Creflo Dollar - The Gift of Righteousness vs. The Curse of Sin - Part 2
Could you become righteous by works? No. The Old Testament said in order to be righteous you had to do right. In the new covenant, you're righteous because of your faith in Jesus Christ. So, in the same way that we couldn't become righteous by works, we don't lose our righteousness by works. We didn't become righteous by works, we don't lose it by works. You didn't become righteous by your works, you don't lose it by your works. Your works is not a factor. It wasn't a factor in you getting righteous and it's not gonna be a factor in you losing your righteousness. It's a matter of faith in the redemptive work of Jesus. Committing a sin doesn't make you partly righteous... unrighteous, excuse me. Committing a sin doesn't make you partly unrighteous.
Now, listen to this, I had to write this on a note card, couldn't forget this. So, we believe that we are still the new creation even if we make a mistake. "But for sure our righteousness now," now, here's somebody talking, "but our righteousness now has some dirty spots and it needs to be cleansed for us to be 100% righteous again". That's our attitude in church. "I messed up, so my righteousness got some dirty spots, so I need to be cleansed". So we go on this little weird journey that we go on. We ain't talking to nobody, we ain't looking at TV no more, we're not doing nothing, we're not gonna eat for five days. We're trying to make ourselves hurt a little bit because, "I'm 75% righteous now. 75, 75%, and I don't wanna get 50% righteous. I'm 75 right now, I gotta stop it right now".
That's crazy. For do you even think that you have a God that's so wise, that would even do that? Only religious men do that. The question is, is this the way it works? Now, if you say, "Yes, this is the way it works," then we have, once again, returned to the mindset of self-righteousness. You still think you bring something to the table. You still think it's something about you. You won't let it go. You still think your self-righteousness, "Oh, the Lord opened that door for me because I did this, did this". Or even, "The Lord closed that door because I didn't do this and this and", they both the same. You still trying to take credit for what you can't do. Self-righteousness is based on ourselves, it's based on our good works and our right lifestyle. God's righteousness is based on God himself. God's righteousness is based on God himself.
So, here's the question. If you have missed the mark by doing something against God's will, did that affect the righteousness of Jesus? Now, you know. Did Jesus get some dirty spot and needs to be cleansed? Because if you're righteous because of Jesus and you say you got a dirty spot, then Jesus got a dirty spot because your righteousness is not based on your spots, it's based on Jesus. And if Jesus ain't got no spot, quit acting like you got a spot. Jesus has always and will always remain fully righteous. And this is the good news: Jesus Christ himself has become our righteousness.
1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 30 and 31 in the NLT. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30 and 31 in the NLT. These scriptures are everywhere. "God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him," for our benefit God made Jesus, "to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God," not Creflo, not Jenny, not none of the name, whatever name you mention, it had nothing to do with it. You didn't bring nothing to the table. Is anybody here? Some of y'all looking at me like, "Mm, mm, mm". "For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us be right with God; he made us pure and he made us holy, and he freed us from sin". It is not my righteousness that makes me right, But if I receive his righteousness, I'll do right. It's not me performing holiness that makes me holy, but if I believe I'm holy, I'll behave holy. It's not me trying to be pure that makes me pure.
See, religion and church says it's you doing all of that that's responsible for making you all of that. No, no. You doing righteous doesn't make you righteous, but you receiving righteousness will make you righteous. You receiving holiness is what's gonna make you holy. You receiving purity is what's gonna make you pure. You keep saying, "No, it's gotta be more than just receiving it. I don't receive that, brother, I don't receive that," because you are so used to being self-righteous and you find security in being self-righteous, I mean, you find something out of being, you love telling people what you done did and how you done did it and what you brought to the table. "They didn't have nothing to eat until I brought that ham to the table".
You love doing that, you stuck in that, you stuck in that and your actions and your behavior, it doesn't change, because you're trying to achieve what's been achieved. You might as well buy you a big cross, put it in the backyard and have somebody nail you to the cross, only then to find out it's not your blood that's gonna do nothing. All you gonna do is bleed out. We're not born again by your blood. We're not gonna miss hell because of your blood. We're not made righteous because of your blood. We're not holy because of your blood. Your blood can't do nothing, hallelujah, but the blood of Jesus. Satan has deceived people into thinking that what Jesus did was not enough for us.
2 Corinthians 11:2 through 4 in the NLT. This is a trick. The whole thing has been a propaganda trick. Through fear and condemnation and shame you come to church, you pray, you give. And what happened is, people just got so tired of being in fear and condemnation and shame. When I was at the church, I got so tired, my pastor called me and said, "You coming to church tonight"? I said, "No". He said, "Why"? I said, "I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling bad. I'm tired of feeling guilty," and I'm on the minister's platform. I'm tired of feeling guilty. I'm tired of feeling shame.
Every time I come, I have to hear about these rules. "You can't do this. You can't do that. If you do that, you ain't gonna do that. You gotta do that. You gotta pray in Jesus's name. In Jesus's name, not Jesus name, and if you don't pray in Jesus's", I'm like got dog, I don't want to come and I seriously considered atheism because it made more sense than that stuff I was hearing. I got tired and I was like, I thought church people was supposed to be about love, them was the meanest, never met nobody like them. And I thought, if this is what it's supposed to be like, I just don't think I'm gonna make it and since I can't seem to do nothing right, then I might as well enjoy myself. "I'm gonna go to the party, stand around, but I got myself together, really get down".
I'm being honest with you. It just, it's like, what is this? And then we would celebrate Easter and I'm like, "Why are we celebrating Easter"? They said, "Jesus died". I'm like, "Why"? "And he rose again". "Okay. Why"? "That's why". What? What? What? And they kept blowing smoke in my ear and I got tired of it and one day I woke up and I'm just, "I'm done with this". A little boy I was working with at the Fulton County Parks and Recreation, he drowned and he died and I didn't understand that. And I went in the room and I said, "Lord, this little boy ain't seen his life, go on, take my life, let this boy live," and he didn't do it and I'm like, I spent three days locked up in the room because I'm trying to consider becoming an atheist, and this is, something's wrong with this, something's just not right with this stuff.
I do everything they tell me to do, I fast, I pray for hours, I do everything they tell me to do, and I don't understand. I'm broke, I'm busted, disgusted, I'm driving my mama's station wagon. I can't, I'm just...where is this God? And so, ain't no one, well, I'm gonna be no preacher. I can't stand them jokers. Showing up, eating all the chicken up, talking about...can't stand them preachers. I'm being honest with you. I was so tired and it just...and then one day I heard this word, "Will you become a student of grace"? I'm like, what's that? See, the Bible says grace teaches you. You know another translation for that word teacher? He parents you. Grace will be your parent, which means he's patient with everything involving your transformation and he parents, the grace of God parents you, and I needed a parent.
Here is Paul's concern and it's still the same today. "For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to be one husband, Christ". Three, "But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed". And you gladly put up with it, you gladly just hear it because they have gigantic crowds and you gladly put up with it. And Paul said that, "If anybody preach any of the gospel or if any angel preach any of the gospel, then that which I preach, let him be a curse," and he said it twice.
So, since I've been preaching this gospel of grace for 12, 13 years, I've lost all of my preacher friends. Isn't that sad? Because at least you could still love me, if you disagree with me. You can still have me over for a baloney sandwich if you disagree with me. What is that? And then I learned grace people gotta learn how to be gracious people. Even when it's not fun, even when it doesn't feel good, even when it hurts, you gotta be gracious. And the same things happened with our marriage. Some women would rather be dominated and abused by men than to understand that Jesus came to set you free from male domination. Look at the men. Hey, men, I got news for you. You ain't the boss. You're supposed to be an equal partner in the corporation that you married into, but you scared.
You scared because you're so inferior you have hidden behind false superiority to make you feel better about your inferiority. And now a woman's got to dumb herself down to your dumb butt because... oh, excuse me, I'm sorry. She can't be smart, she can't be intelligent, she can't be a CO or CEO, she can't run nothing because your butt is so dumb that you get inferior if she make more money than you make. I don't mind being my wife's boy. Make that money, girl. Bring that bag home. I don't mind. I'm gonna cut my hours so I can serve her, run her some bath water, make her a cheese sandwich when she come home. What's the matter with you?
So, I'm almost through here. What are we to do if we have committed a sin? What are we to do, as Christians, if we have committed a sin? Go to the book of 1 John 2:1 and 2. 1 John 2: 1 and 2. This is what we do. You're a Christian. You have a new creation, the software, which is... that's the flesh, that mind, that unrenewed mind, that's the flesh. Not so much your body as much as it is your flesh. Again, get to the root of it. The root of your body doing stuff is this unrenewed software. So, what do we do? "My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not". Okay, that's what he said. So, as Christians, he's not advocating sinning because he's like yield to the new creation and just like you yield to the old man, the old sin man.
So he says, "What do you do if you sin"? He says now, "These things I write unto you, so you sin not. If any man sin, we have an advocate," someone who pleads our case. So, Jesus says, "I'll plead and stand before the Father on your behalf". Now, what is it that we do? Verse 2, remember this, "He is the propitiation," he is the sin offering, he is the ransom that has been paid. "He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world".
If you sin, here's what you do. The ransom has been paid for me. I'm good. I gotta renew my mind. That's crazy, but I'm good. You sinned. The ransom's been paid for me. I'm still the righteousness of God. I'm good. You sinned. I'm the righteousness of God. The sin offering has been paid for me. He didn't cover my sin, he kicked it out socket. You know what he's saying do? Remind yourself of who you are and what has been done for you. Do not try to undo something by something you do. You are still righteous.
"Well, Pastor Dollar", I know it's in the room. I'm gonna say it because I'm free. I know it's in the room. "What you talking about? Once saved, always saved"? Yes, you should always be saved unless you turn away from it and you still ain't that deep that... see, that's another one of them demon doctrines. "Let me convince you that there's no way that you can get in Christ and be all right in him for the whole time," because you're basing it on what you do. When you're in Christ, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. You would have to, it would be real hard but you would have to just turn your back on God and just go crazy another way, but you would have to be full of revelation, full of this, all gifts after, you can't even qualify to do that.
You better hope that's right. You better hope that once you in Christ that they closed the door behind and you can't get out of Christ. Oh, let me... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, alright. Alright, check this out. So, the ark that Noah was in... That's got to be God that did... The ark represented Jesus. With all that water, I know they fell, but they were in the ark. They didn't fall out of the ark, they fell in the ark, so they were still safe. Noah and his wife might even had an argument, but they had it in the ark. When you sin, you don't fall out of Christ, you fall in him, you fall right in his arms. You don't fall out of him, you fall in him.