Joseph Prince - The Key to Living Your Best Life in Christ
Church, there’s something powerful about the gospel that the Bible says, Paul says, «I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God,» definite article, the power, the word «power» there is «Dunamis,» which is dynamite, where we get our English word «dynamite,» dunamis. It is the dunamis of God unto your salvation. Now salvation, soteria in Greek, is a mouthful. It’s actually the words «soundness, health, wholeness, preservation, well-being». Wow, soteria. What is the power of God? What is the power of God?
The Bible says the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. But the challenge that we have today in Christendom is that we are no longer hearing the gospel that Paul preached. Paul preached he’s not ashamed of the gospel. Obviously there were forces that were trying to make Paul ashamed to preach the gospel. Or else why would Paul say, «I’m not ashamed of the gospel». Paul was being attacked for the gospel. He says, «I’m not ashamed of this gospel because this gospel is the power of God unto your wholeness, unto your mental soundness, unto your preservation». It’s not just eternal life, life after this life, all right, with God in heaven. It’s more than that. It is preservation, it is wholeness, it is health. That’s the name Yeshua. Jesus’s name means salvation. Yeshua is Hebrew for soteria. Jesus in Greek.
The Bible tells us that this gospel, the next verse says, «In this gospel is the righteousness of God revealed». Not the sinfulness of man, but the righteousness of God from faith to faith. Today when we hear the gospel, we hear a lot about the sinfulness of man being the focus, but the gospel that Paul preached is a gospel that unveils the gift of righteousness. Paul had a gospel when Paul preached the gospel, he was misunderstood as saying, «Let us sin more that grace may abound». So much so they leveled this accusation against Paul. Paul is saying, they are saying, «Paul is saying, let us sin more that grace may abound». Now Paul never said that. What Paul said is, «Where sin increase, grace super abounds».
So when I see the state of the world today and people say, «You know, the young people today are beyond help. They have social media and things like that we don’t have today». But listen, where you see sin increasing, grace super abounds. Have more faith in God’s grace than in man’s sin, amen. Have more faith in the second Adam than the first Adam. Hallelujah, amen. Pastors, leaders, have more faith in what Christ has done than what Adam did. When it comes to our young people as well, look for the grace that super abounds, amen.
Now, Paul must have preached strongly like this, like what I just did, for him to be misunderstood as saying, «Let us sin», oh, he’s saying «let us sin more than grace may abound». What is interesting is that, how come this accusation is not leveled against many preachers today? How come when we preach the gospel today, no one accused us of saying, «He’s saying let us sin more that grace may abound». Because they accused Paul of that. You see, Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great theologian says, «No one is accusing us of what they accuse Paul of because we are not preaching the same gospel Paul preached». «So it is my gospel,» Paul says, «And it was kept secret, but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God».
God commanded that this gospel be made revealed, manifested to all the nations, amen. It is the commandment of God that this gospel that was kept secret since time began, now made manifest, should be made known to all the nations. And look at the result, «For obedience to the faith». What is obedience to the faith? You know, people say things like, «You know, those who preach grace, they don’t preach on obedience». Hey listen, in the Old Testament under law, obedience is the root for all the blessings. Under grace, God blesses us first and obedience is the fruit. In the old, you have to obey before God blesses you. But under grace, God blesses you first, and then the fruit is obedience.
Notice when Jesus came, he was full of grace. He never categorized people, all right, before he healed them. He never qualified them. He never said, «Those of you, you’re not right with your wife, your spouse, you all stand over here before I heal you. And those of you, you know, you were sleeping during my sermon, you stand over there, you’re the last priority, all right. And those of you, you have bitterness against your brother over there, in fact you’re not sitting together and all that, all of you, all right, you stand over here. Now you get right, you get right, you get right before I pray for you». He never did that.
The Bible says the whole multitude, all kinds of sins, all kinds of addictions, all kinds of bondage, as many as touched him were made whole because his grace is greater than sin. And someone says, «You know, sin stopped that revival». If sin can stop revival, revival will not have begun. Because revival begins where there is a lot of sin. No, no, it stopped because man brought in their laws. Man brought back the commandments and it killed the move of the Spirit. Church, I’m here to announce to you the good news. You’re not righteous by your performance. You are righteous by what Jesus has done. And obedience to the faith is not this legalistic obedience of the law, all right, that many people are trying to bring back.
Obedience to the faith means right believing to the faith. Believe right and you will live right. Believe right and you will live right. We have had an abundance of sermons on right living, right living, character, right living, right living and you know what? There’s very little right living. Not because people are bad. It’s because they do not know what else to do because their belief system has not been changed. The righteous shall live by faith. You can say it like this, the righteous shall live by right believing. When you have right believing, you release the power of God. When you believe the gospel, the true gospel, when you have right believing, you will have right living. Are you listening? You have right results. It will be effortless, amen.
Now, in Romans 5, we are building up to something here. All right, Romans 5, look at Romans 5. «For as by one man’s disobedience,» who is that? Adam. «Many were made sinners». And that’s why in heaven, when we go to heaven one day, you’ll find that Adam’s house in a special corner with a lot of security 'cause everybody is finding him, all right. He brought all this tragedy into the world. No, no, no, heaven is not like that, okay? Everyone will forget all the wrong that all of us have done, amen. But the Bible says we sin because we are sinners. We are not sinners because we sin. Why are we sinners? You want me to say that again? We are sinners because of Adam’s sin. Adam sinned and made us all sinners. So we sin because we are sinners. Mhmm, are you with me?
All right, by the same token, the Bible says, «So also by one Man’s obedience, many will be made righteous». Now church, let me ask this ground floor first. Whose obedience made you righteous? All right, the first floor right here. Whose obedience? And the upper room. Whose obedience? You see, I love that name to be proclaimed because it’s all about him, it’s not about us. You see our minds have been focused on his obedience. «Now, Pastor Prince, what about our obedience»? Don’t worry about our obedience, all right. If you are elated because you obey, by the same token you’ll be depressed if you disobey. If you think that you are in special favor with God that day because you obey, by the same token you have to conclude when you disobey, you’re no more in God’s favor.
See, your eye is on your obedience or the lack of it, but God is saying, «Take your eyes off yourself. It’s not about you, it’s about my Son». God is saying, «By one Man’s obedience,» his obedience made you righteous, amen. And no one can touch that obedience, hallelujah. Can the devil influence my obedience? I can be obedient today and all of you are obedient because you are in church. And you can feel good right now, but if you believe that, you know, God is hearing my prayer, I feel the anointing because I’ve obeyed God today, then by the same token tomorrow if you disobey, you’ll be crushed.
So folks, it’s not our obedience or the lack of it, it’s one man’s obedience that made us all righteous. God put it out of ourselves, all right, outward, amen, so that we can always focus on his obedience. And this is the essence of warfare. All warfare is based on the devil making you focus on yourself, your thoughts, your deeds, your sayings, your, you know, it’s painful to be self-occupied. How many know that? And all of us are self-occupied. To the extent that we are self-occupied, God wants us Christ-occupied.
That woman that came to the well of Sychar, she was self-occupied. She came in the afternoon to avoid the gossiping ladies in the morning. She would have come in the morning because it’s cooler, but she came in the fierce heat of the day because the gossipers won’t be there. And when she saw Jesus, cut the long story short, Jesus said to her, I love the way he said it, «If you knew the gift of God,» the gift there, doria, is the person. «If you knew the gift of God and who is the one talking to you, you’ll be asking him». Because Jesus just asked her for a glass of water and Jesus says, «If you knew who is asking you, you’ll be asking him. You won’t think of supplying me, you’ll think of me supplying you. If you knew the gift of God».
You know, and he was so tactful, so gentle with the way he revealed to her her sin because she needed to see her sin before she could see his love. Because as long as we think that we can hide our sin, even if somebody loves us, we won’t feel loved because we know that they do not know about this secret place in my life. But once it’s exposed and the person still loves you, you are loved. So Jesus had to help her feel loved, you know, and the way he did that was that he told her you have had five husbands and the one that you’re living with is not your husband. And she was like, «Wow! And all the while he’s talking to me and he knew all this and he still loves me»?
In fact, the greatest teaching on worship and theologians will tell you that the greatest passage on worship in anywhere in the Bible is in John 4 at the well of Sychar. And who did Jesus reveal this teaching of worship? Not in chapter 3, the chapter before this to Nicodemus, a religious leader, but to a woman, a fallen woman. He revealed the teaching of worship, hallelujah. He never told Nicodemus, «I am the Messiah». But to the woman, the woman says, «When the Messiah comes, he will tell us all things». Jesus says, «I who speak unto you, I am he». He revealed himself as a Messiah. No wonder the Bible says she left the pail of water, she ran to a village and now she’s no more self-occupied. She says, «Come see a man who told me everything about myself».
What a transformation. Just a moment with Jesus and she was lifted out of herself, amen. The disciples came back to see Jesus, all right, and they brought some food, McDonald’s. And they said, «Lord, we brought food for you». Jesus says, «I have food to eat you do not know of». Wow! They left him tired at the well. In the natural, in the physical sense as a man he was tired. He came a long way to save that lady and they left to get food but they came back they saw him reinvigorated, refreshed. Why? Because a sinner has come and taken from him. You see for us, if you take from me, the more you take from me, the more depleted I am. But with the Lord, the more you take from him, it is as if he gets stronger. That’s our Jesus, amen. «I have food to eat, you do not know of,» hallelujah.
2 Corinthians 10 tells us the essence of the warfare here. «For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,» they are not tangible, they are not material, «but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds». And this stronghold is not up there in the sky in the heavenly somewhere, all right. This stronghold is in our mind. The next verse, «Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ». In other words, what is the obedience of Christ? By one man’s obedience, all of us were made righteous.
Now, the essence of warfare is this. The devil wants you to take your mind off that one man’s obedience and put your mind back on your obedience or the lack of it. That’s warfare. And you are to demolish all these arguments, demolish every stronghold, many of them are religious, all right, and say, «No, no, it’s not my obedience». Bring your thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. It is his obedience. To the obedience of Christ. There’s no way you can make your thoughts obey. But you can bring your thoughts to his obedience. And now the devil come to you and say, «All right, before you can receive healing for your body, before you can partake of the communion, all right, have you obeyed»?
Many years after I discovered the gospel of grace and I’ve been preaching it, I was a preacher already, all right. In fact, it was a number of years ago this happened. I was asking the Lord, «Lord, are there people like me out there»? You know, I know people, I get testimonies and all that, but ministers, I want ministers whose minds are filled with blasphemies and bad thoughts and all that, like I did when they don’t believe the gospel. So I asked God, «Is there anyone like that»? Then God brought me to a certain book.
Now this was way after I was preaching the gospel of grace. I just wanted to know I’m in good company, all right. I wanted to see if there’s a minister, an old-timer, someone that everyone recognized. And you know what God did? God brought me to a man called John Bunyan. Now John Bunyan is famous for the «Pilgrim’s Progress,» all right. Voted as the most best-selling book in history besides the Bible, all right. Now, «Pilgrim’s Progress,» I know I read the book, I’ve watched the movie, but God brought into my hands a book called «Abounding Grace for the Chief of Sinners». It’s an autobiography of John Bunyan.
John Bunyan shares his story there. And as I read, my goodness, his experience was almost exactly like mine. John Bunyan says this, I want to read to you a portion of the book, and he said that he didn’t believe his sins were forgiven. And every time he opened the scriptures, the scriptures sort of filled him with dread. He didn’t have the assurance his sins were forgiven. He misconstrued a lot of scriptures like many people do today and make it a burden for him. Like Hebrews 6 for example, which is something I expanded on some time ago, no time to expand now. And he would take Hebrews 6 and feel like he’s lost his salvation.
Now when this happened, John Bunyan says this, «All my comfort was taken from me. Then darkness seized upon me, after which whole floods of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the scriptures, were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment. I often found my mind suddenly put upon it to curse and swear or to speak some grievous thing against God or Christ, his Son, and the scriptures». So when I read that I said, «Bunyan, you went through the same thing as me».
I was astounded that somebody, somebody famous, John Bunyan, who wrote «The Pilgrim’s Progress,» shared in his autobiography, he went through the same thing that I went through. And by the way, his victory was this. He said that one day he was walking in the fields, all right, in England, he was walking through the fields and he looked up at the beautiful sky and he just felt God’s presence and he heard the Holy Spirit on the inside of him say these words and these words were blazing across his spirit. These were the words, «Your righteousness is in heaven».
In closing I want to show you something powerful that I want you to keep close in your heart. It’s going to change your life, all right. The Bible says in 1 John chapter 4, verse 17, «Love has been perfected among us in this; that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because,» let’s all say it, «as He is, so are we in this world». Again, «As He is, so are we,» where? «In this world,» amen. Now, as Jesus is, if he had said, «As Jesus was, so are we,» it will be good enough. As Jesus was, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers by the lake of Galilee, he was powerful, he was holy, he was righteous, he was beautiful, amen? It’ll be enough. But no, as he is right now, crowned with glory and honor at the Father’s right hand, far above all principality and power and might and dominion.
Every name that is named, that Jesus right now at the Father’s right hand, «As He is, so are we in this world,» amen. Is he under God’s unclouded favor? So are we. Is he righteous? So are we. You can go one step further, you say that as he is healthy even right now, so are we. You see church, we are not transformed by struggling, we are transformed by beholding. The more we behold the glory of the Lord, the Bible says, «The Holy Spirit transforms us into the same image». Are you with me church? The way to have more grace in our life is not to do more, all right. 2 Peter says, love, 2 Peter, «Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord».
The more Jesus is unveiled, the more you know of Jesus, favor and peace is multiplied. And peace there is eirene in Greek, shalom in Hebrew, which is not just peace of mind. It is health, wholeness as well. Perfect well-being, amen. The way you have more grace multiplied, how many want more favor multiplied in your life? How many want peace, wellness, wholeness in your life multiplied? Multiplied in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. It’s not by doing more, it’s by seeing Jesus more. Every pastor, every minister of the gospel has a responsibility to unveil Jesus from the pulpit. The pulpit is not a place to tell the people how bad they are. They know how bad they are. Their wives have been telling them already.
All right, the pulpit is a place to show how glorious Jesus is. And the more they behold the glory and the loveliness and the perfections and the excellencies of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit transformed them from glory to glory into the same image. When Peter looked at Jesus, Peter became as Jesus was. He was above the storm, above the waves and Peter started walking on the water like Jesus. But the moment the devil started, you know, distracting his mind, he started looking away to all the howling winds and the storm, he took his eyes off Jesus, he became natural. He was subject to the natural forces. But as long as eye was on Jesus. So if you have a problem in your body right now, it’s, you know, the only thing you can do is to look at Jesus. Because when you look at Jesus, the Holy Spirit goes to work.