Creflo Dollar - Christ, The Preeminent One - Part 1
I'm going to talk to you about Christ, the preeminent one, Christ, the preeminent one. When something is preeminent, it's the strongest, it's the most important, it's the most powerful. When something is preeminent, it towers above any and everything else. What happens in the life of a Christian when Christ becomes greater than anything else, greater than anybody else? What happens when your relationship with him towers above any and everything else? He knows how to get you where you wanna be, or should I say where we need to be. But it is not going to be through intellect alone. This is not gonna take place because of how well you can dissect the scripture.
Listen to me carefully. This, we're going too far with this. You're, it's important to intellectually be able to understand the Word of God. But that's not the bulk of this. The bulk of this is to know him versus knowing about him and able to articulate him, to know him. There was a time where men followed God, and they didn't have this thing, this instrument we have today called the Bible. But they knew him. And today we have this instrument of the Bible, and we know about him, and, because of this, which I don't deny, I praise God for this, this is my foundation for everything. But I am saying it is not just this by itself; there is a portion of it that requires you to know him so that you won't marry the mechanics. And, by marrying the mechanics, you judge everybody's whose mechanics are different than yours. But, when you know him, all the things that you're intellectualizing cannot accomplish, can be accomplished because you simply know him, not just about him.
You feel him, you sense him, you know him. I don't want to get to heaven and ask Jesus to sit down while I show him everything I know. I want to get to heaven and make sure I don't walk past him because I know him. So I want you to follow me very carefully here because, in this, there's a lot of things that came together for me. The story of Abraham's oldest servant going to find his son, a wife, Rebekah. What was that all about? It was a shadow of something. Now, I know. The scriptures that talk about the Holy Spirit's job was to magnify Jesus and give him glory, I didn't quite understand that. Now, I know. And all that I have learned and known from these scriptures has driven me to want to know him better. And I pray that that happens to you today, that you know him better. Glory to God.
Saint John chapter 16, verse 13-14; he said, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he", the Spirit of truth, "will guide you into all truth; for", and here's a part of the truth, "for he shall not speak of himself", the Holy Spirit is not speaking of himself, "but whatsoever he", the Holy Spirit, "shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come," based on what he hears. Verse 14, "He shall glorify me". Now, Jesus is speaking here. "He shall glorify me", underline that, "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and then he gonna show what's mine unto you". And he says, by him receiving from Jesus and showing it to you, he gives glory to Jesus. And I wanna know, what is it that he's gonna show me that's gonna give glory to Jesus? Not just go around and say, what the Holy Ghost is gonna show, and then you fill in the blank with all these weird things.
But he's telling you here, "He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine. He shall show it unto you". So the work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ. Oh, that sounds so Christian-like; oh, that sounds so religious, that he's gonna glorify Christ. I couldn't stop there, and months and months went by, and I'm like, "Uh, what do you mean by glorifying him? What do you mean by glorifying him"? I don't want to just use another Christian word. What does that mean? What does that look like? The work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ. And, if the work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify or to magnify Christ, then it follows that it is God's purpose that the believer shall see the fullness of the beauty in him because he says, "He's gonna glorify me, and he shall show it unto you".
So the believer is going to see something. Let's look at this. What is it? What, let's answer that question. What does it mean to glorify God? It means to acknowledge his greatness and his splendor. The Holy Spirit's job is to acknowledge the greatness, the splendor, the awesomeness, the grace, the mercy, and I realized, "Oh, I have seen it". What have I seen? I have seen the greatness and the splendor of the grace of God working in my life, tearing out that shame and guilt and pain, taking you and completely turning you around, and you're still trying to figure out, "How did I get where I am right now? I was such a fool. And now all I want is Jesus. How did that happen"? The Holy Spirit says, "I'm glorifying him because I've received in him, and I am showing you his greatness".
Oh, look how great he was when he saved you from that addiction. Oh, look how awesome he was when he healed you. Oh, look how amazing he was when he gave you something you didn't deserve. Oh, look out, look at the splendor of him giving you peace, and now you went from two hours to sleep to seven hours of sleep. I see his glory, mmm. So, when the mind of a man and when the heart of a man, when it becomes occupied with Christ, think, think, think with me, when your mind becomes occupied with Christ, when your heart becomes occupied with Christ, I don't, I can't speak for anybody in here. I don't know what your mind's occupied with. I don't know what your heart's occupied with. But, if it's not Christ, we got an issue here. Because, when your mind and heart becomes occupied with Christ, then the grace and the truth of which he is full of, John chapter 1:14, "Jesus full of", what, "grace and", what, "truth".
The grace and the truth which he is full of, Jesus is full of, must become a great influence for Godly living. The grace and truth that Jesus is full of must become an influence for Godly living. Not the fact that you know all the laws and then you work hard to keep all the rules, but the grace and the truth of Jesus has so influenced you that Godly living springs up in your life because of the influence. And you're no longer looking to see how to keep that commandment, that commandment, how to do this, how to do that, how to love, how to forgive, how to do all those things. But you're so influenced by him. His glory has been shown to you. His grace and truth has been made real to you. And your mind is occupied with his grace. Your mind is occupied with his truth. It is no longer just what you get on Sunday.
But Monday, you're occupied with this grace and truth, and Tuesday, you're occupied with this grace and truth because, all your Christian life, you've been trying to arrive at a certain point, and you never got there. But something happened when you submitted yourself to depend on this grace and truth. And now you look at yourself now, and you're just not what you used to be. Now, on the other hand, when a believer struggles in self effort to do that which he thinks is right, your mind then becomes occupied with self, and your soul is drawn away from Christ because you're just thinking about, "How I can do this. How can I do that? How can I do that? How can I be successful? How can I get enough money to do this? How can I do that? How can I forgive this"?
Your mind is occupied with self, and you're struggling in your self-effort. And, for some people, they don't even know that the struggle is in their self-effort. And, for most Christians, they don't know that, even coming to church, you leave with your mind occupied with your self-effort. "How am I going to forgive? How am I gonna walk in love? How am I gonna do this"? And you're trying to come up with a strategy in self-effort to try to accomplish something, and you don't even realize that your soul is drawn away from Christ because you're so occupied with how you gonna do it. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit takes of the things that are Christ and he shows them to the believer, he is now carrying out God's purpose of the teaching by grace. He's showing you, I mean, are you kidding me? He is showing you that you're righteous, even though you ain't there all the way yet. He is, he's disrupting a desire that has plagued you all your life.
And one day you woke up and that, the strength of that desire begins to be depleted. And one day you realize, "I don't even desire that anymore". Anybody know what I'm talking about here? "How, how did I get here"? You remember those days where you heard something at church? You heard something about this, and you knew it was right. And so you accepted the challenge, and you went home and wrote some formulas down, some plans down, and you say you were gonna do it every day. And you started off right, with the right heart, but it didn't last for two days. And then the fourth day, you forgot all about it. And all God wanted you to do is, "Can you spend some time with me? Can we talk today? You ain't even got to pray a formal prayer, of the rules you learned about prayer at church. Can we just talk? In fact, if you want to, you can just be quiet, and I'll fill you with my presence".
And you look up, and he has worked on a desire and taken away a desire and even gave you a new one. And the struggle you had with loving that person is not a struggle anymore. I've been hanging around the essence of pure love, and it has rubbed off in me and on me, and I can't explain intellectually to you what has happened. But I can love now. I can love stuff that's not lovely, that I don't need it to be lovely for me to love because of the Holy Spirit on the inside of me, pouring the love of God on the inside of me, revealing to me Jesus and seeing this part of his greatness and his awesomeness. I don't need you to be all right for me to love you because now I've made room for your faults because the Holy Ghost has shown me my own. And you find that you have willingly left all, and you hunger for him. That's where I am right now.
How can I separate myself from my bad tradition? How can I separate myself from my self-effort? How many fables have I created? And told myself it must be true. Genesis chapter 24 gives an illustration here of something that I saw. Flip over there, Genesis 24; I looked at this thing, and I was like, "Lord, I don't think I've ever seen this like this before". The Holy Spirit is showing you things about him. So this is a story here about Abraham, who was old; Sarah had just died. He called his oldest servant to go and seek out a wife for his son, Isaac, verse 10, "And the servant took ten camels of camels of his master's, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hands: he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahar, Nahor". So he takes ten camels. He takes a lot of the goods that Abraham had. What is he gonna do with this? Abraham had already prophesized to him exactly how this was gonna go down. She was gonna show up, she was gonna have a bucket in her hands, when she does, do this and do that.
And so, in verse 33, I wish I could read the whole thing, but I'm skipping around. Verse 33, he says, "I will not eat, until I have told mine errand. And he said, Speak on. And he said, I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly; and he has become great; and he has given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold, and menservants, and maidservants, and camels, and asses. And Sarah my master's wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and unto him hath he given all that he had". See, right now, this servant is glorifying Abraham and his master and Isaac. And he said, verse 39, "And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me. And he said unto me, The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and he will prosper your way; and thou shall take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father's house".
So he went to his kin folks to find a wife. That was not so weird back then. It'd be weird now, grossamona. "And then Laban, Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceeded from the Lord; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good". He said, "Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, go, let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord has spoken". And they worshiped him, verse 53, "And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, jewels of gold, raiment, and gave to Rebekah; and he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things". What was happening here? It was by presenting gifts from Isaac through the servant and telling about him that Abraham's servant attracted the heart of Rebekah. Her heart was attracted from what she heard about him and the things that was given to her, and she went with him and she became Isaac's bride because of what she heard and what she saw, and her heart was attracted towards him.
So also the Holy Spirit, by glorifying Christ, seeks to draw believers away from the things of the world and to bring them to Christ. The Holy Spirit says, "What I want to do is I wanna show you he can change you. I wanna show you he can give you peace. I wanna show you there's mercy for the bad you deserve you don't get. Soon as you did something stupid and thought you were gonna get punished for it, and the goodness showed up instead of the punishment, I want that to attract your heart, to leave the world, to leave what you were doing, and come to him because I have shown you the beauty of his glory".