Creflo Dollar - The Truth About God's Ways - Part 2
Self-righteousness is motivated by the fear of punishment, the fear of punishment and the fear of consequences from man. The problem with being self-righteous, the problem with you trying through your own agenda to be right with God by what you do, be right with God by the plan that you have, is that it's motivated by, "I have a fear of punishment. And because of my fear of punishment, I need to do something to fix the position that I think I am in. I don't believe God forgave me. Oh my God. I'm afraid he's gonna punish me; I better do something to fix this".
And not only that, "I now fear the consequences of man. Now I've got to do something not only to get myself right in God's eyes. I need to do something to get myself right back in man's eyes". You did something crazy, or something happened crazy in your life and your brothers and sisters know about it, and they done dog you out every which way. "And now you got to do something to get back right in their eye, and you gotta do something to get back right in God eye". I ain't got time for all of that, that stuff will give you cancer. I ain't got time for all that. I ain't got time all that. I am free from men, and I am free because God has set me free. But what I'm not going to do... You know what irritates me? How the news reports on somebody else's problem in their life and them jokers got... How?
And then everybody talks about it. How do we get up and talk about other people's issues, as if you have none? What is that? And church people do it, church people do it. People that come to church and say, "Praise the Lord and I love the Lord, he heard my cry," it's not that you don't have issues, you've just worked real hard to keep yours a secret. And you really ain't keeping nothing a secret, because if you've got a little discernment, you can tell, I can smell sin, you can tell it. You think you covering it up? I can tell it. Just 'cause I don't address it, don't mean I know you ain't doing nothing. But I know everybody's doing something, but that's why God is working on everybody and that's why everybody needs mercy, and everybody need grace because God is working on everybody's issues.
But you gotta get rid of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness: the fear of punishment. You know you're doing something secret in the booth in the back in the corner in the dark and you're afraid, "I'm going to be punished, I gotta stop doing this. I'm going to be punished, I gotta stop doing this," something bad gonna happen, I gotta stop doing this. And so, what happens? You're working on living right because you're afraid that if you don't, you're going to be punished. That's just going to be just as bad, that ain't going to last long. You're living a life trusting you, because of the fear of punishment and not living a life trusting him and his work of grace.
You still got a big problem. The problem is you're self-righteous 'cause you're afraid that God's gonna getcha, God's gonna punish ya, and men gonna getcha and as soon as something happening, I mean if you have a flat tire you're like, "See that happened because I didn't quit that? That happened, God told me to quit smoking weed and I didn't quit smoking weed, and that's why I'm out here right now and I ain't got no spare tire. I gotta live right, I gotta live right". All wrong. And so, you got a church full of people that are gathered together because they're afraid of God, and they're afraid God's gonna punish 'em. And they're not here because they're celebrating his mercy, they're not here because they're celebrating his grace, they're not here because God's good, regardless of their goodness, they're here out of self-righteousness, "I work real hard to be good". But you're working hard to be good because you're afraid that God's gonna punish you.
So, what's does that relationship look like? It's certainly not a loving relationship because perfect love casts out all fear. Love is not complete because if everything you're doing, you don't have to, "I better join the choir, because if I don't, God gonna take my voice away from me. I better give, 'cause if I don't give, God's gonna... I could go broke. I could lose my job, I could lose my business, I might be homeless, just like them. Oh, here go, here go my tithe. Oh Jesus, take it, take it". Y'all got to know what I'm talking about, man, right? Okay, let me see if I can break this down a little bit more. If we don't have peace in our conscience, we'll think God is responsible for the evil in our lives, and we'll come to the conclusion that he is punishing us for our sins in some way. Every time something happened to me, I thought it was a punishment. I'm so glad I knew grace because when I received the diagnosis of cancer, I would have thought, "Oh my God, what did I do wrong to get cancer? God's punishing me, he gave me this cancer. He gave..."
See, now you're blaming him. God, don't give cancer, God ain't got no cancer to be giving nobody. But I'm thinking he punishing me. When was the last time something bad happened to you and you had this little thought? God's getting me back, God's getting me back 'cause I didn't do something right. I ain't been to church in three years; God's getting me. And then you show up next Sunday at church. I don't want you showing up because you're fear of punishing, I want you showing up because God's grace has been so good throughout these last three years that you can't help but to just give him praise and worship, that's why I want you to show up. Some of you at home right now thinking, "You know the reason why I got the flu right now, I shoulda came to church". No, you shouldn't stay there. Keep all that home. Keep that with you.
I want y'all to think, we got to wake up from this. I know it sounds elementary, but this thing has been just destroying our relationship with God. And it keeps staying out there and people keep preaching it and it's just out there and you keep believing that's it and you keep operating in self-righteousness, motivated out of a fear of punishment. And it's so traditional in your mind, you can be doing something that's not according to God's Word, and you just keep doing it because the tradition has a stronger, than the thing that you're learning right now. I'm teaching you that worship is what you do every day. And you'll get right up after I finish teaching that and get up and say, "Well, come on, man, we're gonna worship God in songs," and you know good and well that worshipping God in songs ain't real worship. It's just what, that's what we always called it. If we don't have peace in our conscience, we'll think God is responsible for the evil in our lives, and we'll come to the conclusion that he is punishing us for our sins in some way, that he's punishing us for our sins. He's punishing us for our sins.
Now how many of you know sin has consequences? Yeah. But just 'cause sin has consequences doesn't mean that's God's protocol and method to punish you because of sin. While you... you get consequences for sinning, but what God goes, he shows up with his grace and he says, "It'll be all right. I have forgiven you, I got mercy. Don't let what you did stop you from what we planned on doing in your life". If we have a wrong conclusion about God, like he punishes you for your sins, if we have a wrong conclusion about God, and when you have that attitude about, well God punishes you for sin, then you'll look at situations like mine, "Oh he had cancer, he must have, he sinned, that's why he got that". "Oh, she lost her kid. It's sin, sin, sin". "Oh, oh, oh, he got a divorce. Oh, mm, sin, sin, 'cause if he was doing the five things I was doing he wouldn't have got no divorce. Sin, sin, sin".
Well he got put in jail. "Sin. Sin, sin sin". They lost their house, no mercy, compassion nowhere. "Sin". And that gives you an excuse not to do nothing. "Sin, they lost their house 'cause of sin. They lost their job because of sin". They ain't got nothing to eat. "They ain't got nothing to eat because of sin, sin. They hungry and starving 'cause of sin, sin". And then you turn your back. "Sin, sin, sin, sin. Touch not the unclean, touch not the unclean, sin, sin". One guy was asked this question, the preacher he said, "When Jesus went into the village and he couldn't heal anybody, how come Jesus couldn't heal anybody"? His response was, "Sin". No, it wasn't, it was self-righteousness. Sin?
All right, watch this now, if we have a wrong conclusion about God and think God does that, are you kidding me? You know how crazy all of us used to be? And God's mercy was still there. You know how stupid we used to be, and he still gave us a job? You know how crazy we used to be, and we still got a raise, we still go blessed, the Lord still went through? All that stupid stuff we did, we even told God we ain't want to have nothing to do with him no more, and just got so blessed, why? Because his mercy endureth forever. So, sin is not an excuse 'cause we've all done plenty of it. "What? We've all done plenty of it"? Yeah, it might not have been the big ten, but we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that's what sin is, coming short. It's so shocking to me, it freaks me out when I say that and church people think, "Oh that's not true, I haven't sinned".
You have to twist the Scripture to even say what you just said. You ain't never had a bad attitude? That's sin. You have to divide sin up like this, little sin and big sin, in order to think that you're not involved in it. Everybody does something that's missing the mark. Well, you can have some perfect days, but you know, attitude was wrong, showing out in front of the waiter or waitress. "Did I order this? Did I order this"? And you think that's Christ-like? The number one issue that God has with people, especially Christians, is not sin, it's how we treat one another. You don't think that's a problem? How you treat one another, how you won't forgive people, how you're mean, because you're mean to yourself, you mean to other people. People treat other people like they treat themselves.
How you just love to blame everybody for where you are and the reason why you are where you are, is 'cause you won't accept responsibility for the part that you played in the situation. And rather than accepting responsibility, you play the blame game. And like I said last week, you gotta stop blaming the floor for you not being able to dance. The floor is not responsible for you not being able to dance. We are all flawed, and the only way that we can stand here and sit here, or me standing and you sitting, and to declare anything else is because of Jesus. You don't get into Heaven because you "all that," please, throw your list away. Your list ain't gonna help you at the gate. You better not take it, it could be responsible for kicking you out, because you're showing that you're self-righteous instead of Jesus-righteous.
I'm not going to the gate of Heaven 'cause I'm self-righteous, I'm going because I'm Jesus-righteous. That means I'm righteous 'cause of him, I'm redeemed because of him, I'm saved because of him, I get to get in because of him, not because of me. You're so scared to hear this because you're so traditionally used to hearing, "Wait a minute now, you've got to buy your way in. You've got to earn it, (self-righteousness), you got to deserve it, (self-righteousness), you gotta make sure you qualify up for it. You got to do stuff to make God do something good for you". We got that Santa Claus religion. "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake".
I mean, I was a little boy, I'm like, "How he know I'm awake"? "He knows when you've been bad or good". So, if you want your toys, "Be good for goodness sake, oh, you better watch out". What is it? "You better not cry"? You better not what? "Pout". Look at there, "I'm telling you why". Santa Claus is coming to town. And we took it and say, "That just like Jesus". That just like Jesus. "He see you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake", Jesus do. "He knows when you've been bad or good". So if you want Jesus, "You better be good for goodness sake. Oh, you better watch out".
Y'all get, you get what I'm saying now? We do that all the time and we're famous about doing that using other spiritual things. "I need you God to bless me, so I'm gonna fast. And if I fast long enough and hard enough, he'll give me power". Well, you missed the whole boat. He gave me power. "I'll give you power after he has come". He gave me power when I got born again. "But I got to fast to get power," and lots of preachers around the world are dying 'cause they're fasting and trying to get something they already got. You didn't deserve power, none of us deserve power, power is the ability to get the job done. We don't deserve power, he gave us power because of his grace and mercy.
"I've empowered you with ability to get the job done," he gave it to you but you're now trying to do something to earn it. Self-righteousness is a cloak over the church that the church won't wake up to and recognize, "I'm self-righteous". I'm preaching, I'm teaching this sermon today. Everything I could try in my ability is still not good enough to give me the articulation that I'm presently walking in right now. I sit right there and I just look at that thing like, I know what you're saying, I just don't know how to say what you're saying. I have to trust him. I have to get all ugly and do all that 'cause I'm trying to get the thoughts that he's throwing at me right now, to try to figure out what's going on. I ain't never, you know, do the little Rockette thing.
Where does all that stuff come? It was by just trusting him because tradition has made the Word of God of no effect. Everybody need Jesus, amen? Everybody need Jesus. If we have a wrong conclusion about God, we will not flow in grace. We will think we are just reaping from him what we deserve. We think that we are reaping from him what we deserve. Every time we get something, we think we are reaping something we deserve. Man, boy, that hit me a couple of times. I'm reaping it because I'm smarter than everybody or I work harder or I give, I even wrote a little small book of a hundred things I did to be blessed like I am. It's just one thing you did: You believed Jesus and his Grace came over your life. For real? How many people are walking around in this world, living lives out of a sense that they are simply getting what they deserve?
Think about it, people are living their life thinking they simply get what they deserve. They mishandled their money, so they think they deserve to be poor. They committed adultery, so they think they deserve to lose their marriage. They were critical and demanding of their children, so they deserve to be estranged from their children and not see them. They mistreat their bodies, so they think they deserve to be sick. They cheated at work, so they deserve to be fired. They were promiscuous in their youth, so they deserve to be barren. They were alcoholics, so they deserve to lose everything. They betrayed a friend, so they deserve to be friendless. They are ugly, grumpy, angry, or just simply imperfect, so they deserve to be rejected. They turned their back on God, so they deserve for him to turn his back on them? Absolutely, yes, there are consequences to our actions in this world, I know that, but the God of grace is seated on the throne of grace, ready for us to come to the end of ourselves, to the end of our self-effort, to the end of flesh, and to throw ourselves on his mercy.