The Blessing Of The Spirit - Part 3 — Zac Poonen

Christ Redeems Us for Abraham’s Blessing

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, so that, in order that, the whole purpose of this was not just that I can be free, but that the blessing of Abraham might come upon us. I mean, he, the Jews may claim him to be their father, but the blessing which God gave Abraham is for us.

And if the Jews don't claim it, well, just too bad. And that is, that the blessing of Abraham, so we can receive the Holy Spirit by faith, we can receive a blessing, and the blessing in the New Testament is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Replaces the Curse of the Law

See, that's the opposite of the curse of the law. Law, Holy Spirit. Curse, blessing. Curse of the law, blessing of the Holy Spirit. So this is it. So if I don't replace this, I was, you and I were under the curse of the law for so many years because we tried to please God that way and it didn't work.

But now, have you just kept our heart empty? And we sort of nod and say, yeah, I believe in the Holy Spirit. It's not a question of believing. It's a question of whether he's occupied the place in our heart.

And say, Lord, I believe that you have given me the Holy Spirit to give me Abraham's blessing. That's been a tremendous encouragement to me. I can receive the promise of the Holy Spirit by faith. Abraham received it by faith.

He didn't do any works. I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 12 and see what Abraham's blessing is. Genesis chapter 12. You know, we read here what the Lord said to Abraham when he was 75 years old. It tells us in verse 4, he was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.

Abraham’s Delayed Obedience in Haran

Now I don't know at what age he left Ur of the Chaldees, you know, because God had called him when he was in Ur of the Chaldees is down south near somewhere near south Iraq or somewhere there. And then he went north to a place called Haran.

And that was just the route to go to Canaan, which is today Israel. But because he took his father with him and took his nephew with him, and there were some others also, it says in chapter 11, 31, Terah took Abraham, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, grandson, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, and they all went together to Haran.

And when they saw this place called Haran, Abraham's dad said, hey, this is a good place. We're going to stay here. And little boy Abraham, 75 years old, said, okay, daddy, we'll stay here. God had told him to go to Canaan and he didn't listen.

Imagine listening to your dad when he was 75 years old. That dad must have been a strong man for Abraham. And you know what God had to do? He killed his father. I've got to fulfill a purpose to Abraham, I'm not going to let, I mean, he didn't kill his father when he was young.

His father must have been 150 or something, it's okay, about time to die, just knock him off so that Abraham can move on, it says there. The days of Terah, oh, 205, he was much older than that, that's fine.

So he killed him and then Abraham, then it says, so chapter 12, verse 4, Abraham went forth. Why? Because in between it tells us in verses 1 to 3, chapter 12, 1 to 3, what God had told Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees.

You see, chapter 12, verse 1 to 3 is not what he told him in Haran. That's what he told him some years earlier in Ur of the Chaldees, now, as I said, I don't know, it doesn't say here how long they settled in Haran, I hope it was only a year or so or less.

I don't think God would have kept them long there. But anyway, chapter 12, verse 1 to 3 says, way back in Ur of the Chaldees, maybe a year earlier, a few months earlier, God had told Abraham, leave your relatives.

Half-Obedience and the Cost of Earthly Attachments

He didn't listen. Leave your country, listen to that part. You see, it's very common throughout scripture for people to obey half of God's commandments. They'll believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they won't get baptized.

Or they'll come out of Egypt, but they won't go to Canaan. And there are numerous cases like this. The Lord told Abraham, give up your land and give up your relatives. He gives up his land, but not his relatives.

And they become the cause of the problem. You look into your life, you may see a lot of problems come because you obeyed one thing and you didn't obey the other. The numerous husbands and wives who suffer because God tells the husband, leave your father and mother and leave to your wife.

The last verse of Genesis 2, God tells the wife in Psalm 45, 10, forget your father's house. Well, one or the other don't obey, they don't have a very happy marriage. That is true universally. So it's like that.

You know, they think they know better than God, and Abraham probably thought, okay, I know better than God, but he didn't leave his father's house. He left his country, but he didn't leave his father's house.

He took his dad along with him. The Lord said, you've got to leave all that if you want to follow me. Even today you find, you know, Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, you've got to hate your father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children.

And I'll tell you, through many, many years, I've discovered the fundamental reason why many people don't become disciples of Jesus is they've got some attachment to some earthly relative who means more to them than Christ, whose word means more to them than Christ's word.

So they're never disciples. They always wonder why they don't make progress because they've got one leg tied back to somebody on earth. That's what happened to Abraham. Anyway, God did something radical.

Breaking Free to Become a Blessing

And listen, here is Abraham's blessing now. When you fulfill this, it's like I said the other day, you get rid of this wretched chameleon or lizard sitting on your shoulder and throw it down, it becomes a horse, a steed on which you can drive, ride.

And so when he, the Lord said, if you break free from your relatives and break free from your family, you know what I'm going to do for you? I'm going to bless you. And this is the Abraham's blessing.

Now listen to this. In verse two, it's all there together. I will bless you and you will be a blessing. Basically that's it in one sentence, two parts. I will bless you and you'll be a blessing and all the families of the earth, verse three, will be blessed through you.

From Cursed to a Blessing for Others

Now there's certain other things he told him about. He will curse those who curse them, which, you know, in Jesus, that's under the law for the Jews. But it doesn't apply to us because there's no curse on us and we don't put a curse on anybody else either.

Jesus said, bless those who curse you. We don't curse anybody. So that part doesn't apply to us. We're talking about the blessing. The blessing is, I will bless you and you will be a blessing to everyone.

You see, in fact, that's one of the promises the Lord gave Israel towards the end of the Old Testament in Zechariah chapter eight. The Lord told Israel in Zechariah eight and verse 13. That's a lovely promise.

And it will come about that just as you were a curse among the nations, so now you will become a blessing. I will save you and you'll become a blessing. Don't fear. Let your hands be strong. So that's a promise we can take ourselves.

The “I Will” of the New Covenant

I mean, if you've been a nuisance and a curse to other people in your past life, the Lord says I can change all that. Now the thing I want you to notice in Genesis 12, you remember in our last study on Sunday, I mentioned how the old covenant was, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not.

And now the new covenant, God says, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. Now notice how it is with Abraham's blessing, Genesis 12. There's nothing of thou shalt, there's nothing of you have to do this or you shall do this.

It's almost like before God gave the old covenant in Exodus, he gave a glimpse of the new covenant in Abraham. But he told Abraham, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will bless those who bless you and, and you will become a blessing, not you should.

You know, there's a difference between you will becoming a blessing and you should becoming a blessing. Some people, they feel God said you should be a blessing to others and so they try to be a blessing.

Have you ever tried to be a blessing to other people and you don't realize what a nuisance you are. If you go and ask those other people to whom you are trying to be a blessing, they say, hey listen, please don't try to be a blessing to me.

You tried to be a blessing to me last month and I know what happened. Thanks.