Creflo Dollar - Christ, The Preeminent One - Part 2
The Holy Spirit never leads anyone to look at himself and his own accomplishments but only and always at Christ and what he has done. What has Christ done in you? Huh? You know it was him. You tried it for years and nothing never happened. Well, you see, this before I went to church. No, no, no, no. God's not waiting until you get to church. He will meet you in the bar you got drunk at last night, and when you wake up, there might be something different about you, but if it is, you can't take the credit for that. That's something that the Spirit of God is revealing to you, a merciful God, a gracious God, a God who can clean you up and call you while you're intoxicated and to let you know when you clean up that it wasn't a dream. It's true. He still wants to use you. He used three murderers.
Why wouldn't he want to use you? Think about all the regrets you have in your life. Think about all the mess ups you had in your life. And I'm not speaking to you from just the point of, well, before you got saved. Now, I'm talking to a lot of you after you got saved. Some of the biggest hell and sinning took place after you made Jesus the Lord of your life. And the shame came into your life, and the guilt came into your life. I'm telling you right now. We have got to get rid of this little fable thing and stop being afraid of letting people know, "Look at Christ in me". 'Cause sometimes when they're not understanding what I'm preaching and they not understanding the Bible you gave them, they can understand a living epistle that will tell them "I used to be here, but look at where God has brought me right now".
What are you afraid of? I'm over this playing church phony kind of stuff. I can't even do that. I can't even do that. If y'all wanna play some church and do some fable stuff and stuff like that, I got to go. I have my resignation in for tonight. I got to go. I ain't got time to do that. This thing is getting real. I don't wanna talk to you or debate to you about some intellectual aerobics that you had about a particular scripture. "Oh, I got revelation". Well, good. He revealed it to who? You. Well, you did do it. Don't talk to me about it. He revealed it to you. He didn't reveal it to me. I ain't supposed to know what you trying to tell me right now. I might not be ready for what you trying to tell me right now. Y'all ain't ready for me today. Some of y'all looking at me like. Paul expressed to the believers of Ephesus his desire and prayer on their behalf, and here's what Paul said to them.
Look at Ephesians chapter 3, verse 17 and 19 in the King James. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 17 and 19. He said, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts". Here's what I want. I want Christ to dwell in your hearts. I want Christ to dwell in my heart. Does Christ dwell in your heart? Do you feel him? Do you sense him? Somebody say, "Well, you're not moved by your feelings". No, he wants you to feel his love even though you can't comprehend it all. He still wants you to feel it and sense it and experience his love with your deep self. He ain't supposed to feel it. he wants you to experience his love. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you being," watch this. He wants you to be "rooted and grounded," what? "In love. Then may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and the length, and the depth, and the height; And to know," and to know and to know, not know about but to know, to know. This has to come with experience.
"And to know," this is something you have to know because you experientially, "And to know the love of Christ," not to know about the love of Christ, not to tell me, "Well, that means agape. And you know, you got phileo, and you got eros". To know his love, to know his love when you didn't have no money to pay your light bill. To know his love when you were hurt and diagnosed with some kind of bad cancer. To know his love, not know about it. "To know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge". Whew! So he says this passes knowledge, so quit trying to know it intellectually. He said the only way you gonna know this is you got to know it experientially, "that you might be filled," just by knowing and experiencing his love, "you get full of God". You get full of God just by knowing and experiencing his love.
Look at this in the NLT. Go back to verse 17. Just by knowing his love. Do you know how full of God you get when you experience God's love? Oh, there's nothing like it. When the goodness showed up and you didn't deserve it, you're full of God because you've experienced his love. Now, I'm not throwing away the intellectual part. I told you at the beginning, I'm not throwing away the intellectual part, but don't make that part the whole. It's that plus the experience. In fact, why know about something intellectually and never experience? That's hypocrisy. Why know about it intellectually and never know it? Don't you just love those people that always tell you about what they know and ain't experienced nothing? It's like an analyst who wants to talk about football and how you ought to do it, and he ain't never played.
"Well, he could have made that tackle". Yeah, but he just ran 50 yards and had to run back again, and he tired. "Well, he should have made that tackle". Yeah. But when he hit the guy, his shoulder was hurt, and he felt numb on his arm. But you want to tell me intellectually how you ought to tackle. Ain't never tackled nothing. Didn't even tackle your wife in the bedroom. Ain't never tackled nothing, and you want to talk to somebody about how to make a tackle. You have intellectually examined that, but you have no experience.
So why intellectually talk to me about the love of God and you've never, you've never experienced it. You don't understand why a grown man can cry tears when you talk about knowing the love of God, but you don't understand he actually knows the love of God when he was a no-good, hell-raising, wife-beating, lying cheat. And God took him and said, "I love you and I'm gonna work with you. When I finish with you, I'm gonna make you the best husband that you thought you could never be". And when he hears this talk of knowing love, he can't hold his tears back, but you can because your intellectualism pumps you up in pride and say, "Yes, I knew that. Yes, I know what three more scriptures are. Yes, I know the Greek of that. I'm not concerned about that no more. I'm tired of that".
I want to meet some genuine Christians who delight in knowing their God experientially. I don't want to hear about no 20 ways to get healed before midnight. You ain't never been sick before. You ain't never been told you're gonna die before. I don't want to hear about your 20 ways to do it. I'mma just talk to God. Hallelujah. I'mma ask him, "Lord, help me through this thing. I'm scared, Lord. Lord, if you could just lift me up and give me something to carry me right now, Lord. Lord, I don't know if this is gonna work, that gonna work. My faith don't seem like it's there! Could you give me my faith? Could you help me with my faith, Lord? I feel like I'm about to lose it right now! God, help me"! And he comes in and gives you peace. "Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust him".
I want it, Christ to make his home in you. I don't want him to be a visitor in you. I want him to be a tenant, occupy your heart, moved emotionally because you have no words to describe how much he means to you, and in the middle of a praise service, when the right song comes with the right words and you start singing them, but you can't finish the song because you done got all choked up because you say, "I know that God". He makes his home in your heart when you trust him. Your roots will grow down into God's love, and he'll keep you strong. He'll keep you strong. "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, and how long, and how high, how deep is his love". It's deeper than what some preachers say. It's deeper than what some apostles and bishops proclaim. As far as you can go loving somebody, God's love is deeper.
"I can't ever forgive my wife 'cause she did this, did that". God's love goes deeper. "This man killed my loved one," God love goes deeper. When I did that interview with the man who adopted his son's killer. I just got convicted, and I said, "Help me, God. I don't think I can do that". And he said, "Not in your own human capacity, you can't". But this man didn't love in his human capacity. I drenched him with my supernatural love, and that was the only way he could adopt his son's killer. But God's love is even deeper than that. Wow. Help me, Jesus. "May you experience the love of Christ, though it's too great to understand fully". I'm gonna still let you experience it. I'm gonna blow your mind with the experience. You may not be able to explain it to people, but I'm gonna let you experience 'cause I want you to know me.
I want you to know it's not what you brought to the table. I want you to know it wasn't the 20 things you did right this week. I want you to know it wasn't because you were good but because I'm good. I'm gonna let you experience something beyond your human capacity. "And then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God". Whoa. So, here is the emphasis, you see the emphasis on a person and his love. It's not a matter of fulfilling commandments or obligations, not duties to perform, nor even living up to the ideas and moral standards. Paul's desire was that Christ might dwell in your hearts. Why the heart? Because the heart is the seat of your emotions, which stir your whole being. This is what I'm talking about this morning. This is something in addition to intellectual knowledge.
Notice, I'm not beating up intellectual knowledge. I know it may sound like it, but I'm trying to exalt something a little bit higher so you can see. So this is in addition to intellectual knowledge of him, as important as that is. It is a realization of him as the controlling force of our own life. It's realizing him that becomes the controlling force of my whole life. It is a consciousness of oneness with him. It's him! It's him. The closest thing in human experience to that place that I'm talking about now is between a man and a woman, when this man meets this woman, the one he can't live without and he becomes occupied, thinking of her all the time, and that woman meets this man and she becomes occupied. All she thinks about is him, wanting to be with him. He wanted to be with her. Where your love making is no longer just physical, but it moves into your spirit and soul and you both begin to weep as you're making love with this person.
The life of neither is fully apart from the other. You just can't see life apart. That's what Paul said. I'll show it to you in a minute, but he said for me to live as Christ, I can't see my life apart from him! When a man and a woman comes to that place, that each of them gives the other the preeminence, you're giving the other the strongest thing, the most important, the most powerful. When something is preeminent, it is surpassing all others. It's very distinguished, and in some way, it towers above. And that husband, in your eyes, towers above any man on the planet. And that wife, in your eyes, towers above any woman on the planet. And she may look better, and she may be finer, and she may talk three languages, but she cannot reach the level of intimacy and knowing.
So this is what Paul saw. This is what Paul recognized. Here I am a murdering pharisee, a hypocrite, a religious, traditional man, who sat by while Stephen was stoned to death. I'm no good. I thought what I was doing was right. I was trying to keep the laws of the Old Covenant, and Jesus interrupted my life. And it wasn't what I read. I was riding, and I got interrupted. And he showed up, and I had an experience with Jesus. My whole life changed. And I told people about this Jesus, and I saw his glorious beauty. In all my time, all these people out and sent to heaven, I'm gonna have to see one day, but Jesus came in and he released his marvelous grace, and he changed me from Saul to Paul.
And now, to live as Christ. When Christ dwells in the heart of the believer by faith, life with all its acts and emotions become centered in him, and that's why the Holy Spirit is, in this age, takes the things that are Christ, and he makes them known to those who are his. He glorifies Christ so that he may become preeminent in the life of the believer. I get it! I get it! You're glorifying Christ! You're showing his greatness! You're showing all of his might, all the things that he has done so that I can become the person that will say, "You are Christ, my Preeminent One". Look at what you've done.