at it. Who's been his counselor?
Who has told God some good advice lately? Or who's added anything to God's goodness? Who has verse thirty-five given a gift to him that he might be repaid? What could we bring to God when He's given us all things? He's so wonderful.
He's so majestic. This is the way Paul thinks. This is the invitation to every Christian. You get to live like this. You get to think like this.
It doesn't matter how boring the world becomes. You've got God. Oh, the depths. And so finally, he says, verse thirty-six: For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory.
Spurgeon said of this verse, such a tremendous weight of meaning is concentrated here that an archangel's eloquence would fail to convey its teaching and all its glory to any finite minds, even if seraphs were its hearers. You say,ing if an archangel tried to explain this verse to angels, they would come short, because it is to say, for everything is from God, every good gift is from God, and it's through God. Through the person of Jesus Christ and the agency or power of the Holy Spirit, that has all come through Him, and therefore all glory and all honor is unto Him, as all things are. Oh, to God be glory now and forever and forever! What I'm saying is that the world will get boring.
If you had all the money in the world and could buy everything that anybody could ever want to buy, I promise you, you'd eventually get bored. If you had all the money in the world and could travel to every place that anybody would ever travel, eventually you'd get bored with it. And if you let the boredom of the mundane. Instead, draw you into this, God. You are splendid.
Your gospel is marvelous. Your Son is exalted, and your holiness is beautiful. Let my soul be wrapped with wonder at who you are. You will never be bored. Because his wisdom and beauty is without end; it's bottomless; it's too wide to comprehend.
Think on these things. What I'm saying is, put into practice every day a little bit of wonder. It's not far off; it's right here. We're celebrating Mia's two-year-old birthday today. Her birthday was a few days ago, so they're in town for the weekend.
I got to put her in bed on Friday night, and I went down and rocked her in the dark, and she put her little head up on my shoulder. And we are also celebrating my baby girl's birthday from a few days earlier. And I thought about her and how twenty six years went by like that. And now I'm holding another little girl and singing the same songs to her and rocking her. And she leaned over and turned her head over and kissed me on the cheek, and I sat there just wondering about it all.
Just a few moments to rock a baby and marvel at the design of God in making a little girl. And that's free, and that's not off in the distance. That's right here, and my soul's nourished by that. Find a way to put some wonder into your life every day. Think about what's big.
Think about what's small. Think about what's beautiful. And think about every gift of God, and let your soul go. Oh, the marvel of God! Anyone can have a transformation like George Bailey.
Anyone can have a wonderful life because anyone can have a life full of wonder, and that's the gospel. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message, a wonderful life from the series The Gateways of Grace. I encourage you to stay with us because Pastor Alan is back here 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.
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Back here in the studio with Pastor Alan in today's teaching, a wonderful life. As we come to the conclusion of this teaching, and you mentioned about the wonder of a child. That's what I love about cross generational things, because sometimes the young can look at the old and say, "You've lived enough of life and traveled and tasted the world, and you still get excited about apple and peanut butter." You know, and it's finding the wonder in God's creation. And if you run out of things to wonder about, wonder about this—the incredible riches and wisdom and the knowledge of God. That's why Paul comes to Romans eleven thirty three and says, "Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of it!
How unsearchable! The ultimate wonder is God Himself." And I'm blessing you, every listener, to let your heart be filled with wonder. And who God is. 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.
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