November 15, 2025 • 18 mins
Bishop Wright's sermon "An Uncommon Success" given at the 119th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright.
I'm your producer, Easton Davis.
Today's episode is BishopWright's sermon titled An
Uncommon Success, given onNovember 7th, 2025 at the 119th
Annual Council of the Diocese ofAtlanta.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
After this, the Lord appointed seven the others and
sent them in pairs to every townwhere he himself intended to go.
Did you hear the first twowords?
Translated after that.
Jesus' words are a response tothe events in the previous
(00:50):
chapter.
So let me tell you what theafter that is referring to so
that we can all be up to speed.
Amen?
After Jesus appoints and givesthe twelve power and authority.
After the political violence,Herod murdered Jesus' cousin
John.
(01:10):
After the reluctantparticipation of the disciples
and the feeding of the fivethousand.
After Jesus' prayer-promptedtransfiguration, after the
executive committee of thedisciples choosing tiny home
construction over vocation inthe valley.
(01:31):
Are y'all reading the Bible?
After the disciples, disputeover succession planning and
greatness.
After Jesus provides health careto a child, a family without
means.
After Jesus laments his ownhomelessness.
(01:52):
After all these events, or youcould say, at the close of a
tumultuous year, we have aresponse, this just in, from
Jesus.
His response is to appoint andsend 70 more people to the
cities he himself intends to go.
(02:12):
That said, another way, the morecomplicated the world gets, the
more disappointing life gets,the lonelier life gets, the more
unsure things become, the moreresolute Jesus gets about his
purpose.
Jesus' purpose is to embody andproclaim a counter narrative
(02:36):
that swallows up the world's badnews, scarcity, contempt for
neighbor narratives.
Jesus' purpose is to proclaimthe kingdom of God here and now.
El propisito, the Jesus esproclamar que el reino de Dios
(02:57):
esta aquí.
Jesus's purpose is to practicean alternative way to live that
reveals the heart of God,exposes contradictions, and
welcomes the errant home.
It is his purpose that keeps himfrom being broken by breaking
news or distracted bydisappointments and divisions.
(03:22):
His proclamation is a timelessinvitation to transformation,
not a temporal tirade.
Jesus is not indifferent orreactive, Jesus is responsive.
Today's gospel finds Jesuscommissioning a future, not
paralyzed by the past.
(03:44):
He's not in denial about pasthardships and failures.
No, he's not.
He has recycled them into afaithful response for the
future.
Jesus' response to a tough yearis to increase the scale of the
movement and welcome new peopleto this beautiful struggle.
(04:07):
He's engaging the willing andmobilizing the faithful.
At the beginning of chapter 9,Jesus appoints and empowers just
12 disciples, but now, just onechapter later, he appoints and
sends 70 more.
That's a 483.33% increase.
(04:28):
We're all the math nerds in theroom.
But we shouldn't sit here inamazement.
No, not just that, looking backat Jesus' resolve and clarity.
What we must do is allow hiswords to become our flesh.
What we can do at this annualcouncil and every day ahead of
(04:49):
us is to dedicate ourselvesindividually and
organizationally to Jesus'purposes.
That, my friends, is the onlyfuture the church has.
Gospel message must becomegospel method.
El mensaje, the evangelio da biconvercirte in metodo del
(05:15):
evangelio.
Jesus appointed and sent them.
Notice here that they're notsent to worship.
Worship is a pre-existingcondition for the living, for
the sent life.
Notice also that Jesus uses twoseparate phrases here: appointed
(05:38):
and sent.
I wonder if Jesus uses twowords, recognizing that some
folks get stuck in appointmentand never quite make it to sent.
The sent life is acountercultural challenge.
Sentness is the cure forself-centeredness.
(05:59):
And funny enough, it's also thecure for ecclesiastical anxiety.
Sentness is the medicine for theworld.
(06:24):
But when the church is inwardfacing, it is highly likely we
will just bump into each other.
You ever been to one of thosemeetings?
Say amen.
This is all so terribly criticalfor us to understand today
because to paraphrase our friendWill Woolemon, people who are
(06:47):
actively being, people areactively being seduced by and
daily indoctrinated into agodless ideology.
That ideology is this, that ourlives and our possessions, our
lives are just our possessionsto do with as we please, and
that our lives are just the sumof our astute choices.
(07:12):
But the good news of the gospelflips all of that on its head.
The gospel says God is thecenter of life abundant, and
that my life is gift, and so isyours.
The gospel says all we have isgift.
The gospel goes even furtherthan that.
(07:33):
The gospel says that myblindness, my sinfulness, when
offered to God, will round outmy humanity, and a surprising
new sensitivity will be born inme for the world, which my
astute choices could neverdeliver.
What we must remind one anotherof this week and every week
(07:55):
hereafter is the mostadventuresome way to live, is by
letting Jesus commandeer yourlife.
That's what makes us church,folks.
That's what makes us church, notthe endowment, not the steeple,
not the stained glass, as muchas I love all those things.
(08:17):
Jesus sends his friends to thecity, Las Ciudades, the polis is
what Aristotle called it.
Polis, as you know, is where weget the word political from.
The polis is where the peopleare.
It's the place where all canhave a good and virtuous life
where justice is present, wherewe can do better than just
(08:41):
survival, where we can flourish.
It's to the polis that Jesussends his friends to be harvest
laborers, peace bringers, moralexamples, adaptive leaders,
community healers, and if I'mreading my Bible correctly, free
meal moochers.
(09:08):
But that's another sermon.
So from the beginning, Jesus'friends are expected to
skillfully intervene in theaffairs of the city.
So then, to be a follower ofJesus is to be political, but
not partisan.
(09:30):
The truth is to be sent is themost political thing that can
happen to you.
But friends, let's be crystalclear, given the present
climate, Jesus' politics are notleft or right.
They are not red or blue.
(09:53):
Jesus' politics are vertical andhorizontal.
Vertical into love of God andhorizontal into love of
neighbor.
Jesus' politics are neitherprogressive nor conservative.
Jesus' politics are cruciform.
With Jesus, the cross alwayshigher than the flag.
(10:19):
Jesus' politics are inside outand bottom up.
Jesus's politics create a circleso wide until there are no
outcasts.
Jesus's politics are redemption.
Redemption, not retribution.
In Jesus' politics, this is thepart I like.
(10:40):
Every sinner has a future.
And every saint has a past.
I like that part.
Jesus's politics are sharing.
In Jesus' politics, every childdeserves a quality education.
(11:00):
And every senior, no mattertheir net worth, deserves high
quality health care.
In Jesus' politics, you don'twithhold food to make a
political point.
In Jesus' politics, the poor arenot blamed for their poverty.
And those who labor to pick andput food on our tables are not
(11:22):
scapegoated.
They are paid the wages that wewould want for our own children.
In Jesus' politics, the pronounsare we and ours.
En la politica de Jesús lospronombres son nosotros y
nuestra.
(11:43):
Nuestro.
This is the city Jesus imaginesand then dispatches people like
us from places like this.
Comb through this morning's nineverses, and you'll see that
there are a lot of howls fromJesus.
HOW.
Howl.
(12:04):
How shall we go in pairs?
How shall we show up?
Like lambs among wolves.
How shall we pack for thejourney?
Light.
It's not until the last sentenceof his soliloquy that Jesus
gives us the why that powers allthe hows.
(12:29):
Tell them, Jesus says, that thekingdom of God has come near.
Victor Frankel, Holocaustsurvivor and author of the book
Man's Search for Meaning, saidthis: those who have a why to
live can bear almost any how.
(12:50):
Los que tienen un porquier,vivir, pueden, soportar, casei,
calquear forma.
Frankel's insight helps usunderstand what success means
for people who are sent.
When the church gets togetherlike this, we love it.
I love it.
(13:10):
I love it.
But there are always bigquestions in the room, right?
Questions like, what does itmean to be a follower of Jesus
right now?
Questions like, what does thisgospel offer that secular
humanism can't?
And my favorite question, I'veheard this in many forms over
the last 14 years, Bishop,exactly what are we fighting for
(13:34):
anyway?
Hard questions?
Fair questions.
And each question, at least tomy mind, is longing, if you get
down to the bottom of it, islonging for the answer.
What does success look like forthe followers of Jesus?
(13:55):
Jesus never promisesconventional notions of success.
You know that.
He doesn't promise wealth orpromotions or prominence.
He promises a life of meaning.
He promises that if you have aharvest heart and a harvest
hands, there's plenty of goodwork to do.
He promises to place you in anoutrageously sized global
(14:22):
family.
He promises that he can berelied on if we join him in his
adventure.
He offers on this journey a newdepth of integrity.
(14:42):
Mine and behind, in line, andall the peace that comes with
that.
Success for us in every seasonand in all situations is staying
connected to Jesus' purpose,Jesus' why.
So then the definition ofsuccess for those who are sent
by Jesus is measured inreliance.
(15:10):
Reliance.
Just that.
Reliance on his ways and on hiswords.
Jesus sends the 70 saints tolive lives joyfully at odds with
self-interest.
The good news of living a sinlife is actually learning to
(15:31):
depend on God for direction, forprotection, for correction, for
provision, for healing, forforgiveness, for a new capacity
to forgive.
The great climax of this unusualreliance is for us to be able to
(15:56):
say to anyone, anywhere, with anabsolute straight face.
God is trustworthy.
God is trustworthy.
God is trustworthy.
(16:19):
Here's a question for you.
Do you trust him now more thanyesterday?
But not as much as tomorrow.
And that definition of success,if that definition of success
doesn't compel you, that's okay.
Let me phone a friend.
(16:39):
Henry David Throw said this ifone advances confidently in the
direction of their dreams andlives the life one imagines,
they will meet with an uncommonsuccess.
They will pass an invisibleboundary.
(17:02):
New universal laws willestablish around them and within
them.
Solitude won't be solitudeanymore, neither will weakness
be weakness.
That beloved is just a fancyway, just another way to say
what Jesus has already saidtoday.
That the kingdom is right here.
(17:24):
Right here.
And the kingdom is right now.
And it's available to all of us.
And maybe better than that, it'savailable through us.
It is a good time to be thechurch.
Nothing is too hard for God.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Thanks for listening to four people.
Keep up with us on social mediaat Bishop Robright.
Please subscribe, leave areview, and we'll be back with
you next week.
Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright.
I'm your producer, Easton Davis.
Today's episode is BishopWright's sermon titled An
Uncommon Success, given onNovember 7th, 2025 at the 119th
Annual Council of the Diocese ofAtlanta.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
After this, the Lord appointed seven the others and
sent them in pairs to every townwhere he himself intended to go.
Did you hear the first twowords?
Translated after that.
Jesus' words are a response tothe events in the previous
(00:50):
chapter.
So let me tell you what theafter that is referring to so
that we can all be up to speed.
Amen?
After Jesus appoints and givesthe twelve power and authority.
After the political violence,Herod murdered Jesus' cousin
John.
(01:10):
After the reluctantparticipation of the disciples
and the feeding of the fivethousand.
After Jesus' prayer-promptedtransfiguration, after the
executive committee of thedisciples choosing tiny home
construction over vocation inthe valley.
(01:31):
Are y'all reading the Bible?
After the disciples, disputeover succession planning and
greatness.
After Jesus provides health careto a child, a family without
means.
After Jesus laments his ownhomelessness.
(01:52):
After all these events, or youcould say, at the close of a
tumultuous year, we have aresponse, this just in, from
Jesus.
His response is to appoint andsend 70 more people to the
cities he himself intends to go.
(02:12):
That said, another way, the morecomplicated the world gets, the
more disappointing life gets,the lonelier life gets, the more
unsure things become, the moreresolute Jesus gets about his
purpose.
Jesus' purpose is to embody andproclaim a counter narrative
(02:36):
that swallows up the world's badnews, scarcity, contempt for
neighbor narratives.
Jesus' purpose is to proclaimthe kingdom of God here and now.
El propisito, the Jesus esproclamar que el reino de Dios
(02:57):
esta aquí.
Jesus's purpose is to practicean alternative way to live that
reveals the heart of God,exposes contradictions, and
welcomes the errant home.
It is his purpose that keeps himfrom being broken by breaking
news or distracted bydisappointments and divisions.
(03:22):
His proclamation is a timelessinvitation to transformation,
not a temporal tirade.
Jesus is not indifferent orreactive, Jesus is responsive.
Today's gospel finds Jesuscommissioning a future, not
paralyzed by the past.
(03:44):
He's not in denial about pasthardships and failures.
No, he's not.
He has recycled them into afaithful response for the
future.
Jesus' response to a tough yearis to increase the scale of the
movement and welcome new peopleto this beautiful struggle.
(04:07):
He's engaging the willing andmobilizing the faithful.
At the beginning of chapter 9,Jesus appoints and empowers just
12 disciples, but now, just onechapter later, he appoints and
sends 70 more.
That's a 483.33% increase.
(04:28):
We're all the math nerds in theroom.
But we shouldn't sit here inamazement.
No, not just that, looking backat Jesus' resolve and clarity.
What we must do is allow hiswords to become our flesh.
What we can do at this annualcouncil and every day ahead of
(04:49):
us is to dedicate ourselvesindividually and
organizationally to Jesus'purposes.
That, my friends, is the onlyfuture the church has.
Gospel message must becomegospel method.
El mensaje, the evangelio da biconvercirte in metodo del
(05:15):
evangelio.
Jesus appointed and sent them.
Notice here that they're notsent to worship.
Worship is a pre-existingcondition for the living, for
the sent life.
Notice also that Jesus uses twoseparate phrases here: appointed
(05:38):
and sent.
I wonder if Jesus uses twowords, recognizing that some
folks get stuck in appointmentand never quite make it to sent.
The sent life is acountercultural challenge.
Sentness is the cure forself-centeredness.
(05:59):
And funny enough, it's also thecure for ecclesiastical anxiety.
Sentness is the medicine for theworld.
(06:24):
But when the church is inwardfacing, it is highly likely we
will just bump into each other.
You ever been to one of thosemeetings?
Say amen.
This is all so terribly criticalfor us to understand today
because to paraphrase our friendWill Woolemon, people who are
(06:47):
actively being, people areactively being seduced by and
daily indoctrinated into agodless ideology.
That ideology is this, that ourlives and our possessions, our
lives are just our possessionsto do with as we please, and
that our lives are just the sumof our astute choices.
(07:12):
But the good news of the gospelflips all of that on its head.
The gospel says God is thecenter of life abundant, and
that my life is gift, and so isyours.
The gospel says all we have isgift.
The gospel goes even furtherthan that.
(07:33):
The gospel says that myblindness, my sinfulness, when
offered to God, will round outmy humanity, and a surprising
new sensitivity will be born inme for the world, which my
astute choices could neverdeliver.
What we must remind one anotherof this week and every week
(07:55):
hereafter is the mostadventuresome way to live, is by
letting Jesus commandeer yourlife.
That's what makes us church,folks.
That's what makes us church, notthe endowment, not the steeple,
not the stained glass, as muchas I love all those things.
(08:17):
Jesus sends his friends to thecity, Las Ciudades, the polis is
what Aristotle called it.
Polis, as you know, is where weget the word political from.
The polis is where the peopleare.
It's the place where all canhave a good and virtuous life
where justice is present, wherewe can do better than just
(08:41):
survival, where we can flourish.
It's to the polis that Jesussends his friends to be harvest
laborers, peace bringers, moralexamples, adaptive leaders,
community healers, and if I'mreading my Bible correctly, free
meal moochers.
(09:08):
But that's another sermon.
So from the beginning, Jesus'friends are expected to
skillfully intervene in theaffairs of the city.
So then, to be a follower ofJesus is to be political, but
not partisan.
(09:30):
The truth is to be sent is themost political thing that can
happen to you.
But friends, let's be crystalclear, given the present
climate, Jesus' politics are notleft or right.
They are not red or blue.
(09:53):
Jesus' politics are vertical andhorizontal.
Vertical into love of God andhorizontal into love of
neighbor.
Jesus' politics are neitherprogressive nor conservative.
Jesus' politics are cruciform.
With Jesus, the cross alwayshigher than the flag.
(10:19):
Jesus' politics are inside outand bottom up.
Jesus's politics create a circleso wide until there are no
outcasts.
Jesus's politics are redemption.
Redemption, not retribution.
In Jesus' politics, this is thepart I like.
(10:40):
Every sinner has a future.
And every saint has a past.
I like that part.
Jesus's politics are sharing.
In Jesus' politics, every childdeserves a quality education.
(11:00):
And every senior, no mattertheir net worth, deserves high
quality health care.
In Jesus' politics, you don'twithhold food to make a
political point.
In Jesus' politics, the poor arenot blamed for their poverty.
And those who labor to pick andput food on our tables are not
(11:22):
scapegoated.
They are paid the wages that wewould want for our own children.
In Jesus' politics, the pronounsare we and ours.
En la politica de Jesús lospronombres son nosotros y
nuestra.
(11:43):
Nuestro.
This is the city Jesus imaginesand then dispatches people like
us from places like this.
Comb through this morning's nineverses, and you'll see that
there are a lot of howls fromJesus.
HOW.
Howl.
(12:04):
How shall we go in pairs?
How shall we show up?
Like lambs among wolves.
How shall we pack for thejourney?
Light.
It's not until the last sentenceof his soliloquy that Jesus
gives us the why that powers allthe hows.
(12:29):
Tell them, Jesus says, that thekingdom of God has come near.
Victor Frankel, Holocaustsurvivor and author of the book
Man's Search for Meaning, saidthis: those who have a why to
live can bear almost any how.
(12:50):
Los que tienen un porquier,vivir, pueden, soportar, casei,
calquear forma.
Frankel's insight helps usunderstand what success means
for people who are sent.
When the church gets togetherlike this, we love it.
I love it.
(13:10):
I love it.
But there are always bigquestions in the room, right?
Questions like, what does itmean to be a follower of Jesus
right now?
Questions like, what does thisgospel offer that secular
humanism can't?
And my favorite question, I'veheard this in many forms over
the last 14 years, Bishop,exactly what are we fighting for
(13:34):
anyway?
Hard questions?
Fair questions.
And each question, at least tomy mind, is longing, if you get
down to the bottom of it, islonging for the answer.
What does success look like forthe followers of Jesus?
(13:55):
Jesus never promisesconventional notions of success.
You know that.
He doesn't promise wealth orpromotions or prominence.
He promises a life of meaning.
He promises that if you have aharvest heart and a harvest
hands, there's plenty of goodwork to do.
He promises to place you in anoutrageously sized global
(14:22):
family.
He promises that he can berelied on if we join him in his
adventure.
He offers on this journey a newdepth of integrity.
(14:42):
Mine and behind, in line, andall the peace that comes with
that.
Success for us in every seasonand in all situations is staying
connected to Jesus' purpose,Jesus' why.
So then the definition ofsuccess for those who are sent
by Jesus is measured inreliance.
(15:10):
Reliance.
Just that.
Reliance on his ways and on hiswords.
Jesus sends the 70 saints tolive lives joyfully at odds with
self-interest.
The good news of living a sinlife is actually learning to
(15:31):
depend on God for direction, forprotection, for correction, for
provision, for healing, forforgiveness, for a new capacity
to forgive.
The great climax of this unusualreliance is for us to be able to
(15:56):
say to anyone, anywhere, with anabsolute straight face.
God is trustworthy.
God is trustworthy.
God is trustworthy.
(16:19):
Here's a question for you.
Do you trust him now more thanyesterday?
But not as much as tomorrow.
And that definition of success,if that definition of success
doesn't compel you, that's okay.
Let me phone a friend.
(16:39):
Henry David Throw said this ifone advances confidently in the
direction of their dreams andlives the life one imagines,
they will meet with an uncommonsuccess.
They will pass an invisibleboundary.
(17:02):
New universal laws willestablish around them and within
them.
Solitude won't be solitudeanymore, neither will weakness
be weakness.
That beloved is just a fancyway, just another way to say
what Jesus has already saidtoday.
That the kingdom is right here.
(17:24):
Right here.
And the kingdom is right now.
And it's available to all of us.
And maybe better than that, it'savailable through us.
It is a good time to be thechurch.
Nothing is too hard for God.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Thanks for listening to four people.
Keep up with us on social mediaat Bishop Robright.
Please subscribe, leave areview, and we'll be back with
you next week.
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