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Watch 2022-2023 online sermons » Creflo Dollar » Creflo Dollar - Three Aspects of Grace - Part 2

Creflo Dollar - Three Aspects of Grace - Part 2


Creflo Dollar - Three Aspects of Grace - Part 2
TOPICS: Grace

If you are going through a trial, it is to bring to your attention your self-dependence. That somehow in your life you are depending on you rather than depending on God, and God is committed to make sure there are some trials that will be used to burn away self-dependence to finally bring you to a place where you can totally depend on him. That's the purpose for trials. So, don't complain and don't get all soft and weird, you know, "God'll help me". No, no, no, no, no. He helping you through that trial you're going through. So don't murmur, don't get upset and mumble through the trial. Just listen. God's trying to show me something. I must be declaring my dependence on myself somewhere.

Why did Peter have to go through what Peter had to go through? Because Jesus was trying to show him, "Peter, you know, you have too much dependence on yourself". "No, I don't, Lord, but I ain't gonna let you die and I'm not gonna do this," and he said, "You know what, dude? It ain't gonna be from longer right now, you gonna deny you even know me". Peter went from revelation knowledge of who Jesus was to denying who Jesus was. Trial came, burned it off. Now he depends completely on God. And I know that's a big thing now, 'cause you give yourself too much credit. You got a education, you got a degree, you got some money.

You know some important people. In fact, now you think you important. And the worst thing you can do is convince yourself that you important. That's the worst thing you can do is to go around, look in the mirror and talk, and look at yourself like you important. You're not. And it's gonna take a trial to help you get rid of that, 'cause God can sure let you know you ain't important. You're a little high-strung and he know how to bring you down. Somebody, say, "Well, where's the grace at"?

There's the grace right there. He loves you so much he's saving you from yourself by delivering you from yourself. He trying to tell you you're too important but you ain't listening to him. But you will listen to a hard time. You'll listen to when that money ain't coming through. You'll listen to when you lost that job. You'll listen to your wife getting tired of you talking that way and she says, "Freddy, I want a divorce right now". And all of a sudden, you're like, "Lord, what's going on"? He say, "Go... it with your important self"? God knows how to deal with everybody in this room. And you can play all the church games you wanna play, but God know you. God knows you like nobody knows you. God knows you better than you know yourself.

You might as well get honest with you, quit lying to yourself. "Lord, I ain't prideful". He like, "Yes, you are". "No, I'm not". Who are you talking to? You're talking to... who are you talking to? He in there. He know you. He been knowing you. He know you in a booth, the back, the corner, in the dark. He know you. And if he tell you you prideful, don't deny it. Just say, "Lord, help me. Show it to me, show me what I need to do. Show me how to get out of this situation". I know the situation where I got so stressed out that my face felt like it was turning and I was gonna get that Bell palsy 'cause I've just had all this stuff going on. And I'm going to the Lord for the help.

That's the thing to do: go to the Lord, "Help me. O Lord, help me". He said, "You weren't supposed to be there in the first place". By there, he means you set boundaries. "Why are you over the fence? I told you not to deal with that. Why you deal with it? Oh, that's easy. Get back over the fence. Get on your side of the fence. Get on your side of the fence, do like Taffi say". He always on Taffi's side. Always on Taffi's side. I asked him one time, I'm like, "Why you always on Taffi's side"? "'Cause she always on my side". I said, "Well, where am I"? He said, "In the center of the circle, yours". God'll help you, and the Bible says, you know, you don't need these trials to come. He says it comes "if it need be". And I'm constantly going for God like this, "And Lord, I don't wanna have, I don't want none of that 'need be.'" Say, "I wanna volunteer to work with you. What I need to do? Get back on the side? Oh, let me hop back over here. What else I need to do, Lord"? 'Cause the Lord be bringing them "need be" things, kind of. You're like, "Oh no".

Everybody understand that? Say out loud, "I'm right with God. I'm pure and holy. And I'm forgiven of sin right now, right where I sit. I am". All right, so now, let's deal with this first part. By grace of standing before God. So grace is what provides that right posture. You know, you can't have a wrong posture. When the Bible's removed the anointing and Isaiah describes it as removing the yoke around the neck and taking the burdens off the shoulders. Now, imagine the posture of a person who has the yoke around their neck and the burden on their shoulders. They're walking like this. But he said, "I'll come to remove the burden," make you stand up straight, "and I'll destroy the yoke". It completely destroys that old posture. So God knew the first thing I gotta do in order for them to receive from grace is I've got to get them in the right posture.

So the first work of grace provides a standing before God. So this is fully accomplished the moment a sinner believes on Jesus as the one who satisfies on his behalf the demands of God's justice. You believe the guy who has satisfied God's justice. Now, things that constitute believers' standing are gonna be accomplished by his grace. The things that constitutes a believer's standing's gonna be accomplished by his grace. Now, let me show you what I'm talking about. Look at Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7. I'm gonna show you three or four Scriptures on this to see it. To me, I thought, "Well, this sounds elementary". You gotta be careful about how it sounds. It's one of those things that sound easy, but may be the biggest challenge to this grace walk.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7, in the NLT. All right, now check this out. He says, "He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son," watch this, "and forgave our sins". So, listen, by grace I am free and forgiven of sins. He purchased that with his blood. I am already free. Say, "I'm free". I am already forgiven of sins. Say, "I'm forgiven". Okay, so that standard now, that standing, was accomplished by his grace. By grace I am free. By grace I have been forgiving. That standing I have because of his grace. Here's the second part: Romans 3:24 in the NLT. Romans 3:24. And I'm being repetitive on this. We heard so many other things repetitive that we say 'em and they're wrong but we've heard 'em so much, it's gonna require me saying stuff over and over again so you can get rid of so much or you can start getting rid all of that wrong stuff. He says, "Yet God in his grace," God in his grace, freely makes us what? Right in his sight. "He did this through Jesus Christ when he freed us from the penalty for our sins".

So notice, I am righteous. I am right in his sight. How did that come? That came through his grace. I am right in his sight. That's my posture. That's my standing. How did it come? Was it something that I earned? Was it something that I worked for? Was it something that I deserved? No, it's something that I've received by faith. I am righteous through his grace. Here's the third one. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, verse 21 and 22 in the NLT. Now watch this. Here's a whole list here. He says, "This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions". Verse 22: "Yet now he has reconciled you". Say "I'm reconciled".

See, my posture is I'm reconciled. I have been restored back to friendship with God. The enmity has ended between God and man because of his sins. I am standing restored back to God. That means God is not made at me. "Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault". So, what has been accomplished through his grace? I'm reconciled. God's not mad at me. God's not gonna try to get me. You know, people, "God gonna get you. God don't like ugly. He gonna get you". And, ain't you tired of hear, aren't you tired, ain't you tired, "God gonna get you. He gonna get you. God don't like ugly". Honey, if God was gonna get me as many times you gonna tell me he was gonna get me, I'd have been got right now. But he's not. Why? 'Cause you've been reconciled back to God, watch this, you have also been, by his grace, put in his presence.

Do you realize that God's presence is with you all the time? Now that you're saved, his presence is with you. It is not because you feel something, whether you feel something or not. That's why Taffi said, "We gotta do things by faith, because it's not based on you feeling something". Somebody says, "Ooh, I had chill bumps when I was praying this morning. Ooh, I know God heard my prayer this morning 'cause I had chill bumps". Listen, you've got to get to the point where you don't have no chill bumps and you still know God was with you when you was praying. See, that's that religious stuff, that it can't be real unless I feel something. That's the thing, that's what deceived us. I have the presence of God. I have him in me. And he says, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you".

So when he's not there, he's broken that promise. He said, "I'm not gonna leave you or forsake you". But your religious, "oh, Lord, help me, Jesus, yo". That dummy can tell you, you think you know more than Jesus Christ, him crucified, dead and buried, raised from the dead, receive that because my class tells me in my cemetery school that I've got to perform these five acts in order to deserve what God wants to do to me. It's a lie. Can't you read? He just said it. Can't you read? We all readin' together. That's all we're doing. We read, we read, we readin'. I don't know what else to tell you. If you don't, listen, to hear a born again Christian say, "I got to go and pray until the presence of God come on me". Honey, you should have walked in with him this morning.

Okay, let me just go and freak you out. Even if you go to the bar and just got stupid for a minute, and come back and your body's out of there 'cause you hadn't accepted your standing, "Well, God can't be with me". Well, why? "I got drunk last night". Oh, he was right there with you. You know, when that glass slid over there, huh? Just looking at some of y'all stop. You didn't lead the Holy Ghost when you decided to go to the bar. When you went to the bar, he went with you. You stopped by a motel or whatever and what we call her last week? Miss Kitty? You met Miss Kitty there in room 666. You didn't go up there, you didn't go up in that room by yourself. He went with you.

I see some of you, and what I'm saying. Can't hardly tell you now 'cause you small. You already got ahead of me. Mm-mm-mm. You ought to see the comments on the line right now. "That ain't what my Bible say". You don't know how to read your Bible. That's why I'm talking to you about this stuff right back 'cause if you knew how to read your Bible, I wouldn't have to talk to you about this stuff right now. But anyway, so, all right, you want Scripture? I give you a little simple one. "Goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life". When you went to the bar, goodness and mercy went with you. When you went to the hotel, goodness and mercy went with you. And when you came back to church, goodness and mercy went with you.

The only difference was is you just changed your mind about that stuff and goodness and mercy said, "We've been here the whole time. We've been working on you the whole time. We saw you when you got drunk. We saw you when you was Miss Kitty. But we've been working on you, praise God, and now you don't want none of that brass monkey 'cause Pastor tried to tell you to put you in the next day and now you don't want Miss Kitty because Marshall Dillon showed up and caught y'all.

See, you gotta understand that goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life". And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's his presence. That's his presence. I need to look at this, like, what is going on with you, boy? And Satan has made this so difficult for people to receive. Receive what? Their posture. Receive what? Their stance. You keep fighting him on who you are. Bro, you are 'cause Jesus said you are. Do you know one of the definitions for righteousness is declared righteous? You know what God told me? He says, "You know one", He says, "You know one reason why you're righteous? 'Cause I said it".

Oh, that's the big fight, especially amongst church people who've been in church all their life. Struggling to receive your God-given posture. Now, you watch the number of times this week where you're gonna be tested, where your position, your stance, and your posture is concerned. And you gotta ask God, "Help me to see it. Help me to notice it. Because I'm gonna start actively fighting against anything that tries to talk me out of who I am, and who I've been made to be through this grace of God". And I thought, even studying this, I thought, "Well, you know, I mean, God, this is a pretty easy message by God's standard". He says, "It's not about how they intellectually perceive what you're saying". He said, "I'm telling you this is a deeply rooted issue that I face all the time, trying to allow my limitless love to bloom in their lives and they keep building up boundaries, the wrong kind, of rejecting grace-given posture".

If you should fall, not saying that you will, because here's one thing I do know. When you fall, you will arise and God's gonna take you to the next level. You're not gonna be being defeated by that thing all the time. That's not how that's gonna happen. You gonna wake up one day and there are several things that used to be a part of your behavior that don't exist anymore. You're gonna have to back 'em like, "Whoa, whoa, when did that happen"? You were so busy walking in your grace-given posture that it started transforming your behavior.

See, what we've done as Christian is when you do something bad you say, "I'm a bad person". You immediately relate your bad behavior to your identity and then you back up on grace-given identity and now you say that identity is now based on performance. And now you start preaching the gospel of performance and this starts changing your grace-given identity. We can't let that happen anymore. I am the righteousness of God now. I'm pure and I'm holy now. I'm delivered from sin now. And watch this: and I am the tabernacle of God's presence. It doesn't abide in that box, the ark. It doesn't abide there no mo'. Whew, his presence lives in you. That's why you can hear him with your inner ear. That's why instructions can come from inside. You got an advantage over the world. They depend on outside information. We live by inside information.

Now, listen, you gotta start walking this before you believe it. If all you're gonna do is play mental intellectual acrobats with what I'm teaching you, bro gone, get out of here. It ain't all, it's not designed. Grace is not even designed. Grace is a provision for the spiritual part of your life that failed in the Garden of Eden. Grace is God's provision to take care of that new creation on the inside so that it may supply from the inside out. And just like food and water and sunlight was provision for the grass and the animals and even human beings, grace is provision for that spiritual realm that's working on the inside of a man. And you keep trying to do something with it. Whew, these, oh yeah, let me finish.

So we've got, we're reconciled, we've got the presence of God, we're holy, we're blameless. And I like what he says: "And we stand before him with no single fault". Oh my goodness. Think of that. Think of you reminding yourself while the enemy's trying to use something you did or you missed a mark, and he's trying to fault you, and God says, "I'm not blaming you because when I see you, I see you with no faults". So when Jesus said this, he said, "I ain't concerned about the devil," why? "'Cause he can't find nothing in me". The reason why stuff keep happening in the lives of church folks is you keep giving him something to find in you because you won't receive who you are and who grace gave you. "He find nothing in me".

You remember when Paul had the mitigated, the audacity to make what I thought was an egregious remark when he said, "I have wronged no man. I have defrauded no man". And what was the other one? "Did nothing wrong to no man". You know what? How could he say that, when there are so many Scriptures about him going and reaping havoc and causing people to be killed and stoning folks. He was the one behind Stephen's stoning. Then had the nerve to sit up there and say, "I've wronged no man". Yeah, you have. "I've defrauded no man". See right here, Here's a record of you. I'm thinking, "Oh, what was he doing"? Paul, from that point on, would never measure himself by what he did in the past or whatever happened to him. Paul only measured his self by the grace of God and the posture that was given to him by God's grace.
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