January 29, 2017
Morning Worship
Text: Galatians 3:14
Subject: The Blessing of Abraham
Title: Redeemed to Receive the Holy Spirit
WE have spent the last eight weeks in a series that we called “Redeemed” and the focus of the series has been to raise your faith level to the point where you can fully understand who you are “in Christ” and to “forgot not all His benefits”…
Galatians 3:7-9 (NKJV)
7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed."
9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
I believe with all my heart that the bible teaches us that it is God’s desire that those who know Him be blessed. Now you can define blessing any way you want. Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms… So if you want to you can limit the blessings to being blessed spiritually and you won’t be any worse off for it.
But I believe that we are intended to receive blessings from the Lord as the church of Jesus Christ. Physical health, power and authority, the fulfillment of our needs and even God’s blessing on our finances, our businesses, our families, our work places, and potentially every decision we make for our future…
Now, having said all that, I will say this: Though all these blessings are real for us there is more to it than just recognizing the promise and then claiming it as your own. You have a responsibility to live out a prescribed course of action for your life if you are ever to have the confidence and the faith to receive from the Lord.
Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJV)
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"),
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
I will appropriate it to my life today…
Verse 14 is the key to everything that we have spoken of for the last two months.
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
The key thing to see here…
The blessings only come through your receiving the promise of the Spirit. Understanding this equates our relationship with the Father as the same as that of Abraham.
Paul, in writing to the church in Rome about Abraham,
Romans 4:18-22 (NKJV)
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be."
19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
22 And therefore "it was accounted to him for righteousness."
So if we are going to receive the blessing of Abraham through the promise of the Spirit, it must come to us how? – By faith! And that must be faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ. Oh can you see that? It doesn’t matter how good you are, or how highly esteemed you are in this world, you can never be good enough to earn favor with God. It is only through faith in Jesus that you receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
Not by church membership…
Not by baptism…
Not because of your denomination…
Only through faith in Christ!
Back in Deuteronomy 28 we saw the list of all the blessings that God wanted to pour out on His people, and yet there was one prerequisite that accompanied the blessing… They had to be obedient to the Word of God. And under the New Covenant that obedience only comes through meeting the requirements of faith. We trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That is what makes us Abraham’s descendants.
Now, let’s take this a step further. We understand that there are two separate acts of grace concerning the Holy Spirit that are mentioned in the scriptures. The first is what we already talked about – salvation – trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
The second is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And this is where I really wanted to get us to this morning.
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
We have to equate the Promise of the spirit with what Luke says about it…
Luke 24:49 (NIV2011)
49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Luke 24:49 (NKJV)
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."
If you connect Galatians 3:14 with this verse from Luke it becomes evident that the blessing and the promise is connected with power!
Oh come on. You know the verses about this!
Acts 1:8 (NKJV)
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
I’m trying to lay this out for you in as logical a way as I can to help you make the connection. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is about power, but there is something else connected to it. You will become witnesses. You will speak to others about the work of Christ. Do you see it? Your speaking – using your mouth, your vocal chords, your tongue, and your lips – to allow spiritual power to flow out of you. Isn’t that the Pentecostal Message?
Acts 2:4 (NKJV)
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Ephesians 5:18-20 (NKJV)
18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Acts 19:1-6 (NKJV)
1 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples
2 he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" So they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit."
3 And he said to them, "Into what then were you baptized?" So they said, "Into John's baptism."
4 Then Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus."
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
Now, the reason I am referring to tongues is that when you receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, tongues just don’t happen. You surrender yourself totally to the will of God and allow your voice, your lips, and your tongue to be used by the Spirit.
Are you with me so far? Remember, we are making the connection with the blessing, the power, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
What the baptism in the Holy Spirit does is to give you power to connect the spiritual with the natural and as we see in the book of Acts it involves speaking. Praying in the Spirit – using your mouth – brings the natural man into the spirit realm. When we speak in tongues what happens?
1 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)
11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Can you see this? When we pray in tongues it is the Holy Spirit praying through us. We are praying the very words of God. What we say in the Spirit, even though we do not understand, is God, the Spirit, speaking exactly what He wants. But do you see the connection? It is our mouth speaking the words…
Romans 8:25-27 (NKJV)
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Galatians 5:25 (NKJV)
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Now I want you to listen to this. If in all the other sermons in this series you ever got to the point where you thought that all you have to do to receive the blessings of God is to just look for a promise in the bible and then claim it as your own and then you would receive it, you have misunderstood the purpose of the sermons. The purpose has been to get you to the place where your faith is built up so that in the Spirit you can claim what is yours, by faith.
Do you see what I am talking about? You can look up verses and claim them as your own, but if the Spirit is not testifying with your spirit about those things then they are just words you are speaking. Oh but if, in the Spirit, you know that the Lord has something for you, that is faith, for faith comes from the spirit man and not from the mind.
Now, if in the Spirit, we speak words in other tongues, and we are sure that according to the Word of God these very words are given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have confidence that whatever we have asked for is ours. Can you see where faith comes into play?
So if by the Spirit we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that we are saved, then by the same Spirit should we not confess with our mouths that by His stripes we are healed and believe in our hearts that what He has promised He is able to perform?
Let’s take it to just a little different level. In John 1:1 we see that in the beginning was the word… That word was Jesus. Word is the Greek logos. If we confess with our mouths the logos and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we are saved.
The same word in the Greek also is used in reference to the bible – the Word of God.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 (NKJV)
13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
Believe = pisteuo (pist-yoo'-o) v.
1. to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing)
Now here is where I want us to be as we finish this series about the blessings of Abraham…
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"),
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
If in the power of the Spirit, you can open your mouth to speak in tongues and believe that these are words from the heart of God, then shouldn’t you also believe that when you open your mouth to speak a promise directly from scriptures that those words are also from the heart of God? If it is God’s word, then isn’t it also His will?
1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV)
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
This message of faith that I preach, that if God’s word says it has already been accomplished then by faith I am going to confess it and receive it, is the fullness of the church, the body of Christ, that He has called us to be.
So let’s finish this up with this:
1. The blessing is connected to the promise…
2. The promise is connected to the baptism in the Holy Spirit…
3. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is evidenced by speaking in other tongues…
4. Confessing with your mouth in agreement with what the Spirit is saying opens the door for the blessing.
So today I want to invite everyone to consider this…
If you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit with power or refilled with the Spirit I want to invite you to come forward… this is the beginning of the blessing. As you come forward I would ask that you just divide up into groups of 3 or 4 and begin praying for one another that the Lord would do what His word says He will do… endue you with power from on high.
Also, if you have any need in your life, would you step out in faith and we will pray under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and in agreement with His word for you to receive your need today?
John 14:13-14 (NKJV)
13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
