Creflo Dollar - God's Ways vs. Man's Ways - Part 5
You ever had something happen in your life and you just didn't know why? I have this stuff all the time. This happened, I don't understand why, but you know what I've come to the place of doing? I trust you. You're working on something better than I thought I had. He's working on something better than what you thought you had. You thought what you lost was better than what he is getting ready to do. But sometimes God will allow loss so it can make room for what he trying to bring into your life, and you got to trust him. Ah. Come on, join me, join me, look up and say, "I gotta trust you, God, I gotta trust you".
There's so much I didn't understand. Why are you doing this? Why did you let that happen? 'Cause I'm working on something you hadn't seen yet. God is getting ready to elevate. You know he can raise up whoever he wanna raise up. Ain't nobody gotta know you, you ain't gotta be famous and have a famous name, but he says, "I'll make your name famous". God getting ready to raise some of you up. He getting ready to raise you up outta average. He's getting ready to raise you up out of something you created for yourself, and he said, "No, no, no, no, no. I let you stay there for a while but I called you and wired you and prepared you for a specific assignment. Now I'm getting ready to bring you into that". I'm getting ready to bring you into that place where I called you to.
So dust off the sadness, get rid of the depression, let the joy of the Lord be your strength. God getting ready to show out in your life, he's getting ready to show out in your house, he's getting ready to show out in your relationship, he's getting ready to show out in your children, he's getting ready to show out in your finances, he's getting ready to show out in your business. God's getting ready to show out. Somebody shout, "God's getting ready to show out". He's getting ready to show out. But we got to let God be God. We gotta let him be God. I don't know what he doing. I'm trying to figure this out. He says, "Man's goings are of the Lord". You say, "Why"? He said, "He don't know where he is going, sometimes he think he do".
So that's why these prayers I'm praying, "Lord, teach me how to yield and Lord let your will be done". I wish I had a way to get everybody stirred up about God, I wish I had a way to make everybody come to Jesus. I wish I had a way to make everybody want him. I wish there was some way we could just cause you to have an intimate relationship with God. I wish there was some way we could figure out how to get you to want him. But sometimes other people want things for you more than you want it for yourself, and I can't do that. My wife said something this past week, it just blew my mind. She said, "I am not responsible for the emotions and the feelings of other people". I was like, "Dang". She says, "I'm not. But I am responsible for the boundaries that God is showing me to put up around my life so I can do what he told me to do".
God's method under grace is seen in Jesus's dealing with the woman taken in adultery and brought to him by the Pharisees. Look at John chapter 8 again verses 3 through 11. God's method, his method under grace, his way under grace. Watch his way under grace as some others begin to talk about the law. Verse 3 "And the scribes and the Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, 'Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act". "Nobody told us we saw her, sheets and all we saw her". "Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned". So what, according to the law, what was supposed to happen 'cause Jesus was operating as a prophet under the law? But he was still Jesus full of grace and truth. How's he gonna handle this? And they said, "'But what say thou?' This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not". He was ignoring them. "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them..."
Let me show you something, right. This is real cool, just 'cause somebody is asking you a question don't mean you have to answer it right away. Take your time, let the Spirit of God work with you 'cause sometimes people ask questions just to be able to accuse you of something. Just hold up, "I ain't gotta answer right away". "Well, Creflo, please explain to us why you did such and so such and so". "What you gonna do for me, oh, yeah, to me". You ain't gotta answer right away. In fact, the Bible talks about, "Be slow to give an answer". Why? There's wisdom working in you. And he said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". He didn't say she wasn't supposed to be stoned, he was still right there with the law. He says, "Okay, the law says she should be stoned".
Watch this. "All right, those of you who don't have no sins, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, stone her". "And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground". Verse 9. "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest". Now the old people left first 'cause they knew, "I got a whole lot of, I got a lot of issues I know about, so ain't no need me throwing no stone at nobody. If I throw one out myself, that thing might turn into a boomerang and hit me right back". "He went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and there with the woman standing in the midst. And when Jesus had lifted up himself, and he saw none but the woman..."
So he's introducing this new and living way coming in, he's got to keep the law because the Bible says "He had to fulfill every jot of it". So he can't violate it and he didn't, this is just wisdom right here. "And Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, and he said unto her, 'Woman, where are those thine accusers?'" Watch this now. "'Hath no man condemned or judged thee?' And she responded, 'No, man, Lord.'" "So there's no condemnation that came from any man. What you did according to the law was absolutely wrong, you deserve to be stoned, but grace showed up today in this situation, and grace said, 'There is no condemnation.'" "Neither do I condemn thee". Grace doesn't condemn.
Notice what happens when there's no condemnation, and this is what God's trying to do in this new and living way. Under the law when you're condemned, read it, you just continue to sin again, and again, and again, because condemnation produces fear and fear produces sin, it just goes, it just keeps going 'cause you feel condemned. He said, "Go without this condemnation and sin no more". Do something that stoning would not have been able to get you to do, because you might've been dead after it. Do something now that you couldn't do when condemnation was there. I think we miss it. When condemnation is there, there can be no freedom 'cause condemnation has you locked down, shame has you locked down, guilt has you locked down. Shame, guilt, condemnation when they are a part of your relationship with God, you're not gonna get free from anything because you're already in bondage to those things. But what happens when there's no condemnation?
See, under the law, we try to condemn you to try to get you to do right, and the church is doing the same thing today. Let's make you feel bad, and fearful, and condemned, and full of shame, and then maybe those things will make you do right, but they don't work. I don't know how many of you have ever been condemned or shamed in church or by church situations. I've been on the other end of it, and I hate it, because that's all we knew. Preachers had to condemn, and shame you, and convict you. Then maybe you'll get it right. Doesn't work and Jesus knew it didn't work. He says, "So what I'm gonna do is remove the shame, remove the condemnation, remove the guilt. I'm gonna take all that on myself, and I'm gonna become your grace. And when you renew your mind with my goodness and my sacrifice, you will sin no more because you've experienced this love, and you just ain't gonna wanna do it no more, because you heard about a man that took your shame, took your guilt, took your condemnation". And he's like, "Who does that? How could he do that for me before I was even formed into a fetus"?
And then the Holy Ghost starts working in you. He said, "Go and sin no more, because there's no condemnation here". And if we were to check out the people that are in this congregation today, the condemnation that you receive from people, the condemnations you receive from your family, the condemnation you receive from other Christian people who just think they're doing right, and I love how I've been hearing this lately, just, I love how when people really want you to do what they're preaching, they say, "It's a commandment. It's a commandment". And that's the threat of, "It's a commandment, you better do it 'cause it's a commandment 'cause if you don't do it, then God's gonna get you. He gonna get you". And as many times they say, "God's gonna get you," it seemed like you'd have been got by now. How many of you ever heard that, "God gonna get you"? "My God, oh no".
And that was a whole attitude about, you know, when it come to God, "Oh no". 'Cause we don't know him, and because we don't know him, we somehow received that that's him, that's how he acts. I asked the Lord one time, I was walking and I said, "Lord, what if, what if this stuff I'm teaching on grace is wrong"? He said, "Don't you ever even say that no more". I said, "Well, why"? He said, "Look within yourself and look at your own life and tell me". I said, "Yeah, that's right". This is right 'cause he moved in me and rearranged my furniture. My sofa ain't nowhere, nowhere like it used to be, my chair done been moved, my table has been taken out. I am responsible for teaching what I believe.
And I promise you, 13, 14 years ago, whenever it was 12 years ago, when God called me to preach this, I have been, I will teach it until Jesus comes. But what I have described to you is the real God. He can't do any of those things because he is love, he is goodness, he can't show badness 'cause he's goodness. But with his goodness and his love, he's gonna transform you from the inside out. So when he appeals to you to yield your body as a living sacrifice, don't be afraid to do that 'cause what he says is, "I got you". It's just like a little kid. "Come on baby, come on, take your step". And he start crying and you're like, "No baby, I'm right there with you". Or if you ever had the privilege of teaching your kids how to ride a bicycle. Ooh, boy, that's why you ought to have medical, man, you gotta stay with 'em. "Come on, you got it, you got it". "No, no dad, I will not". "Come on, you got it, come on, I got you, I'm there with you, I'm there with you".
And they pedal and then he take off. And then I say, "I'm there with you". And then they're out there. I say, "You there, you got it, you got it". It's the closest thing to the Holy Spirit living with us that's saying, "Don't be afraid to test this out; I'm there with you, I'll never leave nor forsake you. I got you, I got you". And if you should fall off the bike, he's not up there saying, "Now, thus saith the Lord, you shall now go to hell and suffer shame all the days of your life". No, he says, "Come on, come on, come on, wipe it off". And you cry. "I got you, I got you. Come on, let's do it again". Because this life as a Christian is a journey. Amen.
Man, I wish I'd have known this, but I didn't. But I thank God I had to go through what I had to go through 'cause I'm even more convinced now than ever before because I lived under the law, and the conviction and wanting the validation and was a approval addict. And all of those things that I thought were right, were just, I was like, "Why is this so hard? Why is this with so much fear? Why is this with so much shame"? The shame that would come, when I would get up and hear a preacher talk about how awesome he is in an area that I was failing in. I was like, wow, you know, he gets up and, "I have done this and I've done this, and my children are perfect". And I'm thinking, "Well, what the heck is wrong with me"?
And I walk out just feeling like, "Man I just must be the worst piece of donkey stuff than I ever... because all the preachers," now I found out later that half of 'em were lying. Or come to church and the preacher preaches on somebody who got pregnant outta wedlock, and she's gonna be filled with shame giving birth to her first baby. Or being divorced and have some guy saying, "I've been married for 50 years, and I ain't never had a fight with my wife". You know that joker lying. He is a liar and a link and his breath stink, he's lying. "Oh, I've never had a disagreement with my wife," and just shame. I mean, at one time I thought, man, I don't even wanna do this. I'm done, I mean, it seems like I'm just a mud pot anyway, so, you know, and then God called me to preach. I'm like, "How are you gonna call me to preach"? Preaching and found out the meanest people I've ever met were in church. I was like, "Is this the God? Is this the God of love"?
And when I encountered his grace, that's when I knew, now this is the one I was expecting: the God that will show me and walk me out of my issues without beating me up and condemning me and telling me how awful I was. "Go and sin no more". Jesus did a couple things here. First he freely forgave her for which under the law, she was worthy of death. She was supposed to be stoned to death. They were operating in the dispensation of law right there. She was supposed to be stoned to death there, but he freely forgave her. He freely forgave her. I see why God has got me taking my time over this: he freely forgave her.
Some of you need to look in the mirror starting today and here's what you need to say as you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you need to say, "I forgive you" talking to you. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and you need to say whatever your name is, I'm gonna, as an illustration, I looked myself in the mirror and I said, "Creflo, I forgive you". And it seems weird because your image is in the mirror and you're talking about forgiving yourself, but some of y'all need to do that. It's not that God hadn't forgiven you, you haven't forgiven yourself. That same old junk keep coming up over, and over, and over, and you beat the snot outta yourself every time it comes up because you have yet to forgive yourself.
And I'm asking you to just do it. I mean, humor me, do it. Get in the mirror and say your name and say, "I forgive you". And every time that condemnation come on you, because you've been so used... I asked the Lord, I said, "Where are people getting the most shame"? He said, "At church". Everybody in here has an issue; I don't know what your issue is. Your issue may be invisible 'cause it might be a attitude issue. I don't know what your issue is, but what I do know is God is capable of escorting everybody out of their issue to the place that he's called and wired you to do.