Creflo Dollar - Sin Will Never Be Greater Than Grace - Part 1
If you are a man, and this may not just be men, it may be everybody. But you found yourself struggling, with sin, and you feel like every time God looks at you, he looks at you and sees the sin in your life. And that's a very interesting thing to deal with because... oh we've missed it so much. You feel like, "Man, God looks at me and he just sees, he sees the sin".
I wanna get you free from that, once and for all. It's gonna be shocking. I didn't say I was gonna get you... anyway, if that's you and you wanna be ministered to, would you just kind of stand where you are? I mean, and you don't have to because this is not like one of those things where I'm trying to embarrass anybody. I just feel when you're ready to be free, you just, you'll do whatever you need to do, okay? All right guys would y'all come join me right quick? I want you to come up here where I am.
Now, come on up here, come on, come on. Come on up here where I am. All right, just come on, get behind me. Just come on, all right. Yeah, I saw this. Yeah, we gonna be all right. Yeah, I don't want you to ever forget the picture that we're painting before your eyes. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24. Put it on the screen. 1 Peter 2:24. I wanna look at it in the King James and then the Amplified because it ain't never gonna be the same, your sins. And the reason why I had you to come up here is because everybody up here, including myself, we have the recipient of what I'm getting ready to show you.
I don't know who told us that Jesus, every time he looks at us, he sees sin. Verse 24 says, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body". Wow, he bares our sin in his own body. And then the Amplified of 1 Peter 2:24, "He personally bore our sins in His own body on the tree as on an altar and offered Himself on it, that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and that we might live to righteousness".
All right now, listen to me. The day you give your life to Jesus, "Lord, help me". The day you gave your life to Jesus, that's the day that you lost possession of sin. When God looks at you, he does not see sin. He sees righteousness. When he looks at Jesus, he sees all of your sin on Jesus, but he sees none of your sin on you because he took your sins on his body so he can put his righteousness on you. So no matter how crazy you think you are, no matter how bad you think you are, no matter how sinful you think you are, God doesn't see sin when he looks at you. He sees righteousness.
Watch this and he wants you to start seeing yourself like he sees you. But somehow we keep seeing ourselves as sinful, awful. You got a good heart. You love God. You just keep finding yourself in that same trap because you keep seeing yourself as that same person and you're not. You're righteous. I don't care, listen to me now, I know there's a church world out there that says your behavior determines your identity. Uh-uh, you are the righteousness of God, okay? Keep believing that and the behavior will start lining up with it.
But as long as you buy the trick, oh man, look at me. I'm just so sinful. God just keeps looking at me. God sees my sins. No, when God looks at you, he sees your righteousness and that's so hard to believe sometimes because the church has done this job on us. It's done this job on us that your behavior, you think God's looking at you based on your behavior.
Now watch this. If God saw sin, when he looked at you, then we got a problem with the whole message. 'Cause the message says that he bore our sins on his body. If he took our sins on his body, and we took his righteousness on our body, then when Jesus looks at us, he sees the righteousness that's on Jesus and then when he looks at his Son Jesus Christ, he sees all of the sin that he bore his body on his Son Jesus. He no longer sees the sin on you. So you think, "Well, my sinning, doesn't it separate me from God"?
Now, watch this. It was that sin nature that separates you from God. But when you got born again, you lost the sin nature. Come here. All right, so we're spirit, soul, where you on this side. All right, so we're a tripart being right? All right, spirit, soul, body. All right now, he got born again, so he's perfect, flawless, heaven ready. My soul is being renewed. So I'm hooking up with him. My body, eventually he's gonna have to line up with it. Now, watch this now. So now the Holy Ghost came in and he created this new man.
All right now, the old man left or gone; the new man, the new creation is here. The only thing that separated me from God was my own nature. But now that my own nature doesn't exist anymore, there is no more separation between me and God. All right now, watch this. My actions and behavior won't separate me from God. It was my old sinful man that separated me, upbraided me from God. But if I'm born again, I ain't got that old man no more.
Now, I'm still gonna work on my behavior, he gonna help me. I'm still gonna get better, he gonna help me. I'm still gonna learn how to talk about it, he gonna help me. I'm not gonna cuss as much as I used to, he gonna help me. He's here to help me. He's not separated from me. He's helping me because life is a journey and the church has convinced us that God did accept us because we keep misbehaving, but the Holy Ghost is working. He's perfect... He's perfect... I'm getting my mind renewed and my body is waiting on some orders. Okay?
So when God... I know it's four of us, but this is what exists in this one package. So when God looks at me, he does not see sin even though... can I go ahead and just and I'm tired of trying to go around the corner. He does not see sin, even though you are sinning sometimes. Okay, so stop. "What do you mean 'sinning sometimes?'" All right, so if you're not sinning no time, that mean you perfect. Everybody that perfect stand up. You better not stand up. I will cast my shoe at you.
See, when you are critical of somebody because of their behavior, you have to believe that you're perfect. There's nobody here per, "Well, I don't commit adultery. I don't do the Big Ten. I don't do the Big Ten," but I'm gonna tell you something. You got bad attitude. You lie a little bit, you exaggerate a whole lot. Sin is sin, right? Sin is sin. But you're going to get better because God moved in there with us. And why do you think the Holy Ghost is in there? So you can jerk, so you can jiggle? To guide us, to guide us in the journey, to help us to get better, to work on our desire, to help us to wanna do right. To help us to want to get it right.
All right, so 20 years ago, my behavior was awful but I've been saved for 21 years and I look back and I'm like, oh my goodness, the stuff that I used to do, I'm not doing it no more. I've conquered 10 things. I got them 10 more to go. And you think you got 10, you really got 100. I got 10 more to go. Are you following me? But it's a journey. But God looks at me and he says, "I see nothing but righteousness. I don't look at you and see sin. I look at you and see righteousness. Your sin is on my Son Jesus".
Here's my point. Stop looking at yourself like you a sinner. You are no longer a sinner. Now that you're born again, you are a new creation in Christ. All things have passed away. Since y'all in front, y'all wanna go and preach? What you looking at, man, I'm tired, I just got back from Nigeria. I got the notes right here, just. See, you gotta read them things right there. See, once you realize, once you realize who you are, then the religion doesn't beat you up so bad that you think God can't use you. 'Cause God can use anybody on this stage, in this place.
But here's the difference. The difference is once you get born again, all things have passed, behold, all things have become new. If there's anybody up here that has not given your life to Jesus, raise your hands, we'll fix it before you go back to your seat. Everybody up here got born again? All right, from this day forward, you do not refer to yourself as a sinner. God doesn't see you as a sinner. All right, so maybe you gonna have some crazy days on this journey, but you're still the righteousness of God. And every time, you know, you end up doing something crazy just remind yourself of the righteousness of God. When God looks at me, he doesn't see sin. When God looks at me, he sees righteousness. That's who I am.
Now, with that very simple illustration and explanation, without me hollering, without me pouring all on you, without me slapping you and pushing you down to the ground, you have received deliverance for a lifetime. You have received deliverance for the lifetime. You sense it, don't you? You sense it, you're feeling it, right? Well, it's all right to feel it. Now, we don't want to live out of the feelings because it'll change tonight. But is that, is that there? Huh? Right? You good? You free? That's a altar call right there.
All right, so he doesn't call us sinners, but he calls us saints. You're a saint, you're the righteousness of God. And the way the devil can get you is by getting you to violate your identity on the righteousness of God. I don't care how I act, I don't care what crazy thing I did because we assume that you're just gonna keep acting crazy. You ain't gonna keep acting crazy because Holy Ghost in there with you and he will keep working on you and he ain't never gonna let you go and even when you try to leave him, he ain't gonna let you leave. If you go to the bar, he gonna go back with you. If you go to go back to the women, he going back with you.
If you go back to the drugs, he going there with you, he'll catch you when you high as a kite and don't even know what night it is and he gonna, he gonna minister to you and then one day you're gonna wake up and say, "I'm tired of doing this thing! I don't want this no more. I don't want this no more. I don't want this no more". That's how this is, this is not some religious game where we play this little game. You know, you say, oh, you wore the one wrong color, you going to hell. Oh, you missed that part, you go to hell. No, no, no, no, it's a journey. You all right.
If we were to leave right now, if you would have died right now today, you're gonna be in heaven. You're gonna be in heaven, all right? So be free, and before you sit down, I want you to go to two or three people and tell them, "I'm free," and y'all take your free self back to your seat. Congratulations, you're set free. You're welcome, buddy. You're welcome, man. God bless you. Yeah, God bless you, man. God bless you, buddy. God bless you, man. You're free. You're free, buddy. God bless you. You're free. You're free. You're free.
Sometimes we talk as if sin is greater than grace. Sin is not greater than grace. We have more faith in sin to send us to hell than faith for grace to send us to heaven. Somehow or another we think sin is more powerful than grace. Oh, you know, the grace of God is this, but watch out, the sin. Sin will never be greater than grace. Grace will always be greater. What was the scripture? I think it's Romans 5. When sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Stop treating people like they're infected with something or that they experience something that you don't.
Now, it may be in different categories, it may be in different degrees. Maybe you greedy, maybe you can't stay out the refrigerator, but we gotta stop doing that. And then in Hebrews chapter 9 and in verse 28, Hebrews 9:28. Yeah, he says, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin under salvation". Look at this in the NLT. I'm gonna officially teach on this from A to Z but he says, "So also Christ was offered once for all times as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people". He was offered one time, for all times, to take away the sins of many people. "He will come again, but not to deal with our sins".