Creflo Dollar - The Gifts of Grace and Faith - Part 2
All right, now here it is. So everything that’s been made available, we access this through what? We access this through what? All right, real quick Romans 5 and 2 and Romans 4:16 in the NLT. Romans 5 and 2 and Romans 4:16. We’ll come back to this now. All right. Verse 2, «Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand». Isn’t that interesting? We now stand. Glory to God. «And we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing,» watch this, «God’s glory,» or these manifestations I started off talking to you about. Glory here is the manifested word, and notice how it starts. Beginning of verse 2 again.
Notice how it starts. He says that because of our faith Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege. It’s not because of our labor, not because of our effort, not because of our performance. Do you see this? It is because of our faith that he has brought us into these undeserved privileges. So I am all that he has done, all right, because of my faith. Now look at Romans 4:16. Now, this is going to be a little shocking, but I’ve got to take my time on this but… amen. Here we go. He says, «So the promise is received», all of the promises we just talked about the promises of sozo and soteria, right?
All of the promises is received. See, all of these gifts have to be received. They got to be received. We’ve been trained, we’ve been working for it. They got to be received. Get a picture of that. They got to be received. I have a gift in my hands. I extend that gift to you, it’s got to be what? Received. It’s got to be taken. It’s got to be received. It doesn’t require you to work to get it. You already got it. It’s got to be received. Not working to get healed, not working for soundness, not working for preservation, but receiving. Receive. Say it. «Received». This promise is received. And guess what faith is? Faith is your receiver mechanism. Faith is your receiver mechanism. Faith is not your go-get-it mechanism, faith is your receiver. It’s your receiving mechanism.
So God gave you grace, which is a gift. All right? Watch this. «So the promise is received by faith. It», what is this «it» referring to? Faith. «It is given as a free gift». It’s interesting because the promise was given as a free gift and faith was given as a free gift. «And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses…» You don’t need faith to live by the law 'cause the law is clear, «Do this and this happens». You don’t need faith to live by the law, but you need faith to receive under this new covenant what Jesus has already given you.
«And if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe». He’s not just the father of all Jewish people, he are the father of all who receive. He’s the father of receivers who received like him. And how did he receive? «Abraham, you’re going to have a son». Abraham, «I’m a…» He said, «I’m 100. My wife, she 90-something. We old. We don’t have the equipment. There’s nothing we can do to make this happen. We old. We don’t even feel like getting it on. There’s nothing we can do to make this happen. If this is going to happen, if this promise is going to take place, you going to have to do it. All we can do is believe and receive this child. The only thing we can do is receive an Isaac. We can’t make him. We can’t work for him. We have to receive an Isaac».
But religion’s taught you now you got to sweat for an Isaac, you got to perform for an Isaac, you got to do all these things to get an Isaac. And he says, «No, no, no. I only require for you to hear the promise, believe the promise, and take the promise. I ain’t ask you to do nothing else». All right, go back to Ephesians 2. It’s like a month and a half now 'cause I’m not going to… all right now. «For by grace are you saved through faith; and that», so what is the that referring to? Some theologians say, «Well, he’s referring to grace». Well, if that was referring to grace, it would make it redundant. You following what I’m saying? It’s now redundant. We already know by definition that grace is a gift of God and it’s redundant.
«For by grace are you saved through faith; and that,» faith is, «not of yourselves». And for most of my life I made faith about me. «Do I have enough faith to get this»? And then when I don’t get it and I don’t get healed and I don’t get anything, then I blame it on my lack of faith. But he has given to every man what? The measure, not a measure. Because if he gave to every man a measure, then it would be another measure and degrees of measure. But that’s why he said he gave to every man the measure, which means every man got the same measure that another man got.
Think about it. Think about God, who’s not a respecter of person, giving Pastor Ken a measure and then I get a different measure and you get a different measure, and then you look at people that got manifestations and you think, «Well, the reason why they got it is 'cause their measure of faith was greater than my measure of faith». And watch the condemnation that come. «Now I feel condemned because now I got to go and figure out how to work my measure of faith and work my faith muscles so it can get big like theirs». Y’all hearing what I’m saying? I’m talking about me. How many of you know I can talk about me? I’m not going to get mad at me. I’m not going to walk by me and not speak to me and nothing like that. I’m talking about me.
So don’t you think I’m talking about nobody else. I’m talking about my journey to get where I am right now. That faith is not of yourselves. So you trying to manufacturing more faith to handle your issue that you don’t believe you received it because you can’t see it yet. Everything that is is, but it’s just not… it may not have appeared yet in this dimension that you live in. There are angels. You can’t see them right now, but your lack of seeing the angels doesn’t mean the angels are not there. Remember the story with Elijah? Was it Elijah who… I think it was Elijah. And he had a servant and, yeah, he told him to go up. «Tell me what you see». They surrounded Elijah getting ready to destroy him. He said, «Go up and tell me what you see». He said, «I don’t see nothing». He said, «Go up there again». «Oh, I see a bunch of angels surrounding that army».
Now, the angels were always there. Just 'cause you can’t see them, they here right now. If God were to open your spiritual eyes, we would all see that we have more than one guardian angel. Who said there’s got to be one angel per person? There are enough angels to take care of you in fulfilling the mission that God called you to fulfill. Don’t let your angels be lounging around because you’re not following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Now, watch this faith. That faith is not of yourselves. Think about what we’ve done with that. We’ve made it all about ourselves. When it worked, we made it about ourselves and boasted. Anytime you can boast about your faith, it shouldn’t be boast about. You should be boasting about God. We’ve made it about all of that, that not of yourselves.
This faith is a gift of God. I was so blown away that God gave me grace as a gift and then turned around and gave me a gift to receive what grace. Grace is a gift, and faith is a gift. Faith is a gift. It was dealt in the measure, equal measures. Faith is a gift. He gifted every man with the measure of faith. Glory to God. Glory to God. And I’m going to teach on these phrases, little faith, big faith, 'cause that’s just real simple. Your faith is little or big based on if it’s active or not, based on your receiving or not. It’s not measured. All right, now watch this. «And that not of yourself; it…» this faith is a gift of God. All right, now watch what he says about this gift. Here it said this faith is not of works.
Okay, so this is the first session so I’m going to kind of go with it just a little bit and then we’ll do details later. This faith is not of works. Now, that freaks people out because Bible says faith without works is dead. The Bible didn’t say that. Yeah, James 2 says, you know, so then your faith without works is dead, but you got to understand, watch this, context. So I’m going to teach on it. So I’m going to give you a week to read it. Context is that Pastor James was dealing with a situation of people showing up on the porch and saying, «I’m naked and I’m hungry». And you say to them, «Be ye clothed and be ye full». And James was saying, «Okay, this saving faith that you say you have, you say you’ve been saved by this saving faith», he said, «Now, if you’ve been saved by this saving faith and you have this relationship with God, then this saving faith and this salvation in you should produce out of you some good works».
Watch this. And then he said, «Show me your faith», I’m going to use a synonym, «Show me your faith without proof, works, fruit; and I’ll show you my faith with proof, works, fruit». In other words, now that you’re saved and have a relationship with God, what should be brewing out of you because you’re saved is, «I got to clothe you. I got to give you something to eat». Paul was saying, «Don’t talk to me about you have saving faith and there is no fruit or works coming out of that relationship». Context. Then he goes on and he says Abraham was justified by works.
Well, we clearly see in Romans 4 that the Bible says that Abraham was justified by his faith. But James was not saying add works to your faith in order to be justified, James was saying that if you are really born again and you have this gift on the inside of you then it’ll be demonstrated and proved. Out of that will come the proof or the evidence of your works. Like Abraham was justified by his fruit when he was asked by God to take his son up and sacrifice his son, we know he had a relationship with God 'cause look at what he did. Are y’all seeing this? James was not contradicting Paul at all.
James was saying, «Show me your faith without works, or proof, or evidence, or fruit and I’ll show you my faith and what’s come out of my relationship with God in clothing folks and feeding folks and carrying out the good works that are being ministered on the inside of me to carry out». So you were saved by grace so you can do good works. There are certain things that comes out of you that maybe wasn’t in your mind before you got saved, but now that you’re saved you got mercy and empathy and you find yourself doing something for people that you would have normally not done for them. But now that that saving grace has interrupted your life, you can’t help but to look at people with mercy and grace and saying, «Look at what God’s done for me. I got to do it for them».
Proof of your faith, and the way we interpret it was James said faith without you doing something and that’s pretty, if you understand what he was saying, but that’s not how we did it. We took it to we got to add performance to our faith in order for our faith to work. So if you were receiving healing for your eyes, the way we’ve been trained is you got to take your glasses off 'cause «faith without works is dead». See, you’re trying to get your faith to make; and faith doesn’t make, faith takes. What does faith take? It takes what grace has made.
Faith doesn’t make; and you’re trying to get faith to make your healing, you’re trying to get faith to make your prosperity, you’re trying to get faith to make you a new job. You’re trying to get faith to make all this other stuff and faith doesn’t make. Faith is a nonwork. Faith is a nonwork. This is strong. If faith requires performance, then that faith destroys grace or your opportunity to take it. You can’t take… Romans 11. If grace is works, then grace is no longer grace. It’s no longer grace. See what happens? So if you add work to your faith, you destroy grace. It’s no longer grace. And everything that you’re believing for and all the promises he made came by grace, and to add works to the gift of faith destroys what came by grace.
So now what you have to do is you say, «By the grace of God I am healed, and by the faith of God I receive the healing. I’m not trying to make it. I’m not trying to create it. I’m not trying to invent it. I’m just taking what he has already made, and I will not add works to that. But now that I’m saved by faith, hallelujah, you’re going to see the good works that come out of me because grace saved me so he can produce fruit out of me to impact this sick world». See, you’re disappointed because you’ve been using your faith to get your car. «Yeah, but I got my car».
That’s mercy and grace. They don’t know. …will teach them 10 years down the road. They’ll get it. You keep adding works to a gift that is a nonwork. This is as shocking to you today as the first day I started preaching on grace. But this is a gift. Have we not proved that by Scripture? Now, the fight you going to have is, «Do I let go of my tradition of the way I’ve always believed or am I ready to dig and pay attention to that voice in me that’s saying, 'This is right. This is right.'» Because there’s too much sweating.
Listen, a spiritual son of mine died years ago and I went and I said, «Well, I’m just going to raise him from the dead». Now, I’m going to compare that to when one person was raised with nothing and me trying to do it with works. So I was in Alabama and I told them, I said, «Go get… I want to see the body». They said, «The body ain’t ready yet». I said, «Bring it on out anyway». And I had George with me. He was like, «What the world are we doing»? Dead body came in, and I was working my faith. I said, «In the name of Jesus, rise up».
Just like they did in Elijah day, just like they did, but see in… «Rise up». I ain’t saying it. I got to add some something to it. I keep trying to… Like, you feel more powerful when you say something you don’t know what you’re saying. «Get up». Still didn’t get up. «I ain’t lay my hands right. Not enough oil». The dead body sitting in there. I got oil all on the dead body, hands all over. «Rise». He ain’t get up.