Creflo Dollar - God's Ways vs. Man's Ways - Part 3
Let's look at something here. Romans chapter 12 and verse 1. Romans 12 and verse 1. "If it has pleased God to be careful to appeal for godly living because his own work of grace, it's not necessary as a duty or responsibility for believers to do likewise". I saw myself sitting down here and talking you through what I just said. It went over my head, it's something that I'm like, "Okay, now". "If it has pleased God, to be careful to make an appeal for godly living," and he makes that appeal because of his own work of grace, "Is it not necessary as a duty or a responsibility, but by his grace". Shouldn't the believers do the same thing God just did? Live a godly life based on my work of grace, not based on your duty or responsibility.
Well, shouldn't every believer say, "I am gonna live a godly life based on his grace and mercy, and not as a duty or a responsibility? I'm gonna live a godly life based on his grace and mercy, and not as my church responsibility as a good Baptist. I'm gonna go and sin no more because he forgave me, because he didn't condemn me and I'm gonna do it, not because I'm gonna do it as a duty, not because I'm gonna do it as a responsibility, but he did what he did based on grace and mercy, and I'm gonna live godly based on grace and mercy". Quit making it your duty and allow the love that you've received to flow out of you and say, "I do this 'cause I'm in love with someone who did not condemn me when I should have been condemned". You got that? Years of careful observation by many people, by all of you. What it shows and reveals is the common practice of using God's appeals, but entirely neglecting his work of grace as the basis for those appeals. Living a godly life.
We preach that but we do not bring into focus, look at this, go to Romans chapter 12 verse 1. Look at this. He said in verse 1, and here's what we hear, "Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service". That's the appeal. But you completely skip what he provided at the beginning. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, present your body as a living sacrifice". "Present your body as a living sacrifice". How? By the mercies of God. By the mercies of God present your body as a living sacrifice. By the mercy and grace of God do this, live holy, live an acceptable life unto God. By the mercy of God do it, not by your duty and even not by your responsibility, but by his mercy, I present my body to God. And you can tell that good looking woman, you look good, but you're not good enough for my salvation 'cause I know somebody who loves me more than you ever will be able to love me, and I choose him.
Now you're in a want to place. I want to. I want to. I want to say, "No," to this, I want to say, "No," to that. I don't wanna do this thing because everybody's doing, I understand everybody's doing it, and I know it's a lot of fun 'cause I used to do it but he has moved on the inside of me, he has rearranged my furniture. The couch used to be here, but it's in the garage right now. I don't know what he's done, but I just don't want that no more because I've encountered a love and a mercy that blows my mind, I can't even figure it all out, and I want to. That's where he's wanting us to get to. He wanting us to get to the place where we're living the life as a Christian, not 'cause we have to or we'll get burned up in hell, but his mercy and his grace compels us.
I want you, God. I want you not because I'm gonna go to hell if I don't serve you, I want to serve you. You blow my mind, you forgive me when I wouldn't even forgive myself. How many of you have ever been to a thing or whatever in your life and God was like, "Son, I've already forgiven you, I need you to forgive you". And a lot of you sitting here right now, you need to look in the mirror every day and you need to look at yourself in the mirror and you need to say, "I forgive you". I know it sounds dumb, but something weird happens when you look in the mirror at yourself and you're talking to yourself and looking at your reflection and you say to yourself, "I forgive you".
And then he starts working in you. And I can't explain, I don't have the intricate details of how he does this, but he gets to changing your desires and replacing those desires and you're not afraid to do this thing, because you're no longer approval addicted, you're not concerned about what everybody else is thinking because you're just so into him. You've never met nobody like this before, you thought you had good religion, it turned out to be kinda sour. And you're realizing, I know him, I know him intimately, I know him personally. His mercy is blowing my mind. The bad that I should get I don't get, the good that I don't deserve I get. I got to get to know him more, I want him, I want him, I want him. I don't look outside to see if it's raining before I come to church. I got to get to church because I wanna join others in his presence, and I wanna praise him and I wanna shout unto God, and I wanna serve him.
And when I leave home, there's not a big temptation no more, the temptation become a teeny weeny temptation, because his love and mercy is so bigger than the temptation. I wanna live for him, I wanna live for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. See some of y'all, you have... some of y'all know what he talking about. You been there, you know what he talking about. Mike, you know what he talking about, don't you? You know what he's talking about. Yeah, I'm good. Let him preach to me. I'm receiving this. Yeah, testify, brother, testify, I'm good. A clear presentation of the mercies of God as a basis for the appeal is really heard. "Present your body as a living sacrifice". We hear that one. "But I beseech you by the mercies of God," to do this not as a duty, not as a responsibility, but by the mercy of God.
If in presenting your body as a living sacrifice, if something were to go wrong, there's mercy there. So the wrong you did, you don't get, the wrong you deserve, you don't get 'cause it's a journey. And yet, the Holy Spirit caused eight chapters coming to Romans to be devoted to telling us of his mercy before he calls the appeal to be made. The same is true of all of God's appeals, mercy and grace. So most Christians consider God's appeal for life, pleasing unto himself entirely apart from the particular work of grace to which he relates each appeal. This at least partly explains the present low spiritual level on which most believers live. God's appeal have no force when his mercy and grace are ignored.
And we see the spiritual level today, it's low because we got all these things we're telling people they supposed to do without explaining to them there's safety in the appeal. There's safety in the appeal. Man, as God's way of mercy and grace are omitted, this is why you can't do it no more. To omit his mercy and grace, it is natural that man's ways of contributing something to earn God's favor, his grace and his mercy all of a sudden now we substitute the grace and the mercy that we omit, and then we put in its place our works to try to get it. What we got to do to try to earn it. We replace his mercy and grace with our self-dependence of all the things that we can do. We replace his mercy and grace with our contributions of how God gonna be good to us.
And as God's basis of mercy and grace, his works of grace for an appeal are disregarded, the service that follows is often done in dependence of yourself. Man, now listen to this. That is so true. Go to John 3:17, but before you go to John 3:17, and I hope I can say this again. When God gave the law, the law and man's way go hand in hand. You didn't get that. Man says, "You got to do this in order to get that". Very today, our whole society says that. So does the law. The law that came by Moses says the same thing. "If you do this, then you'll get that". It came from a divine plane to a human plane. So did God, God came from a divine plane in Jesus to a human plane. Like, why? So that I can take the human from the human plane to the divine plane so he can see my mercy and my grace. That's man's way of doing it, the law is man's way of doing it. But grace is what God does. Grace is not what I do, grace is not what you do, grace is what God does.
Now, while God is very concerned about keeping the lives of his people free from worldly things, his approach is way different from condemnation. Jesus said in John 3:17, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved," but it's not gonna be saved through condemning them. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Y'all know where I gotta go, right? He didn't send Jesus to condemn the world 'cause you can't get saved from condemning the world. That's why that woman who was caught in an act of adultery, she can't stop sinning through condemnation. And we're still condemning people when they come to church and thinking they gonna change through condemnation. Nobody changes through condemnation. Not for the better that is, they may change for the worst but nobody can, it ain't gonna do you no good for you to condemn sinners that come to your church. You do understand that, right?
Nobody, they're not gonna change. A drug addict is not gonna change. Somebody's struggling with their sexuality not gonna change 'cause you decided to condemn them and then get a big amen from the church. That's not gonna change 'em, they're just not gonna come no more. 'Cause nobody is going to change through condemnation. I don't care what you think about it. "Well, I'll tell you what, I just don't believe you ought to live like that". Yeah, but you still ain't gonna change. God knows how through his mercy and grace to change how people live. But you're trying to rest the thing. And you don't know how deep that thing is that caused them to live the way they live. You don't even know what they have gone through, the hell that put them in that situation requires some mercy and grace to get 'em out of that situation, not condemning.
Oh God, Taffi, what was that you were saying the other day? And it may be off time to say this. It was just so good, my wife has just been, oh my God, that was so good, I never ever thought about it. She said, "We put so much attention on the married life that we have failed the single life". In the church. We put so much emphasis, almost like we're trying to get somebody to give us a blow pop because we got married. Oh, we're married. And the whole thing was like, you know, go to school, graduate, get married, and I can attest to this, I felt like I couldn't even enter into ministry, I had to get married first in order to enter into ministry 'cause you don't dare go into ministry as a single person.
Being single is where you learn how to live a godly life with the mercy of God. And if you learn how to live the godly life by the mercy of God when you're single, then when you get married, then two whole married people and got to hear so much about marriage 'cause they learned how to live a life under his mercy and grace when they were single. We treated marriage like it was a solution to all the problems you have in your singleness. And then you get married with that and we should've been encouraging you, Taffi and I wasn't supposed to be no married at no 20 something years old, we ain't know nothing.
So I encourage these kids, they come to me at 22. "Well, what do you think I need to do now"? You need to learn about your singleness, you need to discover who you really are. You need to see what you really got. See what you do in the middle of some pressure situations, don't be going into marriage and you don't know how you gonna act with another single woman.
Don't find that out after you say, "I do". But nobody felt safe doing that 'cause I'm like, I didn't know... if I'd have known that there was some mercy and grace there, but I thought getting married was gonna rescue me. You were told that you were not gonna be whole until you found your other half. That should've let you know something was wrong there. If you need another half and you were half, then you're a half a man and a half a woman. You're supposed to be a whole man and a whole woman getting married and then you got a whole marriage but we should have been preaching to you, developing wholeness in your singleness.