Creflo Dollar - The Spirit of Grace - Part 7
Let's again go to the book of Hebrews chapter 29. Hebrews 29 in the Amplified Bible. I believe this is our fourth session on this series of sermons entitled, "The Spirit of Grace," "The Spirit of Grace". Ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that we need the Holy Spirit to be successful in the mission in our life. We need the Holy Spirit to be successful in the assignment that's on our life and the purpose for our lives. Jesus didn't do anything until the Holy Spirit came upon him. Then he turned around and said to his disciples, "Remain in Jerusalem until you receive the Holy Spirit". And we know Jesus declared, "I do nothing of myself".
You see, and sometimes we have to be careful not to enter into arrogance, thinking that we can be successful without the Holy Spirit. If Jesus couldn't be successful without him, you and I are certainly not gonna be successful without him. So we need the Holy Ghost. Say out loud, "I need the Holy Spirit". And so the church and religion has tried to just erase him. And you don't hear much about the Holy Spirit anymore in church. People afraid to talk about him, people afraid to even let folks know you speak in tongues because you're gonna be mocked for it. But I tell you what, if you'll begin to develop trust in the Holy Spirit, your unseen partner will do things that you could not have done on your own, amen, praise God. And so it is of great importance that we recognize what this year is about. This is the year of the Holy Spirit. This is the year where the Holy Spirit's gonna do something.
Now I asked you last week to spend time praying, at least 15 minutes in the Holy Ghost. You might have stopped a worse situation from happening than what happened. We didn't know what was going to happen with Syria and all of the things that happened, but keep praying in the Holy Ghost. I don't want a war to break out. I don't wanna lose young men and women over a conflict. Keep praying in the Holy Ghost, hallelujah, amen. And I don't care what anybody says, this is still one nation under God, amen. And so, he has a purpose. It's more than just, you know, somebody said the Holy Ghost is running around. Now, I don't mind you running around but the Holy Ghost is so much bigger than running around. "Well, when somebody screams and holler and they drug, you know, jigglin', well," somebody said, "that's the Holy Ghost". I ain't got no problem with you doing all that, but he's so much more than that.
If you limit him to a religious definition of a display, if you limit him to a definition of a sound, you have not yet known him as a person. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is God. He is not a it, a thing, or something. He is your unseen partner. He is God. I mean, you don't have no three different gods. It's not Jesus is one, and then God is one, and the Holy Ghost is one. No, there's one God expressing himself three different ways. And you need the Holy Spirit because it is the expression of the Holy Spirit in this physical realm who is now responsible for administering and bringing to pass, glory to God, the finished works of Jesus in your life. When you speak a word, the Holy Ghost will hear that word and bring it to pass. Somebody says, "Ah, you say that". Well, that's what happened in the beginning.
The Bible says that the Spirit of God moved on the face of the water and every time God said, the Holy Spirit brought to pass what God said. And you and I are his children, praise God, and we have been given authority, and when you and I speak the Word of God, the Holy Spirit is moving and ready to bring to pass those words that we speak, praise God. Man, that ought to get you going right there. That ought to let you know there ain't nothing the devil can do that will sniff out your authority. You have the authority of the believer. When you open your mouth and speak God's Word, the Holy Spirit is there to guarantee that that word spoken will come to pass. Death and life is in the power of the tongue, but you have the Holy Ghost, the helper, to make sure that when you speak God's Word and when you agree together on God's Word, honey, you're not, Abraham Lincoln said this. He says, "I'm the president of the United States of America, clothed with immense power". And I say this about you, you should be saying, "I'm the righteousness of God with the blood of Jesus and I am clothed with immense power". And you ought to say, "Devil, you better watch out. Don't you dare think that at any moment you gonna win over me because I know somebody. I have an unseen partner, hallelujah. And when I speak God's Word, he's ready to go to work on my behalf".
Man, I need to calm down, I feel like just letting her rip, amen? Well, I intended on opening up a can of whoop on the devil that he won't recover from, amen. But we need him. This is the season where the Holy Spirit is about to do some things in your life and the only way you gonna be able to describe it is saying stuff like, when people say, "Well, how did that happen"? You'll say, "Well, it's the Lord's doing. It's the Lord's doing. And it's marvelous in my eyes. It's the Lord's doing". Getting ready to do that. Now, get away from this thing about you trying to take credit for everything. "Well, I prayed for 20 hours, that's why this happened". No, it's not gonna be by your might. It's not gonna be by your power. It's gonna be by the Holy Spirit. It's gonna be the Lord's doing. And while you're seated here right now, the Lord is doing some stuff.
While you in here resting and minding your own business, and you know you got some situations in your life and some stuff going on at home and things happening in a relationship and in the family, but the Lord is doing something right now because you've decided to trust in that unseen partner called the Holy Spirit and he finally got something to do because somebody believes in that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, amen. I can go home and get me a Sara Lee pound cake and put some strawberries over that and some whipped cream. Ha, ha, and get under the covers and just gone. I can live off that right there, man. See, the Holy Spirit will help you to rest and cease from your labors. You ought not be coming in here with care, why? 'Cause when you're carrying care, you're carrying something that is none of your business.
Jesus told you what to do with the care. He said cast all your care on him because he cares for you. For you to walk around with care in your life is for you to walk in pride, he said cast the care on him. And you can't hardly listen to what I'm saying 'cause you worryin' about something. You gotta learn how to rest so God can work. So if you're gonna work, God gon' rest. And you can't afford for God to rest when you need him to work. But he not gon' work when you workin', and only time he gonna work is when you rest. So you need to learn how to rest. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Rest in the finished works of Jesus". You don't labor to get rich. You don't labor to get healed. You don't labor to get delivered. You labor to enter into the rest, why? Because deliverance is already done, healing is already done. The works have already finished. Jesus said, "It is finished," and your job is to rest in what's already been done.
See, the devil wants you to work like it hadn't been done, but you already know. You need to let the devil know, "I already know. It's a finished work. My healing is done. My deliverance is done. My prosperity is done. It's the finished work of Jesus Christ, so I ain't got nothin' else left to do but to labor to rest". And that labor looks like this: "I might get up and confess for about 15 minutes. I might spend an hour in prayer. I'm laboring to rest. I'm not laboring to try to get God to do it, God's already done it. I'm gonna labor to enter into a rest". Now, I don't mean to, you know, rest doesn't mean to cease to do anything. It means doing what you have to do but you don't worry about nothing. Turn to the other side and say, "It's time to rest". And the Holy Spirit is here to assist you in entering into the rest if you trust him.
Have you noticed when you pray in the Spirit, you can enter into a rest? When you think about what the Holy Ghost has done, you can enter into a rest, amen. All right now, let's see, I hadn't read the Scripture yet, have I? Boy, I'm going. I'm stirred up. I don't even hardly know you here, praise God. All right, let's get started. Hebrews 10:29, Amplified, says: "How much worse (sterner and heavier) punishment do you suppose he will be judged to deserve who has spurned and [thus] trampled underfoot the Son of God, and who has considered the covenant blood by which he was considered it common and unhallowed, and profaning it and insulting and outraging," now here's the part I wanted you to get, "the [Holy] Spirit [Who imparts] grace (the unmerited favor and blessings of God)"? The Holy Spirit who imparts grace. Grace imparted by the Holy Spirit, mm. He imparts it, now we see the Holy Spirit's part in this gospel of grace, he imparts it. He imparts this grace. He imparts this unmerited favor. He's the administrator of the finished works of Jesus Christ.
And for you to try to live in this covenant of grace and completely ignore the Holy Spirit, the one who imparts grace, will leave you questioning all the time, what happened to the finished works? Why am I still like this? It's because we keep ignoring the one who imparts grace, who imparts the unmerited, undeserved favor of God. There's favor that God wants to impart into your life. But we keep thinking that we've got to do these five things or this ten things in order to deserve favor. Well, if you deserved it, it wouldn't be favor. Favor is undeserved, unearned favor, but the Holy Spirit imparts grace. Say that out loud with me, the Holy Spirit who imparts grace. Now, that brings him in on the scene. So for the last, what, seven, eight, ten years we've been talking about the gospel of grace, it now would do us all good to recognize the Holy Spirit's part in this grace life. And the Holy Spirit's part in this grace life is imparting it.
That's awesome to me. That's awesome to me. I don't have to depend on my intellect to try to figure out what I need to do in order to get this finished works of Jesus operating in my life. The Holy Spirit who imparts grace. Now, move over to, let's go to Hebrews chapter 9, verse 28, in the New Living Translation. Now, here's the deal where the grace of God is concerned. Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to this very carefully. We can hardly enjoy the freedom of God's grace because we continue to make sin the central idea in our lives. And the question that I've asked you last week and the week before that, "Should sin be the central issue of life"? And yet, everything about our lives as Christians involves sin as the central issue in life.
Now, I'm gonna make this statement and prayerfully I'll be able to prove it to you before I finish, but I wanna ask you a question. Why do people go to hell? For rejecting Jesus and their unbelief in what Jesus has done. 1 John 2 and 2 talks about Jesus's propitiation or the ransom paid or the peace offering. All right, now, this is radical what I'm getting ready to say. If anybody in here goes to hell for sin, then everybody in here is going to hell. That's radical, I don't know if a preacher ever had enough guts to ever say what I just said. I'm gonna say it one more time, just in case I might not be able to say it no mo'. 'Cause it's the truth, and I'm gonna prove it. If anybody in here goes to hell for sin, if any... let me back up. Let me add some stuff with that, thank you, Lord. If any Christian in here, if any born again Christian in here, no, I can keep it like it was. Jesus just spoke to me, yeah, I can keep it just like it was. If anybody in here... see, you tried to scare me for a moment. I ain't scared of you. I ain't scared of you. If anybody goes to hell for sin, everybody goin' to hell for sin.
Ha, ha, I almost wanna say, "Go home and study and I'll see you next week," why? Because people don't go to hell for sin. They go to hell for rejecting Jesus and having unbelief in Jesus as the peace offering. That's why you go to hell. You go to hell because Jesus died for your sins, Jesus shed his blood for your sins, Jesus has forgiven you of your sins, past, present, and future. The Bible says Jesus forgave the whole world already in advance for their sins. Everybody that's born on the planet has their name written on the Lamb's Book of Life and you got a whole life to respond to what Jesus has done. You've got a whole life to say, "I believe in Jesus and what his blood has done for me," and then your name stays on the Lamb Book of Life. But then if you spend your whole life, and Jesus has already done it for you, but you never respond to him, and you never receive him and accept him as your Lord and Savior, then your name's gonna be blotted off, blotted out of the Lamb's Book of Life, why? Because men who don't accept Jesus as the peace offering.
And you go around and get all confused, talking about, "Well, is Jesus the only way? I believe, I believe that space is another way, or the universe is another way". You can do all you want to. Don't let no man send you to hell, now. You better read what this Word says and he says, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No man comes to the Father," what? "Except by me". Don't get it twisted now. Now, see, be careful who you listen to. But the day I got born again, the day you got born again, we accepted Jesus as the peace offering. We received what he did on that cross. We accepted what his blood has accomplished for us, and we said, "I believe on Jesus," and we got born again, and you're saved. And then religion came along and started putting all these weird requirements on you. "Well, now that you're saved, now, that ain't enough to get you to heaven". Oh, you don't know what Bible you're reading.
Okay, so you say, "Well, no, you got to do this. You got to do that, you got to do that, you", now, remember the other week I said, "Well, let's go to Calvary". And Jesus is on that middle cross and then you got these two thieves on both side, and one of 'em didn't receive him and the other one said he believed. And Jesus said to that guy who was hanging on the cross, "This day are you with me in paradise," now explain that. He didn't have time to go to church. He didn't have time to do 20 goody-goody things. He accepted Jesus, and Jesus, without the man having to do all of this stuff to qualify like religion tells you you have to do, Jesus said, "This day you're with me in paradise". So what we gonna do? Now, am I condoning sin? Why would I condone something that Jesus died for? No, I'm not condoning sin, I'm telling you until you accept Jesus as your Lord and personal Savior, you'll never find a way out of your mess.
See, the key is to believe Jesus first and because you believe on Jesus, then Jesus can help, by the Holy Spirit, change your behavior. See, the Holy Ghost is gon' change you from the inside out, ah, man. You believe, and the Holy Spirit will change your desires. He'll give you new "want to's". See, how can you even change without the Holy Spirit, the agent of change? Are you listening to me? Well, you having a hard time because of your religion so let's go to the Bible. Let me instruct. Some of y'all freakin' out, like, "What he say"? Let's go look at this.
Now, I wanna show you, first of all, in John chapter 6, verse 29. I want you to see what he says. John chapter 6 and verse 29. I know I said Hebrews 9 and 8, but we need to clear up this rabbit trail. We're so used to believing religious fables, we don't even read the Bible. All right now, watch this. Read verse 29 out loud. John 6:29, ready? Read. "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God". Stop, stop. Because we're so on work. "Oh, you've got to do work. You've got to work for the Lord. Oh, I gotta do the work for the Lord". And we miss the whole thing. So he's telling you, "This is the work of God". Read, "That you believe on him". Question: what is the work of God? To what? So something powerful must happen when we believe on him, because real Bible belief will give birth to an action.
Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3:18. The Holy Spirit has a part in your transformation, but he needs you to believe. 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory," how? "Even by the Spirit of God". Look at this in the Amplified. So what he's saying is, is if you, by just looking at the Word of God, that's the mirror. By looking at the Word of God, just by beholding Jesus, he says you're gonna be transformed. But who's gonna do the transforming? The Holy Spirit. Listen to this in the Amplified: "And all of us, with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another degree of glory; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit".
Notice the transformation process. The Holy Spirit has accepted responsibility for that transformation, for you being changed from glory to glory. The Holy Spirit has committed to handle that. He says, "If you just believe and behold, I'm gonna change you". Now, well, how's he planning on changing us? Now, go to Philippians chapter 2:12-13, Philippians 2. See, none of this stuff makes sense if you don't bring the Holy Spirit in because you know what you'll do? You will immediately go to trying to change yourself by yourself. Isn't it interesting how people are trying to be like God without God? Philippians 2 and 12: "Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".
Now, that sounds like, "Well, see, Brother Dollar, right there, he said we supposed to work it out". And then you start singing the song, "Work it out". No, no, no, you have to keep reading. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to," what? "And to do of his", all right, now look at this in the Amplified. Philippians 2:13 in the Amplified says: "[Not in your own strength,]" look at there, "for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire]". Look at what the Holy Spirit's doing. "[Creating in you the power and the desire.]"