Joseph Prince - How to Win God's Way (Less You, More Him) (02/01/2026)
The law through Moses shows our guilt and sin, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ who sets us free forever. Simeon, picturing the old law, blessed the parents but not the baby Jesus, saying his eyes saw salvation and he could depart in peace. God justifies sinners through Christ alone, not our own righteousness, so we stand righteous by His Spirit, not by might or power.
Grace Over Law: The True Purpose of the Law
Praise the Lord. Let's dive right into the Word of God. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. It's amazing. Just recently I was listening to a message and I was amazed that there are people coming out with voices really strong wanting to keep the law, going back to the law, not understanding the purpose for which God gave the law. I am for the law for the reason God gave the law, all right? God never gave the law to justify anyone by; God gave the law so that everyone can become guilty. And it's almost like we forget that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Moses was a servant in God's house, but Christ is the Son of God. And the Bible says Jesus himself said the servant does not abide forever, but the Son abides forever. If the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. And still we are almost like despising grace, the Son, all right, in favor of the servant, Moses.
Remember that when the baby Jesus was brought to the temple by his parents, there was an old man, an old prophet by the name of Simeon; and his name Simeon means hearing or Shema in Israel. You ask any Jewish person what is Shema, they will tell you, "Hear, O Israel. Shema, Israel, all right? Our God is one Lord and you shall love him with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind". So the sum totality of the law is in the Shema.
Simeon and the Arrival of Grace
So this old man, the law being old, by then 1,500 years since Moses gave it to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. The law came into the temple when Baby Jesus was there. And Simeon, representing the law, blessed the parents, but he didn't bless the baby. Why? Because the less is blessed of the better always. You cannot bless the better. So he blessed the parents. And then the Bible says he said, "My eyes..." He told the Lord, "Lord, let now your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your Yeshua," in Hebrew, "your salvation". So even the law is saying, "Let me now depart in peace. I have served my purpose. Now Yeshua has come".
God sent his Son for the purpose of dying for our sins; and because his Son has died for our sins, paid the price for our redemption, today God's righteousness is on your side. God has put it in such a way that God is not pitiful in making you righteous. No, no, no, that's not the language of Scripture. God is not merciful in making you righteous. God is rich in mercy, but he's not merciful in making you righteous. God is righteous in making you righteous, amen, in making sinful men righteous.
Standing Before God as Sinner or Righteous?
So in other words, stand before God... God is saying, "Stand before God as a sinner and I'll be your justifier. Stand before me as a righteous man, and you know what? You're lost". I'm talking about righteousness of your own. So God says, "Have you come to a place..." It's like a farmer, all right? Let's say a farmer has two sacks of seed he wants to sow during the time of sowing, all right, and he tells his workers, "Okay, guys. All right, take the seeds from this gunny sack, all right? Do not take the seeds from this sack". "Why"? "Because these seeds are useless, all right? These seeds are for my grandchildren to play with, all right"?
"But they look good. They look better than these seeds". "Yeah, these seeds may look bad, but they are good, solid seeds. Listen, these seeds here, they look clean, they look nice, but they are sterile". So the farmer goes away. And guess what? Many of them are impressed with the look of that seed and they start using from this sack. And guess what? When summer comes, when harvest comes, it shows up in weeds. It's like man still hankering after some goodness in himself. They should come to God in and of ourselves. I'm saying this. In and of ourselves, we must realize we are sinners. We are covered, like Job, with putrefying sores and the only hope is to stand before God not as judge but as our justifier.
Jesus says, "I came not to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repentance". So if you say, "Pastor Prince, I'm a sinner," then you know what? You qualify. God wants you to stand before him as your justifier. Listen, if I stand before God as judge, I cannot be saved. If I stand before God as justifier, I cannot be lost. If God justifies you, you are justified.
The Trap of Self-Focus: Pride or Condemnation
So it's either, you know, we're still hankering after self. It's either we manifest in pride, pride of name, pride of effort, pride of position, whatever it is; or it manifests in self-condemnation and, you know, pity parties. "I'm so lousy". Both are focused on self. One is what I've done, what I have. Another one is what I have not done, what I don't have. It is still I, that miserable I. "So what do I do, Pastor Prince, with I"? God is saying, "Would you like a new self? Here, my Son Jesus. He's your new I. He's your new self. It's no longer you, but from now on I will judge, I will assess, I will look at you through Jesus".
It is not a question of how good you are, it's a question of how good he is. It behooves us then, all right, to find out all we can about this wonderful person of God's Son, whom the Scripture says in the book of wisdom, "I was daily his delight, whom God sent into this world," the only baby born to die for our sins because God loved us. Hallelujah.
"So how can I tell when... pastor, how can I tell I'm still in self-righteousness"? Whenever you are feeling condemned, trust me, somewhere along the way before you came to this place you were hankering after self, after some goodness in yourself.
Christ's Esteem, Not Self-Esteem
"Now, Pastor Prince, we gotta have a gospel of self-esteem". I don't believe in a gospel of self-esteem. Actually, men are naturally lovers of themselves. It's either I in pride or I in condemnation. It is still I, all right? We don't need the gospel of self-esteem. That's psychology. God didn't give us psychology, God gave us Christ's esteem. It is looking to Jesus and saying, "Father, he is my righteousness. He is my holiness. He is my redemption". Hallelujah. And it's a wonderful life. I'm telling you, it's wonderful.
"Well, Pastor Prince, I can see so many flaws in you". You are right. In fact, you have not seen as much as you should if you knew me the way my wife knew me, and she has not seen everything she needs to see. Amen? But you know what? Hey, it doesn't really matter because I am no more my righteousness, Christ is. And I'm blessed, man.
And that's why that confuses some people, some religious folks when they look at people and they say, "That brother over there, I can't understand why God blesses him. He watches television. And I bore the burden and I bore the heat of the day. I pray six times a day. I've read my Bible through five times. And that brother so blessed, he watches television. And my pastor told me years ago to give up television and I gave it up. Once in a while I strain to hear what the television next door is playing and I sacrifice and yet this whippersnapper comes along and God blesses him. Blasphemy". They're confused. Some of them get angry with God. Are you listening, church? It's not about you, it's all about him.
Building for the Church and God's Purposes
Every one of you that wants to build a career, a ministry, a home, a family, all right, your marriage, whatever it is, understand this. The principle shared in God's Word is for today. It's all for us today. It's telling us how to build. And more than anything else that we wanna build, we wanna build the body of Christ. All around the world when God looks down, God doesn't see the... church A, B, C, X, Y, Z. God sees one church actually, amen. And God wants us to be passionate.
It's one thing that... if you look at what's happening in the world, in the news, in the media and all that, they're all happening, all right, because of these three reasons. Number one, Christ. God is preparing for his Son to return, all right? Some things are happening from the devil, but God is turning it out for our good, okay? Around the world today, everything is happening because of Jesus. Number two, the church, the body of Christ. Amen. The church is not peripheral to the world, the world is peripheral to the church.
Don't think of your business as central and you go to church on Sundays on the side. No. The church, the body of Christ is central. Everything, the depository of heaven is in the church. Amen. The fullness of God's blessing is in the church. So everything happening around the world is... number two is the church; and number three, God's chosen nation Israel.
The Call to Rebuild God's House in Ezra
So if you are building a career, make sure it's linked to the church. Make sure it's to build the house of God. So what happened is they came back, and two years after they came back they woke up and said, "Hey, don't forget the purpose for which the king sent us back to rebuild the temple". So this is what happened in Ezra chapter 3. "Now in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, Zerubbabel..." He's the governor of Judah. Okay, came back as the governor of Judah. Then Joshua the son of Jozadak. Now, Joshua, the other leader, became the high priest of this remnant that returned.
So Zerubbabel and Joshua together form the leadership of the land, all right? Kingly rule, priestly rule, okay? Just remember Zeru and Joshua. So they started work, all right? "They began work and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the Lord". So they started work. And always remember when you are building the house of God, the devil will not try to leave you alone. How many understand that?
Opposition and the Stoppage of Work
Okay, next chapter. "Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. And they hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, until the reign of Darius king of Persia. In the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem". So all this opposition that came, they hired counselors. They wrote, you know, to the king, complained. Nothing has changed. The enemy's device is still the same. And guess what happened? The work, effectively, the work stopped. The work of building stopped. You know how long it stopped? Twelve years.
Now, God never told them to stop. During this time, what happened to Zerubbabel the leader? What happened to Joshua the high priest? They are leaders of the land. We don't hear of them. Whatever it is, God's people became discouraged. They allowed this accusation to come in. For 12 years, the work was in abeyance. Nothing was done.
At the end of 12 years, God raised up two prophets by the names of Haggai and Zechariah. By the way, your book of Ezra is before Job and Psalms, you know. It's after 2 Chronicles in your Bible. And you find Haggai is towards the end of the Old Testament, and Zechariah. Actually, Haggai and Zechariah should be in the book of Ezra. They are contemporaries of that time.
Prophets Haggai and Zechariah Stir the People
So God raised these two young men. By the way, they are very young prophets. In fact, Zechariah was called na'ar in Hebrew, which means a teenager. A teenage prophet, it's indicative of the Benjamin generation in these end times. Nothing to do with age. All that is telling us, a youthful generation will arise. There are people who are 30 and they are already old. Complaining, complaining, complaining. There are those who are 80, 70 and they are young in spirit. It's refreshing to be around them. It's nothing to do with the age. It's a picture of the Benjamin generation. Haggai was young, and Zechariah was younger still.
And God raised these two prophets because the work was not done. You know what Haggai did? In Haggai chapter 1, you'll find it. Because of time, I'm gonna share with you real quick. Haggai went to the people and said, "Hey, guys, is it time for you to live in paneled houses"? In those days when they are building God's temple, they would all live in tents. Paneled houses means they now have a roof. They have a ceiling. They are no more having the pilgrim character or just, you know, building a tent for the house of God, make sure the house of God is built first. God's house is not even built. Only the foundation is laid, and they stop the work and they now have paneled houses.
So Haggai says, "What is this? You are living in paneled houses and you are saying the time to build God's house has not yet come. It's not time to build the Lord's house". And Haggai says, "Look at your life. What is happening? You drink and you're not quenched. You eat and you're not full. You earn wages and put it in a bag full of holes". Say, "Guys," he said, "it's because God's house is neglected". "Seek ye first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you". So that was Haggai, all right?
Zechariah's Vision: Removing Condemnation
What about the teenage prophet Zechariah? He has another book devoted to him, all right, the book of Zechariah. God showed him what really happened. Would you like to see it? What happened to these two leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest, the governor and the high priest, God showed Zechariah. Chapter 3 of Zechariah, "Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him".
For the first time we see a character we don't see. We hear about the opposition, the hired counselors, and all the persecution. We don't hear of Satan, but he was working behind the scenes. And how was he working? Remember the name Satan, ha-satan in Hebrew, the one who accuses. And look at Joshua the high priest. What happened to him? Satan was standing at Joshua the high priest's right hand to oppose him.
"And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand,'" referring to Joshua, "'plucked from the fire?' Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel". Now we have an insight why the work stopped, why the people were discouraged, why the opposition succeeded. Because as the leader goes, so goes the nation. As the leader goes, so goes the family. As the leader goes, so goes the company, whatever it is. Everything rises and falls based on leadership, and the leadership was under condemnation. Joshua was under condemnation, evidenced by the filthy robes.
God's Solution: Robe of Righteousness and Spirit Power
Lemme bring this to a close. So Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. He was under condemnation. And we can blame the government, we can blame the media, we can blame all this; but God is saying no, the problem lies with us. If we allow ourselves to come under condemnation, in effect we are saying, "Christ, I don't need you because I have my own self-righteousness," which is evidenced by condemnation. Are you listening, people? And the moment you are condemned, favor stops, grace stops, the opposition succeeds, all right?
So what's the solution? Next verse. "Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, 'Take away the filthy garments from him.' And to him," to Joshua, "He said, 'See, I have removed your iniquity...'" Past tense. "So look at it. See this, Joshua. I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes". It's called robe of righteousness. And I'm telling you with a voice clear as crystal, right now in Jesus's name God says, "See, I have removed your sins".
Then he asked the angel who talked with him, saying, "'What are these, my lord?' The angel who talked with me answered and said to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' And I said, 'No, my lord.'" Listen, the angel is about to show Zechariah behind the scenes about Zerubbabel now. Let's follow. Next verse. "So he answered and said to me: 'This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts.'"
Listen, the word might can refer to financial might. It's the same word for power to get wealth. Chayil in Hebrew. God is saying, "It's not by financial might. It's not by power. It's not the connections you have. It is not by your human performance, your human smartness. It's not by all this. It is by my Spirit. When I breathe on you the unmerited favor, things fall into place."
So you know what, Zerubbabel? God is saying, "You are discouraged. You think that I don't have the financial might". "This remnant, they are poor people that returned from captivity. They don't even have time to build their wealth, you know. I have nothing, no resources to work with". And God is saying, "Zerubbabel, it's not by might. It's not by your power. It's by my Spirit. You have before you a great daunting task, like a mountain".
"Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain"! And how will this happen? "And he shall bring forth the capstone..." You know what's a capstone? It's the final piece of the building, which means the building is finished. You will finish the work with shouts of... Oh, come on. Shouts of... You know how my Spirit works? Grace. When you shout grace to your mountain, before you it will become a plain.