New Covenant - Superior to the Law - Part 4 — Zac Poonen

Diligent Seeking and Spiritual Victory

I think of all these people who look for jobs in Dubai, and they spend lakhs, they are cheated, and again they try and spend lakhs, again they are cheated, finally they reach the other end, they say we have achieved it.

I tell you, Christians who are 25 as interested in getting victory over sin, like these fellows are interested in going to Dubai, boy, they would have got it long ago. So, like many other things in life that you pursue after, earnestly, sincerely, you try so hard, and you get it.

It's like that, God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, he told Adam as soon as he sinned, he says from now on things are going to be different, the law is you'll get your bread when you sweat.

Spiritual Bread Requires Hard Work

Without sweating you won't get your bread. You know, you got to sweat, that means work hard, even to get spiritual bread from the Bible, you really got to work hard. If you really want to get something yourself, you can be fed, you can be spoon fed, like right now what I am doing is spoon feeding, you know, babies have to be spoon fed, that's fine.

But if you want to get something yourself, if you want to earn your own bread, if you want to get your own bread from the Bible, you really got to work hard. I mean, if somebody else is earning the bread in your home, bread winner, that's okay, you just sit and eat it.

That's how it is in the church very often, but you should be growing up to be a bread winner yourself, spiritually I mean. Well, you got something to give, for that you got to really work hard. It's like that in everything, God is not a rewarder of lazy people.

He rewards those who diligently work. Let me show you this verse in 2nd Timothy in chapter 2. 2nd Timothy chapter 2 it says, it seems to be a law in everything in life. It's not just spiritually, even in the secular world, you really got to work hard to get.

The Hardworking Farmer and Spiritual Understanding

2nd Timothy chapter 2 it says in verse 6. The hard working farmer has to be the first to receive his share of the crops. So, the hard working farmer gets a crop before everybody else does. I mean, everybody has the same type of ground, the same rain, the same seed.

Why did this guy get it first? Because he worked hard. Everybody's got the same Bible, same 24 hours a day, everybody's got to work. How is it that some people know it and some people don't know it? They worked hard.

How is it that some people understood the new covenant and got into a life of victory because they were honest and they worked hard at it? And then he's not talking about farmers, he says in the next verse, verse 7, think about what I say, and the Lord will give you understanding in what I mean.

And I want to say to that, think about that verse. The hard working farmer is going to be the first one to get his share of the crops. And Paul was saying that to Timothy who had already been with him for 25 years.

This is his last letter. And he says, Timothy, I can't explain it to you. I'm sorry. You're my closest friend, but I just can't explain it to you. I'm not telling you to read my episodes 20 times and you'll understand it.

No, you won't. He says here, the Lord has to give you understanding. Do you know you can come to the best church in the world and listen to the best preacher for years and you won't get understanding?

I mean, if there was anybody who could have explained it, it was Paul to Timothy. And he says to him, listen, Timothy, I can't explain it. The Lord has to give you understanding. So, I've seen this. A lot of people understand it in their heads and they don't understand it in their hearts.

Faith in the Heart Rather Than the Head

And faith is a matter of the heart. The difference between faith in the head and faith in the heart is the difference between hell and heaven. In hell, they have faith in the head. The Bible says, even the devils believe and tremble, says in James 2.

Faith in the heart takes you to heaven. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, not your head. So, understanding in the heart is different from understanding in the head. You've got to seek God not with all your head, but with all your heart.

If head was so important, God would have made all people equally intelligent. If intelligence was necessary to know God, God would have made all people intelligent. You'd think that the people who are more intelligent would know God better.

But it's not true. I mean, we've seen that in our own churches. Some of those poor brothers in Tamil Nadu seem to know God and get such revelation when they share something from the word, which I don't get from a lot of very highly educated, intelligent people.

PhDs and all don't seem to know the word like that. God is no respecter of intelligence. It's like color of skin. You know, a lot of people in India think that a white-skinned person must be more spiritual.

Not true. It's got nothing to do with color of skin. It's got nothing to do with intelligence. It's got to do with the hard-working farmer. So you can understand and enter into this life of the new covenant, if you really work at it.

Seeking God through the Word

Go to the word and say, Lord, I really want to know this in my life. Even if I'm late in life understanding it, I want to know it now. Let's turn back to Hebrews chapter 8. What did we see there? In Hebrews in chapter 8 we read, What is it the law could not do?

The Law, the Better Hope, and Perfection

First of all, let me show you Hebrews 7 .19. The law made nothing perfect. God is interested in perfection. The law made nothing perfect. And Jesus told us, Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

It's the last verse of Matthew 5. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. He didn't say be like Elijah or be like John the Baptist. No, he said be like your father. What a standard. He didn't give you some low example.

You think Elijah is a low example? If you're like Elijah, we're pretty serious Christians. But he said that's not good enough. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Matthew 5 .48. What a standard.

But the law could not do that. But the bringing in of a better hope, on the other hand, Hebrews 7 .19. There's a bringing in of a better hope by which we draw near to God. And perfect means not completely like Christ.

Progressing from One Level of Perfection to Another

That will take time to come. But it's like perfect in my conscience right now. It's something like, maybe you're in the first standard. And in mathematics, you got 100%. Isn't that perfect? That's called a perfect score.

You can't get 101. No matter how much you know, you can't get 101. You can get only 100. That's a perfect score. But you're not perfect in your knowledge of mathematics in first standard, even though you got 100%.

Next year you go to second standard and you start with 60%. Because a lot of new things you learn which you didn't know before. And then in the next exam you get 70. In the next exam you get 80. And finally you get 100 in second standard.

That's better than 100 in the first standard. So there's perfection to perfection. And then you go to the third standard. Again, you start with maybe 50%. First exam, 60, 70. You get 100 in the third standard.

And it's all the way. I mean, you go to BSc, you're still struggling. So that is the Christian life, it's like that. Perfect at my present level. Next year, I may not start with perfection, but I'll be perfect at that level too.

It's exactly like a school. The Lord gives me revelation on something new in my life which I never knew before. And I can cleanse myself. Become a little more like Christ. But He doesn't want us to live in the first standard forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

God's Expectation of Spiritual Maturity

Studying first standard subjects, I mean, you'd be terribly disappointed if your child lived in first standard even for two years, leave alone ten years. Can you imagine how disappointed God is with many of His children?

Forget the other children. Ask yourself this searching question. Is God disappointed with me? Am I in the class where He wants me to be today? Now if you put your child in the first standard, you expect that by ten years later that he's in the tenth standard.

Don't you think God has some expectation of you, that He brought you to new birth some years ago and many years have gone by and you should have overcome certain sins by now. And you've been in a church where you heard about overcoming sin for so many years and even more.

You should have overcome and is God disappointed with you?