Creflo Dollar - God's Ways vs. Man's Ways - Part 6
Shame, guilt, condemnation, when they are part of your relationship with God, it just... 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, 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 want to 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 is gonna get you. It seemed like you'd have been got by now. Have 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 receive that, "That's him. That's how he acts". I asked the Lord one time I was walking and I said, "Lord, 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".
That's right 'cause he moved in me and rearranged my furniture. My sofa ain't nowhere like it used to be. My chair has 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 they 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 a murder course, man. You gotta stay with 'em. "Come on. You got it. You got it". "No, no, Dad, I want..." "No, 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 they take off. And then I said, "I'm there with you". And then they out there. I said, "You're 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. "Oh, 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 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 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"? A lot of stuff we went through preaching and found out the meanest people I 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 the law right there. She was supposed to be stoned to get death, but he freely forgave her. He freely forgave her. I see what God's 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'll look myself in the mirror and I say, "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. And I'm not going to do you any good by beating you up and blasting you for where you are presently. I've got to recognize that you ain't gonna be there all your life. You're in the right place at the right time listening to the right message. Honey, you on your way out. I know, I know. I may have some of those religious Christians here. "Well, I just, I don't know if I can receive that". We'll get all of 'em. Go. Because I'm telling you what I've been through. I'm telling you what I know.
So he forgave them when she should have been stoned without forgiveness. But some people think the stoning would've made her better. What if she'd have died in the middle of the stoning? The stoning would've made her better. Like Christian thinking, "Oh, the shaming makes them better". And we gotta stop shaming each other. Stop it. Okay, so you're not struggling with the same thing, but you struggling with something. Your little nasty attitude. You got that nice nasty. You ever met people with that nice nasty? "Oh, oh, praise the Lord. I understand you don't do that, but, uh-huh, I wouldn't talk too much. You know, this is your second marriage, yeah". And you ought to look good. I will snatch that wig off your head, now then I got you going. The church is a very amazing place at this time, and this gospel has got to be preached. And I understand when you have influence, there is the potential for you to be most misunderstood and most misrepresented.
That's what Jesus was. Jesus was the most influential person on the planet. And at the same time, he was the most misunderstood and the most misrepresented. And I'm like, "Boy, I'm in good company". But I can no longer allow religious attitudes to stop me from preaching what God's telling me to preach. I can't do it anymore. The second thing was he admonished her to live a life free from sin, wow. Under the law, God promised blessings only on conditions of obedience to the laws. And he threatened curses if every part of it was not fulfilled, it couldn't be just a third part of it, you had to fulfill it 100%. So it's imperative that God's order, under grace, be not confused with the order that's under the law. And it often is.
What God says to us to do under grace of God sometimes is confused with what was under the law, because the order under the law parallels the thinking of natural man. The orders under the law are right there in line with the ways of natural man. Go and look at it again and then check out natural man. They're on the same parallel, the same level. With the law, God met man on man's own plane, on the natural plane. The law came down to man's natural plane. He could understand that. He could see that. But God's orders and God's appeals, that's a better word, have no force when his mercy and grace are ignored. So when God tells us to do something, it doesn't really have force if we ignore his mercy and his grace, if we ignore his work of grace, if we do it because we're afraid or because we're condemned or because we feel one way or another, it doesn't have any power to it.
So as God's way of mercy and grace, if you omit that, it is natural now that man's ways of contributing something to earn God's favor, his grace, his mercy, what's gonna happen is you're gonna take man's ways and substitute 'em over there for God's ways or vice versa. And he says, "Uh-uh, when you're not doing it God's ways, you're gonna find yourself doing it man's way". So what is it that you're not doing God's way? You're gonna be doing it man's way. If you're not doing this under the grace of God, grace's way, you're gonna do it the natural way. You're gonna deal with people the natural way. "I'm mad at you forever". "I'm never gonna speak to you, ever". "You hurt my feelings".
You know how many times my feelings and Taffi's feelings have been hurt? You can't even imagine. "That ain't...that...what? You better get over it". Ah, boy. So while God is very concerned about keeping the lives of his people free from worldly things, he absolutely is, his approach is way different from condemnation. Look at, in the King James, John 3:17. So listen, God's not trying to find a way for you to be worldly. God's not trying to find a way for you to be sinful. Grace is not your new license to go and commit adultery and sleep with five women or five men. That's not what this is. Grace is gonna teach you how to live a godly life and a righteous life. Except he's not gonna do it the way man would.
Man loves talking about you gotta discipline yourself for that and discipline yourself for that, and we don't understand the discipline that comes from the grace of God. He's just saying, "No, I don't want you to be involved in worldly things, but I don't do it by the way of condemnation". Look at what Jesus said in verse 17. He said, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved". So Jesus was not sent to condemn everybody or to judge everybody. Jesus wasn't sent for that purpose. Oh my goodness.
"Well, I'm just like Jesus". Well, you acting like, Jesus was not sent for the purpose of condemning the whole world. Jesus was not sent so we can stand on Mount Sinai and say, "All y'all going to hell. I was just sent to let you know, all y'all going, everybody in the house going to hell. Everybody, everybody. All the preachers and the choir members going to hell. Everybody, everybody". Think about that. Think about if that was the message, what would our Easter celebration be like? "Well, we celebrating Jesus came and gave us a warning". "What did he say"? "You going to hell. You going to hell. You going to hell, you're going to hell. You, all y'all going to hell". He wasn't sent for that. And yet that's the message that a lot of Christians have adopted.
We don't know any way to get you to change, so we're gonna condemn you. They used to have a movie that used to show around the church called "The Burning Hell". And that movie scared, I said, "Oh, Lord, look like I'm on my way to hell". They called the list out. I said, "I ain't doing all of it, but I'm doing two of 'em". That didn't motivate me to change. And any decision I made that day outta condemnation changed at the first site of temptation. Didn't work. There are two methods that the Lord uses to draw the hearts of man away from the present world. Two methods. Here's what God uses. Number one, by setting before us the attractiveness and stability of things above. How's he gonna change us? By setting before us the attractiveness and the stability of things above. Number two, the second method that the Lord uses to draw the hearts of man away from the present world is by faithfully declaring the evanescence.
Somebody say, "What did you just say"? When something is fading or disappearing, when something is soon passing out of sight, he faithfully declares that this world is soon passing out of sight, that it is quickly fading away, that it's disappearing, that it is shakable and will be removed. Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 2 in the NLT. He's gonna change us by showing us the attractiveness and stability of those things that are above. And right here, he says, "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth". I get that.
Now, I don't know if we're gonna do that, but I get that. I get him saying, "Seek the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth. Set your sights on the things that are above, not the," he's trying to show you the attractiveness of heaven, the attractiveness of what is to come, the attractiveness of what you're on your way to. Look at Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2 in the NLT. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 2. He says, "We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross". He went through the cross by focusing on what was above. "Disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne". We don't hear that very much in church. We don't hear about the attractiveness of heaven.