Anyone Can Be Blessed [Part 2]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. So we can fall under condemnation by the works of our flesh, but we can also fall under condemnation if we make faith into a work.

And it's like there's these twin dangers. And so it's real important to understand what is this faith that Abraham's a man of faith? What was it that he believed? And what is faith? What is this all about? And Paul is saying if you want to understand this, look at Abraham. 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 Galatians as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. Go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. They had a sense of false assurance, the Jewish people, that because we are sons of Abraham, that therefore we are the blessed ones. And what Paul is making here is a point that is so huge and has such unbelievable ramifications that the Jews became absolutely furious at Jesus about this and were embroiled in this battle with Paul. Abraham is mentioned in Matthew's gospel in this very simple way.

It opens with this. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So Matthew starts by saying if you want to understand who Jesus is, he's the son of David who's the son of Abraham. Jesus is the son, the son of Abraham. In Luke chapter 19, Jesus equates being a son of Abraham with being a Christian, with being saved. Jesus said to Zacchaeus, today salvation has come to this house since he is also a son of Abraham, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost. In John chapter 8, there's a really intriguing dialogue between Jewish leaders and Jesus that revolves around Jesus and Abraham. I want to read a little portion of this sometime later. Spend some time studying this.

This is an important, important text. In John 8, the Jews said to Jesus, are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? They were calling Jesus a demonized Samaritan. It was the lowest thing that they could think of to say to him because the Jews despised the Samaritans, considering them a half-breed and heretics.

And in addition, we're saying that you're not motivated by heavenly purposes by God, but you're motivated and you're the instrument of hell. So they couldn't say anything more disrespectful than you are a demonized Samaritan. And Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. And when Jesus said that, by the way, He is appealing to what is potentially the most powerful societal force in ancient and still in eastern cultures, and that is honor and dishonor. And he said, you are dishonoring me.

He's making a huge statement. Yet, I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. And the Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death. And this is what they say, are you greater than our father Abraham who died?

Who do you make yourself out to be? And I'm reading this text so that you'll understand that the Jewish mentality was that when they were up against Jesus and he said, those that follow me, believe me, and whose lives reflect that, they're not going to taste death. And he's speaking spiritually, but when they hear this and the Jews, their only way of refuting him is to make their appeal to what they considered the greatest person, their father Abraham. They couldn't think of anyone greater to whom to compare Jesus. Are you greater than our father Abraham?

This is the way they thought, you see. And Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me of whom you say he is our God. But you have not known him. I know him.

If I were to say that I do not know him, I'd be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. This is where Jesus addresses the whole issue of Abraham. He says, your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.

He saw it and was glad. I don't know what Jesus is saying there, but Jesus knows something that we don't know about Abraham from the story of Genesis. We know that Abraham saw something in faith, and we don't know from Genesis exactly what he saw, but Jesus who was there with Abraham, even as he was at that moment with the Jewish leaders, he is saying Abraham saw ahead to this day somehow in faith and he rejoiced in it. There was a joy that was in the heart of Abraham over this very moment. And the irony is that the religious leaders, you guys, you are comparing me to Abraham, and yet Abraham saw this day and he rejoiced in it. Abraham rejoiced in the fact that the Messiah would come. Abraham rejoiced in the fact of the salvation of God through grace. He's saying this. Somehow he saw this. And the Jews said to him, you are not 50 years old yet and you have seen Abraham?

You're like just taking it literally. Abraham was 2,000 years ago. What do you mean you've seen Abraham? And Jesus answered them. Jesus said, truly, truly, amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. And when he said that, before Abraham was, I am, they knew he had just announced that he saw himself as God because this is the covenantal name of God, I am who I am. Before Abraham was, I am.

And they picked up stones and sought to kill him over the accusation of blasphemy. This is how important Abraham was in the Jewish consciousness. It made it sheer genius that Paul moved his argument forward by speaking of what it means to be a son of Abraham. Abraham is called by Paul the man of faith.

Here is the challenge. I don't know about others, but I feel like there have been twin struggles in my life of increasing growth in Christ, the process of sanctification, of growing up in the Lord. And one challenge is the tendency to move towards a self-improvement plan. We know that we reap what we sow. We know and we'll see later in Galatians, if you sow into the things of the Spirit, you'll reap from the Spirit. And so our spiritual disciplines and the things that we do in our life and how we spend our time and what we look at and what we listen to and what we read and what we think about are very important to how we grow up in Christ.

But it's on a slippery slope as soon as I say, though, that my sanctification in some way depends upon what I do because we can very quickly turn it into a self-improvement plan. And so on the one hand, I, like so many Christians, have tendencies towards that performance mentality. But there's another side of this that battles with it that says, no, it's by grace through faith. And without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so it's your faith that God cares about. And we've all heard the message come at us in some different way but presented as, if you want to be blessed, then have more faith. And so sometimes you're sick.

You say, well, maybe I'm not... Why are you not well? Because you don't have enough faith. And we can make faith become a work. So we can fall under condemnation by the works of our flesh, but we can also fall under condemnation if we make faith into a work.

And it's like there's these twin dangers. And so it's real important to understand what is this faith, that Abraham's a man of faith. What was it that he believed? And what is faith?

What is this all about? And Paul is saying, if you want to understand this, look at Abraham. So go back to two texts with me in the opening book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 12, and then in Genesis chapter 15 where we get the call of Abram. Abram lived in the powerful ancient city of Ur. We don't know much about his history. It's almost as if God left out the history of Abram to make this point that the call of Abram is not about who Abram was. He was Abram, then his name became Abraham.

It's not about who Abram was. It's about who God is. It is about the act of God to make a people where there was no people. It's about the act of God to choose a man to bless. And through the man that he chooses to bless, then to bless all the world. That's what the story's about. So we don't get much history about Abram.

He's called up out of the Ur of the Chaldees. And in Genesis chapter 12, the word of the Lord comes to Abraham. And here's what we get in verse 1. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. It's a good practice when you're studying a passage, a text. It's good to study texts in their context but also as a section of scripture that seems to go together. And so when you look at a text like this where clearly verses 2 through 3 are a text here about the blessing that God speaks and is called Abram. And one of the things that's a good study practice is to first look and just circle or highlight or make note of the words that are repeated. Because often the freighted words are lifting out the central meaning of that text.

So it's one of the first things I would always do. Look and say what are the words that carry the weight here? And if you look in these two verses it's very clear what these verses are all about. It's about blessing.

That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Imagine for 99 days in a row someone tells you I love you, I'll never forsake you. Wouldn't you feel cherished? But what would happen if on the hundredth day that same person said, I'm not sure you're good enough for me. If you don't measure up I don't think I'll love you anymore.

Wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days? Wouldn't one percent of conditional love poison the other 99 percent? Well just one percent of law is enough to spoil grace. The tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear.

What if I don't measure up, when might I be rejected? When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church the Apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law. Alan Wright's 12 message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace. It's called Galatians and that's the gospel.

Discover the purity and power of the grace of God. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so you'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. It's bless and blessing and bless and bless and blessed in these two verses. So what is the call of Abram all about? It is about the announcement of his blessedness.

Look at chapter 15. Abram is given this unilateral covenantal promise but he like all of us wants reassurance. And so at chapter 15 you see the Lord come to Abram in a vision at verse 1.

Fear not Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, Abram said, Oh Lord God what will you give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold you've given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold the word of the Lord came to him, This man, speaking of Eliezer, shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. And then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

He took him out and he said, Look up at the stars. See if you can count them. Well you can't count them.

He couldn't count them in his day and we can't count them with a Hubble telescope. There are too many hundreds and hundreds of billions and too many galaxies. The point being, here's what I want you to believe.

I want you to look up and count the uncountable. I want you to believe and know the unknowable. I want you to believe that you are so blessed that at any given point in your life that that blessing is above and beyond what you could ask or think.

That's what I want you to know. The whole essence of what biblical faith is when we talk about having faith is mirrored in the call of Abram. What it means to believe is to have faith to believe that God through Jesus Christ has blessed you in a way that is above and beyond what you could ask, imagine or think and that at any moment any day whether on the mountaintop or in the valley that at any moment in your life the definition of your life in Christ Jesus is that you are blessed beyond your imagination. That's what it means to have faith. What it means to have faith is that you believe the promise that through Jesus Christ you are infinitely blessed not according to your merit but according to the merit of Jesus.

Not according to your performance but according to the grace of God. The whole story of Abram was about a God of grace who looked down into a sinful world and began unveiling his redemptive plan by calling forth one man and making him the father of a great people and blessing him in ways that Abram never could have fully understand. But somehow Jesus said in John 8 that Abram saw the day that was coming and he had joy in his heart. That what happens when you have faith is that there is joy in your heart over the simple truth that God has blessed us so richly.

The definition therefore of your life beloved is you are the holy ones blessed and favored of God. Believe that. Believe that. What's your work as a Christian? Believing that. Fighting off everything that comes against it. Doing a spiritual battle. Putting on the armor every day. Doing everything it takes to believe that and don't let anybody take it from you. Faith.

That's what pleases God. Because He's your Father. And any of us who have been dads, if you ever heard it coming out of your child, self condemnation. If you ever hear your child talking about I stink at this.

I'm no good at this. My life's a mess. If you ever see your child pursuing a path that is not worthy of their value. If you ever see your child headed down rebellion's path and you look at how precious their life is it breaks your heart. What you want your child to believe is how blessed they actually are. It's reminiscent of the call of Abraham is reminiscent of the beginning. Because in Genesis chapter 1 the very first interaction of God with humanity is He blessed them. And He said be fruitful.

Multiply and have dominion. And in the Galatian province the Judaizers were trying to reverse the order. They were saying if you'll get circumcised you'll be more blessed. Obedience does not produce God's love. God's love produces obedience. The problem of humanity from one point of view is the lack of belief in blessedness in God. In one way of looking at it isn't this the way sin got into the world? Adam and Eve had unlimited fellowship with God and lived in paradise and there was no good thing that God wanted to withhold from them or would withhold from them according to God's good pleasure and grace. What was the means of the serpent's temptation? It was essentially to say I notice that there's one tree that you can't eat from.

Looks good to me. Looks like maybe you're missing out on a blessing. Maybe God is withholding some blessing from you because you're something that you need to do. You need to go eat that fruit or that tree and you'll be more blessed.

As soon as there is an idea that you're not fully blessed it opens the door to the tempter's snare. And this pattern continues on through the story of the whole old covenant because what happens is that then the first brothers Cain and Abel bring offerings to the Lord and the Lord affirms Abel's offering but not Cain's. He doesn't say to Cain I reject you and you're not mine and you'll never be mine. He doesn't say to Cain that you're under condemnation. He just affirmed Abel's offering. But Cain assumed himself unblessed and of the assumption of un-blessedness and the assumption that his brother was more blessed a fury rose up within him, a murderous spirit and he killed his brother. And God said what have you done? Your brother's blood, Abel's blood cries out to me.

A pattern. Jacob. The irony of the whole story of Jacob is that there was a prophetic word that Jacob, though he would be the younger would be the one who would be blessed as if he were in the position of the older and yet Jacob never believed himself blessed and so he's always grabbing at it, always deceiving, always striving, always conniving. People who believe themselves un-blessed have strife in their heart and angst in their souls because you're trying to get yourself into a position of being blessed.

How can you ever be at peace if you're trying to get yourself into a position of being blessed? And the irony of Jacob's story is that all the while that he was striving it had already been announced that he was the blessed one. And this just lives on because the brothers of Joseph, all of Jacob's sons, they look at Joseph and say he's blessed. We're not blessed. We're the blessing that we want from our fathers and considering themselves un-blessed they seek to kill their brother Joseph.

Allen Wright. In today's teaching, anyone can be blessed. It's part of a three-part teaching series on this topic in the series, Greater Series of Galatians. And Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Allen Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Allen Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at pastorallen.org. Imagine for 99 days in a row someone tells you, I love you. I'll never forsake you. Wouldn't you feel cherished? But what would happen if on the hundredth day that same person said, I'm not sure you're good enough for me. If you don't measure up, I don't think I'll love you anymore.

Wouldn't that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days? Wouldn't one percent of conditional love poison the other 99 percent? Well, just one percent of law is enough to spoil grace. The tiniest bit of law can introduce an unlimited capacity for fear. What if I don't measure up?

When might I be rejected? When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church, the apostle Paul was outraged and wrote a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of law. Allen Wright's 12-message audio series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free and empower you with pure grace. It's called Galatians, and that's the gospel.

Discover the purity and power of the grace of God. When you make your gift to Allen Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Allen, as we place a bookmark here, anyone can be blessed. Now, are there hoops to jump through here?

Have I gotta go through a checklist? You don't seem to be that kind of a preacher. That's right. Well, it is interesting, Daniel, that it seems like that a lot of my Christian life, I almost believe exactly the opposite, that only certain special people could be blessed. And what we're learning today as we bring this program to a close is that a lot of the issue of faith versus doubt or unbelief is around this issue, can I be blessed?

And that's what we're learning. The doubt of our blessedness has caused so many problems, whether it's Adam and Eve wondering if they're really blessed since they are not allowed to eat of that one tree, or Jacob who thinks himself unblessed, or Joseph's brothers. But that when you see faith, it really is about believing our blessedness. And it is a powerful thing to discover that not only you can be blessed in Christ, but when you are in Christ, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.